Crockett joined her at the rope. “Get everyone into the trees! Then take them to the cabins! That’s where our second line of defense will be!”
“Will do!” Sherry swung the M.A.C. 10 over her right arm by its small shoulder strap, then grabbed the rope and swung her body over the edge of the wall. She wrapped her legs around the stout rope and began descending hand over hand to the water below.
The sounds of gunfire from the outer side of the wall momentarily abated.
Sherry’s feet touched the surface of the slowly flowing moat. She was thankful she was a hardy swimmer, because the moat was 8 feet deep and 20 feet wide.
“Hurry!” Crockett shouted from up above.
She glanced upward and saw him grinning at her. She smiled and waved.
Crockett’s forehead abruptly disintegrated as a slug tore through his head from back to front. He stiffened, dropped his Beretta, and fell from the rampart.
Sherry opened her mouth to scream. For an instant, she thought he was going to land on her.
Crockett’s buckskin-clad form crashed into the moat two feet to her left, showering her with water and causing her to bounce and sway.
Sherry released the rope and eased into the moat. She sank up to her neck, then began furiously swimming toward the far bank. There was no need to check on Crockett; his brains no longer occupied his body.
Someone was splashing about, agitating the water a few feet to her left.
Sherry paused in midstroke and surveyed the moat.
Over a dozen other defenders, members of the Family and the Clan, were in the process of traversing the moat. Some of them were poor swimmers, as evidenced by their pathetic efforts to stay afloat. One black-haired woman was simply doing the dog paddle in the middle of the stream.
“Hurry!” Sherry called to them, and struck out for the wooded shoreline.
The surface of the moat, not six inches from her face, suddenly was riddled by a series of miniature geysers.
Sherry looked over her left shoulder, up at the wall.
Seven troopers had scaled the outer wall and were rapidly firing at the helpless defenders navigating the moat.
No!
She could feel an intense pain in her left shoulder, but she suppressed the torment and pressed on, her supple form cleaving the water in smooth, even strokes.
Somewhere, a man was screeching in terror.
A woman chimed in, her plaintive cry terminating in a loud, protracted gurgling noise.
The bank loomed ahead. The top of the inner bank was three inches above the surface of the moat. Tiny wavelets, created by the commotion in the stream, washed over the top of the bank.
She was almost there!
Someone else was screaming in anguish as the soldiers on the wall maintained their withering fusillade.
Sherry’s fingers touched the hard ground forming the inner bank, and she clutched at the weeds and grass lining the bank with all of her strength.
A section of earth near her right hand exploded in a fine spray of dirt and grass as a trooper on the wall tried to gun her down.
Move! she told herself.
Sherry scrambled from the moat, keeping low, crawling forward on her hands and knees, expecting at any second to feel the brutal impact of a bullet in her back. Incredibly, she reached a tangle of brush and trees and dodged behind a wide trunk.
Several slugs smacked into the tree.
She paused, gathering her breath, and gazed around the trunk at the east wall and the moat.
Bodies of men and women were bobbing in the moat, while others wildly tried to reach the bank. On the wall above, 15 to 20 soldiers were pouring lead at the swimmers. Bodies were heaped on the rampart, troopers and defenders alike. Resistance on the rampart itself had ceased.
With one notable exception.
Fascinated, astounded, and emotionally moved to her core, Sherry saw one defender still up on the wall, a stirring, solitary figure fighting with the force of ten.
Samson.
He was still striving to hold the breach. Soldiers were surging over the parapet to his right and left, but not one of them was getting through the breach. His Bushmaster Auto Rifle apparently empty, he was using it as a club, swinging it by the barrel, the stock smashing into any trooper foolhardy enough to come within range of his muscular arms.
Even as Sherry watched, Samson clipped a soldier in the jaw and sent him plunging from the ladder. He dropped the Auto Rifle and drew his Bushmaster Auto Pistols, one in each hand, and spun, firing a blast into the soldiers approaching from the north. In a twinkling, he whirled and blasted a group of troopers closing on him from the south.
Sherry pressed the knuckles of her right hand against her mouth, inwardly praying he would prevail over his foes, but knowing the odds were too steep.
Samson turned, shooting at soldiers to his north again, and at that moment, when his attention was distracted from the breach, a pair of troopers stormed over the lip of the wall, squeezing under the barbed wire, and pounced, not bothering to use their M-16’s. They leaped onto Samson, one on each arm, and tried to wrestle him to the rampart. They were like chipmunks attempting to subdue a mighty grizzly. With a shrug of his broad shoulders, Samson threw the soldiers from him. He shot one of them in the face; the other he kicked in the chest, knocking him into the moat.
Sherry became conscious of other defenders crouching near her, their attention likewise riveted on the tableau on the east wall.
Samson downed four more troopers, and then the inevitable happened.
He was hit.
A soldier rose up over the top of the wall, his M-16 pressed to his right shoulder, and fired at point-blank range.
Samson was struck in the chest. The force of the bullets striking his body caused him to stumble backward. His arms waving in an effort to retain his balance, he hovered on the brink of the wall for a second, and then fell from the rampart into the moat.
He didn’t come up.
Sherry, dumbstruck, backed away from the vicinity of the moat. Dear Spirit, no! Not Samson!
“What should we do?” whispered someone to her immediate right.
Sherry rapidly blinked her eyes, trying to focus, to collect her wits.
There was 10 to 15 defenders in the woods around her, all of them eagerly awaiting her instructions.
“Head for the cabins in the center of the Home,” she advised them.
“We’re going to make a stand there.”
They started to move off.
“Wait!” she commanded them.
They stopped, staring at her.
Sherry glanced over her right shoulder at the east wall, the enormity of their situation, the gravity of their danger, fully sinking home.
The east wall had fallen!
The Home was vulnerable! The soldiers could spread out, via the rampart, to the other walls.
No!
She couldn’t allow that!
“Listen,” she said to the defenders surrounding her, “here’s what we’re going to do…”
Chapter Seventeen
Day three of the siege.
Ninety minutes after the barrage began.
The south wall.
“Hold them!” Carter bellowed. “Hold them!”
So far, the defenders on the south wall had managed to hold their own.
Bodies of fallen troopers were piled at the outer base of the wall. Very few of the soldiers had attained the top of the wall, and those who did were promptly shot to ribbons.
The south wall ran from east to west. Carter stood in the middle of the wall, urging the defenders on. Gideon was posted at the east end of the wall, while Ares had been assigned to the west end. As a testimony to his renowned savagery, the largest concentration of enemy dead was under his section of the wall.
“They’re running!” someone shouted.
Sure enough, the soldiers were falling back to regroup for another assault. The air was filled with smoke and an acrid stench.
>
Ares jogged along the rampart to Carter, his Colt AR-15 in his hands, his short sword dangling from his leather belt. His crest of red hair was caked with dust.
“How is our ammo holding up?” Carter asked him.
“We still have plenty,” Ares responded in his deep voice.
Carter ran his left hand through his curly blond hair, his green eyes glancing to the west and the north. “I wonder how the other walls are doing.”
The sounds of battle emanated from every direction.
“Do you want me to have one of our people check?” Ares offered.
“No,” Carter replied. “We need everyone for their next attack.” He paused. “How many do we have left?”
“Forty-three,” Ares answered.
Carter scanned the rampart. “I’m amazed we’ve held them this long.”
Ares checked the magazine in his Colt AR-15. “If we repulse them again, they may call it quits for the day. They must have lost seventy-five to a hundred men on our side of the Home alone.”
“I don’t—” Carter began to speak.
“Here they come!” a woman shouted.
The troopers were making for the south wall again.
“Look!” Carter exclaimed. “They’re trying a new tack.”
Ares calmly gazed at the horde of soldiers descending on the Home.
They evidently had a new trick up their collective sleeve. Instead of fanning out, dispersing their forces the length of the wall and clashing with the defenders on a wide front, the troopers were organized into a massive column, and the column was heading directly toward the center of the south wall. They were gambling their superior numbers would enable them to breeze up and over the wall before the defenders could rally.
The soldiers were wrong.
“Bring everyone in to the middle!” Carter ordered Ares. He raised his Springfield M1A to his right shoulder and sighted on the front ranks of the enemy. “On my command!” he yelled to the defenders nearest him.
The converging troopers were firing at the wall as they ran, an extremely difficult task, and most of their volleys were missing.
About 30 yards separated the south wall from the soldiers.
“Fire!” Carter barked.
The defenders unleashed a terrific rain of lead on the soldiers.
Screaming and stumbling as they went down, the first rows collapsed, tripping those behind them, and momentarily halting the enemy advance.
Carter aimed at a group of six troopers and raked them with a steady burst. He could see their bodies jerking as the bullets struck home.
A male defender to Carter’s right shrieked as the right side of his head was blown away.
The soldiers recovered from their initial confusion and closed on the south wall. They threw 14 assault ladders up against the central section, and the troopers promptly started to climb the ladders.
Carter leaned forward, exposing himself from the waist up, and fired at the soldiers nearest the wall.
Other defenders, in response to Ares, who was moving along the wall from west to east, began to arrive at the middle portion and added their firepower to the general melee.
The troopers at the outer base of the south wall were peppering the lip of the wall with gunfire, their effectiveness diluted by the intervening parapet.
A burly soldier was almost to the top of a ladder to Carter’s left.
Carter aimed the M1A and squeezed the trigger, then cursed his stupidity because the gun was empty. He swung the M1A over his left shoulder by its strap, and drew his stainless steel Guardian-SS Auto Pistols. The right Guardian bucked in his hand as he fired.
The burly soldier grabbed at his face, screamed, and toppled from the ladder.
A woman to Carter’s left was hit in the chest and flung from the rampart.
More troopers were nearing the top of the wall.
Carter realized the distinct drawback to having barbed wire attached to the top of the wall; it might hinder any invaders in clearing the top of the wall, but it also prevented the defenders from reaching down and shoving the ladders to the ground.
Another soldier to Carter’s right had his hands on the lip of the parapet.
Carter shot him in the ear.
The hapless trooper stiffened and fell, knocking off one of his companions on a lower rung.
Carter crouched and replaced the Guardians in their holsters. He hastily pulled a fresh magazine from his left rear pocket and reloaded the MIA.
Ares and Gideon were approaching from the east, Gideon’s shorter legs having to take three steps to every one made by his giant peer.
Ares reached Carter’s side first. He leaned out and blasted the soldiers with his AR-15.
The defenders were now packed along the center section of the wall, pouring their lethal barrage into the troopers nonstop.
“We’re holding them!” Carter cried, elated.
Something sailed over the top of the wall, a smallish circular object, its metallic surface glinting in the sunlight.
Gideon spotted it before the rest. As a Warrior, he was familiar with dozens upon dozens of armaments. He had studied countless books in the Family library on diverse weapons, from ancient times to the years preceding World War III. He recognized the object hurtling in their direction, and he instinctively took three steps and caught it in his left hand.
Carter had identified the object too. “Throw it!” he shouted at Gideon.
Gideon started to comply, but a shot from below caught him high on his chest, on the left side, and staggered him, causing him to drop the Uzi.
He lurched to the inner edge of the rampart, his moccasins hanging over the brink.
Carter dove for his friend, trying to grip Gideon’s legs and yank him to safety. His gaze fell on Gideon’s face, and even as he missed his grip, Gideon’s brown eyes locked on Carter’s green in a silent farewell. Carter’s frantic fingers were an inch from Gideon’s brown trousers when Gideon sank over the rim.
Gideon smiled as he fell.
“Gideon!” Carter screamed.
Gideon was ten feet above the moat when the grenade detonated. The explosion rocked the south wall.
Carter, near the edge of the rampart, felt something wet and cool splatter over his face. His ears were ringing and the left one was bleeding.
He wiped his right hand across his face, and his palm came away coated with blood, bits of flesh, and tiny pieces of Gideon’s green wool shirt and brown trousers.
“Are you all right?” Ares reached down and hauled Carter to his feet.
Aghast at the demise of his fellow Warrior and partner, Carter numbly nodded.
Ares stared at a growing red stain on the surface of the moat. “He died saving us,” he said solemnly.
The firing along the wall was abating as the soldiers began to retreat.
“We’ve held them again!” Ares stated.
Carter was gawking at his right palm.
“Why haven’t they used grenades before this?” Ares asked, hoping to divert Carter’s attention.
“Hickok told me last night,” Carter said, mumbling, “their army is… ill-equipped. They have a shortage of a lot of things. I think the Civilized Zone’s industrial output is minimal. The area they control doesn’t contain the natural resources they need…” He paused, his lips quivering.
“Are you all right?” Ares repeated.
Carter looked at the fleeing troopers. “You bastards!” he yelled, enraged. “You’ll pay for this! I promise you!”
Ares saw a solitary soldier, 75 yards from the wall, elevate his M-16 and fire.
Carter abruptly straightened and gasped.
A ragged red hole had appeared between his green eyes.
Ares dropped his AR-15 and seized Carter by the shoulder before the blond man could plunge from the rampart. “Carter?”
Carter’s mouth was twisted in a wry grin. He tried to speak, but his mouth formed soundless words. His breath expelled from his body in a prolo
nged, raspy wheeze, his back arched, and he died, his lifeless green eyes staring blankly at Ares.
“Good-bye, old friend,” the tall Warrior said sadly. “I will miss you. Someday we will be together in the worlds on high.”
“Here they come again!” a nearby man cried in alarm.
The soldiers were advancing across the field for yet another go at the south wall.
Ares gently lowered Carter to the rampart, retrieved his AR-15, and stood, his thin lips compressed tightly, his brow furrowed in mounting anguish commingled with sheer rage. He glared at the troopers in the field. They were going to pay for what they had done! They had killed his two best friends and Triad mates! By the Spirit, they were going to pay!
“On my command,” Ares shouted, raising the AR-15 to his shoulder.
Chapter Eighteen
Day three of the siege.
Two hours after the barrage began.
The north wall.
There was a temporary lull in the fighting at the north wall, although the continuing sounds of combat could be heard from the other walls.
“The Spirit smiles on us,” Seiko said, using a phrase frequently heard from Family members.
“How do you mean?” inquired Shane, his brown eyes watching the distant forest for sign of another assault. His black clothes were filthy from the accumulated smoke, dirt, and his own sweat. He held a Galil Model 361, which had been converted to full auto, in his weary hands.
The defenders on the north wall had successfully repulsed three waves of soldiers. Dead troopers littered the field and were piled along the outer base of the wall.
Like the youthful Shane, Seiko’s Oriental-style black clothing, especially constructed by the Family Weavers using photographs in the martial arts books in the library as a guideline, was caked with dust and grime. “We have it easier than the other walls,” he said.
“We do?” Shane rejoined.
Seiko pointed at a large ditch located 20 yards from the north wall.
This ditch was six feet across and four feet deep. It served as an emergency runoff tributary for the stream entering the Home. The west end of the ditch connected to the stream just north of the compound.
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