Everyone was emotionally wrung out by the time they had collected their dead and wrapped them, filling one truck with their grim cargo.

  David had to exorcise the Nath that was rooted in each of their dead, meaning that he had to see each of them and process their deaths again. He was emotionally drained and ignoring a confused cocktail of grief, anger, shame and embarrassment by the end.

  The zombie attacks had been more irritating than dangerous once people found their rhythm. David remained constantly vigilant and was proactive about shutting down any large groups to avoid pressure on the raid.

  Their scouring of the first terminal did yield two important wins.

  First, they were able to hit the armory and strip it of weapons and equipment. After a brief discussion the raiders stripped all the patches from the tactical uniforms and got everyone dressed in modern protective gear including helmets, vests and in many cases upgraded weapons.

  They also found a lot more radio’s and other support gear. At Carl’s insistence they started loading all of it up and kept their existing six person radio teams, now with a couple of radios rather than one.

  While this was going on Mark wanted to set up a sweep all the way down to the end of the terminal, beyond where his people had got before.

  David checked their path and after determining that there were a few stray zombies, agitated and obviously stuck, sent Mark and Katie with two radio teams and Charlie for fire support.

  Their return was jubilant and David heard the good news before he saw it.

  “This way people. Hey! David! Dude! Look who we found!”

  He turned and saw Charlie waving, he looked slightly ridiculous in the tactical gear especially as he had a goofy grin plastered on his face. Then he gestured to the people accompanying him, eleven people not in the tactical gear that had just become standard issue for the raiders.

  He recognized three of them, who waved sheepishly to him as he approached. Missing raiders, which led him to beam widely. When he turned and yelled at the group stripping the armory.

  “Nobody left behind!”

  People were soon emerging and congratulating their buddies on surviving the day before, while Katie fussed over the survivors, they had found shelter with. The story that emerged in comments and rushed conversations made a lot of sense.

  Once you ran to the end of the long straight walkways out to the distant gates you were trapped if stealth was your only escape option. Every route back was long, straight and completely lacking cover. Hiding was hard as well given the mostly glass walls and lack of accessible rooms and the like.

  Ultimately, they ended up barricaded inside a Jet bridge hidden in the parts lacking glass and hoping their flimsy barricading of the doors held against any probing.

  Even hearing distant gunfire hadn’t been enough to get them to move, fear of the dark magic wielded by the zombie queen trumping hope of rescue.

  David held his hand up, standing on a plastic crate someone had found for him, so it was easy for him to be seen, the raiders quieted and he addressed them.

  “The job is half-done. We met the challenge I gave you all, nobody left behind. We have collected our dead and we will mourn them properly tonight. Now we need to clear the other passenger terminal, there are plenty more zombies still over there, ones who were too far away to hear or respond to what we did to their brethren. So, let’s finish the job.”

  The raiders nodded, then looked surprised as David stepped down and helped Katie to step up. She did so, nervously clearing her throat several times before speaking.

  “HI everyone, I just wanted to say that we did well, we were ready and rested and didn’t let things get in front of us. Before we move on we are going to take a break for food and drink. I’ve got supplies in the back of one of the trucks and will be distributing them, we’ll take half and hour to eat and drink then move out.”

  She stepped down and Carl took her place.

  “Y’all did good, I want you to take the time to check your equipment while we break. Guns, ammo. Any concerns come and discuss with me, we got more supplies now.”

  As he stepped down Charlie hopped up and addressed them with an odd mixture of nerves and enthusiasm.

  “Look, uh, I’m not really great at this but I wanted to remind you all to check your systems. See where you are with your progression and make sure that your overflow experience is going where you want it. Any questions I’m totally your dude to discuss system builds and David and I can help you out with anything complicated.”

  He stepped down and nobody was surprised when Mark hopped up, his deep voice easily reaching the gathered raiders as he spoke seriously.

  “I know that we have had it pretty easy so far, still check yourself and your buddy for injuries. You can pick up stuff without really noticing. I’m going to be over near Katie during chow and I’ll treat anyone who needs it, so will Danny and Bridget…” the other two with the basic healing magic waved awkwardly “anyway even If it’s trivial grab that heal now so you’re in top shape.”

  Then Sarah jumped up, smiled brightly at them and took her turn.

  “I know everyone is throwing instructions at you guys and gals, I’m not going to give you anything serious, or even anything you need to work on right now. Just, you know, talk to each other. Take the time to get to know a little about the person next to you… We are in this together and the teambuilding theme for the afternoon is ‘how to make friends and brain zombies’ enjoy! Oh and Cammie wants to say something serious too…”

  Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

  Camila then took her place with a fake glare at her friend who stuck her tongue out, causing an outburst of laughter.

  “Madre de Dios, I don’t know why I put up with her. Anyway, on a more serious note I wanted you to think a little about what we did this morning, what worked, what didn’t, what you saw that left you with questions or doubts. Then talk about that with your buddy. If you agree on stuff or just feel strongly come and talk to one of us.”

  Here she gestured to the leadership group before finishing.

  “We will listen and we will adapt based on what you say.”

  Then David was back. A grin on his face.

  “Now you have heard from all of us I wanted to shake things up a little, give you some good news and highlight an opportunity. You all came out here knowing we planned to get stronger. What you didn’t know was that some of us already are.”

  David closed his eyes and started marking allies. The others picked up on the signal and started as well.

  Opening his eyes David continued.

  “We have area buff skills which we will be activating on all of you now. I know you just got used to what you could do without, so now you get a shot in the arm and a boost before we move out. Again, any questions come to one of us.”

  Once that was done David and his friends started to circulate and David found himself remembering Sarah’s advice in private and his response.

  If you want these people to follow you, then you have to lead. That means more than just terrifying combat magic. Talk to them, get to know them, show them the benefits of being a raider.

  Sure Sarah, so how do I make them see all of us as a leadership group not me as King?

  Why you convince everyone to mingle, Charlie, Katie and Mark especially will need a nudge.

  So here they were he thought as he started to mingle, maybe he would get time to eat, maybe not. Still he circulated, knowing that he wanted more people he could trust.

  The assault on the second terminal began almost an hour later. One lesson they would have to learn was that large groups took more organizing and theirs was no exception.

  With David’s spirits leading the way and locating the undead the assault went smoothly at first, The zombies reacted exactly as they expected and they engaged at the entrance to the terminal that he and Billy had been scouting. There were zombies milling around on both levels of road connections and they carved into the upper layer with overlapping Domains reinforcing everyone.

  The momentum of guns and spells was irresistible as the half dozen zombies milling round outside on the upper levels collapsed in a hail of ranged attacks, triggering death screams.

  As more zombies began to emerge from the second terminal and try to find their way up from ground level the raiders began to move up, finally as a large cluster got involved David lashed out.

  “HALT!”

  As always, his magic was brutally efficient, this time he called out immediately after using his magic.

  “Hold fire! Camila, bring the melee fighters up and let’s get these culled.”

  Just like that the tone of the confrontation shifted from tense fight to grinding. David and the others started organizing raiders and trying to make sure that they spread out the gains.

  It became something of a competition with people racing to see how quickly they could kill their assigned targets, there was even a little kill stealing and the mooed quickly got competitive.

  “I bet I could take out half that group by myself without the hand holding!” bragged the winner of the latest impromptu contest.

  “Oh yeah! I doubt it. Without Carl giving you tips you wouldn’t even know how to point that gun at a zombie!”

  “It’s easy to say you’re top tier when David has your back!”

  “I don’t need any of that! Why I bet that if it came down to it, I would be just as effective as David in keeping you chumps safe.”

  Carl spoke softly, just for David to hear.

  “You need to take him up on that. Show off a bit. Most of them have no idea what you’re capable of and you need to build their confidence in us...”

  Swallowing David nodded, it wasn’t how he normally did things, but he understood ‘show not tell’.

  “I’ll take that bet! Bragging rights go to the person who takes out the most zombies from the next group.”

  The loudmouth responded, confidence clearly high and David noted it was one of the few new people they had along, vouched for by one of the existing raiders, who was trying to talk his buddy out of it.

  “Leave me alone man,’” he shook his friend off and kept right on talking “he is acting like hot stuff but all he’s got is that halt spell and a pistol. Hell, even if Carl lent him that SMG I bet I’d still bag more of them.”

  Then he addressed David.

  “We doing this? Let’s make it something proper. I’ve got a nice bottle of scotch at home. It’s yours if you win. If I win, you can scrounge around until you find a matching bottle,” here he dragged it out “or you could acknowledge my skills and value and invite me into your leadership clique”

  His friend was just shaking his head at this point.

  “How many zombies do you want to prove your point?”

  “As many as you can get! I can handle more than you, anyway.”

  David just smiled evilly. Closing his eyes he extended his senses and confirmed what he already knew to be the case. Extended fighting outside the terminal on the elevated arrivals access road had attracted a lot of zombies at ground level that were too dumb to break into the building and find stairs.

  Turning to Carl and the others, he spoke softly. “Follow through with all the raiders and start culling as soon as it is completely clear this bozo has lost.”

  Charlie was the one who spotted what David was planning.

  “Dude, that is a lot of zombies. Like dozens and dozens. All riled up and piled up. You sure you can handle it?”

  David just smiled. “You didn’t see how I won. It loses something in the retelling.”

  Katie just shook her head and cut the others off. “Just let him go, Unless there is another fast zombie another of those creepy rulers he’ll be fine.”

  The braggart was visibly panicking. Still, he tried to brazen it out. They had come down to the foot of the silent escalator and were looking out of the public arrivals space.

  “Uh, man this is a bit much. If you wanted to prove you were going to welch on the bet you could have just backed down.”

  David smiled as he gestured to the wide ground level tarmac area sheltered by the arrivals drop-off.

  “Oh, this seems just fine to me. We wouldn’t want you to be inhibited by a lack of zombies.”

  Through the glass they could see that there were hundreds of zombies gathered, pulled in by the prolonged period of death screams from above, then frustrated by the lack of a hill or other thing to climb to reach their goal.

  Carl gave David a considering look then backed his play.

  “Y’all hear that! David’s confident. Not so sure about this guy. Maybe yer feet are getting a mite cold? Heck, in your shoes I’m not sure I would be up for this either… No shame in admitting this is more than you can handle.”

  The shit eating grin on the guys face told them all that he thought this was a bluff.

  “After you! I’ll even spot you the first move, out of respect for your leadership…”

  The false sincerity showed that he fully expected David to try to equivocate and make him blink.

  Instead, David nodded and jogged towards one of the doors, not making any obvious moves to attract the zombies but clearly not hesitating.

  “Go on! You don’t want him to get too big a head start do you?” Surprisingly it was Katie who twisted the knife.

  The braggart swallowed and mumbled “this is nuts.” Then started to jog forward too, clearly expecting David to pull back before he actually got to the doors and so it was with considerable shock that he saw David plunge through one door, then the closest zombies noticed them and started moving towards them with intent. A ripple spread through the mob as information propagated, unheard by all but one man.

  Then David was through the second door unleashing his magic.

  “HALT!”

  Full power scything through the zombies who were already moving aggressively and tumbled down and paralysis plus momentum did its inevitable work.

  Then David ripped with all his strength invisible tendrils of willpower clenching and tearing at the Nath.