by Jordan Ervin
Adam glanced over at Tyler. He was slumped forward, moaning as he clutched his thigh. Adam looked down at Tyler’s leg—a bloody mess against the crumpled wreckage of the floorboard. Adam reached over just as a hand seized his collar, causing him to jerk around in surprise. Marc was already out of the truck, covering his face with a handkerchief against the smoke that poured from the engine compartment.
“Help me…get him…out,” Adam said, gasping for air as the ambiance of battle slowly returned. Marc pulled Adam out of the truck and tossed him to the ground before leaping back into the cab. The snap of gunfire cracked overhead and Adam winced. He looked behind them as the roar of the front runners they had sped around neared. Another crack of a sniper’s bullet and the front runner fell. Still, at least thirty of the men and women who had run ahead of the main attack continued their charge, their faces contorted with rage and dismay. Adam raised his rifle, took aim at the nearest combatant—a tall man with a shaved head no more than two hundred feet away—and pulled the trigger.
Nothing.
“Out of ammo!” Adam shouted. Tyler cried out in pain as Marc pulled him free of the cab. Adam glanced back at them, his eyes quickly finding Tyler’s bloody and awkwardly twisted leg. They’d have to carry him and be overrun, leave him behind like he had instructed, or battle the approaching wave of ferocious flesh. Despite the urge to run for the base and his family, leaving Tyler to perish was simply not an option.
Adam cursed and tossed the rifle to the ground. He pulled the bow from his back, drawing an arrow and knocking it as quickly as he could. He lowered to one knee, took aim, and loosed the arrow at the bald man. The arrow flew high, passing over them all. Adam cursed and drew another, breathing deeply and trying to settle his nerves.
He loosed another.
The shaft sunk into the bald man’s torso. The man plummeted to the ground and Adam drew again. He aimed and let a third arrow fly, striking a wide set man in the arm.
More sniper fire struck the runners, but it wasn’t enough. They were fifty feet away now, charging full sprint toward him. He drew one last arrow and began to knock it just as Marc leapt forward, wielding a long knife in one hand and a pistol in the other.
Marc fired quickly, dropping or slowing every intended target. The first of twenty remaining runners neared Marc and Adam knew his friend was about to die without aid. Adam jumped to his feet and charged forward, shouting as he drew one last arrow to his cheek and let it fly into the monsters who were now upon them.
Judah fired again, the man in the crosshairs of his automatic range-finding scope stumbling as a stream of blood sprayed from his neck. Eighteen initial snipers, including Judah, had taken up watch in the dorm beside the southern front of the inner wall, with machine gunners below and rocket-wielding Guardsmen on the floor above.
Judah zoomed in as the front runners neared the truck that had crashed into the guard post. He watched as the man who had pulled the driver free of the truck charged the runners, firing into them with a pistol. Another man who had been kneeling with a bow stood and ran forward, sending an arrow into the closest combatant’s thigh. Judah took a breath and aimed—the red dot of the scope gliding to where the bullet would hit—and fired as it lined up with another runner.
Judah’s intended target dropped as the two men next to the truck fought for their lives. The man with the bow dropped his weapon to the ground and drew a long machete, slashing one man across the arm clumsily before burying the machete into another. The other man was much more calculated—seeming to dance methodically between attackers, firing as he ducked, dipped, and slashed about.
Judah took deep breaths in between shots, focusing on the enemy by doing his best to push the rest of the world out of mind. Still, he did notice that his rifle seemed to be the only source of gunfire in the dorm. He knew his high-tech weapon held the best chance of hitting anything at that distance compared to the older hunting rifles the other snipers were using. Judah loosed one round after another—relying on the advanced scope almost completely as he dropped four more. The man with the pistol took the glancing blow of a baseball bat to the forearm, causing him to stumble to the right. Judah aimed quickly, sending a round that struck the attacker with the bat in the lower leg. As the attackers began to thin, smoke from the truck wafted in front of Judah’s view.
Judah cursed as the smoke lingered, concealing the fight completely. Footsteps and voices filled the hallway behind Judah, though he kept his eyes focused on the field, scanning for an opening. Men shouted as reinforcements filled the dorm.
“What do we got?” a young man shouted as he entered the room and took up position in the window next to Judah.
“A convoy of survivors,” Judah replied. “Three men—two fighting and one injured badly.”
“You’re not actually hitting anything this far out, are you?” the other man asked as he gazed through his own scope.
“Just focus on the fight,” Judah replied. “I’ll hit what I can. You wait till they’re closer.”
“Whatever you say, Longshot,” the man replied, stepping next to Judah to gaze out the window. “Name’s Jimmy Stone.”
“I don’t care who you are…there!”
The pistol-wielding soldier emerged, coughing as he ran toward the driver they had pulled from the truck. A moment later, a man emerged from the smoke, stumbling toward the truck in a daze. Judah zoomed in and fixed the red crosshairs on the man. As Judah began to pull the slack from the trigger, a sudden wave of doubt passed through him and he hesitated, truly seeing the man for the first time.
The man moving forward looked eerily similar to Judah’s dead father. His face, his walk, his build—everything reminded Judah of the parent he had lost. The man reached down for the bow and grabbed an arrow. Judah’s finger quivered on the trigger. Judah wasn’t sure if the man was an attacker or not and he knew he should fire, but he couldn’t bring himself to kill someone that looked so similar to his father.
Emotions Judah had thought dead and buried resurfaced in an instant. He had done his best to remain strong for months—trying to overcome all weaknesses as he became the warrior his family needed him to be. Judah had resisted the urge to dwell on his father’s passing until he fled from Alexandra moments ago. Now, the appearance of the man on the field almost seemed to mock Judah. Still, Judah knew if he put a bullet in the chest of a stranger that looked identical to his dad, it would haunt him forever.
Two more men emerged from the smoke as the dazed man picked up the bow. One raised a shovel overhead while another walked forward with a hammer in hand. Judah shifted his aim away from the man who looked like his father and pulled the trigger.
Adam staggered forward in shock, coughing as he searched for his bow. The wind blew the black smoke away and he finally found it next to the truck. He had lost his machete toward the end of the fray, forcing him to grapple with the last runner on the ground before Marc finished him off with a knife to the back. The entire skirmish had existed inside an incomprehensible fog—a mystical clash in which time had decided to skip a few beats. One moment he had fired his first arrow and the next moment he was pushing the final attacker off of him. Between onset and finale, there was only haze.
He reached down and grabbed the bow as a bullet cracked overhead, causing Adam to jump. A man grunted behind him, clutching his chest as a shovel dropped from his hands. Another man shouted as he ran forward with a steel hammer raised overhead. He swung and Adam instinctively ducked. Adam shouted as he stood and whipped the bow around, striking the runner in the temple with a blow that shattered the wooden recurve.
Adam cursed and threw the ruined weapon to the ground, picking up the hammer and turning around. Marc held Tyler in his arms and was already halfway across the bridge. Adam glanced back toward the baseball fields, the growing thunder of thousands drawing closer.
He took a deep breath and sprinted for the bridge.
The wall trembled lightly beneath Eric’s feet as the distant thunder
from the destruction of the four bridges reached him. He ignored the tremor and focused his scope on the final three men who made their way across the last bridge, now only a few hundred yards away.
“Is it him?” Nadia asked, her binoculars not nearly as powerful as Eric’s long range scope.
“I can’t tell,” Eric replied, looking down on the men below. The survivors from the three trucks that had made it through ran through the gate. The injured were immediately carried off by those who had survived unscathed. Eric turned to his side and began to shout. “Bren! Get one of those trucks out there to pick those boys up.”
“Yes sir!” Lieutenant Bren shouted, turning to relay Eric’s orders to the Guardsmen near the trucks. In the distance, the throng of hundreds quickly grew to thousands as the enemy advanced toward the final bridge.
“We need to funnel them here,” Eric said, turning to Nadia. “We amass our men on this wall and let a few hundred cross the bridge. Once they’re in range, we detonate the bridge and open up on those trapped between the creek and our wall. If we can thin them—”
“Nadia!” a voice cried out behind them. Eric turned as a bloodied Guardsmen dismounted a dirt bike, breathing heavily as he ran forward. “We have movement to the north.”
“What do you mean?” Nadia replied, stepping closer.
“I was with Hicks at the quarry,” the man replied, leaning over his knees as he caught his breath. “We arrived at Northgate not ten minutes ago and heard the attack. By the time we made it off the highway, we were faced with three tanks and hundreds of men storming Race Street near the Medical Center. Radio was down and Hicks sent me ahead to warn you.”
“Where is Hicks now?”
“Doing what he can to hold Race Street, but they won’t hold for long without reinforcements. They might already be overrun.”
Nadia shook her head and muttered to herself, turning to watch as a truck below finally raced through the gate to pick up the three remaining survivors. She looked over at Eric, failing to mask the concern and uncertainty on her face. “Eric, I…please, what do we do? We can’t hold them here and reinforce Hicks.”
Eric bit back a curse, knowing the looming fight wasn’t going to be a dance of tactical decisions across a wide battlefield. It was going to be bedlam on two poorly defended fronts as the enemy that outnumbered Fort Harding ten to one crashed into them like a pair of raging bulls.
“Eric,” Nadia began, leaning in closer, “what do we do?”
“James!” Eric shouted, turning to his left. “I need you to redeploy fifty men to defend the American Heritage Building and pray Hicks isn’t facing anywhere near the numbers we are here.”
“Yes, sir!”
“And James,” Eric began, looking north toward the building that housed Sarah and hundreds of women and children. “You know what’s coming. Make sure you have a runner warn the women to ready themselves. There’s not a soul alive inside these walls that won’t be fighting for their life today.”
A light breeze washed over Maria as she gazed out over the water. She had stood motionless for minutes, trying to hold fast to her courage. As the minutes stretched on, that courage began to fade.
Be strong. Be fearless. Death alone is better than life with Lukas.
“You sure there’s nothing wrong, my lady?” the guard beside her asked, breaking the silence.
She looked at him and smiled before nodding her head slowly.
“It is nothing you can fix,” Maria said, placing a hand on his shoulder.
“Very well,” the guard replied. “If there is anything, please don’t hesitate to—”
The agent’s voice shifted with the beginnings of a shriek as the back of his head exploded. Maria screamed as he fell to the ground. She threw herself down—vaguely aware of the other guards all collapsing under the silent barrage of gunfire. She screamed hysterically as she lay inches from the water, the fear she had tried to hold at bay consuming her like a wildfire. It all came to pass within seconds—her guardians dead.
Maria was alone.
She looked back at the dead guard she had been talking to, trying and failing to avoid gazing into his open eyes. She held back the urge to empty her stomach as she wept for the man she didn’t even know.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I never wanted—”
Someone’s hand enveloped her mouth, ripping her mask free and fixing a device tightly over her face. Maria screamed with shock as a man then wrapped a thick arm around her chest and pulled, dragging her quickly into the cold and murky river.
“Strike Team Seven in position,” Damian Ross said as Lukas watched the video feed on the giant screen intently. “The Praetorians await your word.”
“Do it,” Lukas commanded.
The leader of the strike team—a no-nonsense Adherent from New York City—looked to his right, giving the signal to the Praetorians to his side. Each man’s helmet camera fed a live feed directly into the control room. They had been the first team to locate the likely position of Sigmund’s HQ—intelligence they had gained by the quick and painful interrogation of twelve captured Patriarch Agents. Lukas fidgeted nervously, his hands trembling with anticipation.
The team breached the door of a French Quarter mansion and entered the house. Fragments of the door and smoke filled the foyer. A few armed men who had been stunned by the breach were slowly trying to gather themselves as Strike Team Seven moved in, putting three rounds into each soldier on the floor.
“Foyer clear.”
“Have all nearby teams surround the building,” Lukas said, turning to Clark Madison. “I want this block locked down.”
“Yes sir.”
“And Damian,” Lukas began, “have your men sweep the building. Kill anyone in uniform and if you locate Sigmund, keep him in your sights but wait for my command.”
“Yes sir,” Damian replied, relaying his orders. “I’ve patched you through directly to their team.”
The Adherent motioned for the tactical unit to advance. As they moved, the distant sounds of someone screaming slowly filled the speaker system. The twelve man team moved through the home slowly. Six men branched off to clear the second floor while the rest continued to pass through each room at a pace that caused Lukas to squirm with anxiety. The distant scream grew closer as the six men on the first floor passed through a luxurious kitchen, stopping near two closed doors.
“Screaming on the other side,” the Adherent said. “Orders?”
“Breach the door,” Lukas said, leaning forward in his chair.
“Yes, sir.”
“Where do you think all the guards are?” Lukas asked, turning to Jacob. “Surely he wouldn’t leave himself this vulnerable.”
“Maybe he thought himself safe in New Orleans,” Jacob said, turning to Lukas with a grin. “Maybe a hundred men await your twelve on the other side of the door. Or maybe…we simply have the wrong home.”
“We’ll know soon enough,” Lukas replied as the six men lined themselves up. After a brief pause to mount a circular disk, the Praetorians breached the door and quickly filed into a luxurious sitting area. A black man with a patch over one eye and a soiled white uniform writhed around on the ground, screaming at the top of his lungs. His screams cut off as one of the Praetorians raised his shotgun and blasted a hole through the man’s chest.
The Praetorians moved through the room, passing by two dead agents. Someone had cut their throats, leaving them to rot at the computer terminals they had sat behind. Strike Team Seven moved toward a set of French doors that stood open on the far end of the right wall. As the lead soldier turned the corner, they saw an unknown woman kneeling down with a gag in her mouth.
Behind the woman stood Sigmund, smiling as he held a gun to her head.
“Put the gun down!” the Adherent ordered as he raised his rifle.
“Take another step and she dies,” Sigmund growled.
“Stop!” Lukas shouted. “Praetorians, stand at the ready. Madison, would you be so ki
nd as to patch me through to all my men on the ground in New Orleans?”
“Yes sir,” the Battle Marshal replied, punching in a few commands on his terminal before nodding to Lukas.
“All units, this is Lukas Chambers, your Battle Lord and Sovereign. Sigmund has been located and surrounded. Converge on Strike Team Seven’s location. My brothers…we have done it. We have won.” Lukas smiled as he nodded to Madison. “Can I speak with Sigmund?”
“Yes, sir,” Clark replied. He patched Lukas into the speaker system on the drone that hovered above the Praetorians. After another brief pause, Madison looked over at Lukas and nodded. “You’re live.”
“Hello, Sigmund,” Lukas said as he happily embraced the surge of jubilation inside himself.
“Well hello, my old unwanted accident,” Sigmund replied with a smile. “It’s been too long. Tell me, how are you and the wife?”
“You think you can play games with me?” Lukas countered with growl. “It is over, Sigmund. You are mine.”
“Clearly you think you hold some advantage over me,” Sigmund said.
“Do I not?” Lukas replied. “My army rolled over your pathetic excuse for a defense within an hour. My drones put down your agents like the rabid flea-infested dogs they are. My greatest warriors fill your home, hold you at gun point, and yet you think I don’t hold an advantage over you.”
“I think you should order your men to leave this place at once,” Sigmund replied.
“Or what? Are you going to kill some woman I don’t know or care about?”
“If they don’t leave, I’m going to destroy you right here, right now—in front of all those faithful followers of yours that are undoubtedly watching.”
“A tall bluff for a—”
“You think I’m bluffing?” Sigmund roared. “You think you have bested me?”