Shadow Sun Expansion

by Dave Willmarth

  Allistor waited a moment, and almost immediately there was some shouting inside. It grew louder, then two shots rang out. A moment later a man came crashing through a window. He was shouting as he was pushed out, the sound stopping abruptly as he struck the ground.

  Another man stuck his head out the window. “That’s Paul! The dick is all yours!”

  Allistor saw the man was still moving. “Fuzzy, go fetch!”

  The bear bolted forward, loping across the street toward the man who was struggling to get to his feet. Fuzzy let out a roar, freezing the man for a moment before he screamed at the bear bearing down on him. Fuzzy latched onto the man’s throat and pinned him down.

  “Move again, and he’ll rip your throat out!” Allistor yelled. The man froze as Fuzzy growled again. Allistor found himself wondering what that sensation would be like. Feeling a bear growl through the vibrations of its teeth on your neck.

  “Fuzzy, bring him back, please.”

  The cub let go of the man’s neck and took hold of one ankle. Walking backward, he dragged the man across the grass, then the sidewalk, then the street. The man shouted and cried, even tried to struggle free until Fuzzy dropped his ankle and stepped back toward his face.

  Resuming his chore, Fuzzy dragged the man around behind the truck, leaving him in front of the Humvee. Taking a seat, he licked the man’s face, then looked up expectantly at Allistor.

  “Great job, buddy. You’ve earned a treat!”

  Looking toward Logan, he asked, “Is this Paul?”

  Logan shook his head. “Nope. This is one of his crew, though. One of the ones that ambushes foragers. That piece of shit just tried to sacrifice one of his people.”

  Allistor jumped down from the pickup bed and grabbed hold of the man. Lifting him like a child, he stepped back up on the truck. “Nice try, Paul! But your little ruse didn’t work. All you did was give me someone to use as an example!”

  Allistor lifted the struggling man over his head like he was deadlifting a barbell. With his improved Strength, the effort was minimal. “This is how you’re all gonna die if you don’t surrender!” He tossed the man into the street.

  “Fuzzy! Eat!”

  The bear cub dashed around the truck and pounced on the man, who screamed like a small child. He raised a hand to try to ward Fuzzy off, but the bear just latched onto it and shook his head. The arm snapped, and the man’s scream actually rose in pitch. Letting go of the arm, Fuzzy opened his now bloody maw wide and bit down on the man’s face. The screaming stopped, but the man continued to twitch as the bear pulled large chunks of flesh free and swallowed it whole.

  Allistor grimaced, the display being a little more gruesome than intended. Still, he needed to embrace the moment and use it to his advantage. “Ohhhh! Damn, that had to hurt!” he shouted. “Fuzzy, finish him!”

  The bear clamped his jaws on the man’s throat and squeezed, holding his grip until the man stopped struggling. Then he ripped away the flesh, exposing the man’s esophagus.

  “I really hope those shots I heard weren’t aimed at any prisoners, or I’ll feed you to Fuzzy here one at a time. He’s a growing bear, and always hungry, but even he can’t eat fifty people in a day. So, some of you will be locked up. Fuzzy’s very own pantry! You can sit and talk to each other for a few days about how much it’s going to hurt when he eats your face!”

  The front door opened, and a rifle with a white shirt tied to it emerged. “We’re coming out!”

  “Hold your fire!” Allistor ordered. He watched as eight men and women emerged, each one with their hands up, setting their guns down on the sidewalk as they stopped, putting both hands high in the air. One of the women stepped forward. “We surrender! We want a trial!”

  Sam took charge of them, using his best drill sergeant voice. “All of you walk forward! Keep your hands high! Head into that alley, and sit against the wall!” He pointed, and they obeyed. Two of Allistor’s people took over, pointing weapons at them as they sat, hands in their laps. “Anybody moves, shoot ‘em.”

  Allistor’s radio keyed in his earpiece. “Allistor, we got people tryin’ to surrender back here on the south side.” Campbell’s voice reported.

  “Let them surrender. Put them somewhere out of the line of fire, and secure them. How many?”

  “We’ve got six.” Campbell answered.

  “Four more on the east side.” McCoy added.

  “Great, thanks guys. Keep an eye out for snipers.” Allistor did the math in his head.

  “Paul! Apparently, you’re such an asshole that your people can’t wait to abandon you! We’re holding eighteen of your people already! That’s… what? Like a third of your fighters? You suck as a leader.”

  “Leave! The gold is mine! I’ll destroy this place rather than let you have it!” The same man as before stuck his head out. “Leave now or I’ll start shooting people in here!”

  From a different second floor window, a shot rang out. The pickup’s back window, right next to Allistor’s leg, shattered. A second later, shots erupted from a dozen ground floor windows and a few on the second floor.

  Allistor’s people returned fire as he dropped down onto his stomach, the side of the pickup taking several rounds. He cast Barrier above himself and held still, waiting for the barrage to cease so he could take better cover. Two rounds struck his barrier and it held, but a third round broke through and struck the bed not far from his arm. He immediately cast the spell again as he tried to squeeze closer to the bed wall. Another round penetrated his cover and ripped into his calf.

  His cry of pain was drowned out as Sam opened up with the BFG. He strafed across the first-floor windows, the rounds blasting into the stone and shattering glass. When he reached the front doors, he paused long enough to completely destroy them, which took about ten seconds, then continued on until he had exhausted a full belt of ammo. When he paused, there was silence. Allistor took the opportunity to scramble from the pickup bed and get behind the cab, where he crouched down. Checking his map, he saw that three of his green dots had gone grey. Three fatalities already. The impact of that made his stomach lurch, and he very nearly lost his breakfast.

  He felt a heal and looked up to see Amanda smiling at him. “Standing up there playing target wasn’t the best idea, huh?”

  He shook his head sadly. “I never claimed to be the smart one.”

  Sam and Logan finished reloading the next belt, and this time Logan took over. He fired in short bursts at random windows, making it impossible for the defenders to predict where he’d fire in time to hide.

  Meanwhile the sniper teams were busy. While their support troops fired at the ground floor windows, the snipers calmly watched for defenders to expose themselves on the second floor. Bjurstrom put a round through the neck of one that had leaned out to fire down at attackers on the street. A minute later he put a hole in the head of another.

  Helen was on the roof of a building above Allistor. She had nearly gotten a shot off at Paul the second time he’d shown himself, but he’d retreated too quickly. The room he was in was too dark for her to be sure of her target, so she scanned the windows along the front, looking for a target of opportunity. She’d picked off two others when she heard Allistor shout.

  On the ground, Allistor saw another green dot fade to grey. His anger at Paul, and at himself for bringing these people here, grew until it overrode his good sense.

  “Screw this! We’re going in! Shotguns!” He shot out from behind the truck and ran as fast as he could, Fuzzy right behind him. The gunfire from his side intensified as his people tried to provide suppressing fire. He didn’t look behind to see if any others followed, just focusing on the ruined doors in front of him. Lowering a shoulder, he went crashing through with little resistance. So little, in fact, that he fell on his face. Managing to turn the fall into a roll, he was quickly back on his feet, scanning the entry for targets. What he saw shocked him.

  There was not a single intact thing in sight. Living or dead. Seve
ral bodies were scattered around, parts of them just blown off, other parts with large holes in them. Walls, furniture, even the chandelier, were all shattered or full of holes. The entire place looked like swiss cheese. “Holy shit.” He hadn’t realized just how much damage the BFG did. Even the stone walls had some holes where sunlight shone through.

  Movement to his right snapped him out of the shock and he spun, shotgun pointed. He fired at a man who’d just rounded a doorway and was raising a semi-automatic rifle. The man’s face caved in even as he pulled his trigger, firing past Allistor.

  Another movement got Allistor turning again, but this time it was Sam, Amanda, Lars, Nathan, and Dawn coming through the front doors. He grinned at them briefly, then moved in the direction of the man he’d shot. He cast Barrier in front of himself, then spoke into his radio. “Logan, we’re in the front entry, moving to the right. Hold your fire on that side.”

  He waited to be sure the .50 cal rounds had shifted to the corridor behind him, then moved forward. He took the lead, with Sam right behind him. The old man said, “You idiot. Logan’s getting to have all the fun cuz you charged in here and Meg made me come cover your happy ass.”

  Allistor looked behind him, seeing Sam was grinning. “You love it and you know it. Just don’t get overexcited and shoot me in the ass, old man.”

  Sam tapped Allistor’s ass with the barrel of his shotgun. “Ya never know…”

  They moved on, clearing rooms along the front of the building until they got to the end of the corridor. Then they circled back and cleared the back side rooms. Twice they encountered defenders who tried to ambush them. Both times Allistor’s barrier either stopped or deflected the initial shot from the defender. And one was all they got.

  Contrary to Allistor’s promise of a slow death, they decided to finish off the defenders rather than risk having them find a way to attack again, even wounded. So each one was killed and looted while Fuzzy took a bite or two. He’d left his Fibble out by the truck, and Allistor saw him glance that direction more than once.

  Back in the main entry, Sam called Logan to cease fire, saying they were moving into the other wing. The big gun stopped immediately. Allistor moved forward, and shook his head. This wing had gotten even more attention from the BFG, and he was frankly surprised that the building hadn’t collapsed. They cleared the first room, finding three dead bodies, and were moving to the second when there was a crash behind them. Lars spun, his shotgun aimed back toward the entry, then lowered it when he saw Logan waving at them.

  “Couldn’t let you guys have all the fun.” he explained.

  Allistor motioned at the demolished walls, doors, and furniture around him. “Looks like you’ve had your share already.”

  Logan took in the scene, and blushed slightly. “I might have overdone it a little. Dude pissed me off.”

  They continued on, clearing the ground floor. In the third office they checked, they found a man with his left shoulder blown to bits. He was bleeding profusely, sitting against the outer wall below one of those holes that let the sunlight in. Barely conscious, he tried to raise his weapon, but didn’t have the strength.

  “Fuzzy.” Allistor sent in his bear. They waited in the hall as the man screamed for ten long seconds. “Hope that terrifies the shit out of anyone left alive in here.” He got a notification that Fuzzy had leveled up with that last kill, and the bear returned a moment later, licking the blood off his muzzle.

  Several offices later, they found a man and woman barricaded behind two stacked filing cabinets, which, in turn, were behind an overturned desk. Several rounds had penetrated the desk, but not the cabinets. The moment Allistor opened the door, they fired. One round hit his barrier and shattered it, the second hit him in the gut, knocking him back. He tripped over Fuzzy and fell backward, cracking his head against the marble floor hard enough to see stars.

  While a flurry of shots flew back and forth, he felt a heal from Amanda that brought him back to his senses enough to roll to one side out of the line of fire. Eventually Sam tossed a grenade behind the filing cabinets, and the two people disappeared in a cloud of flame and blood. Amanda volunteered to go in and loot them, and nobody argued. The smell of destroyed bowel and other assorted human bits was offensive. Fuzzy still followed her in to poke around, though. Both of them left a trail of bloody footprints as they exited.

  After clearing that corridor and looting the bodies that had been ripped apart by the BFG or smaller arms fire, they made a U-turn and headed back toward the main entry. When they were nearly there, the radios keyed again. “This is Bjurstrom. We’re inside on the south, approaching the main entry.”

  Allistor didn’t bother with the radio, as he saw the group appear ahead of him. “Hey guys! Just in time to head upstairs with us.” He waved, and got a thumbs-up in return. The two groups merged, and Allistor led the way upstairs. Once again, he cast Barrier, and this time a notification popped up.

  Spell level up! Your Barrier spell level has increased by +1

  With the barrier in front of him, and the combined group following behind, he pushed up the stairway, gun aimed at the level above in case anyone was waiting in ambush.

  They were.

  As he reached the first landing, a blast from above echoed through the stairway and a piece of the baluster next to him shattered. He felt some shrapnel and possibly some buckshot tear into his leg, but ignored it. Moving quickly, he crossed the landing, turning to aim up the next flight. There was a woman standing there, pumping another round into her shotgun. Allistor didn’t wait for her to finish. He fired directly into her gut, the buckshot shredding both of her forearms in the process. She dropped her weapon and screamed, her legs going weak. She fell to the floor above, temporarily out of sight.

  Allistor and Logan rushed up the stair as he chambered another round. The stairwell door was closed, and the woman was the only one there. Logan removed a 9mm from a holster on his hip and put her out of her misery with a shot to the head, then they both looted the body.

  Standing in front of the stairwell door, Allistor paused. “There’s another stairwell at the other end. If we charge in here, he can just run out there, leaving his people to die to buy him time. And maybe he executes some prisoners, if he hasn’t already.”

  Bjurstrom replied, “I got this.” He got on his radio. “Groups three, five, and six, get in here. I need complete coverage of all the exits and stairwells. Group three, meet me in the south stairwell. Do not advance upstairs, there is likely an ambush.” He gave Allistor a thumbs-up and headed back down, Campbell right behind him. McCoy and Goodrich stayed put.

  “While we’re waiting, how many dead did you guys see on your way in?” Allistor asked McCoy. The two airmen looked at each other, both counting on their fingers quietly. Then they looked at him and said in unison, “Eleven.”

  Amanda said, “We counted seventeen in the two front wings, eighteen if you count her.” She pointed to the corpse on the floor.

  “The guy we questioned said fifty. We’ve got eighteen outside, plus the dead in here, that’s forty-seven. Can’t be that many left up here with him.”

  Chris, who had come in with the airmen, added, “I didn’t see the lieutenant or the women he usually keeps with him. Chances are good he’s up there with Paul.”

  Goodrich grinned. “It’s like the boss and the mini-boss in the same room. This is gonna be fun!”

  Allistor was about to admonish him when the radio transmitted Bjurstrom’s voice. “No ambush on this end. In position, good to go.”

  Logan keyed his radio. “Hold position, we’ll go in. Don’t want to create a potential friendly fire situation. Anybody comes through your door, waste ‘em. We’ll call if we need you to breach.”

  “Roger that. Shoot ‘em where it hurts.”

  Logan looked at Allistor. “That shield thing. Can you only cast it in front of yourself? Can you cast it in the doorway instead?”

  “I can block the doorway with it. But it won’t la
st more than two or three rounds.”

  “Let’s hope that’s enough. Everybody, move to this side and I’ll pull the door. I’ll stay behind it when it’s open. They’ll fire a first blast, ‘cause they’re scared. Put your barrier up after that, and it’ll take the next rounds. Then we go through.”

  The next ten seconds went exactly as Logan had predicted. The door wasn’t even all the way open when several rounds slammed into the metal. Allistor cast Barrier, and Logan stuck his head out, then crossed in front of the door, prompting another volley, the first few rounds of which were stopped by the barrier. He made it across to Allistor just long enough to take a deep breath and shout, “Go!” before he dove through the doorway. Allistor followed, recasting Barrier in front of Logan, who was lying on his side firing at something.

  Allistor went left, searching for a target. He saw three men crouched behind overturned furniture firing at Logan. He quickly cast Restraint on one, causing him to freeze with his head exposed. The people filing through behind him put several rounds into the stunned man, and he went down. Allistor hit another with Mind Spike, causing him to scream and drop his weapon, running right into the line of fire and taking hits from in front and behind.

  The third man, shocked by the fact that he’d just shot one of his own, hesitated a moment. That moment cost him his life. A round from a rifle tore into his arm, causing him to drop his shotgun. Then another round punctured his chest. He fell back and rocked a few times, then went still.

  Chris didn’t wait to be asked. “Nope. None of them are Paul or the LT.”

  They cleared the furniture blocking the way and proceeded down the corridor. This time, as they entered the first few rooms. they found people huddled on the floor or behind furniture, hands held high or on their heads, begging not to be shot.