Viking's Way - Part 24

After a few minutes of talking about their plans to moving, Artur notices Charly coming from the outside, with his blade all bloody. The soldier, when he looked at the man wearing traditional Viking clothes, he felt goose bumps. He saw no fear in the man eyes. He looks over to the people who were with him in this journey, he sees all of them without any fear or retaliation, like they know him for ages and not only three days.

When Sigurd left the tent, he is looking at Charly. Sigurd opens the tent door for him and he tells him he can go and talk to the commander in order to request something. Before Artur could've entered the tent, the soldier stopped him, and tells him to let the weapons outside. Listening to the orders, Charly lets the blade he always uses, the dagger, and a pistol to the soldier and he enters the tent.

"What is with this dude?" asks the soldier surprised to the three people.

"He's on his own world. Don't mind him." says Sigurd to the soldier.

Inside the tent, Charly is prepared to face the man in charge to this squad and asks him a favour. The favour is going to be beneficial to Charly community on the other side of Sweden, at the borders of Norway. And to be sure this deal will be done, he is preparing at least fifty percentage cuts from the cargo to the Army Squad.

"Hello, sir!" says Charly in English to be sure the Commander in front of him does speak English.

"Hello!" says the Commander in Sweden language. "Don't worry about language. I am Sweden, just like you."

"Great." says Charly on Swedish language. "I come here to make an offer."

"What offer are we speaking?" asks the commander to Charly who sit on the seat were Sigurd, Edla and Artur sit earlier.

"It is about one truck that is crashed at a few kilometres from here. It is kept safe by my sister and it contains probably a few thousands of kilograms worth of supplies such as food, clothing and things that can be used as a close combat weapons." he looks at the other three soldiers, who are near the commander, they are listening to this offer Charly states. "I understand your people need resources so I am making this deal. I offer fifty percentage of the supplies inside the damaged truck in exchange for a working truck with gas."

"Fifty percentage, you say?" asks the commander interested in this deal. "How about twenty?"

"Sir." says a soldier to the commander.

"It is a precaution measure, Soldier Abraham." says the Commander. "We need supplies in the worst-case scenarios where we will be lost communication with the Artificial Islands. If it happens like last time when some of our communication device became useless for a few weeks." he looks at Charly and he asks him. "Twenty? You in?"

"Make it eighty. I have people in my community that need supplies."

"You have a community?" says the Commander sounding interested in this information. "You are many over there?"

"Yes. We are a community that decided to dress as Vikings and try to disconnect from this world. Most of us are acting as Vikings to play our role, or we just dress as them and stay together, protecting our world."

"There were people from the group of yours that want to come to Military areas?"

"No, sir. Most of them decided to throw away this idea and do their thing, until everything comes back to normal."

The commander is looking at Charly, he doesn't believe there are people in this world who decides to rely on themselves, rather to rely on the technology. But this is also not so surprising for the commander, he knew there are people who would rather ignore military help and defend themselves with anything they got on their hands against these brain-dead creatures. He looks at Charly, and after he sighed he tells him.

"Fine. Eighteen percent remains. And a working truck." he looks at the soldier who was talking earlier. "Soldier Abraham!"

"Yes, sir!" says Soldier Abraham doing a salute to the commander.

"Go and get a working truck to this base. Immediately!"

"Sir! Yes, sir!" say Soldier Abraham, leaving this tent.

Before Charly could have left his seat, he looks at the Commander and says to him.

"Good luck! May Odin be with you!" as he does a salute to him in the Viking style to show respect, and he leaves the tent, following the Soldier Abraham.

"That person is insane." says a soldier next to the Commander.

"He is not." says the commander. "He is living on a different world from us."

The commander raises up from his seat, he walks outside the tent, and he goes for a walk around the base, checking to see the status of this palace at their soldiers and survivors. But he decides to abandon his plan because outside there were some raindrops falling from the sky, and this indicates one of the weird scenarios were zombies rises up from the ground, are running around, and then are falling "dead" on the grounds.

***

The plan of taking a truck has to be stopped for Charly because the raindrops have started to drop at a faster rate and heavier indicating a possible rainstorm approaching to this zone. Earlier there was a rain, but a small one, most likely insignificant and impossible to make the zombies raises from their ground and walk around. Charly remains on a tent, were a few soldiers have gathered around him, and from those soldiers is also Ronald with Charlie, all of them wanted to hear a story from him and the other three survivors.

"…And we faced at least hundreds of zombies." says Charly telling the eleven gathered soldiers with cups of water, drinks and food near a lamp. "But me and with other seven Vikings, my kind of people, have killed the heads of all of those zombies."

"Wow…" said a soldier amazed by the adventure Charly has gone through. "You and only the seven people have killed all zombies from Uppsala?"

"Not everyone." says Charly taking a drink from the cup of tea it was served by him. "You see, even if you kill all zombies by the heads, they still are going to get up. So, we tried to burn them. It worked as you can see. But, we only used it once."

"Why?" asks Ronald to Charly.

"Burning something on a huge scale requires resources, and we didn't want to expend this fire to take over all of the city. Plus, we could've by mistake kill some unlucky survivors."

Charly is looking at his teammates, who have also listened to his story on how he, Charlotta and other five Vikings have killed hundreds of zombies only using axes, swords and hammers. This is the second time they listen to this story because the first time it was told to them when they were trapped in that building, and blocked by some hordes of zombies who were heading to this base.

"Where did you get the sword?" asks a soldier to Charly, seeing the sword of the Viking leaning to the wall next to the body of that man.

"I've crafted myself." says Charly. "It took me almost four days to made it, but the moment I made by tenth blade in my life, I decided to keep it for myself."

"You are making swords?"

"Also, maces, shields. knives and many more weapons."

"You could also make weapons for us?" asks Ronald raising his hand and looks at Charly.

"Probably. I mean. I can try, but materials for swords are hard to be found. Maybe someone from the group of yours can speak with a commander or boss, or whatever you call it. To make a trade with us. I will give you weapons in exchange for food and clothing. If you'd can."

"How about two crates medium size of food." says Ronald.

"How much is that?"

"About thirty kilograms of food each."

"I am interested." says Charly toward Ronald. "What's your name?"

"Ronald."

"Ey, Ronald. When you are interested to get some good crafted weapons, come over near the border of Norway. And bring food or whatever we might consider great addition to us."

Then, the commander enters the big tent where every single soldier has entered it. He is soaked in rain and is feeling tired. He goes over to the table were some food is placed for the people of this base. He takes from there a few apples and leave the tent, heading to one of the empty buildings that are used as a house. The commander did not even try to speak to the soldiers when they saluted him or stated their status on the base to him. This behaviour was normal for the soldiers. The commander is always like that before the sunset comes.