Firestorm
Page 13
Tec nodded in satisfaction, the trace of a smile on his features. "Much more effective than horns. The Aztalans are going to be in for an unpleasant surprise."
"More than you realize," Prince Kilyn said.
More elves moved forward in groups of two, each pair carrying large and clearly heavy bundles of green fabric, all tightly bound. The elves distributed the bundles to the elven section leaders, and Angie smelled oil. The prince unwrapped one of the bundles, opening the cloth and displaying the military assault rifles within, enough for every elf present. Each bag also contained a single heavy machine gun.
Now Tec’s eyes shone with satisfaction. "You have enough ammo?"
"Enough for several days of hard fighting," Prince Kilyn said as more elves carried bandoleers of filled magazines to the section leaders. "There are additional ammo caches all over Imperial Beach. Each warrior knows their location."
"Grenades, explosives?" Tec asked hopefully.
Prince Kilyn shook his head, sighing. "Sadly, no. It's taken us years to find and hoard the weapons and ammo—at considerable cost, I'll add. Even for us, the old ruins can be dangerous, and humans are more than willing to kill for weapons like these, the ones you call Ferals in particular. It's taken us the better part of ten years to scrounge all these weapons and ammunition."
"You've never used them before?" Angie asked. "It's not that easy to hit a target with a rifle."
"We've used them enough," Prince Kilyn said. "Not as much as we'd like, as ammo is hard to come by, but enough to develop basic proficiency. Don't underestimate elven skill with weapons, even human weapons." He knelt beside the open bundle of weapons and drew two assault rifles out and handed one each to Tec and Angie as well as bandoleers of ammunition.
Tec inserted a full magazine into his weapon and worked the action, flashing the elven prince a wide grin. "Let's go give the Aztalans a proper welcome."
Prince Kilyn grinned back and then gripped Tec’s forearm.
Angie sighed as she loaded her own weapon. Only men could be so excited about killing.
Fifteen minutes later, Angie lay prone beside Tec in the upper level of a Tuscany-style ranch house, now little more than a shell surrounded by crumbling walls. From here, they had an unobstructed view into the intersection of 9th Street and Beach Boulevard and the Aztalan brigade moving toward it. The Aztalan soldiers were less than a hundred meters away, scanning their surroundings nervously. The entire company of elven warriors, each armed with an assault rifle, were nearby in other buildings, painstakingly camouflaged so that they were almost invisible. The lead Aztalan scouts had all moved past the prepared fighting positions without suspecting a thing. Other elves had been tasked to deal with the scouts after the fighting started.
Angie gazed over the scope of her rifle, examining the intersection below her. The ruins had once been dense urban sprawl, tightly packed homes, creating a natural barrier but leaving the intersection and much of the street clear of the car wrecks that blocked most other paths. The elves wanted the kill zone clear but the routes out barricaded. She gripped her weapon tightly. The assault rifle was greasy from storage, but she knew the excess gun oil would burn off after the first few shots.
"Keep your eyes open when you fire," Tec said softly from beside her, his gaze locked on the soldiers below. His words were muffled because of the wads of cloth he had insisted she stuff into her ears.
"I know," she whispered back, hearing her own words distorted.
"Be aware of your surroundings. You'd be surprised how focused you become on what's in front of you, and you miss other threats."
"I know."
And she did, in theory at least. She had done all the training with the Home Guard, but because she had never worked as one of Nathan's combat mages, she had rarely been exposed to actual combat. Lately, that had changed.
"Try to count your shots. You'll run out of ammo faster than you realize."
"I know."
This time her words carried a hint of annoyance. And he glanced over the stock of his rifle at her and smiled infuriatingly before returning his attention to the enemy. She forced herself to focus on her breathing, on remaining calm. Any second now.
The first gunshot came as a surprise, causing her to jerk as its retort cracked over the ruined city. She didn't see anyone fall, but the advancing Aztalan soldiers froze. A heartbeat later, Tec began firing beside her, the report surprisingly loud despite the cloth in her ears. She forced herself to do her job, letting her scope's aiming arrow drop onto one of the Aztalan soldiers standing in the open, a young man. She squeezed the trigger, and the scope jumped away from the target, but not before she had seen the man fall back.
Another life taken. How many was that now?
A crescendo of gunshots rang out around her as the elves opened fire, a hundred hidden elves taking aimed shots at an enemy that had nowhere to run. Then a heavy machine gun opened fire from farther away on her left, shockingly loud, followed moments later by another on her right. The machine guns had been placed on the flanks so that they could put enfilade fire directly into the exposed kill zone.
She acquired another target and fired again. This time she wasn't sure if she had hit or not. By now, screams of alarm and panic were coming from the Aztalan soldiers as they realized they were under attack. The Aztalans fell to the ground, lying prone, but there was no cover here, not in a kill zone. She acted by rote, acquiring targets, letting her scope's aiming arrow drop with her breathing, then holding her breath when the indicator stopped in the center of the visible mass of her target and squeezing the target. Sometimes the target dropped right away; sometimes she had to fire three or four times before moving on to a new target.
A part of her remembered that she had fired at least twenty-five rounds, but she couldn't remember exactly. Despite her irritation with Tec's mansplaining, she had lost count after all. She fired three more times before the breech on her weapon locked back—the magazine was empty. She changed mags like a pro and commenced firing again.
The Aztalans were returning fire, but their shots cracked overhead or ricocheted from stone walls. They had only a rough idea of where the ambushers hid. There were dozens of dead Aztalan soldiers in the kill zone now, maybe even a hundred or more, and the remainder milled about in confusion, with officers screaming orders and trying to establish control. Angie switched her aim to one of the officers, but before she could fire, the man's head shattered like a melon, and he fell. She chose another target and shot that one instead. There was only one option when in a kill zone: get off the ‘X,’ go forward or go back, but don’t stay in place. And the enemy must have realized that now, because smoke rose among the Aztalan soldiers as they popped smoke grenades.
An Aztalan soldier holding a rocket-propelled grenade launcher stood in the street below, aiming his weapon at her and Tec. She tried to engage him, but his weapon flashed, and the rocket came right at her. Just before it hit, an explosion of red sparks flashed before her eyes, blinding her. The detonation of the rocket was deafening, the force of the explosion washing over her but leaving both her and Tec unharmed. Once again, the Shade King had shielded her, this time saving Tec’s life as well.
Thank you, she thought.
"Remind me to always fight beside you," Tec yelled, a smile on his handsome features. Before she could answer, they heard a whistling through the air, quickly increasing in intensity. "Incoming!" Tec yelled, throwing himself atop Angie, covering her head with his arm. A moment later, an explosion detonated among the ruins they hid within, casting stones and shrapnel about. More explosions detonated nearby, followed by the whistling of more artillery.
Angie pushed Tec's arm from atop her head and looked about. The Aztalan soldiers were withdrawing under cover of the smoke and artillery fire, leaving their dead and wounded behind. The shells kept raining down around the ambushers, demolishing the buildings. "What do we do?" she asked.
A horn blew, the prearranged call for pulling back.
"Where’s Dodge?" she asked, her heart hammering with excitement.
Just then, another shell detonated less than twenty feet away, and she wrapped her arms around Tec to protect him. Once more, the Shade King created another shield.
"Let's go," Tec said, pulling her along with him.
Prince Kilyn was waiting for them at the rear of the ruins, urging them on. Four elven warriors waited with him, watching all directions. When Angie and Tec reached the prince, he ran along with them, his warriors guarding their rear. They hurried back through the ruins of the city following a predetermined path, quickly moving beyond the shelling. Other elves were pulling back from other ambush sites in other buildings. Some carried wounded. Some carried dead, but far fewer than the Aztalans. The elves had lost barely a handful to hundreds of Aztalan soldiers.
When they were clear, the elves paused to regroup. Prince Kilyn bent over, leaning on his knees and breathing deeply. He wore a dull cuirass of elven Starsheen plate mail, which must have been heavy. Angie saw a dent a half-inch wide in its back where it must have stopped a high-caliber rifle bullet.
Tec clapped the elven prince on the shoulder. "Your people did well. That was as good an ambush as I've ever seen—and I've seen a lot."
"Not ... bad," admitted the prince, panting. "Now we just need to do that about another twenty or thirty more times."
Tec nodded, turning to stare south. The shells had stopped. "Those were 105 mm howitzers, I'd guess, probably old Mexican army. A battery at least. Depending on how much ammo they have, they're going to be a problem."
"Just what I was thinking," the prince said, glaring in the direction from which the shells had come.
Chapter 16
After evening fell, Angie and Tec crowded into the basement of an old Imperial Beach apartment complex lit by flickering torches. They joined Prince Kilyn, fifty of his Phoenix Guard warriors, and a dozen short, blue-skinned and black-bearded Fey with short pointed ears and sharp angular features that gave them the appearance of being perpetually angry. Hobgoblins.
There had been a family of the subterranean-dwelling Fey living in the Fresno Enclave, although she had rarely seen them and never spoken to them. Notoriously shy, they were masters of machinery who rarely interacted with the other Fey, preferring the solitude of the underground. Char had said they were dangerous when provoked.
A single female hobgoblin stood next to Prince Kilyn, wearing a sleeveless black ring-mail vest exposing muscular arms that looked like knotted wood. The rest of her armor was black leather, with studded high boots and a pair of foot-long fighting knives on her hips. Her long dark hair was tightly braided, with each braid strung with bright feathers and silver cords. In each earlobe, she wore at least six gold rings. When she spoke to Prince Kilyn, she exposed a pair of inch-long tusks.
Angie, realizing she was staring, gave herself a shake and followed Tec to where one of the elves was ladling bowls of steaming vegetable stew from a pot to the others. Tec took two of the bowls and thrust one into Angie's hands. "Eat," he ordered.
She sighed, her gaze sharp, but she took the wooden bowl. She was ravenous.
"Sorry. I didn't mean it as an order. I've been alone so long, I'm not much good around others."
She let it go and sipped from the bowl. The hot broth was a joy. They had fought in three other ambushes that afternoon, fighting from a series of preplanned positions. Angie had no idea how many Aztalan soldiers she had killed this day and didn't want to think about it. She was becoming numb to the killing, which worried her. Each of the ambushes had been a success, and the elves had inflicted painful losses on the Aztalans, slowing their advance through the ruins of Imperial Beach to a crawl, but shortly after each ambush, the Aztalan artillery had shelled them, forcing them from their positions while the Aztalans retreated from the ambush. During the last ambush, the Aztalans had gotten lucky, and a shell had landed amid a knot of elven warriors, killing all eight of them. The Aztalan artillery had to be countered.
Which was why they were here.
Angie took her bowl of stew and stood out of the way against one of the walls, with Tec joining her. The floor of the basement was crumbling cement with dusty footprints and rat droppings along the base of the walls. Large round cement support beams held up the ceiling with its exposed rusted-out pipes covered by spiderwebs. Angie eyed the sketchy-looking ceiling as she ate. Against the far wall sat an ancient mustard-colored couch. The stench of rat droppings and mold hung in the air, but Angie forced herself to eat.
At the far end of the basement, just behind Prince Kilyn and the female hobgoblin, stood a six-foot-high, wood-reinforced tunnel entrance. The tunnel, with its thick wooden support beams, looked much more solidly constructed than the basement. It sloped down and disappeared into darkness. Clearly, it was hobgoblin construction. The elves really had been readying themselves for this battle for some time, maybe even years.
Kilyn motioned them to join him and the hobgoblin. As they approached, the hobgoblin watched them critically, her hands resting on the hilts of her wide knives. Prince Kilyn nodded. "This is Tunwak Foefell. She and her people are—"
"Hobgoblins," Angie said. "There was a family living in Fresno."
"Still lives in Fresno," said Tunwak in a strange high-pitched voice. "The Stone-biters. Cousins." She extended her large, dirty hand to Angie. Angie shook the hobgoblin’s hand, forcing herself not to wince. When Tunwak let go of Angie's hand to shake Tec's, Angie rubbed her fingers.
"The howitzers?" Tec asked.
The prince looked to Tunwak, who began speaking. "We have been readying ourselves here in the ruins of Imperial Beach for some years. The queen has long known this invasion must come."
"I can see that," said Angie. "The ambush sites were well prepared." Up close, she saw that the hobgoblin's eyes were scarlet.
"And my people and I have dug scores of tunnels beneath Imperial Beach, crisscrossing the ruins. We can come out in dozens of locations behind the Aztalan forces."
"You haven't used them yet?" Tec asked. "Why not?"
Prince Kilyn answered. "Because the first time we do, the Aztalans will realize that we can get behind them and will double their security. We need to make the first use count."
Tec nodded. "Makes sense."
Tunwak tossed her head in the direction of the tunnel. "This passage goes beneath the ruins for two kilometers and comes out south of the hills near the old airport, where the Aztalans have set up their headquarters and logistics depot."
"And their artillery?" Tec asked.
"My scouts have already located them," the prince said. "They even managed to get close enough to count them—six cannons and an entire tent filled with ammunition."
Angie's concern spiked. "If you're going to attack their main headquarters, you're going to need a much larger assault force. It'll be defended by hundreds of soldiers and Tzitzime mages." She looked about at the elves and hobgoblins in the basement. "You can't do it with a handful of Phoenix Guards. There's no way."
"Not just the Phoenix Guards," said Tunwak. "My people will fight as well."
"I'm not questioning your bravery, just your numbers." Angie shook her head, a heavy feeling in the pit of her stomach. "They'll cut you apart. It'll take several hundred fighters at least. And even then, the Aztalans will counterattack with their reserves. You'll have twenty minutes at best, maybe less."
"We don't have several hundred fighters to spare," said Prince Kilyn. "Not if we want to defend the Silver Strand. All we have is what you see."
"It won't work," Angie insisted. "You'll get them all killed."
"Have faith, daughter of Chararah Succubus," the prince said. "My mother's magic will create a thick fog this night. It will mask our approach, cover our attack. By the time the Aztalans recognize the threat, we will be among them."
"She can do that?" Angie asked in surprise. The more she lea
rned of Fey magic, the more she realized how little the Fey taught humans. Chararah had never even hinted that one could create fog.
The elven prince glanced at the silver chain holding the glass rose that Angie wore. The rose was hidden beneath her shirt, but the chain was still visible. "My mother was being modest when she talked of her collection of magical talismans. The Horn of Vajja can indeed call forth fog, but blowing the horn will weaken my mother, leave her vulnerable for days. Trust me, I'd prefer she not take the chance, but we need to deal with those guns."
Tec placed his hand on Angie’s shoulder, the touch light and reassuring. "Normally, I'd agree with Angie, but if Queen Elenaril can do this thing..."
"She can do this thing," the prince said.
"It would still be best to wait until three or four in the morning, when most of their soldiers will be asleep."
"Can't wait," said Prince Kilyn unhappily. "Those guns are pounding us. We had hoped to fight in these ruins for a week or more, but that's not possible now. If we wait any longer, they'll start bombarding our defensive position on the Silver Strand, and if they drive us from the strand, the Aztalans will take the island before my people can get away. I'm afraid we're out of time. We need to go within the hour. My mother will create a fog when the sun goes below the sea, very soon now. We move underground and come out in the hills overlooking the airport and their artillery battery and depot—"
"And their headquarters, and likely a thousand soldiers," Angie said.
"And their headquarters and a thousand soldiers," acknowledged the elf. "But the battery and depot are separated from the headquarters camp by almost a half kilometer. Probably because of the noise when the cannons fire. In the fog, if we hit the depot next to the guns—"