Corrupt Blood

Chapter 2: Prison Blues

The bank duty passed without incident, but the next day Agatha called them in to the Inn for an emergency meeting. A messenger arrived at the boarding houses bearing a note for Derk. “There’s been a serious issue that needs immediate attention.” was all it read. Getting up and dressed, and grabbing some bread to go for breakfast he raced to the inn.

“It appears someone has spread the disease to the stockades, we can only assume, with the conditions in there, that the entire population of the inmates is infected. While this may not concern you too much, we must remember that allowing the disease to run rampant within the city, like a festering wound, would pose too much of a risk to the rest of the inhabitants, especially the guards. That’s why I am sending a team to cleanse the entire place.”

There were several quiet groans from the volunteers assembled. The work was important, certainly, but an entire prison worth of patients would drain any team’s mana several times over. “I’ve discussed it with the warden, we will be working with one cell block a day, and the guards will ensure a strict quarantine so that those who are cured will not become reinfected. Derk, Sam, you two will be with the cleansing team today, the block you will be dealing with is the worst of the three, so be prepared.”

With that she ended the meeting and the team scattered to get ready.

“Derk…” Sam said quietly, she had fallen behind as they walked towards Stormwind. Her hood was up again, and she seemed to be staring at her feet. “The patients today… they’re prisoners.”

“If you’re having moral issues, just remember that it’s for the good of the whole city.” Derk said, slowing down to walk with her.

“It’s not that…” She said, and then, almost whispering, “If any of them try to… attack me.”

Derk smiled, and clapped a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry, if any of them even look at you the wrong way, the disease will be the last of their concerns.”

Sam looked up at him, and though the hood covered most of her face he could see her smile.

She looked so young and helpless, the oversized robe making her appear even younger than she really was. Absentmindedly Derk wondered what the rest of her looked like without the robe obscuring the view. He shook his head to clear his thoughts as they neared the prison.

Once inside they met with Warden Thelwater, he saluted them once they were all gathered, demanding their attention. “Listen up, I appreciate what it is you are all trying to do, but these prisoners are my responsibility. When we bring them out they will be chained together, and they are damn well going to stay that way for the whole time they are seeing sunlight. I will not allow Stormwind’s situation to get worse, by having Bazil Thredd running loose during the commotion.”

“We’re gunna have the whole lot line up, first in line will be detached, and brought over to that area, once he’s clean, he’ll stand over there.” He pointed to the far wall, where an iron ring was anchored to the floor. “We’ll start chaining the clean ones together as we go. The whole process will be under the watch of a firing squad, if anything goes wrong, your first instinct should be to hit the floor. I’ve made it clear to all the prisoners that you are here to treat the disease, and not bullet wounds.”

So, with many shouts from the guards the process began, a long line of prisoners rose from the stairs, and the first one was released and escorted over. Sam still appeared nervous, as they began to work, something that one of the nearby guards picked up on. “Lieutenant Casey Suthers.” She introduced herself as, “I’m here for your safety, so no matter what happens you’ll be alright as long as I’m around.” She tried to reassure Sam. Her standard guard uniform shone in the morning light, as did her non-standard rifle.

“Have you shot anyone before?” Sam asked, working on a particularly feverish prisoner.

“I was stationed in Westfall before they gave me this rank. There were plenty of defias out there who wouldn’t listen to reason. They’re like sick animals; there are some that need to be put down, before they start biting others, and spreading the problem.” She replied, scanning over the line of prisoners.

“Warden!” She called, gaining the older man’s attention. “We have an issue. The prisoners are only supposed to be from the west block.” The Warden nodded in agreement, turning to look at the line as well. “So why is it I see both Bazil Thredd and Dextren Ward in that line up?”

The warden’s eyes lit up as the guards unchained Bazil, at the front of the line, and brought him over to where Sam was working. “‘Ello Miss, I’m feelin a smidge under tha weather.” He said with a grin.

Before the Warden could signal the guards to act several men burst into the room, each with a red bandana covering their face, one of them tossed two short swords to their boss, Bazil, and he quickly took Sam hostage.

“You’ll have to forgive me, but I’m taking the poppet back to the base with me, some of us still need to be tended to.” He waved with a flourish to the guards and the henchmen began unchaining their brothers from the line. The warden gave the signal for the guards behind Bazil to take him out, but they stood unresponsive.

“Now now,” Chided Dextren from the line up, pulling a small charm from his pocket. “Morbent Fel looks after his minion, I think you’ll find some of your best men, are my best men now. So don’t try any funny business, or this will be a blood bath, and I can guarantee you won’t have anyone left to heal you when it’s all over.”

“All done boss!” shouted a man with a red face cloth, “Let’s get out of here before the rest of stromwind finds out.

“What do you mean you’re all done! Let me out of these damned chains!” Shouted Dextren, and Bazil paused in his exit.

“We don’t make deals with filthy grave robbers. You can stay behind and rot.” He declaired, calmly, and began to lead his men towards the exit. Between them they had three of the healers hostage, and the Alliance guards looked to the Warden for a sign as what to do.

With a cry of rage several guns fired off, the sound deafening to Sam as she felt Bazil lurch from behind her. Dextren’s guards had open fired, aiming for Bazil and the others who held hostages. In an instant everyone was in action, the guards fired on the defias, the defias lashed out at the guards, and the healers scrambled for cover. All but Derk, he rushed towards Sam as she fell forwards, the sickening sound of metal on flesh was heard beyond all the chaos around him, as she fell forwards and Bazil rushed towards the unarmed Dextren.

Derk slid to the ground beside Sam, she was alive, but there was a lot of blood. He took a deep breath, remembering how many soldiers he had treated the same way, but they were wearing armor when they took orc blades to the chest, she had nothing but cloth between her and the knives. Pulling away her robes he scanned the wound, it was deep, but he didn’t go for her throat. It was probably an afterthought, in Bazil’s rage at Dextren, to leave Sam for dead, and that was a blessing in disguise.

The wound ran in a single line across the top of her chest, Derk tore the top of her shirt open to get better access to it, pushing the fabric aside with her bloodstained and torn robe. She was in shock, her eyes glassed over and breathing in short and shallow gasps. With a deep breath he set to work on closing the wound, giving it a cleansing first, to ward off tetanus from the no doubt rusted blade.

In minutes his holy light had closed the wound, he narrowed down the focus so that there wouldn’t be a scar left over. Normally he didn’t care if a scar remained, but she was just a girl, 18 by the looks of it, probably younger since the Alliance was so desperate for healers. She shouldn’t be taking wounds on a battlefield yet.

Only when he was finished did he look up, now aware how foolishly he had been ignoring the battle around him. Bazil had wounded Dextren before collapsing, and managed to disarm him of his trinket. The guards regained their composure and the defias, now outnumbered and outgunned had largely surrendered. Still, there were many wounded, on both sides, and Derk placed Sam safely to the side and set out treating the injured guards.

While Bazil and Dextren were treated by other healers, Derk started working on Lieutenant Casey. “How’s the girl? She gunna make it?” The guard asked, wincing as her bent armor came away from a deep gash in her arm.

“She’ll be fine; Bazil messed up and didn’t fatally injure her.” He replied, inspecting the injury, it was bad, if not for the chainmail she was wearing she may have lost an arm. “How did you get something like this anyways?”

She simply gestured at a particularly large rioter. “That big guy came at me with an axe the size of a truck. Meant to cleave me in two I’d imagine.”

Derk chuckled and replied, “looks like he almost did.”

“Well, we’re lucky that when it boils down to it, their organization is just a bunch of thieves and traitors. If their teamwork held out, we’d be cooking in hot water right about now.” She said, stretching her arm out when he was finished. With a hand she rose to her feet and went to report to the Warden.

Derk returned to Sam’s side, she was just regaining consciousness. “You had me worried you know. Remind me to keep closer to you from now on.”

She looked down, slightly ashamed. “So you can protect me right? I know I’m too weak to get by on my own.”

“Nah, honestly I’d rather take a hit than let you get hurt, you’d do a better job at patching me up. So let me be your body guard, every cute young girl needs one at some point.” He smiled, and pulled her to her feet. She blushed and gave him a hug, which startled him, but he returned it gently.

“I was so scared,” she was almost in tears, he realized. So he rubbed her back for a moment before trying to brighten her mood.

“C’mon, I think we need to go find you some new robes.” Shopping, he thought, that’ll make any girl happy right?

She laughed and looked down at the bloodstained and torn garments on the floor. Together they set off to go and purchase new robes from the auction house. She settled on a similar set of white robes, and then began looking around expectantly. “What are you looking for?” He asked, not knowing what else she needed besides robes.

“An enchanter.” She replied, heading for a corner to where a mage was sitting beside a cardboard sign.

With a bit of negotiation, the enchanter agreed to work on the robe, free of charge, since she was putting so much effort into helping the Alliance. When she was done the same red symbols covered the robe, apparently boosting her mana capacity.

“Alright, but there’s one more thing we need.” He replied. When she looked curious he smiled and pointed to another mage in another corner. “A tailor, you need to have that properly sized.”

When they left Stormwind, with a new and improved outfit for Sam, it was already evening. The sun was setting, and Elwynn forest took on a shade of orange.

“What are you doing tomorrow?” she asked, seemingly out of the blue.

“Tomorrow?” He asked, confused as to what she meant. So far every day had been work, with no real breaks between days.

“Agatha will probably give us the day off to recover, especially considering what happened. I thought we could have some fun together.” She stopped and looked up at him, a big smile on her face.

“Fun?” He asked, once again confused. She had a sly grin on her face, and her eyes seemed to sparkle.

“It’s a surprise, see you at 8am tomorrow morning!” She called, skipping off happily towards Goldshire.

“What a strange girl.” He thought, walking at his usual slow pace back to his boarding house. “At work she seems so serious and mature, and the rest of the time she’s so quiet and shy. And just now she really did seem like a child.” He shook his head and cleared his thoughts, she’s just a kid. She couldn’t have meant what I thought she meant.

As he was climbing into bed that night he paused to think. “8am… No sleeping in on my day off huh.”