Write to Rank 2: Shadow City Under Fire

Round 7: Action with a Cliffhanger

"My partner, Scott... he'd been bitten."

"We know."

"He shot me."

"We know that too, lancer."

"Ember, my name is Ember Korb."

"Welcome back to the land of the living, Ember," Mer said with a smile. "We need you out there. We have too many civilians and not enough fighters.

Ember fumbled with her gear, finally settling on a pistol and whip.

"I lost one of my whips when the horde broke through our blockade."

"That pistol will have to be enough." Mer stood and took a deep breath. The energy in her staff was nearly depleted. There was enough for two more lives... or Lady Shadow. "Our people outside need support."

Ember nodded and made her way to the front of the bus. Her steps were wobbly at first, but grew stronger with each passing moment. Mer watched her go as an excuse to ignore the other bodies around her, wounded and dying. She wished she could save them all, but she wasn't sure she was ready to pay the price. Casting a glance at the Citadel, so close yet so far, she wondered whether she should use the last of her healing for those she could reach and forsake the leader of Shadow City.

Gods of the realms, please give me strength and wisdom. I am but a humble servant who humbly needs your guidance.

The gods had always answered her prayers with a sign, but this day, the day when Shadow City burned all around her, they were oddly silent.

"Mer, get up here." Pacey sounded tired. They were all tired. "There's something you need to see."

Mermia Read made her way to the back of the bus where a ladder led up to the roof. Dozens of eyes watched her, mostly labor workers and merchants. Many had joined her group as they fled the walking dead. Scores were lost when their route intersected with a column of orc marauders also on their way to the Citadel. The corpses and the orcs proved to be the group's salvation in the end, the two armies fighting amongst each other while the survivors fled. The Citadel was within reach, if they could find a way through the walking dead and the orcs on the fortress steps.

She climbed the ladder where a group of children fed clips to the riflemen keeping the corpses at bay. Their ammo boxes looked dangerously low. Pacey was near the front of the bus, laying on her stomach and peering through a pair of binoculars. Her laser rifle rested beside her, its powercell charged in a lunar crystal battery bank. From the roof of the bus, the true magnitude of their predicament was more apparent. So many dead, so many infected.

A bullet whizzed over Mer's head, missing by a hair's breadth. Pacey grabbed her arm and pulled her down.

"What are you doing, trying to get you head blown off?"

"There's so many of them..." Without divine intervention, Mer couldn't see any way through it all.

"No time for despair. We have bigger problems," Pacey said, passing Mer her binoculars. "Look."

Mer laid down and brought the binoculars up to her eyes. Hundreds of bodies, citizens of Shadow City consumed by the walking death. Even as the snipers cut them down more lumbered up the wide streets. While she tried to keep these people alive, the infection was spreading. Mermia was a woman of faith, but it was hard to hold onto her ideals in the face of so much. Despair was loomed over them all.

"What am I looking for?"

Pacey pointed.

"You've got to be kidding me."