A Touched that didn’t belong.


    Counting Eveth, Fyga, and myself there were at least three, plus the other one. I wasn’t sure how many of them there were, but Fyga knew of at least two besides the one she’d killed. I doubted that the one we fought on the cliff was dead. Considering how long I’d been healing, there was a good chance he was back to full strength, though he’d be less of a threat with his Bokor blade in Fyga’s hands.


    I let my mind wander out farther and recoiled at what I felt. Eveth and Val had been working for days and there were still well over a thousand Zombies wandering the city. We could spend a month here and not get them all out.


    I pulled my senses back and looked over at Fyga, who nodded.


    “It’s a good thing you didn’t.” I walked towards the gate.


    A pair of guards grabbed one of the square logs and started to pick it up.


    “Stop!” I held out my right hand and summoned a flame that I started kneading.


    Both guards dove out of the way, which was impressive to see them do while covered in metal armor.


    I sighed and turned back to the captain as the lone Zombie jumped out into view and stuck both arms through the gate, reaching for the prone guard on my right.


    “That one is just a decoy.” I threw the fireball, which hit a bar and splashed the flames over the Zombie. The monster got stuck trying to pull its arms out and quickly burned down to a pile of ash on both sides of the gate.


    “There are four more over there.” Fyga pointed at the building that looked like a warehouse.


    The door to the building was missing, so If the guards had opened the gate, the three guards that were here would have gotten swarmed and Zombies would have gotten into the sector.


    I looked around. I wasn’t sure how far away the Touched could control Zombies. My experience had been very disorienting and I hadn’t tried to do it again. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    Nothing seemed to be abnormal from what I would expect. There were people milling around the tents further into the sector, with very few people active around the tents that were within a hundred feet of the gate.


    “Thank you so much Master Bokor.” The Guard Captain moved in front of me and reached for my hand, then pulled back. “Just so you know, we weren’t going to open the gates, we just wanted to be helpful.”


    “It’s fine.” I had a very bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. The Touched had gone to very expensive lengths to infect the city. I wasn’t sure what it took to create a cloud of the plague like they had, but considering that I’d never heard of it before, it couldn’t be something that was deployed often.


    “What are you thinking?” Fyga nodded at the building the Zombies were in. “Take out the Zombies before we meet up with Master Eveth?”


    “No…” I looked at the blue-eyed woman. Not that I could see color well in the shaded goggles that I was wearing, but it was better than the panic that would happen if the Humans saw my glowing purple eyes. “The Touched is close. I don’t think we should leave.” I nodded at the six-foot high wall. “That’s too easy to jump. They could have slipped in here and we’d never know it.”


    “Surely not!” The Guard Captain straightened as his face contorted in a scowl. “We would have noticed someone with purple eyes walking around!” He shook his head. “There aren’t any Touched in here!”


    “Actually…” A familiar voice behind me was full of arrogance. “There are two standing right in front of you.”


    I turned around to look at the big man. The mayor’s son looked a little taller than the barely five-feet that he’d been. He was also more toned, so much so that he was no longer rotund. He looked solid and very thick.


    There was only one thing that I knew of that could make that big of a change in that period of time.


    His face was hidden by the visor of his metal helmet, which was the only part of armor he was wearing. The silky shirt and pants that he had on looked so out of place, but he didn’t have the privilege of owning a pair of goggles like we had. It was probably the only way that he could hide that his eyes were no longer green.


    “What did you do?” I reached up to grab the hilt of the sword on my back.


    “I wouldn’t do that.” Theo wagged his finger as the flaps of the two tents on either side of him opened up and four large men in armor walked out with their swords already drawn. He pointed his finger at us. “Their eyewear.”


    I took a step back and pulled out my sword. “I don’t think so.”


    The Mayor’s son started laughing, which sounded really weird because of how the helmet sort of muffled the sound. Or maybe the thick man just sounded like that. “What was it you said? I suggest you run and let me never see your faces again?” I could feel the anger in his voice as stones started to form in his hands, confirming my fear. “But trust me, I’ll never forget about it.”