Chapter 127 - Celebrations

  It ended up being an extra day before we could get back out to the Guard base, because Patches showed back up the morning we’d intended to leave. He’d been gone most of forty-eight hours, off to round up more of his people. He arrived back at the farm a few hours after dawn, with a massive train in tow behind him.

  Kara came to get me from the farmhouse kitchen, where I’d been preparing some meals to bring with us for the trip. I didn’t know what sort of response we were going to get from Turner and his people, but my bet was it wouldn’t be positive. He was a prickly man at the best of times, and I’d embarrassed him, badly so, right in front of all his people. He wasn’t going to be easy to deal with after that, and it was only going to get worse when I told him some of his people were staying on with me for the long run.

  “Selena, big bunch of people headed down the highway from the north, coming this way,” Kara said.

  A moment after she spoke, they breached the outer radius of the Domain, and I got a tingling sensation. That was going to take more than a little getting used to, but it was good to know that if a big fighting force arrived on our doorstep that I’d have at least a little notice. I reached out with my senses to check the undead nearby the incoming force. None of them were being attacked, but a line of zombies were moving to block their path onto my lands.

  “Come on, we’d better go find out what’s happening,” I said.

  Kara ran outside and climbed aboard Sue while I took to the air, flying directly toward the invaders. It didn’t take me long to figure out who it was—the ratkin were easy to identify, even at range, and as soon as they saw me flying toward them the whole lot started cheering and shouting.

  I landed next to Patches and wrapped him in a warm hug. “You made it back!”

  “I did! Brought other ratkin, too.”

  “I…see that,” I said, trying to take in the scope of the host he’d brought with him. It wasn’t the same scale as the zombie horde, but he had over a hundred of his people with him, and that was on top of the forty or so who’d survived the fighting. “These people—they all want to join us here?”

  Patches nodded, showing his teeth in a smile. “They do! They heard of the great battle, and your victory, and they join us here.”

  Holy crap. We already had over fifty living people on the farm. Now we were going to jump to over a hundred and fifty, like, instantly. That was going to change a few plans for sure. We needed housing, more food…there was a lot that needed doing.

  Patches saw my thoughtful silence and mistook it for hesitation. “Ratkin can go elsewhere, if Lady Death wishes…”

  “No! No, that’s fine, Patches. Seriously, I’m glad to have you. All of you,” I told him. “I was just going over the things we need to get done to take care of you all. We’ve got to get homes set up for everyone, build houses, bring in supplies. The more people we have, the more supplies we’ll need for this winter. It’ll be cold, in a few months, and we’ll need supplies to survive.”

  Patches nodded through all of this, although I wondered how much he understood. Had he ever seen snow? There were a lot of things the ratkin were going to have to learn about on the fly.

  Kara rode up at that point, laughing as she saw who our ‘guests’ were. “Patches! You brought company all right! I guess you weren’t kidding about that whole four clan war leader thing, huh?”

  “Yes. Four clans of ratkin join together to serve Lady Death,” Patches said.

  “Not to serve,” I corrected him. “But I will take your friendship.”

  We brought them all into the compound and everyone got to work. With the undead doing a lot of the labor for us, things went by faster than they otherwise would have.

  First step was to get housing set up. There were multiple barns, many of them interconnected. For the time being, that would mostly work, but we needed something more permanent and more home-like. I was uncomfortable with the idea of housing our rat-like friends in a barn, like they were animals—because they clearly were not. The ratkin, on the other hand, were thrilled to have warm, dry housing, even temporarily. The idea that we were going to build better homes for them left them ecstatic!

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  I sent a squad of zombies with a message for Carver. Knowing where his base was, I was able to give them directions for how to reach him. Once they were stopped by his forces, they were to stand there until they could pass the handwritten note off to someone, then leave. He’d offered help with construction advice, and we were clearly going to need it. None of us knew the first thing about building a house, and we had to build a bunch of them, or buildings of some sort, anyway.

  I had in mind to convert some of the barns over to housing, turning them into apartments for our people, but we were going to need a lot more than that, and I didn’t want to use up all the barn space. Sooner or later, we were going to want to have animals here, too. Livestock for food and to help with planting, and so on.

  The food issue was easier to solve. With the ratkin arrival, I decided we’d put off the visit to Turner for another day and get cracking on settling everyone in. With the mall empty of threats, I sent Kara and Alfred up there with a hundred zombies, ready to load up with everything they could grab from the place. And there was plenty to grab!

  Because the zombies had moved in and started killing everyone on day one or two, few of the supplies from various stores were raided. Once the zombies set up shop, anyone who tried swiping some toilet paper ended up as lunch. Lyonius arriving made it even more impossible to take anything, so most of the stuff was still there.

  Kara and Alfred came back leading one hundred heavily laden zombies. They had blankets and pillows, bags full of toiletries—more than enough to last for quite a while, some clothing and coats, for when it started getting colder, and piles of canned and dry goods from the Hannaford’s grocery store next to the mall.

  I met them and directed the zombies to lay all their loot in one of the not-yet-occupied barns, although I had a feeling all of them were going to end up occupied sooner or later. It would work as a storage spot for the time being. I left an Abomination guarding the pile, more as a visual deterrent than anything else. He was under orders to not hurt anyone; he’d just make a lot of noise if anyone tried to take something without permission. But he was intimidating enough just to look at that I had a feeling that would be enough.

  Kara sought me out right after the loot was dropped off. “Selena, we need to talk. Quick!”

  From the excited look in her eyes, I knew something was up. She was wearing a bunch of new jewelry, too—a stack of gold chains circled her neck. “Picked up a few new bits at the mall, huh?”

  We went upstairs, where there was a little privacy. “Yeah,” she admitted with a smile. “Kay’s Jewelry had a special sale, one hundred percent off.”

  “I see. Was that what you wanted to talk about?” I asked. I wasn’t mad about the jewelry. Gold was probably gonna end up valuable in the new world just like the old, but if my best friend hadn’t earned a few trinkets after this whole mess, who had?

  “No! Oh my god, no! I’m so exited! I can barely think straight,” Kara said, breathing fast. Her eyes were bright—had she been crying? Her face was flushed, too.

  All of a sudden I was worried. Had something bad happened? “Did Alfred do something? Hurt you?”

  Kara took in the stern look on my face and doubled over laughing.

  I stood there, confused, while she let it all out. It was a longer wait than I’d have preferred, and I found myself tapping my foot on the floor out of a lack of patience, which simply made her laugh even harder.

  “You know, I’m a fearsome tier ten necromancer with an entire army of undead at my beck and call, right?” I said at long last.

  “Yes—I know—but—“ Kara managed, between giggles. Then she collapsed into more laughter, simply holding out her left hand to me.

  Sitting on her ring finger was the biggest damned diamond I’d ever seen.

  “What? Did you—?” I wasn’t sure what were the right questions to ask, but it was clear Alfred had not hurt her. It seemed like something quite the opposite!

  “He did. While we were up there, gathering supplies. Alfred saw me in the jewelry store, swiping a few of the chains, and he must have pocketed the ring then. It’s three karats, Selena!”

  She was giddy with excitement and happiness, and I was thrilled for her, although I felt a little stung, too. Was I losing my friend? No, probably not. Alfred would be staying here with us as well. “How did I miss this blossoming romance, anyway? I didn’t even know you two were interested in each other!”

  “We were a bit, back when I was with his group of survivors on campus,” Kara told me. “But when we went to the Guard base, he wanted to stay there, keep everyone safe. And, well… I’d gotten to like traveling with you and finding myself in the middle of great things. I thought I’d lost him for sure, but now we’re all together again!”

  “So now the two of you can be together again,” I finished for her.

  “Exactly!”

  “I believe this calls for a celebration!” I proclaimed. Kara blanched, but I shook a finger at her. “Don’t dare say no. After all we’ve been through these past few days, I think we could all use some cheerful times. Come on! Let’s go set up the engagement party of the century!”

  Which we did. It took a fair bit of work to create a cake, but it turns out that powdered milk will work in place of the liquid stuff, and jarred applesauce works well instead of eggs. Cake frosting was something we had in abundance, thanks to the raid on Hanaford’s.

  We set up an epic bonfire, and then proceeded to party well into the night. Hanaford’s had a good stock of wine and beer, and you’ve never seen hilarious until you’ve seen ratkin dancing and singing after they’ve had a glass too many.

  It was indeed the best engagement party of the century—or at least, since the old world gave way to the new!