We hurried towards the carriage that stood just outside the camp, a hundred knights on horses as the escort. Before we entered though, I introduced myself to each of them personally. Not to be nice or anything, but to check if they were really themselves. Satisfied that I would only need to keep six of them in check, I entered the carriage and closed the door behind me.
“Markus, I want you to keep an eye on the soldiers for at least two hours during our journey. Keep a torch always nearby and don’t hesitate to burn these six down if they freak out.” I said and opened the door for him again.
“And if they don’t freak out?”
Silence spread inside the carriage as neither I nor Tom were really keen on answer this question.
“Tom, would you please be so nice as to explain to Markus our two strategic advantages?”
“Hmm … how should I start so that you understand it … Markus, what do these worms want?”
“How should I know?”
“At least in the short term, they want to increase their numbers and hosts. And who is controlling the mass of humans they are targeting? Right, we are doing that. We can dictate where these worms will go, at least for four more days. And that leads to our second advantage. The queen must be nearby these worms, otherwise, she is unable to control them, at least for now.”
“The distance is growing …” I noticed as I counted the second since we began our trip. It took way too long already and I was worried the Devourer found a way to circumvent her fatal flaw. I opened the door, swung myself on the roof of the speeding carriage and watched the back of an infected knight very carefully. He was swinging to the sides as if he slowly lost control, but I was unable to see the frenzy I was expecting.
“Coachman, bring us closer to this knight over there.” I certainly scared the coachman as I said this, but he did comply after several seconds, even when that messed up our formation completely. I picked up the torch connected to the carriage and waited until we were close by. The knight seemingly lost all control of his body and was unable to react to my presence.
“Shit!” Just as I wanted to set the man on fire, four of the knights in front of us fell from their horses. The knights behind them had no trouble evading the corpses, but the carriage wasn’t that nimble. I was thrown into the air as the wheels rolled over the corpses, barely making sure to throw the torch away before I hit the roof again.
“Everyone halt!” I screamed as I held my broken nose, still laying on the roof. Markus already jumped out of the carriage and grabbed a torch from a nearby knight as the rest of our escort formed a circle around us to protect us from a possible elven attack. After a few seconds, I stood up and jumped down to the side of the carriage. Tom immediately threw me a pair of white gloves which I wore as I walked towards the last possessed knight who was still held to his saddle through sheer luck. I grabbed his shirt and waited while Markus burned down the other corpses, much to the surprise of the surrounding knights.
It didn’t take long until the worm inside the man dug himself free, probably after he laid some eggs inside the corpse. He squealed as I grabbed it up from the ground and held a torch near him.
“You may have heard from the recent murders or kidnappings. Those things are at fault. They are parasites that like to infect humans and gain control over them. This is our enemy right now, not the elves or anyone else. There are no more of these things inside this unit, but there are tons of them in the army. And we will eradicate every single one of them.” I put the worm inside a glass bottle filled with water and watched in satisfaction how he died miserably while twisting wildly. After that, I threw the gloves away as the worm was incredibly slimy and simply put disgusting. I discarded the torch on top of the other corpse and distanced myself appropriately as it exploded and sent blood everywhere.
“The slime they are secreting is highly explosive, isn’t it? Why do the corpses explode so fast though?” asked Tom as I entered the carriage once again, leaving all the questions to Markus as he was the one the knights relied on anyway.
“Probably through sweat? The blood didn’t smell too different.” I concluded and wondered if there was any way we could use their explosive nature to our advantage. I shook my head as I realized that we were already doing the best thing available for us. Eradicating everyone and everything.
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