Chapter 29 No Democracy No Dictatorship!

“Democracy?” Magnus Vane repeated, his voice rising as he stared at Lori.

“You think a walker cares whether everybody got a vote first?

When one of those things is ten feet away from your kid, are you going to call a meeting and ask everyone how they feel about it?” His tone was harsh, but he made no effort to soften the point.

Lori’s face paled slightly under the pressure of his stare.

Magnus tightened his grip on the Stone Sledgehammer and continued, “There are situations where people need to decide together, and there are situations where somebody has to act before everyone dies.

That’s why police departments, fire crews, and the military use chains of command during emergencies.

When the danger is already standing in front of you, hesitation gets people killed.” “Don’t take it out on her,” Shane said.

He stepped between Magnus and Lori, blocking Magnus’s direct line of sight.

Shane’s eyes narrowed, carrying the same warning he had given Magnus during their conversation beside the fire engine the night before.

“She’s worried about her kid.

That doesn’t give you the right to get in her face.” Magnus tilted his head.

A quiet crack came from his neck.

“And what exactly are you going to do about it?” Instead of trying to argue with Shane, Magnus dragged the Stone Sledgehammer forward until the two men stood barely a few inches apart.

At roughly six-foot-three, Magnus was already imposing, and the massive weapon beside him made the confrontation look even worse.

Everyone there had seen what that hammer did to walker skulls.

Nobody needed to imagine very hard what the same weight could do to a living person.

Merle swallowed and immediately stepped forward.

“All right, big man, that’s enough.” He caught Magnus by the arm and tried to pull him back.

“This ain’t worth turning the whole damn camp upside down over.” For once, nobody seemed particularly offended by Merle’s wording.

His intention was obvious: he was trying to stop a fight before it started.

Glenn moved closer to Lori and gave Shane a light tap on the shoulder, silently telling him not to escalate either.

Daryl, however, stayed exactly where he was.

His eyes were on Magnus’s hands.

Magnus was holding the sledgehammer backward.

Daryl noticed immediately.

At this distance, the heavy stone head was actually a terrible choice for striking Shane.

Magnus would have needed room to swing it properly, yet he had closed the gap instead.

If he genuinely wanted to hurt Shane, a fist, elbow, or even the hammer handle would have been faster.

Daryl narrowed his eyes.

“He ain’t gonna hit him.” The realization stayed in his head.

Magnus was applying pressure.

Nothing more.

Daryl was right.

Magnus had never intended to smash Shane with the Stone Sledgehammer.

The confrontation with Lori had given him exactly the opportunity he expected after Shane’s warning the previous night.

Magnus knew Shane’s personality well enough to predict that the moment Lori felt threatened, Shane would step between them.

This was the first step.

Magnus wanted to see whether Shane would stand his ground when the person across from him wasn’t intimidated.

Merle’s intervention gave Magnus a convenient way to end the confrontation without either man visibly backing down.

Magnus exhaled and allowed the tension in his shoulders to fade.

He gave Shane one final look before dragging the Stone Sledgehammer back and planting it upright beside himself.

Shane stayed silent, though his expression remained guarded.

Magnus turned toward the rest of the group.

“I don’t know exactly how Rick’s group handled every decision while we were apart,” he said.

“But I’ll tell you how I’ve handled things with the people traveling with me.

If somebody refuses every plan, won’t contribute, and keeps putting everyone else in danger, I’m not forcing them to stay.” His voice softened slightly.

“And if they choose to work with the group, they get everything that comes with being part of it.” Magnus spread one hand toward the farm.

Food.

Water.

Shelter.

Weapons.

A defended campsite.

A fire engine loaded with supplies.

The evidence was already sitting around them.

Several people instinctively looked toward Daryl, Merle, Andrea, and Amy.

Since leaving the quarry, none of the four had gone hungry, been forced to sleep exposed on the roadside, or spent days running blindly from one disaster to another.

Their route hadn’t been perfectly safe, but Magnus had consistently found a way to keep them moving forward.

Rick’s group couldn’t say the same.

They had chosen the CDC together, only for the facility to become a temporary refuge that nearly turned into their grave.

After escaping, they had been thrown back onto the road, lost Jacqui, nearly lost Sophia, and arrived at Hershel’s farm exhausted and low on supplies.

Nobody blamed Rick for all of that, but the contrast was impossible to ignore.

Then there were the motorcycles.

Magnus had taken only Daryl and Merle into a compound occupied by far more people, recovered both stolen bikes, and brought both brothers back alive.

Later he had spent two days scavenging alone and returned with enough supplies to fill much of a fire engine.

Even Hershel, despite regularly arguing with Magnus, trusted him enough to allow his group to remain on the property.

Magnus had also given them a destination.

The prison.

For the first time in days, everyone could imagine something beyond surviving until tomorrow.

That mattered.

Still, Magnus had no interest in turning the camp into a dictatorship.

He looked toward Lori again, his expression calmer now.

“I understand why you reacted the way you did.

Nobody here wants to put Carl, Sophia, Beth, or any other kid in front of a walker.” Lori’s shoulders loosened slightly.

“But teaching a child how to survive isn’t the same as sending them into a fight,” Magnus continued.

“I’m not talking about handing Carl a knife and pushing him into a room full of walkers.

I’m talking about teaching him how to move, when to run, where to strike if there’s no escape, how to use a firearm safely when he’s old enough to handle one, and what mistakes will get him killed.” Carol looked down at Sophia.

Hershel glanced toward Beth.

Andrea’s eyes moved briefly toward Amy before returning to Magnus.

Even Lori’s expression began to change.

“Overprotecting them won’t freeze the world until they grow up,” Magnus said.

“One day, one of us might not be standing beside them.

If that happens, I’d rather they know what to do than spend their last few seconds waiting for somebody to save them.” That argument landed very differently.

These weren’t helpless adults teaching children things they barely understood.

Rick and Shane had both worked as King County sheriff’s deputies and knew firearm safety, basic tactics, and how to stay functional under pressure.

Daryl and Merle had spent much of their lives hunting and tracking, while Glenn understood how to move through walker-infested areas without drawing attention.

Andrea had already fought walkers with a handgun.

Dale knew firearms.

Maggie had shown she could handle herself.

And Magnus was becoming terrifyingly effective with close-range weapons.

Together, they possessed more practical survival knowledge than most scattered groups would ever find in one place.

Lori slowly looked down at Carl.

Maybe refusing to let him learn anything at all wasn’t protecting him.

Maybe it only meant he would be completely unprepared the first time she and Rick weren’t there.

Carl, meanwhile, looked far less conflicted.

He had been wanting to learn for days.

Rick finally spoke.

“I can handle firearms training.” His eyes moved around the group.

“Safety first.

Nobody touches a loaded gun until I’m satisfied they understand exactly what they’re doing.” Shane glanced toward him but didn’t object.

Daryl nodded once.

“I can teach tracking.

Crossbow too, eventually.” “Same here,” Merle added, though several people looked significantly less enthusiastic about letting Merle instruct children unsupervised.

Magnus almost smiled.

That was what he wanted.

Not blind obedience.

Participation.

Everyone taking responsibility for keeping the group alive.

Rick breathed out slowly, relieved that the confrontation had finally shifted back into something productive.

He hated internal conflict, but Magnus had forced a question Rick himself had been avoiding since Atlanta.

How much could a group really function by putting every urgent decision to discussion?

There was value in hearing everyone.

There was also a time when somebody had to lead.

Rick had already learned that much.

If a walker broke through the perimeter at two in the morning, nobody was going to gather around the campfire and vote on who should kill it.

If supplies ran out during an escape, the group couldn’t spend an hour debating every turn in the road.

Survival sometimes required a decision before everyone had time to feel comfortable with it.

But that didn’t mean Magnus should rule everyone either.

And Magnus knew it.

He rested both hands on the Stone Sledgehammer and looked around the group.

“So no, I’m not asking for a dictatorship.

And I’m not interested in twenty people voting on whether someone is allowed to defend themselves.” His eyes moved across the survivors one last time.

“We discuss what we can.

When there’s time, everybody gets a voice.” Magnus paused.

“When there isn’t time, whoever is responsible makes the call.” Nobody argued.

For the first time that morning, the plan was becoming clear.

Before they went anywhere near the prison, this collection of survivors was going to become a team.