by Jamie Davis
“I am Percival, son of Lancelot. How may I aid you?”
“Call your comrades and form a shield wall at the base of these steps. Hold back the creatures while I get help from inside. Then we’ll counterattack and try pushing them back.”
“An excellent plan, son of … ”
“I’m Victor.”
“Victor,” Percival repeated. “An apt moniker. I shall rally the warriors, and we will hold the Fell beasts here.”
“Thank you,” Victor said. “I’ll be back.”
Then Victor stalked back up the steps, ejecting the empty magazine from his pistol and sliding a fresh clip into place.
He dropped the gun in its holster, then entered the hospital. Blood and bodies were everywhere. Elaine, Maria, and a few of the Dusters climbed out from behind a makeshift barricade of office desks and filing cabinets atop the basement stairs. Winnie was still clinging to Danny, whispering something, apparently unaware of her surroundings.
Maria said, “We wondered if you were going to make it back to the party.”
Victor looked around. “Is she … ?” He couldn’t finish.
Maria smiled. “Morgan is downstairs helping the wounded. We were about to join her, use our remaining power to hold the basement. Now it looks like we won’t have to.”
“We’ll see,” Victor said. “We’ve brought a small army of the Fae with us, and have managed to stall the attack on this building. Anyone else downstairs who can still fight?”
“Not many, but some.” Maria turned to one of the nearby Dusters, checking his rifle’s chamber. “Sergeant, go downstairs and bring me anyone still able to hold a gun. Tell them help is here.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The sergeant’s voice held a note of hope that seemed to surprise even him. He turned and climbed around the barricade to head downstairs.
“How many Fae did you bring? And will it be enough?”
“We’ll see.” Victor considered the question before answering. “There are certainly fewer now than when we started, but they’re fierce fighters. The beasts are no match one-on-one. So I say we just keep chipping away.”
“Good,” Maria said, her eyes exhausted and voice filled with sorrow. “We could use a victory.”
“How bad has it been?” Victor asked.
“Bad wouldn’t do the fighting justice.” Maria pointed towards Elaine, pulling Winnie tightly against her. “Honestly, if not for Elaine, we’d probably all be dead.”
“Everything changed when she started working with the twins,” Victor said. “Not that I know all that much about magic.”
Maria smiled. A middling like himself. A rarity among the rebels.
The sergeant returned, leading a group of a hundred or so armed Duster recruits. More than half were wounded in some way and seemed skittish to be going back outside. They needed to hear more about the help that was going to help them win this battle.
“Dusters!” Victor cried out. “Winnie and I have returned with a small Fae army. They are here to help us. But they are sorely pressed outside. We must go and join them, to lend our bullets and bayonets to their swords, axes, and bows!”
Cheers erupted, so much stronger than fatigue should have allowed.
He had more to say, but no one wanted to hear it.
The rebels were ready for battle.
CHAPTER 40
Winnie listened as Victor — her Lancelot — rallied the remaining Dusters.
She held Excalibur, it’s shining blade unmarred despite the numerous creatures it had already cut through. There was a cheer from the Fae outside as the Dusters came to join them.
“I have to go back out there,” Winnie said.
“I’ll be at your side,” Elaine squeezed her shoulder. “We’ll do this together.”
“Me, too,” Danny added. He carried a rifle and wore a battle harness with ammo clips attached. His eyes were weary.
“Right behind you, Winnie,” Maria said.
Winnie nodded and turned towards the doorway, stepping back out into the sunlight. The sky was still clear and blue, though she could see the few clouds floating by at the edge, still all orange and dusty.
Victor had assumed position to the right of the depleted Fae army with his Dusters. The Fae allies were down to barely a hundred warriors now, and more were getting cut down by the creatures battling to reach their ancient enemies, ignoring humans in their path to the hated Fae. She had to help before they perished.
Her inner warrior returned and Winnie bellowed a guttural cry, charging forward and leading the four of them into the fray.
Winnie leapt down the steps, her sword raised, landing atop a demon savaging a Fae trapped on the ground beneath her shield trying to scrabble away on her back.
The creature never saw her coming.
Excalibur swept down, cleaving its scaled head from its shoulders.
Blood gushed from the beast’s neck, now dangling by a thin thread of flesh. Winnie sent a streaking bolt of blinding white magic towards a cluster of Kane’s summoned beasts nearby, bursting three into dust.
Another bolt of bright white flew past her and hit a pair of demons charging Winnie from the side. They might have ended her, if Elaine hadn’t seen them first. She punched her fist, several feet from the demons, and yet they fell to the ground, anyway.
Winnie looked at her mother in awe.
Elaine smiled, pleased despite the battle.
Gunfire chattered from every side.
Danny and Maria were watching her left.
Winnie stepped forward, toward a mammoth, muscled beast. It looked like a cross between a mountain gorilla and a T-rex. She swung Excalibur but it ducked under the slash, then dove forward.
Its talons barely missed her head. She dodged backward, avoiding the attack, but lost her balance.
She toppled backward, trying to draw more magic on her way to the ground.
Then Danny was standing over her, shouting at the attacking beast. He shoved the barrel of his rifle into the monster’s snapping jaws and pulled the trigger.
The back of the thing’s head was a fountain of brain matter and horror.
The dead body fell to one side. Danny leaned down, reaching out to pull Winnie back to her feet.
She looked around. The Fae and Dusters had pushed the attacking creatures back from the entrance and were driving them away for a change.
She gripped Excalibur and charged back towards the center of their side’s expanding crescent, Dusters on the right, remaining Fae on the left.
———
Danny pulled Winnie to her feet, but only got a half-smile before she charged off to join the battle line.
Their forces had pushed the creatures back from the hospital entrance, a hundred feet or more—the first time they’d gained any ground.
Danny slapped a fresh magazine into his rifle and raced after Winnie.
Maria was with her, twin pistols firing. Elaine was there, too, keeping the creatures away from her daughter with spells that seemed almost effortless. The three women had become a unified killing machine, protecting their center.
Danny caught up and added his rifle to the fight, watching his own front while keeping the beasts away from Winnie.
The enemy’s numbers were quickly thinning and for the first time hope didn’t seem so far away. They might actually—
Gunfire to the right.
Danny turned.
The Fae had killed most of the demons and their brethren to their front, but now there was a new threat behind them. A line of armored carriers were advancing on their position.
They were horribly exposed, and despite standing against the dark army, they could do nothing to hold out against modern weapons of war.
Kane’s Army was coming to finish them off.
They had to get everyone into the main building before their entire force was cut down. Maria shouted, “We have to get back. They’ll slaughter us out here like this.”
“I know!” Danny yelled. “Tell
Victor to pull the Dusters. I’ll get Winnie to withdraw the Fae. We’ll man the first floor windows and try to hold them off.”
Fortunately, the bulk of Kane’s summoned creatures had been killed or driven back enough that they could retreat without having to fight their way back to the hospital. Danny ran to Winnie, pulling her sword from a demon’s heaving chest.
“Winnie, we have to pull back, get to the hospital.”
She spun around and turned her savage eyes upon him.
“Winnie!”
Her eyes lost their strange expression. Recognition dawned.
Danny pointed toward the approaching convoy. “We have to pull back.”
“No … ” Winnie whispered, looking at the long line of armored vehicles. “What are they doing?”
Danny followed her gaze and gasped.
The Fae, having defeated the demons and other attacking creatures, were now charging the new threat, screaming battle cries, waving their swords and axes, running headlong at the approaching vehicles.
Something caught in his throat. “Oh, my God … ” was all he could say.
The convoy stopped.
The upper hatches opened on the armored vehicles.
Gunners popped up to man the machine guns mounted atop them.
The rear doors opened and troops spilled out, taking position between the vehicles. Then, when the charging Fae were barely one hundred yards away, the Army opened fire.
The smoke cleared thirty seconds later.
The entire Fae force lay on the ground, their bodies, armored only against blades and arrows, torn to skin and bone by a tsunami of bullets.
Danny stood dazed, but he couldn’t stay that way long.
Soldiers and vehicles resumed their advance, turning their guns on the Dusters. Bullets kicked the dirt at his feet. He spun around and pulled Winnie away from the carnage, pushing her toward the hospital.
He ran behind her, turning to fire off a few rounds at the advancing soldiers.
———
Victor heard the firing from his left as he finished off another of the beasts.
The snarling creature froze, but only for a moment before crumbling to dust.
He turned to see the last of the charging Fae cut down by the advancing troops. A sickening sight. Their glorious army, destroyed in a single battle. While they had managed to fight off and kill the remaining beasts from the Fell, the loss of so many allies was a blow to their souls.
Maria came running over. “If we don’t get to cover, those guns will do the same thing to us.”
Victor yelled, “Pull back! Take positions in the hospital!”
He kept shouting, in some cases grabbing a Duster by the shoulders and dragging them back towards the hospital. The few remaining sergeants recognized the danger and were doing the same.
Then there were no more troops to shout at—Victor was at the rear of the retreating Dusters. He picked up his pace, bullets flying by his head, looking around for any sign of Winnie.
Then he saw Danny and Elaine pulling her into the building ahead.
At least she was safe.
Victor was among the final Dusters to reach the hospital’s double doors.
He raced inside, then when the last man dashed through, he pointed to the doors and two troopers pushed them closed and set the iron pipe into the bracket. He looked around the lobby.
“Everyone, take position by a window. Return fire. If they get close enough to place any charges, we’re dead.”
Dusters darted down the hallways to either side of the lobby and into rooms.
The gunfire outside was getting louder.
There was a booming crash from overhead—the bigger guns on the ridge were probably shooting over the heads of their advancing troops and striking the structure’s upper floors.
Winnie was standing with Elaine, Danny, and Maria. Victor walked toward them, holstering his pistol. He pointed toward a crashing explosion upstairs. “Any chance we can raise the shield again?”
Winnie started to answer but Elaine cut her off.
“The short answer is no. The longer answer is that Tris and the others are spent. We’ve got a contingency to throw up a last ditch barrier to reinforce the central basement rooms under this structure, but it will take every chanter we have.”
“What about Bullock, or Frannie and Parnell?” Winnie asked.
“The other elites have all been killed or wounded. Or they just don’t have anything left.” Elaine said.
Another explosion thundered overhead.
Dust and plaster rained.
A recruit stumbled downstairs, followed soon by dozens of others.
“What happened up there?” Victor asked, grabbing the first recruit by her arm.
“The third floor collapsed,” she said.
There was another massive explosion; this one seemed to rip the drums from Victor’s ears.
“We can’t stay up here,” he said. “We have to take cover before they send this whole place crashing down on top of us.”
“Agreed,” Danny said. “I’ll pull everyone from the first floor defenses and meet you all downstairs.”
“I’ll come with you,” Maria said. “We’ll get the word out faster if we work from both sides of the building.”
They darted off in opposite directions.
Another booming crash from upstairs. More dust and plaster rain.
“Let’s get downstairs,” Winnie said.
Victor was dying to check on Morgan.
But right now he had to stop Kane from killing the rest of his world.
CHAPTER 41
Nils stood on the slight rise about a half mile from the besieged hospital complex, or what was left of it. He crouched and peered through the large binoculars set on a tripod in front of him.
It was satisfying to see each of the shells from their biggest artillery pieces crash down on the central structure. Entire sections of the upper floors were blown apart with every explosion, then cleaved to the ground like a glacier at sea.
He smiled. This was only the beginning.
A loud and unexpected burst of gleeful laughter puffed from his mouth as the second floor collapsed.
“I see you’re pleased with our progress,” said General Couch beside him.
Nils swallowed an angry response, loathing the interruption. So much was going well; he wouldn’t spoil it with a dressing down of the General in front of his officers.
“It’s a shame we don’t have more than four. Those cannons are … breathtaking.”
“We prefer to call them field pieces, Director.”
Nils waved off Couch’s impertinent correction. The things looked like cannons to him. Another fired and sent a massive shell crashing into the hospital.
“What’s their range, General?”
“Several miles, sir.”
“Really … ” An idea was forming, but Nils needed to chew on it.
“They have an effective range of up to seven miles.”
“Tell me something, General.” The binoculars were back in front of his eyes. Part of the first floor was visible as flesh was ripped from the one above. “What will it take for your remaining troops to dig those rebels out of their base?”
“The fighting will be costly, I’m afraid,” Couch said. “Even with the bombardment, they’ll have dug in to their remaining positions. And they’ve shown a resilience and determination I wouldn’t expect from green troops.”
“They’re not troops.” Nils fixed the general with a level stare. “They’re traitors and rebels. Nothing better, and certainly not deserving of your respect.”
“Yes, sir,” the general said.
Durham had to be crushed, as did anyone standing by her side.
And the general would pay for his soft belly.
He twirled his finger: get on with it.
The general cleared his throat. “As I was saying, sir, they will be difficult to dig out. They’ll fight to the death. I believe that they�
�ll see that as preferable to surrender.” A beat, then, “It’s what I would do.”
“So we’ll lose significant numbers of your soldiers and my Red Legs if we have to go in there and root them out with conventional weapons and tactics?”
“Yes, sir. I can’t give you hard numbers or percentages, of course. It would all be speculation, but in my professional opinion, an attack like that will be costly. But it will eventually have to get done. The artillery can soften them up.”
Nils bent to look in his binoculars, considering what Couch had said. They didn’t have many troops. If a significant number were wasted here, there would be fewer available to attack holdouts elsewhere.
He could call upon more of the Fell’s creatures, but they had proven unreliable and were still susceptible to standard gunfire, in addition to the new offensive spells that the rebels had apparently learned to use.
No. He would need every man, every soldier, Red Leg, and conscript to reclaim any rebellious cities. Two things here would finish the fight. He had to conserve his troops so they could die for him elsewhere, and he needed to make an example of Durham and her remaining forces.
“General Couch,” Nils said. “Set up remote recording cameras on this ridge then pull your troops and half your big guns back to say … let’s say two miles. Then continue your barrage as you send your troops into their new positions.”
“What do you have in mind, Director?”
“You’ll know when you need to. Now pull back.”
Four hours later, the artillery and command staff had relocated to a hill just over two miles away. The guns were all firing again, raining destruction on the rebels in their holes.
Nils found the officer in charge of the largest artillery pieces and pulled him aside. “Captain, where do you keep your supplemental ammunition for these guns?”
“Director Kane,” the man saluted, “the reserve ammunition is kept in those trucks over there. So men can bring replenish our supply here should we run dry.”
“Excellent. Thank you, Captain. That will be all.”
Nils shivered.