by T. C. Edge
And down all other streets, the rest follow. Behind a hundred barriers, watching a dozen roads, our thousand troops wait as one. And when the first gun goes off, the western front, this otherwise quiet portion of Inner Haven, will light up like lightning and boom like thunder.
I can’t tell who is first to shoot. It comes from somewhere down the line, some nervous soldier with an itchy trigger finger, too eager to send this foul horde to hell. The result, however, is a domino effect. From one barrier to the next, hundreds of weapons go off, pulse rifles and machine guns and sentry guns, all bursting to life within seconds of each other.
It isn’t Zander who fires first down our street, but one of the Fangs. His old firearm begins spitting lead at the black shapes in the distance, too early to draw them into the bottleneck. I feel Zander’s frustration, his perfectionist nature in all things battle and war angry that we didn’t lure them closer.
But it matters not now. He shoots like all the rest, and so do I, all of us firing into the murk. We shoot for a long, unending burst, perhaps driven by anger, perhaps fear. Then, Zander begins to roar for us to cease fire, and the order spreads to the other blockades, their commanders doing the same.
The dust, drawn up by the commotion, begins to float down the streets and alleys. The shapes beyond go still. I look ahead once more, our positions now given away.
“What are they doing?” I whisper. “Why aren’t they attack….”
My sentence is never completed. More gunfire rattles from nearby, and then to the other side, several more units do the same.
“Incoming!” I hear someone cry.
And then, they come.
Right ahead of us, firing as they charge, that black mass separates into individual figures. The clanging of bullets against metal barriers fills the air, and I instinctively grab Drum and pull him down, ducking right for cover. Locked out of sight, they still come, growing ever nearer.
“Fire back!” shouts Zander. “We have to halt the charge!”
Shooting blind, we lift our guns over the barriers again, and fire. The barrage of bullets down the street lessens a little, suggesting we’ve taken several out. It gives us a chance. Kneeling again, we rise up and take better aim, all of us, as one, shooting at the soldiers as they pour towards us.
We drop them like flies, a dozen, two dozen, three dozen falling right before my eyes. Zander continues to roar orders, and we continue to fire, and I forget about any other street, any other barrier. There’s only ours now. And it needs to be plugged.
But the horde continue to come. They lose dozens, but don’t seem to care. They keep on coming, hunting us down, getting ever closer.
Soon enough, some of our men are falling, hit by one of a thousand bullets that spread from the darkness. Each loss to our number hits hard. We cannot afford it as they can.
As they get into range, I hear Zander call out, “Grenades!”
I’m quick on the draw, sending several down the street. They rip through the enemy ranks, lighting up the road for a moment and giving some form to what we face. My eyes grow stark as I see them, a force too large to count.
I share a look with my brother. He saw what I saw. And in that moment, we know we cannot hold the line here. Within minutes, they will overrun us.
It was always going to happen, but perhaps not this fast. The contingency plan was to move back to the rear blockades, to keep retreating further towards the core as the enemy advance. We were meant to hold them here for longer. That doesn’t appear possible now.
“We move back,” Zander calls. “Right now! We move!”
I grab Drum’s arm, and we begin to displace, working towards one of the rear positions. The rest of our unit follow, and down the other streets, I see the entire defence force doing the same. Covering fire is given, grenades are thrown, but many still fall, those without sufficient armour suffering gunshots to the back as they’re forced to withdraw.
We work east, stopping down other streets, trying to halt the enemy advance as the fighting starts to break up. It won’t be long before it becomes a mess, before the Cure break through the lines at one position or another. When they do, they’ll flood that channel, encircle us, and that’ll be the end of it.
I have little time to think amid the maelstrom, the entire western side of Inner Haven now beginning to burn and smoke. I stay next to Drum the entire time, firing from cover, doing what I can, yet always with an eye to making sure he stays safe.
I hear Zander on the radio again, shouting wildly to Commander Burns. I don’t hear the words, but I get the impression. One convoy is all they’ll manage. They won’t have time to return for a second.
The rest of the civilians will need to go on foot, running, hiding, escaping in any manner they can. Mothers will need to carry their babes in their arms. Fathers will have to protect them. Children too young to fight will need to take up what weapons they can. Knives from the kitchen. Wrenches from the toolbox. Broken legs from tables and chairs. Anything that could conceivably cause damage must now be taken in hand.
And here, we must hold. We must give them some time. We must kill as many as we can, keep the Cure’s eye on us until all have slipped from their gaze.
So that’s just what we do. We hold, we retreat, and we kill.
And all the while, we lose more men, brave souls staying too close to the front, caught as their luck runs dry.
It isn’t like before. This is nothing like the fight in Outer Haven. There, the battle was even, spread in pockets all over the vast city. For days we fought, holding them off, the light at the end of the tunnel beginning to burgeon as we gradually wore down their army.
Only today, a number of hours ago, we were hunting victory, perhaps even expecting it. We tempted fate, and now we’re suffering the consequence. We accused the Cure of hubris, and that’s just what has befallen us.
I can’t quite believe it’s come to this. How this fight has escalated so fast, our resistance finally broken, that light at end of the tunnel now quickly extinguished.
And all is going dark.
Now I begin to wonder how brave I truly am, how willing I am to stay here and die. I sense a cowardly part of me trying to claw to the surface, begging me to give in to my fear and run. To take Drum with me, take Zander with me, to take Rhoth and West too. To gather them up and make for the east. To do as Zander said in the store room, and escape into the wilds with the friends I have left, to find some peace somewhere far from here.
The prospect grows in appeal as I see Drum beginning to become overcome by terror. His massive frame, a mighty target, no longer shoots from behind cover. He stays down, his eyes stark and wild, his hands shivering as the reality of his impending death creeps up on him.
I want to save him more than anything. I want to free him from this nightmare.
I turn to Zander, still in charge, still doing what he’s done all his life. Nothing will phase him, nothing will stop him. He will be the last man standing if he has to be, not leaving until all hope is gone.
I flash over to him, the world going dark and filling with smoke. His eyes are fierce when they find mine. Yet I know mine aren’t the same. They show a panic that’s rarely imbued me. A debilitating realisation that the end is nigh.
He inspects me, and knows.
“Go,” he says. “Take Drum and go.”
The fighting spirits flow through him. He turns straight back and continues to fire, his pulse rifle downing several more soldiers as they slip from a side alley. I turn back to Drum, up against a wall, fiddling nervously as he tries to change a magazine on his gun. He’s having no luck, his senses abandoning him as his body becomes overwhelmed by terror.
I feel Zander spinning me around.
“Go, Brie! Get the hell out of here while you still can!”
His eyes are as bright as flame, fire dancing within him. His stare compels me to act, and somewhere in my head, I hear his order spreading through me.
Go…get out of here…tak
e Drum with you and go!
The command is powerful, his full strength returned. I feel myself struggling to battle against it, my weakened state too feeble to overcome him.
I take a step away, tears forming in my eyes as I see him turn immediately back, and continue to fire. Around him, the dead are piling. Few soldiers remain standing here now, many dead and many others afflicted as Drum is, conquered by their fear.
My legs continue to drag me from the front, and straight towards Drum. I grimace hard, blinking the tears away, the mist and smoke now coating the streets and obscuring my vision.
I see shapes, but little more, still shooting from cover all through the streets. I no longer know if Rhoth and West are still alive. I no longer know how many of our men have fallen, how many remain.
All I know, all I can see, is my brother.
He stands, refusing to give in, his body regularly lit with each new blast of his rifle. A hue of blue surrounds him, lighting up his bared teeth, his face one of fury and defiance as he tries to hold back the storm alone.
Alone, without me. Yet I can feel him still, his rage and anger. I can feel the emotions coursing through his veins, the fearlessness that tells me he won’t take a backward step. He will never leave this place. And it was me who forced him here…
I can’t bear it, can’t bear the idea. I can’t watch him fight, and not help. I must be with him to the bitter end. My brother. My blood. My twin.
I fight against his command, and through need and desperation, I dispel it. My eyes change, flushing the panic away, and filling with fire just like his. I shake the shroud from my head, and hurry over to Drum. I grab his ample cheeks, and force his eyes to mine.
Slipping into his mind, I spread the order deep.
Stand up, run east. Join our soldiers and our people. Protect them. Protect Brenda, Tess, Abby…protect them all. Go now!
I withdraw, the order spoken once, and once alone. It’s all I need.
Drum’s eyes glaze, and the terror leaves them. They go big and brown once more, and with a robotic motion, he stands up to his feet, turns his gaze towards the east, and begins to run.
And knowing I’ll never see him again, I watch him go.
27
I watch Drum disappear into the mist until I’m satisfied he’s safe. Then I turn and dart straight back to Zander’s side. His eyes craft into an angry frown as he sees me appear beside him.
“What the hell, Brie! I told you go take Drum and go!”
“Do you not know me at all?” I ask him. “I’m not leaving you, Zander.”
“But what about…”
“He’s gone. I sent him east.”
He shakes his head.
“You should have gone with him, Brie. Why didn’t you go with him…”
I don’t answer. I don’t need to. And frankly, there’s no time for it.
Another grouping of Cure soldiers emerges from the mist ahead. We both see them easily before they come, and spring into action, firing too fast for them to react. Five more men are blasted apart, coating the alley in blood. There’s a pile of torsos and limbs now that has my brother’s fingerprints all over it.
We duck low again, taking cover as more bullets seek us out from hidden vantages. The Cure are now working through our weaker positions, cutting straight through buildings where they can and avoiding the bottlenecks of the streets. It’s becoming impossible to determine whether the line is holding, and how many of our men are still alive.
A flash of movement behind us has us quickly turning. My heart thuds as I see the shapes shifting through the mist, a unit of soldiers working across the street behind our rear position.
I lift my gun and prepare to fire. Zander pulls the barrel down just as I unleash a round of blue flame into the concrete.
“They’re ours!” he says.
How he can tell so easily is beyond me. To my untrained eye, they look like shapes of people and little more. Zander whistles, and they turn towards us, hurrying over to join what remains of our unit. I see several City Guards, a few rugged Nameless, and a Stalker among them.
“Where are you headed?” asks Zander, as they take cover behind our barricade.
“Sir, we were called south on the radio. The northern streets are falling like flies.”
“They’re through?!” rushes my brother’s voice.
“Almost, sir. We managed to block off some of the streets with explosives. We buried a whole platoon under a building. Some routes are impassable. With any luck they’ll work south as well.”
“Good work, soldier,” says Zander. He looks left and right, counting the numbers we have in our little team. “OK, let’s move back. We’re being enclosed right here.”
More gunfire from various angles confirms his concerns. Any minute, the Cure are likely to find a position from which to rain fire down upon us. We immediately move back, offering covering fire first to shield our retreat, before slipping down a side-street to the east, right in the same direction that Drum went.
As we turn off to the right, moving to where the fighting appears to be loudest, I spare a glance down a longer street moving towards the core, zoom in, and think I see Drum off in the distance, his heavy frame still lumbering off as I ordered him to do. The sight gives me a little bit of relief to see that he, at least, may survive this.
I have no such hope for the rest of us.
The night is black now, the skies covered in a layer of smog and clouds above. The artificial lighting here in Inner Haven, so sickly and unappealing, and yet bright, no longer operates as it should. Many buildings have seen their power cut, now nothing but towering shadows looming overhead. Others are lit only in places, a cool white glow emitting from random windows, or else from street lamps that haven’t yet been completely destroyed.
The sparse light gives shape to the battle, and as we move further inwards, and then for our stronger positions a little to the south, I see larger units of our men still in operation. They fire in groups of a dozen or more, quite a number of them still defending a square that branches off into a network of streets in all directions. The fact that they’re firing both west, south, and even towards the north, suggests that the Cure are closing in. And there’s nowhere to go but back, straight for the core which is now growing ever closer.
We move for the square, and I begin to realise that, right here, we have to make our stand. If we retreat any further, the enemy will quickly be upon the central streets of the city, and the civilians yet to leave will be caught in the crossfire. They need more time. And this is where we give it to them.
Zander knows this, and perhaps that’s why I do too. It may be that our link is so strong that his interpretation of the battle is seeping into my own thoughts.
We rush straight into the square, moving down one of the rare streets that hasn’t yet been sucked into the fighting. I see a place that will, soon, be overrun from all sides. I see a dead-end from which there will be no escape. If we enter, I don’t see us ever getting out.
But we go in anyway, Zander’s bravery filling me, filling us all. We charge for a largely unattended position, the square still fairly well lit by lanterns and lamps, and our little troop noticed by the many others defending it. They see my brother, and are infused with more hope, more energy.
“Hold the lines!” he calls out as he goes. “Hold them off here! We hold the bastards off right here!”
I have little time to look around, little time to do much more than defend the little space assigned to me. There are streets now to watch, and doors, and windows too. Hundreds of possible points of attack that an enemy soldier might find.
Yet every minute is a boon now to us. Our currency is our lives, and we will spend them to buy time. Time for others to escape, to give them a chance. And yet, caught in this square, with the enemy closing in around us, I doubt any of us will be among them.
My brother promised I wouldn’t die today. I think he’s going to have to break it.
In t
he maelstrom and fury of battle, however, you realise just who you are. Some will lose their faculties, be overwhelmed by the noise and smell of blood and burning, and the constant, unceasing threat to their lives. Others will hold firm, and fight until the end, turning their minds from the threat of death, refusing to think of their loved ones and those they’ll leave behind.
They will follow their duty, walk confidently towards their fate. They will never back down, never surrender. They will die on their feet, compelled to battle on despite the tremendous pressures, the tremendous fears.
They will fall, and yet be remembered. As heroes.
Now, here in the square, I’m surrounded by them. Only the brave remain now, only the strong. Some of our finest soldiers, still battling until the last, defiant until the very end.
And among them, I see Titus. His frame is impossible to miss, a towering, gigantic figure. Fitted with a suit of thick armour, and carrying dual miniguns on his flanks, he holds a street almost to himself, every inch of him constantly flashing white and yellow as bullets fly off the metal that surrounds him. A colossal man, roaring in fury and impenetrable, cutting down the enemy as they foolishly pour towards him.
He is a sight to behold. One of many.
And he’ll see his brother soon.
I begin to lose perspective of time, and of the numbers of men I kill. They are an endless horde, streaming without fear. Some appear as though brainwashed, programmed to act as kamikaze soldiers. They rush through, firing wildly, or else fitted with explosives that detonate as they reach our men.
I hear a deafening boom, and nearby see an entire street wreathed in flame, a dozen of our soldiers caught within the blast. They are hit and miss, these suicide soldiers. Many times they fall without taking a life themselves. But when they do hit, they can be devastating.
They continue to come now, and we continue to cut them down. But for every one of them we dispatch, half a dozen more take their place. And behind those who rush in without fear, the more discerning soldiers take position. They fire from safety, picking people off, skilled snipers with ocular enhancements capable of finding the weak points in our armour.