Armored chapter 3

As daylight started to push away the darkness the call came to get ready and the camp was quickly packed up. I was not surprised to see the noble order us to break camp before it was truly even light out yet. His impatience was palpable.

The sentry turrets were quickly stored and our group of armored knights and scavengers set off into the forest. We resumed our formation of scavengers out front like a pack of hunting dogs and the knights following in our wake.

In the still dim light howls and echoing cries of beasts could still be heard now and then causing the group to be ill at ease, but nothing could be done about it.

Thankfully no accidents or attacks happened. It was hard moving through brush that seemed to reach out and jab me in the darkness, but if that was the worst of it I would count myself lucky.

True daylight quickly showed itself and we picked up the pace at the urging of the knights. No contact was made with any core beasts and we made great time seemingly eating up miles with our pace.

As we moved through the Forrest I began to grow accustomed to the feeling of being in this grand green labyrinth. When you saw the forest without the pall of dread covering your eyes it was truly a beautiful thing.

The dark green of shadowed leaves mixed with the light green of better lit areas. Shafts of light cut through the canopy randomly and seemed to create emerald green spots among the foliage. It truly looked magnificent. I cautioned myself against becoming drawn by the beauty and allowing myself to be lax. Danger lurked around every leaf in this forest.

My feet ached from yesterday's trek, but I soon found myself more adjusted to moving among the foliage. I was no ranger by any measure, but I had an easier time avoiding jabbing branches and getting my clothes caught and torn. I was happiest with the later as a guessed even my second pair of clothed would become not much more than shredded rags if I couldn't protect them from the ravages of the forest.

I watched the few veterans among our group and tried my best to copy their fluid movement and steady almost silent footsteps. I was met with limited success, but it was a start. I was obviously making more noise than them and still got caught on branches and bushes from time to time.

Half a day quickly passed with no problem and we took a small break to drink water and eat a small lunch. Our group of scavengers seemed elated at the chance to rest and eat some food.

The break lasted less than 20 minuted before we were roused from our resting and set back in motion. Several of the older men and a few of the younger ones seemed extremely tired despite the break. I felt tired as well, but they seemed almost pushed to their limit.

I knew it was only a matter of time before we started leaving people behind. Anyone who couldn't keep up would be abandoned. It was cruel seeing as the pace we were pushing was truly too grueling. I wondered if I might become one of those left behind. How many days could I keep this pace up?

We were lucky for the entire day and didn't lose a single man to exhaustion or beast. I was truly happy with the news. It wasn't so much that I cared for or empathized deeply with anyone lost, but more the cold rationalism of safety in numbers. The less scavenger that survived the more danger I would be in.

If we had losses like yesterday every day with an almost ten percent mortality rate our group of scavengers wouldn't have a single living person left within ten days. I doubt the knights would care much beyond feeling pity at the loss of bait. The death clause of our contracts would simply pay 100 silver to our family and we would be replaced with some other fool desperate for money.

Camp was set an hour past dark like the night before, shifts were set and we all slept. I received first shift with glee. I would get uninterrupted sleep tonight.

Night watch was uneventful besides the fact of my watch mate being a chatterbox. He was a young kid being maybe 16. I could tell he used talking to relieve his fear. He was the skittish type. He jerked and twitched a lot, but his mouth never stopped whispering.

He talked about anything and everything. He seemed set on telling me his life story, but I simply let his voice drift into the background and nodded my head at what seemed like the appropriate times. He didn't seem interested in my story and I wasn't interested in telling it to him so I let him prattle on.

When my shift ended I said goodbye and went to the center of camp. I already forgot his name. I had no intention of making friends. Especially not green scavengers who probably wouldn't survive. It wasn't arrogance. I simply didn't want to have to worry about someone else when shit eventually hit the fan like it was almost destined to do.

I hoped every day could be as uneventful as today as sleep overtook me. I dreamed of my mother. I dreamed she was on the ground writhing in pain. I dreamed of monsters and being lost in a deep sea of green trees. I dreamed of laughing nobles and knights.

When I woke in the morning we quickly began to pack up camp and got ready to move on. I drank a little water as I waited.

I noticed something odd happening about 10 meters away from me. One of the scavengers seemed to still be asleep. Another scavenger nudged him with his foot repeatedly, but the man didn't wake. He stayed curled in the fetal position he seemed to have fallen asleep in.

The rest of the group began to notice the oddity as well. A veteran gave the sleeping man a hard kick but there was no response. The fact seemed to alarm the veteran.

With caution, the veteran used a large stick to turn the man over. When the sleeping scavenger was finally belly up gasps could be heard among the entire group.

The man's stomach bulged like a pregnant woman's. It was a disturbing sight. Most of us me included already knew the prognosis.

Parasites. I had heard the tales and been warned about eating any food or drinking any water in the wild in the ridiculously brief and underwhelming crash course they called survival class for scavengers, but this was my first time seeing it happen to someone. The man should have been warned against consuming anything in the Forrest so he must have come in contact and infected through touch.

The sight made me gag. The man was still breathing. His chest rising and falling as if he was just lightly sleeping. The veteran who nudged him with his foot earlier seemed to panic a little and shake his foot as if to shake off an insect.

From what they taught us parasites and poisonous insect were the second leading cause of death among scavengers. There was a plethora of parasites and poisonous insect in the forest. So many in fact it was impossible to list them all.

The veteran who kicked the "sleeping" man may very well have infected himself by such simple contact with the infested scavenger.

The veterans spoke up and we were told to avoid touching each other in the coming days. If this disgusting form of parasite spread by touch we would know in a few days as anyone who made contact and becomes infested would likely follow in the footsteps of the man on the ground and die a gruesome death. We could only hope the infestation claimed only those already infected and no one else. Maybe we were all infested already. Who knew? The thought made my skin crawl.

There wasn't much to be done besides that and the knights were not in any mood to try and treat the man. Medicine was expensive and there was no guarantee of curing the man. More importantly, the man was now dead weight. He was left behind.

Besides the fact that we scavengers now made sure to not come too close to each other nothing changed. The veteran who had tried rousing the infested man was treated even more suspiciously and no one would come within a few meters of the man. He looked pale with fright and worry.

We resumed our trek through the forest with renewed caution. Many men seemed to use their sleeves to cover their hands when they pushed away branches in an effort to let as little of the Forrest come into contact with their skin as possible. I copied them and we kept moving.

The myriad ways the forest had to kill a man scared me. The wilderness seemed like one big organism set on consuming humanity. Humans were not suited to living here. We were fragile and weak little creatures.

The pace was not allowed to slow in the least and we pushed on. Another day of pushing through branches and trying not to break our legs in any hidden holes passed.

We took one break same as we did the day before and made good time. I guessed we were at least 40 to 50 miles from the city at this point. Though I could be wrong.

As the day was about to turn dark we noticed the terrain becoming more uneven and rugged. Rises in the tree canopy, as well as jutting sections of cliff face, could be seen through holes in the foliage.

The group was commanded to halt at the urging of the noble. We all stood in place and watched as he operated his armor to go to one of the GOLIATH armor carrying our supplies and took out an odd-looking contraption.

I was intrigued and astounded as the odd device seemed to unfold in the palm of his armored hand and sprout metal blade that quickly formed a circular shape.

I realized it was a drone from its new shape. It began to issues a mechanical whine and the blades spun up. The drone took off from the armor's hand and quickly darted through and above the canopy of the Forrest.

The noble stood silent and unmoving in his armor for nearly 20 minutes before the drone came piercing through the canopy and returned to his armor's outstretched hand. He packed the drone away again and order us to set up camp.

No one argued or asked questions and they were all happy to get an early end to today's journey. We would all get a few hours extra sleep. Everyone seemed elated.

I was not. For the noble to suddenly stop when he was so impatient before told me one of two things was happening.

One. We were at our destination. I doubted that as we were informed the trip would take two to four week at least. Even if you included any time needed to search our destination area it was unlikely we had arrived yet.

Two. We were approaching a tricky and dangerous area. The noble may have stopped us as going further into the area in front of us as night was about to set in as it would be dangerous. I didn't think the noble cared one bit about the safety of scavengers so the danger had to be enough to put the knights or even himself at risk.

The second option seemed more likely to me. I cursed at the thought. Anything dangerous enough to make armored knights cautious was basically a meat grinder for us petty scavengers.

When the camp was set and we finished eating I tried to sleep as close to the knights as I could to overhear anything I could. Any information I heard could save my life and the proximity to them might save me as well.

I was disappointed as not a single peep was heard from the armored giants. They were speaking to each other with radio.

One other thing I noticed was an increase in the knight's guard detail. They split into two groups of six with the extra two night watch armor put towards the area we were about to enter tomorrow. My thoughts about their reasons for such changes made my stomach turn.

Tomorrow was probably going to get messy. I wished I could listen in on their private radio chatter right now, but it was nothing more than a fantasy and they didn't see a lowly scavenger worthy of being filled in on the detail. The lack of Intel made me feel blind.

I'm a curious man by nature and believe highly in the value of information. Living in the outer circle taught me to keep my ear to the ground and pay attention to the smallest bits of information. You never knew what tidbit of rumor or gossip could come in handy later.

When my friends were still alive we used the rumor mill and gossip to our advantage to find the best places to sell or obtain scrap and aid us in any of our other various schemes and attempts to make an easy silver. The information also helped keep us out of the eyes of any rat kings.

Rat kings were the local crime bosses in the outer circle. Little more than bullies and con men. They were organized crime in their own right, but the pathetic rat version of kingpins and mafia. They stole anything not well hidden. Charged "protection" fees and sold drugs. Some even dipped fingers in the slave market. Slavery was supposed to be outlawed but it didn't seem to stop the practice.

There were no cops in the outer circle. Only guards. The guards only moved when things become too chaotic and messy and as cures go they were worse than the sickness. They operated more like a hammer than a scalpel.

Years ago Alex's family received pressure from a rat king to pay a protection fee so they could keep operating their small weaving shop. The amount demanded was beyond what Alex's family could afford.

Alex came to me and the others in our small group in tears one day and told us the story. We set about fixing the problem. We immediately began searching out any information we could on the rat king demanding protection fees and learned of a rivalry between this rat king and an opposing rat king in the area.

We spread out in the area of the opposing rat king and set about spreading rumors that the rat king was planning violence on the rat king demanding payment of Alex's family and that he was talking crap about this other group. We spread an assortment of different such lies like that. We were truly inventive. I even threw out a rumor the rat king was being cuckolded by his women in concert with this new rat king. We sowed the seeds of hatred between both groups.

Within a few days, there was an incident in one of the markets between the underlings of the two men. It was the spark that began the fire. The two groups quickly escalated again and again. They increased the savageness and violence against each other at every turn as we fanned the flames with rumors.

It became a slum war within a week and Alex's family was left alone as their local rat king had bigger problems to solve. That is the power of Intel and rumors.

Oddly enough our actions seemed to aid the rat king instead of lead to his destruction. He won the slum war. Within a month he had taken over the competing rat kings territory and mounted the rat kings head "anonymously" in the street during the night alongside multiple of his subordinate's heads.

The guards didn't like the open conflict in the streets and heads being out on display so they moved in. But like always they were hammers. Not scalpels. They bashed few heads that probably didn't have anything to do with the situation, flaunted their strength in the area for a week and left.

The guards are useless. The rat king waited a while and went back to work like nothing changed. But we had succeeded in our goal. The rat king had a bigger piece of the pie and forgot about little Alex's family shop.

A year later we heard information that the rat king had died. Apparently, he had kept the slain rat king's woman as a prize to flaunt and abuse like a dog as a sign of glory and as a trophy. She had played good little girl for a year as his bedmate and toy and one night cut his head off as he slept right before another rival gang invaded and slaughtered the entire gang. Such was the fate of rat kings. It was not a long-lived or wise career choice for most.

The guards in usual style moved in again and simply caused more damage and destruction before going about their business. Which usually consisted of shaking people down and taking bribes.

As my mind thought about the past I smiled at the memory of my friends and felt a pang of sadness at their loss. I missed them. I looked up at the stars and wondered what tomorrow would bring. Would I join my friends in the afterlife tomorrow? Was there an afterlife?

I continued watching the stars as my eyes slowly drifted closed. I could feel sleep overtaking me. Hopefully, tomorrow would be another "easy" day.

I didn't get to drift off to sleep, however. A scream woke me from my almost sleep like a slap to the face. The smart turrets started releasing a loud whirring sound before firing into the night in long drawn out rapid streams of fire.

Floodlights mounted on the armored knights came to life pouring light into the surrounding and they began tracking the barrels of their machine guns across the outside edge of our camp firing at any movement they saw with loud booms that made my ears ring.

When I finally ascertained the direction of the danger I looked to the edge of camp and saw shapes as big as horses rushing into the circle of our camp and running down our unarmored scavenger watchmen. Multiple sets of blood-curdling screams could be heard piercing the night.

I couldn't tell the true shape of the beasts but I could tell they were four-limbed and fast. In the dim light, I saw one of them throw the desecrated remains of a scout in the air and seem to unhinged it's freakishly massive jaws before catching the corpse on its mouth with an audible snap.

As I watched the horrifying scenes what must have been at least two dozen other beasts flooded into camp from behind the feasting beast.

The battle was on and all I had was a rusty and chipped short sword.