While we now had the answers I desperately sought after, I still had no idea how to solve the issue. The mage must have noticed how we were looking for her and vanished from our sight completely. Markus and I, searched the whole night for her but didn’t find anything. She knew we were coming for her and sadly hid perfectly fine.

Tom wasn’t invited to the search party because he was Tom. We ran around the whole night and after ten minutes of slowing down because of him, I gave him another secret task. Arthur wasn’t involved for a simple reason. We didn’t want her to think that he was on our side yet. He should behave as normal as possible as anyone of his actions would certainly provoke some kind of action from the Devourer. She was most definitely expanding her influence where I couldn’t look and as such, the situation was already damn dire. Any actions she took would make all of this even worse.

I was incredibly tempted to burn down the complete supply area, but that posed two problems. For once, all of our supplies would be burned down as well. Not a great move considering that we were already in elven territory. Second, and even worse, this would lead to some kind of reaction from her side and the normal soldiers as well. The worst that could happen right then would be the common soldiers and the infected working together to fell the king of this army, Arthur himself.

And so we sat inside Arthur´s new tent the very next day, completely clueless and argued how we could proceed.

“And if we try to find this mage and threaten her?” asked Markus. In reply, I only stared at him, completely annoyed and fucked up by his unintelligent plans.

“We have nothing against her in our hand except torture. Her children could still happily reproduce and free her someday and if we were to kill her one day, we didn’t know how her children would react. Luna found a pattern and a way forward, we cannot risk destroying this through chaos.” Concluded Tom and said the words I wanted to hurl at Markus, albeit in a slightly friendlier tone.

“So we don’t have any plan at all, do we?” asked Arthur, frustrated that hours of thinking lead to nothing so far.

“There has to be something … at least we can protect a few from being turned into puppets.” I said and tipped on the table with my fingernails nervously.

“And how are we going to do that?” asked Tom, surprised by my words.

“I´m a vampire … I can smell who is dead from close by.” I lied, but telling the truth here had no advantage anyway. I couldn’t go around and burn every single one of these infected considering that there were around fifty thousand humans in this army.

“And, how many were already infected?” Arthur inquired, strangely nervous now. The night prior, I obviously didn’t just search for this bitch, but also stared into quite a few eyes and went even so far to wake hundreds of soldiers up as I realized we had no hope of finding the mage.

“The number is around a tenth, although there could be hotspots I missed. How many does it need to start an insurrection, even if you do nothing wrong?” I implicitly inquired about the time we had left until this army was uncontrollable anymore and with it, all hope to salvage this situation lost.

“Possibly a quarter, if they do it right. The soldiers are already nervous about all the murders.” He needed a moment to spit out the answer, but as he did it, I knew why. Considering the murders with missing corpses during the day and last night, this amount would be reached sooner than I anticipated.

“Five days, five nights it is. Does that sound plausible, Tom?” I asked, just to be sure I didn’t mess up in my calculations somewhere.

“If there are only five worms by body. I would rather guess the critical numbers are reached in four days.” Luna was small and in no way comparable to that of an adult male. Tom was right, but considering that Markus only saw five worms exit Luna´s body and there may have been even more inside her, even this number may be wrong.

“We have to kill all of these worms at the same time together with their queen who only four humans know about. Why don’t we tell anyone what´s happening here and let all soldiers be tested through the flame?” asked Markus. All of us, including Arthur, were more than unhappy with this idea.

“There would be a panic and distrust would spread. If nobody can tell if their neighbour is still the same, then nobody can tell if we are still the same.” Arthur said.

“And I already told you that these things aren´t just secreting a highly flammable substance, but a rather explosive one. You have seen yourself how these guards around me blew up, just like the carts. So except we try to shoot them with a fire arrow, nobody would be willing to test these persons after they see the first one go boom.” I concluded and hammered the nail in the coffin of this plan even further.

“No. Just no. Arthur cannot take any action, we already agreed on that.” What a brilliant way to stomp Markus´ plan into the ground. Tom made Markus seem stupid which he was in all honesty.

“And what do you two suggest? We heard nothing from the two of you so far.” Markus said, completely annoyed by our behaviour.

“Silence is golden … shh, do you hear that?” I said and pressed my index finger on my lips.

“What?” asked Markus, falling completely for the tap I laid.

“I think a hinge is rather rusty around here.” I stood up and walked close to Markus while seemingly listening very closely.

“What are you talking about?” He asked and didn’t realize how I was already boiling with anger again. Just as he finished speaking, I stomped on his food and observed his reaction. It was on point. “What was that for?”

“It was proof that you are a trash can. I step on your foot and you open your stupid mouth. Is there anything except trash inside you?”

He drew his sword as I still stood on his foot, completely unmoving. The air between us seemed to spark with hatred for a short time as I grinned at his inability to do anything against me.

“Markus, keep your calm. You know how explosive her temperament is and I doubt it improved since ...” I stared at Arthur, my eyelids twitching full of rage. He luckily stopped before he said anything thoughtless and so, I let go of the duo and turned towards Tom again.

“Do you have anything?” I asked Tom and thought about the secret mission I gave him. I didn’t have much hope about this plan I came up with due to something I read in a book, but it was better than lurking around and doing nothing. He didn’t do anything except showing me a raised corner of his mouth, but that was already enough for me. “Alright, I do have an idea. Arthur, I need a hundred men, Tom and Markus to accompany me.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I cannot risk that you get infected while we are away, I´m sorry, I cannot tell you.” The danger was already high enough as it was. If the Devourer knew about my plan, then it would be completely useless. I already risked that she could somehow gain access to the memories of the soldiers and find out our plan herself, adding a person who knew what we were going to do was complete and utter nonsense.

“And you are sure that you will save this army with a mere hundred knights?” asked Arthur, slightly distrusting again, but not in the way he was before.

“Better. We will save the world.” I smiled and awaited his response.

“Alright, how long are you away?” He asked another question I couldn’t quite answer.

“That´s a secret. You know the deadline though, so if we don’t come back in time, feel free to burn everything to the ground.”

“Can I help you in any way?”

“How long does it take to gather the higher-ups in this place? Let´s weed out some worms.” I smiled cruelly as I said that as my bloodthirsty side revealed itself again.

“Worms are good for the ground though …” Tom was having none of that as he knew what was about to happen.

“What are you, a gardener?” I asked in reply to his comment. He just shrugged and rather ended the conversation instead of talking about his possible secret hobby.