The Fear You Know

29 Invisible

The ground before them was smoking. Embers flickered in the grass terminating where the pools of water made it too wet for the fire to cross. Just outside of range from those embers, a congregation of dread soldiers lay siege to the walls of the university sending up cries of feral hunger against a sun that was just beginning to rise.

The sky overhead was clotted with smoke, the ground was singed and charred, bodies lay dying or rotting in the field around the wall of the university, and still hundreds more massed around the entrypoint. Makeshift tents and shelters had been hastily erected against the weather to house the living, while the dying lay undisturbed under the light of a pale waning moon stained red by smoke.

From the top of the wall defenders launched arrows and projectiles down at the massing siege, consisting of those covered in furs, those naked except for the words on the bodies, and the grotesque choking forms of those too sick to die. Most of the siege was concentrated heavily to the front of the university, congregating around the largest and most accessible entrance, which someone had demeaned the university's weak point.

The rest of the wall lay mostly silent in comparison, aside from the occasional roving band that circled the university at intervals scanning the walls for any sign of weakness.

Despite the occasional arrow, everything seemed to be mostly at a standstill in the premorning dawn neither side was able to gain any sort of advantage.

Adrian sniffed at the air, "Compact powder, they've been using explosives."

Tykhe sniffed the air as well and made a face, 'The outbreak has been busy as well. As they watched, one of the outbreak took a step forward from their encampment, and tying a dripping bag onto the end of a rope, they whirled it around in a circle before hurling up towards the top of the wall. There was a sharp crack, and the bag exploded well on its way to the wall, sending off a spray of discolored and unknown liquid which fell to the grass before the university.

Adrian looked on with distaste, "There's only one thing that could have been.'

Eli grimaced.

"Biological warfare." Peter muttered

The group shifted slightly to look at him, and he shrugged his shoulders once before they collectively turned back to the task at hand.

A task which was presenting itself as impossible.

"If they were smart they would try to poison the University's water supply,'' Eli muttered, inching away from the arms of the Exclusion, a billowing of massing black smoke which was now beginning to reach out for him with thin gray wisps.

Adrian shook his head, "It was built around a natural spring, so they have enough water, and likely enough food for the time being. The problem is going to be the sickness. In such close quarters like that, it could spread through them fast, and once it does that there will be no one to guard the wall." He shifted nervously, "If they were to get inside..... If they were to burn....." he shivered.

Eli shivered along with him, it was a horrible thought. He knew the feeling would only be amplified a hundred times in comparison to what he had felt back at the tower. There was so much knowledge lost there and only a hundred or so books. If the university were to fall, it was not something he was likely to survive, though the hovering column of smoke dogging his every step made it clear that even the survival of the university might not save him.

After all this was still his fault.

"Well what do you suggest we do?" Peter asked.

"We have to get inside." Adrian said,nodding sharply.