The defenders were now fighting a containing action along the wall.
Many were embroiled in hand-to-hand combat.
One of the troopers was striving to lance a bayonet into Seiko. His Velmet empty and discarded, Seiko held a pair of sai in his hands, trident-like bladed weapons twenty inches in length. He dodged a stab of the bayonet and twisted, ramming his left sai into the soldier’s neck.
Without missing a beat, he wrenched the sai free and went after another soldier.
“Look out!” a woman screamed.
Hickok turned toward the wall of corpses, dropping the Daewoo.
A trooper was aiming his M-16 at the gunman, but he never pulled the trigger. The top of his head vanished in a burst of crimson, hair, and flesh.
Sherry reached the gunman’s side. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
Hickok drew his Pythons and sent a slug crashing through the brain of a soldier almost over the wall of bodies.
The onrushing troopers were beginning to knock openings in the corpse wall. Some of the more enterprising soldiers bore to the right and the left as they crossed the moat. They realized that the wall of their fallen comrades only extended for 30 yards along the inner bank, and decided to take the path of least resistance and charge around the ends of the wall rather than take on the defenders in the middle.
Hickok saw he was being outflanked and smiled.
Perfect!
It was all going according to his plan!
Now for the hard part.
“Fall back!” he yelled, waving his arms. “Fall back!”
The defenders, with only 31 left of the original 53, sprinted to the east, abandoning the corpse wall, firing as they ran.
The soldiers, on seeing the defenders retreating, gave a great shout and rushed forward, swirling over the wall of bodies and surging around both ends.
“Hurry!” Hickok goaded his fighters.
The compound was partially obscured by the haze and gunsmoke.
Several of the defenders tripped as they ran.
One of them was Sherry.
Hickok heard her cry out and spun.
Sherry was on her knees, her left leg twisted under her, her back to the charging troopers.
One of them was almost on her. He was drawing back his M-16 for a lunge with his bayonet when Seiko appeared out of the smoke. He blocked the thrust of the bayonet and countered with his right sai, sinking it to the hilt in the soldier’s chest.
Hickok was already in motion. He reached Sherry’s side and hauled her to her feet. “Come on!” His eyes caught Seiko’s, and in that fleeting instant he conveyed the depth of his gratitude with the expression on his face and the relief in his blue eyes.
Seiko smiled and nodded… and staggered as a bullet penetrated his head from behind, exiting his cranium between the eyes.
“Seiko!” Sherry screamed.
Seiko stiffened and fell.
Hickok, his left arm supporting the woman he loved, spotted a trooper 15 yards off, an M-16 pressed to his left shoulder. The gunman fired his right Python as the M-16 cracked, and Hickok felt his right sleeve tugged by an invisible hand.
The soldier was flung backward to the unyielding turf.
“Let’s go!” Hickok hurried now, forcing his injured left thigh to cooperate with his body.
The troopers had knocked over the corpse wall, and hundreds of them were running pell-mell after the fleeing defenders, bearing due east.
How many yards more? The smoke hid the earthen breastwork from view, but Hickok knew the hastily constructed, breast-high dirt fortification couldn’t be more than ten yards ahead. Hickok had kept the defenders up all night working on the breastwork, digging in shifts, and none of them had slept a wink.
Where the blazes was it?
Bullets were buzzing by overhead.
The smoke abruptly dissipated and there it was, 80 yards in length and 4½ feet in height, covering the ground like a giant reddish-brown snake.
Hickok never slowed. He placed both arms around Sherry and jumped, reaching the top of the breastwork in one bound.
Bullets spattered into the mound of dirt.
The gunman rolled, bearing Sherry with him. They slid over the top and tumbled to the ground on the far side. Hickok rose to his knees, scanning to his right and left.
Spartacus, Ares, and the remaining 138 defenders were ready, their guns in their hands, crouched below the rim of the breastwork.
Hickok glanced over the top of the earthen mound.
Hundreds of soldiers were crammed into the open space between the breastwork and the moat, the nearest ranks only 15 yards away. There was nowhere they could hide, nothing they could use as cover. They were caught in the open, completely unprotected, utterly defenseless.
Now!
“Fire!” Hickok commanded at the top of his lungs.
In unison, the defenders rose up from behind the breastwork and fired.
Their firearms, a mixture of automatics, lever and bolt actions, and shotguns, belched death and thundered annihilation upon the soldiers.
The troopers reacted as if, en masse, they had slammed into an invisible barrier. Many were arrested in mid stride, their green uniforms dotted with bright red holes. The soldiers in the rear, unaware of the devastation in front, pushed forward, preventing the forward ranks from escaping.
The defenders fired and fired and fired.
Their ranks ravaged by the fusillade, the troopers wavered, then broke, fleeing back toward safety, toward the moat and the makeshift bridge.
Hickok tensed, waiting for the coup de grace. If Shane was in position, and if none of the soldiers had spotted him, and if he had emptied the gas cans into the moat as instructed…
The soldiers were clustered on the inner bank, climbing the stairs, and darting across the bridge when the moat went up. A veritable inferno of flame fried them to a crisp, burning the bridge and setting the overhead stairs afire. Cries of suffering and torment filled the air.
Hickok swept the defenders with his gaze. “Charge!” he ordered, and vaulted the breastwork. He closed on the hapless troopers, his Pythons booming, downing two, three, four in swift succession.
Spartacus was at his side every step of the way.
Caught between the flaming moat and the onrushing defenders, the troopers were ruthlessly butchered, game to the last man, resisting with their dying breath. Their bodies were piled in heaps.
The gunfire gradually tapered off as fewer and fewer of the soldiers were able to oppose the defenders.
Hickok stopped, endeavoring to see through the acrid smoke.
Fatigue-covered forms overspread the ground.
“Hickok!” someone roared to his right.
The gunman whirled, his Pythons held at waist level, his fingers on the triggers.
It was Brutus.
The hulking brute was seven yards away, his left hand holding a stout branch and using it as a crutch, while his right held an automatic pistol.
Brutus grinned, knowing he had the gunman, knowing the best the gunfighter could hope was to tie him and even then Hickok was dead.
With a resounding, deafening detonation, the nearby tank exploded, its ammunition and shells ignited by the blaze in the moat.
The concussion knocked both Hickok and Brutus to the earth, a gust of hot air spurting past them.
Hickok rose to his knees first, and he fired both Pythons as Brutus heaved erect, he fired again as Brutus lurched backward, and again as Brutus attempted to lift his pistol.
And then Spartacus was there, appearing beside Brutus out of the smoke, his broadsword grasped in both hands. He swung the blade with all of his might, putting his entire body into a gleaming arc as the broadsword cleaved the air and connected with Brutus’s neck.
Hickok saw Brutus’s head leave his body, soaring upward end over end, trailing a crimson plume. The head seemed to move in slow motion as it attained the apex of its flight and plummeted to the earth, bouncin
g twice and finally coming to a rest at the gunman’s feet.
“Are you okay?” Sherry asked from the gunman’s right.
Hickok nodded. The gunfire had ended. He stared at the grisly trophy of his victory, fascinated.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Sherry persisted.
Hickok abruptly felt as if every muscle, every bone in his whole body, ached, had been stretched to its limit and far beyond. “I’m fine,” he mumbled.
Ares joined them, exulting in their triumph. “We did it!” he gloated.
“We beat them! We saved the Home!”
Hickok absently gazed at the hundreds of bodies around him, many of them near the moat charred beyond recognition. “Yeah,” he said dryly.
“We did it.”
Ares glanced at Sherry and Spartacus, puzzled. “I don’t get it. What’s the matter with you?” he asked the gunman.
Hickok wearily bolstered his Pythons and looped his left arm under Sherry’s right shoulder. “Nothing,” he replied, leading her off.
“Hey!” Ares called after them. “What do you want us to do? Where are you going?”
Hickok paused and looked back. “I want you to form a detail and clean up this mess. Scout the forest and make sure none of them are left. Allow some of our people to rest. Work them in shifts.”
“But what about you?” Ares inquired.
“I’m going to have the Healers tend to my wife,” Hickok responded, “and then we’re going to enjoy some heavy kissy-wissy in our cabin.”
“Are you serious?” Ares queried.
“I promise I’ll shoot the first son of a bitch who interrupts us,” Hickok vowed. “Is that serious enough for you?”
“Sounds pretty serious to me,” Ares admitted.
Hickok and Sherry strolled off, arm in arm.
Ares glanced at Spartacus. “Now what was that all about?”
“I think Hickok just told you something,” Spartacus said, wiping his bloody broadsword on his left pant leg.
“Like what?”
“Like,” Spartacus stated thoughtfully, “maybe, instead of flapping your gums over our great win, you should be giving thanks you’re still alive.”
Ares surveyed the battlefield, the dead and the dying, the pools of blood, and the charred and ruptured bodies. “Oh,” was all he could think of to say. Then once more, very softly, “Oh.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Blade was dreaming. He was lying on his back in a soft, plush bed, his head propped on a comfortable white pillow. The bed was ornate, with four wooden posts at each corner and a blue canopy overhead. This fancy bed was unlike any the Family owned; theirs were plain and Spartan compared to this luxurious resting place. Yes, he knew he was dreaming, so he didn’t become alarmed when a brown-haired man with a kind face, but wearing a military uniform, entered his dream through a door situated beyond the foot of the bed. He wasn’t particularly concerned as this soldier walked around the bed and approached him. After all, what possible harm could a figment of his imagination do?
Consequently, the Warrior chief was flabbergasted when this apparition smiled at him, took hold of his right wrist, and spoke. “You’re awake!”
It wasn’t a dream!
He’d been captured by Samuel!
Blade came up off the bed in a rush, his right hand lashing out and clamping on the soldier’s throat.
“Help!” the man screamed. “Help!”
Blade applied more pressure on the soldier’s neck, striving to crush his windpipe before his cries brought the guards.
He wasn’t successful.
The bedroom door flew open and in ran Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, his katana in its scabbard clutched in his right hand.
Blade gawked, confused. Had Rikki come to rescue him?
“Blade! Release him!” Rikki came up to Blade and took hold of his right arm. “Let him go!” he urged.
Perplexed, Blade reluctantly relaxed his fingers.
The unfortunate soldier staggered backward, gasping for breath. “He… nearly… killed me!” he wheezed.
Blade suddenly realized his arms and legs were covered with cuts and gashes. Some of the larger wounds had been stitched up. His body was naked except for a skimpy pair of white shorts. “What’s going on?” he blurted. “Where am I?”
Rikki was grinning. “Congratulations. You almost throttled your doctor,” he said, unable to suppress a chuckle.
“My doctor?” Blade repeated, puzzled.
Rikki nodded at the puffing physician. “This is Dr. Edmonds. He’s the man who saved your life.”
Blade’s complete consternation was displayed on his face.
“You lost a lot of blood,” Rikki elaborated. “The cat slashed you forty-three times. You would have bled to death without a transfusion. General Reese offered the services of the best doctor in Denver.”
“I’m in Denver?” Blade asked. He couldn’t believe it. Maybe he was dreaming all of this.
“You are in Denver,” confirmed a deep voice from the doorway.
Blade looked at the speaker.
The newcomer was about six feet in height with a lean build. He wore a neatly pressed uniform with gold insignia on the shoulders. His hair was black, his eyes brown. His clean-shaven face reflected his inner sense of honesty, of trustworthiness. He smiled and extended his right hand as he walked up to the bed. “I’m pleased to meet you. I am General Reese.”
Blade absently shook hands.
“You’re probably wondering what you’re doing here,” General Reese said. “Do you remember what happened in the tent?”
Blade nodded.
“We saw some of your friends, your fellow Warriors, drive down to the tent in that vehicle you call a SEAL. We waited for awhile, then I drove down under a flag of truce. Your men had slain all of the Imperial Assassins and pulled you from the pit. Samuel and his damn pet were both dead. You were bleeding profusely, and I called my medics to examine you.
It was agreed you would die unless you received a quick transfusion. Your men lacked the equipment and the blood. I suggested we should bring you here. Dr. Edmonds performed the transfusion and has been watching over you for two days.”
“I’ve been here two days?” Blade mumbled, stunned.
“Your army is encamped outside the walls,” General Reese explained.
“We have supplied them with food and other provisions.”
“Wait a minute,” Blade said, struggling to comprehend. “Do you mean to tell me you’re one of Samuel’s generals?”
General Reese nodded. “I was one of the bastard’s generals,” he corrected the Warrior.
“Then why didn’t you try to save Samuel?” Blade inquired suspiciously.
“Why didn’t you send down your troops when you saw the SEAL heading for the tent?”
General Reese grinned. “You must understand something. Samuel appointed myself and two others as his generals after his previous generals were killed in Cheyenne when you nuked the Citadel. None of us bore Samuel any great affection. Actually, we hated him. We wanted to see him die. His old officers had been with him for decades, and they were an integral part of his corrupt regime.” He paused and proudly straightened his shoulders. “We owed no loyalty to Samuel. Our allegiance is to the people of the Civilized Zone. Many junior officers have wanted to rebel for years. But any revolution while the Doktor and Samuel were alive was out of the question. The Doktor’s genetic deviates and Samuel’s senior-grade officers would have nipped any revolt in the bud. We had to bide our time until the circumstances were favorable.”
He beamed at Blade. “Thanks to you, we were handed the perfect opportunity on a silver platter.”
“Then we’ve won?” Blade said, amazed.
“Rikki-Tikki-Tavi has told me you don’t intend to use a thermo on Denver,” General Reese mentioned. “He also informed me the Family does not plan to install one of your own members in Samuel’s place. Is all this true?”
“We won’t use a therm
o unless forced. We only want peace.”
“And yet your Federation declared war on the Civilized Zone,” General Reese said, studying Blade’s expression.
“As Rikki also probably told you,” Blade stated, “we declared war as an act of self-preservation. We knew all about Samuel’s grand scheme to reconquer the former territory of the United States, and we weren’t about to let ourselves be dominated by a dictator.”
General Reese nodded. “I believe you,” he said. “And, on behalf of the people of the Civilized Zone, I formally offer our surrender.”
Blade glanced at Rikki. “Have you heard from Toland, the rebel leader?”
“I can answer that,” General Reese interjected. “Yes, we have. He’s on his way to Denver and should arrive today. I’ve already granted him total amnesty.”
“Will you agree to work with him in the formation of your new government?” Blade demanded.
“Better than that,” General Reese said. “I will place my entire command at his disposal.”
Blade slowly nodded. “I trust you, General Reese. But I must make one thing clear to you. If you should change your mind and attempt to take over the government, or if the military balks at the prospect of holding popular elections, I will return to Denver with the Federation Army.”
“There will be no need for that,” General Reese assured Blade. “We are sincere. And once the people have tasted true freedom there will be no turning back.”
“That’s what they believed before World War III,” Blade reminded the officer. “Look where it got them.”
“We will diligently preserve our newfound freedom,” General Reese vowed.
“I hope so,” Blade commented. “For your sake.”
Dr. Edmonds moved closer to the Warrior. “If you don’t mind,” he stated, “and if you promise to let me live, I’d like to examine your stitches and apply dressing and bandages.”
Blade laughed. “Be my guest,” he said. “And I apologize for what I did to you.”
“I’ll have some food brought,” General Reese mentioned. “If you feel up to it, tomorrow I’d like you to address our people at Mile High Stadium.”
“You want me to speak to your citizens?” Blade responded.
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