“Welcome,” Charles stood at the edge of the Hallowed Ground. “You must be exhausted. We have food and water. Make sure all your wounded visit the church, and the rest of you please come and rest…” Despite his polite smile and welcoming words, his gaze was cold.

  “I’m Martin. Thanks for the help, mate.” Martin patted Charles’ shoulder as he walked past him, following Avery.

  “Amy, Laura, come on,” Victoria led the two wounded women towards the church. “Anyone else who isn’t well, come with me please!” She called out while walking. Six of the survivors hurried after her while the remaining five rushed after Avery and Martin to get some food and water.

  “What is this?” Charles marched towards Alaric. Sol stood between them, leaning against Alaric’s legs. “So many people, none of them fighters?”

  “Their fighters are all dead.” Alaric scrunched up his forehead. “I saw one of them. It was bad…” He shuddered.

  Charles bit his lips. “Why did they get chased? What happened to their Hallowed Ground? Hell, Alaric, what if there are more people who need help? Or even better – people who survived and thrived?”

  Thriving… that’s hard to believe.

  “I don’t know. They said they had been walking the whole night, and that they circled around old Fairford. We’ve never ventured that far. There could be more people, more survivors.”

  “We need to find them if that’s the case. Your horse – Victoria named it Cinder, right? It’s fast. You could look-“

  Alaric shook his head. “Charles,” he cut the man off. “You have a good idea there, but I can’t. I’m bloody exhausted. I haven’t eaten for two days, I need to rest. I can’t ride for the entire day. Not now.”

  The other man’s expression darkened. “What if there are people who need our help?”

  “Then someone else has to go. I’m in no state to help anyone.”

  “You helped them.” He pointed at the survivors resting by the narrow river.

  “You have no idea of how lucky I was. The only reason any of us is alive is because I stalled for long enough for the sun to rise.” Let out a sigh. “Besides, we don’t know when the next objective’s going to appear. I can’t be half a day away when it does.”

  Charles parted his lips to protest but then stopped. “Well…”

  “What’s with you anyways?” Alaric folded his arms. “You’re pushing me since yesterday. Why?”

  “Your refusal to fill me in was unacceptable last night.” Charles’ voice grew colder. “I don’t care how tired you are, if there’s a danger lurking out there in the dark… I must know it. You can rest later.”

  He clenched his fist. “Clearly, I can’t. Had there been an imminent threat to this place, I would have told you, aren’t you aware of that?” he spoke each word deliberately, forcing down the anger that flared beneath them.

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  “I don’t care whether the danger is imminent or not. You will fill me in as soon as you arrive. I’ll be judge of how severe it is. You-“

  “You know what?” Alaric hissed through gritted teeth, cutting the other man off. “I won’t. I’ve been running around doing everything I can to keep these people alive, to keep the Hallowed Ground safe. You haven’t stepped outside this boundary willingly once!” It took every bit of willpower he had to keep his voice down. Heat rushed to his face with anger. “So stop acting like you’re the one giving orders here. Because you’re not. Not to me, and I’d wager not to anyone who’s even tried to fight the monsters out there.”

  He spun around and walked off, leaving Charles standing there, seething.

  He dropped by the campfire to take a piece of sizzling venison, and once he was done with his meal, circled around the church, and sat behind the large boulder, avoiding the sunlight.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. He shook his head, pushing aside that thought. What was done was done, and there was no point in dwelling in regret. He closed his eyes.

  We’ll need more food. More water. Now that they had a dozen more people, everything was going to start changing. The dilapidated church wasn’t large enough to house everyone. “Tents?” He muttered to himself. If they could make a few tents, it would solve the immediate problem.

  “What about them?” Martin’s voice startled him. His eyes shot open to see the man standing right in front of him.

  When did he get here?

  “Just thinking.” He glanced around. How hadn’t he heard his approach?

  “I figured. It’s because of us, right?” The other man smiled bitterly as he lowered himself to the grass and sat cross legged. His rugged hands fiddled with the fur-lined cloak Victoria had given him. “You’re still hunting and gathering. A dozen more mouths to feed – it won’t be easy. And the church is barely large enough to contain you guys. So… tents?”

  Alaric awkwardly smiled. “…you followed my thinking pretty much perfectly.” He let out a sigh. “Food and water – we can handle that. Your people can help carry the fruit, and skin the game. But shelter… yeah, it’s a problem.”

  “Well, your Hallowed Ground is pretty awful.” Martin chuckled. “We were at the shore of a large lake full of fish. And the church was next to the Baskerville’s farmstead, so we had pretty much everything we needed.” He looked at his hands. “It’s a shame we lost it.”

  … ours does suck compared to theirs. He couldn’t help but feel a little jealous.

  “Had we had someone like you…” Martin shook his head. “But the past’s long gone, so no point in dwelling on it. We’ll do what we can to help here. Tents will be just fine. We don’t need much more.”

  Alaric scowled. “What about your power?” The ability to shape stone could help them create much better shelter than some makeshift tents that’d be destroyed at the first strong gust. “Can you use it to create shelter?”

  Martin looked at his palms. “If I have a piece of rock, I can turn it into a brick shaped rock. But a brick shaped rock won’t be enough without cement to put in between, will it? I can’t shape things larger than say…” He distanced his hands to about half a meter. “This big.”

  Cement they couldn’t do, but… “How fine can you control that?” He narrowed his eyes. Stone was fundamentally different than wood, but as long as it wasn’t particularly fragile, some of the same techniques chould work.

  “Well…” Martin ran his hand across the ground until his fingers touched a small rock, just large enough to fit in his palm. “About this fine…” his voice slowly faded as he focused for a few seconds. The uneven, somewhat round shaped rock flattened, its surface slowly shifting. Martin then opened his eyes and smirked as he turned the now flat stone plaque around. The shape of the dilapidated church was crudely carved into the plaque’s surface.

  Impressed, he raised his eyebrows. “That’s quite precise.” His lips curled up. More than what I needed! He started on his feet, startling Martin. “Wait here a second!” he called out as he rushed towards the side of the church where they kept their firewood. Grabbing a small piece, he returned and sat back down by the boulder.

  “We don’t need cement. You need to shape the bricks like this, so they interlock as we place them. We use this a lot in woodworking…”

  He didn’t even notice time pass as he explained.