The Fall of Man: The Saboteur Chronicles Book 1

by J. V. Roberts

“Just put your hands up! I don’t feel like getting shot.”

  Lerah did as instructed. “Yeah they’re Union, we’ll be fine.”

  “I bet the folks in that settlement thought the same thing.”

  “Just be quiet. Keep your head. These are my people, I’ll find out what’s going on.”

  “Get on your knees!” The one yelling commands had a healthy paunch extending out over his belt.

  “We’re Union.” Lerah stepped forward to meet him.

  Dominic tensed up, expecting her to be met with a wall of lead.

  “Name?” Paunch asked.

  “Lerah Adams, Shadeux, and daughter of Defense Minister Adams.”

  The two soldiers quickly lowered their weapons. “Apologies ma’am, who is he?”

  “He’s working with us on a mission, he reports directly to the Lord Marshal.”

  “Understood,” Paunch responded humbly, revealing his lowly position on the Union totem pole. “I’m Private Schaefer and this is Private Mendoza.”

  Mendoza nodded.

  At that moment a young girl came running from the settlement. Her clothes were torn. Her face was covered in tear streaked soot. “Help—” Her appeal for salvation was cut short. Three rounds of automatic gunfire tore through her back and opened gaping holes across her sternum. Bloody saliva trickled from her lips and her eyes rolled back in her head before she fell to the ground.

  “What was that?” Dominic charged forward like a blast of thunder, sudden and violent.

  Mendoza raised his rifle and took a couple steps back, keeping Dominic in his sights. “Hold it right there, big boy!”

  Dominic grabbed the barrel and jerked the rifle from his grasp. Mendoza stumbled forward with the force and Dominic rammed him square in the nose with the stock before tossing it into the dirt; Mendoza went down clutching his face.

  “That’s far enough; you just assaulted a Union officer!” Schaefer was standing over his fallen comrade, his gun pointed at Dominic’s chest.

  “You need to go ahead and lower that weapon, soldier.” Lerah was calm and collected. She was in her zone. She knew these men, she knew where she stood in the pecking order; they weren’t going to turn a muzzle on her. “Lower it, now.” She placed the barrel of her pistol against his temple, giving it an extra little push when there was a delay in his compliance. “What the hell is going on here?”

  “You better have a good reason for shooting an unarmed girl in the back.” Dominic brought his rifle out from under his jacket.

  “Dominic, calm down, let me handle this.”

  “You better be quick about it.” Dominic was on the brink of running into the settlement on his own, guns blazing; damn Lerah and damn the Union.

  More cries were cut short by gunfire. More homes began to smolder and flame.

  Lerah jammed her gun a little harder against Paunch’s scalp. “You’ve got two seconds.”

  “The Rebels, it was the Rebels! We were sent out as security to guard the banners of truce. To make sure the diplomats were safe and to make sure the chests of coin found their way into the right hands. We were hit on the road. They took out a bunch of our men and made off with the coin. That’s why we’re here.”

  “That’s why you’re here? You think they have your coin?” Dominic gestured towards the settlement with the barrel of his gun.

  “Captain Perkins believes they do.”

  “Perkins is here?”

  “Yes, your father sent him along with the 6th, to assist us in getting the coin back.”

  “Bullshit,” Lerah spat.

  “Go see for yourself. Ask him.”

  “Let’s all go ask him together.” Dominic pulled Mendoza from the dirt and gave him a swift kick in the rear, compelling him towards the burning settlement.

  “Throw your weapon in the dirt and walk!” Lerah commanded.

  “Ma’am, this is completely unnecessary.”

  “Until I know why unarmed civilians are getting shot in the back, it’s going to remain necessary. Drop the gun.”

  Schaefer relinquished the firearm and followed after Dominic, his arms spread out to his sides. “Your father and the Lord Marshal are not going to like this one bit.”

  “I’ll deal with them, you just focus on walking.”

  Dominic stopped and dropped his backpack. “We should leave our packs here. We can grab them on the way out.”

  “Why?” Lerah asked.

  “Less weight to haul around. Trust me, if things get hairy, you’ll appreciate the extra agility.”

  She didn’t look convinced, but she went along with it anyway.

  As Dominic moved through the mouth of the settlement the full scale of the horror began to reveal itself. There were bodies: burnt, broken, naked, and lying strewn across the main footpath. Panicked settlers, their clothes hanging from their bodies in dirty strips of cloth, ran back and forth among the carnage, trying to escape the men nipping at their heels with guns and knives.

  “This is how you recover stolen coin?” Dominic grabbed Mendoza by the scruff of his shirt, keeping him close.

  “This wasn’t me.” He was pinching his leaky nostrils. “We just stood outside.”

  Dominic choked and coughed as the ravenous flames on either side of him consumed the hovels and clogged the footpath with thick black smoke. His eyes burned and watered, distorting his line of sight.

  As they entered the town square things began to clear up. The air became breathable again. A dozen or so settlers were huddled together in a small circle. They were clutching each other, waiting for their bloody fates to be fulfilled. Soldiers stood on every side of them, dressed in multi-cam combat pants, tan knee pads, and matching multi-cam shirts zipped high around their necks. They wore tactical vests carrying an assortment of combat gear: knives, extra magazines, satchel charges, grenades. Their faces were painted black and they wore tan combat hats low across their eyes. Their rifles came up when they saw Dominic and Lerah, and the commands started flying.

  “Drop the guns!”

  “Drop the guns, now!”

  “Release our men and drop the guns, now!”

  Lerah pushed past Dominic. She had an iron grip on the back of Schaefer’s shirt and her pistol was jammed against his spine. “I’m Lerah Adams! I’m the Defense Minister’s daughter!”

  The soldiers squinted against the sun, trying to see past her pudgy hostage.

  “Men, drop them, what she says is true. She is the Defense Minister’s daughter. She’s one of us.” The voice of peace belonged to a stocky man with a cleft chin. He moved through the crowd like some great sage, reassuring his men, pushing the barrels of their black assault rifles towards the ground. He stepped through and over the settlers, a smile breaking across his lips. “Lerah, it’s good to see you. I must confess, I’m a bit surprised. I knew you were sent out, but I wasn’t aware that your orders brought you this far east.”

  Dominic cut in before she could respond. “We saw the explosions, call us curious.”

  “You must be the Outlander. Hause told me about you.” It was a reluctant admission of Dominic’s existence. “Lerah, what’s this about? Why are my men being held at gunpoint?”

  “They stepped out of line.”

  Perkins crossed his short arms over his chest. “Well, you have my apologies.”

  “The hell with apologies, I want to know what is going on?”

  “Please let my men go, first, so that we can talk face-to-face?”

  “Lerah—”

  “Dominic, it’s fine, let him go.” Lerah released Schaefer with a shove and sent him stumbling towards Perkins. She kept her pistol unholstered near her thigh.

  Dominic, reluctantly, did as requested. They were her people. He kept his rifle pointed towards the sky; one hand on the front stock, one on the back, his finger swimming near the trigger.

  “Talk,” Lerah ordered.

  “The 5th, your fellow soldiers, were escorting diplomats and a chest of coin. They came under attack by
Rebels. The Rebels killed our diplomats and the 5th lost half their men. They also took our coin. Hause and your father sent us out here to retrieve the coin and see to justice.”

  “My father?”

  “These are your father’s men. I’m just overseeing them in the field.”

  Lerah sighed, dropped her head, and rubbed at her temples with her thumb and forefinger.

  “These aren’t Rebels, you asshole! These are civilians, non-combatants. So why are you shooting them down and burning their homes?”

  Perkins squared his shoulders. “I won’t answer to an Outlander, I advise you to keep your mouth shut. If it weren’t for the Defense Minister’s daughter you’d be sitting right there with the rest of them.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. You do answer to me, you’re in my territory. These are my people. And if it weren’t for the Defense Minister’s daughter I’d have blown your head off by now.” The rifles came up again, all of them pointed in Dominic’s direction. Dominic racked the slide on his own weapon and set the sights on Perkin’s chest. “He’ll go with me!”

  Lerah jumped into the fray, placing herself between Dominic and Perkins. “Dominic! Let me talk to him for a minute. We don’t want more bloodshed.”

  Dominic backed down, a deep fire still burning behind his eyes. “You may not want blood, but I sure do. You’ve got one minute, then I’m gonna start getting the answers my way.” The Union boys were eyeing him, their hands practically shaking with the excitement of imminent combat. For them the trigger wasn’t a last resort, it was a fond friend that scarcely darkened their doorway.

  “What’s the deal Perkins, explain this to me?”

  Perkins wasn’t much happier about answering to Lerah. “You know, it’s my operation, I really—”

  “You’re going to explain yourself, or my gun is coming up next. You and your men might get me, but do you want to try to justify my death to Hause and my father?”

  He wet his lips. “No… I do not.”

  “Then start talking.”

  The heat was pressing hard at Dominic’s back. The sound of the nearby flames boiled in his ears. The hovels around him crackled and popped and crashed as they were consumed.

  “Look,” Perkins retrieved a map from his back pocket, there were three large black circles drawn on the upper right hand side, “the attack took place in between these three quadrants. We were commanded to come through and press these settlements for answers.”

  “Press them for answers?” Lerah asked, as if she hadn’t heard him correctly.

  “Yeah, press them,” Perkins sounded hopeful, as if they were finally on the same page.

  “And that means what to you? Shoot them? Terrorize them? Rape them? Burn their homes?”

  “I’ll admit that some of the men got a little bit… excited… a little out of control. They lost their brothers. When we got here, their emotions got the better of them. It’s regrettable.”

  “Bullshit! This is what you assholes did during the war.”

  “Dominic, please, just let me handle this.” Lerah placed a hand against his chest. “Perkins, it seems to me that you’re not able to control your men. Perhaps you’re not fit for field command.”

  “You’re not the one that gets to make that call.”

  “I will be reporting what I’ve seen here today. The Lord Marshal can decide what to do with you.”

  Perkins shrugged. “Go ahead, no skin off my ass. I’ll even help you write the narrative.”

  “You sonofabitch, this is okay with you?” Lerah motioned to the group of terrified settlers.

  “What I’m not okay with is you and that scum coming in here and trying to tell me how to handle my mission. So, if you’re done preaching, I’ve got work to do.”

  “No you don’t, you and your men are leaving.”

  “Really, little lady, are you planning on making us?”

  His men rolled their shoulders and cracked their necks, emboldened by their Captain’s rebellion.

  Lerah raised her pistol. “Yeah, little man, I’m planning on making you.”

  “Men, if she pulls that trigger, you kill them and everyone in this shithole. Do you understand?”

  “Yes sir!”

  Dominic had his gun up, but there were a dozen rifles winking back at him, he didn’t quite know where to aim.

  Perkins didn’t flinch. He just stood there, stoic, his hands clasped at his back, staring down the barrel of a loaded gun as if it were part of his daily routine. “I don’t give a shit whose daughter you are, you kill me and these men will bury you. What you’re doing is treason.”

  “When the Lord Marshal finds out what you’ve done, I think he’ll forgive me.”

  Perkins clucked his tongue. “Do you think he doesn’t know? The depth of your naivety touches me. How did the Lord Marshal put it?” He leaned forward, lips pursed. “Oh yeah, I believe he said, by any means necessary.”

  A cry for help formed somewhere beyond the flames and smoke. Dominic backed towards the distress call, his sights still set on Perkins and his men, daring them to act.

  “Hey, hold up, where’s he going? I don’t want him interfering! Command him to stop!” Perkins protested.

  When Dominic reached the edge of the square, he turned and ran. The sounds of dissent faded as he trekked deeper into the bowels of hell. He moved foot over foot, covering his sidelines with his rifle. The black smoke strangled him. He coughed and spit. His eyes boiled over with tears. Keeping his bearings was like trying to track the sunset through a dirty window. Just as he was about to call off the search, a series of high pitched shrieks sounded just ahead of him. They were close. There was the sound of skin hitting skin and the low grunting of a male in the throes of passion.

  “Get… off… me! Help!”

  Dominic found them. She was a young girl, a teenager. She was naked from the waist down. She was on her stomach, clawing at the ground, trying to pull herself to freedom. Her attacker was a crooked faced soldier with wild eyes, also naked from the waist down. He was strapped to her back, trying to wedge her legs apart with his knees.

  The soldier looked up just in time for Dominic’s boot heel to slam him in the center of the face. The impact sent him flying backwards on to his naked ass.

  The girl scrambled to her knees, covering herself with her hands. She looked up at Dominic with fear in her eyes, as if he were just the next man in line to have a go at her.

  “Get out of here, you’re not gonna want to stick around for this.” The girl was on her feet and heading in the opposite direction before Dominic could finish the sentence.

  “I’m a Union soldier! You know what that shit means?” The half naked man was sliding backwards on his ass, trying to get his pants up around his waist at the same time.

  Dominic had his rifle in one hand and his machete in the other. “You rape little girls? You burn their homes? Am I getting close?” Walls of flame rose on either side of them, creating a shower of delicate ash.

  “Listen, don’t do anything stupid. We were just having a little fun.”

  Dominic slashed at the soldier’s shins.

  He recoiled.

  The blade partially severed one leg and nicked the other. The soldier howled. He clutched at his knee as the bottom of his leg flopped about, no longer under his control. A piece of white bone protruded from the layers of fat and flesh, like some broken fossil.

  “If you hadn’t moved like that I could have made the cut clean, now we’ve got all this mess.”

  The man’s ability to speak had devolved into wounded animal noises. He threw his head back as tears escaped between the scrunched up folds of his eyelids.

  “That’s enough out of you.” Dominic leveled his gun and took his head apart with two pulls of the trigger.

  Lerah jumped at the sound of the gunshots. She turned her focus from Perkins for just a fraction of a second.

  That’s all the time he needed.

  He charged her, shoulder first, an
d wrapped a hand around her wrist, deflecting the gun. He lifted her from her feet and drove her into the ground, breaking her grip on the pistol and knocking it beyond her grasp. “Get that Outlander sonofabitch, I’ve got her!” Perkins’ soldiers broke off in the direction of the gunshots. Perkins planted his knees on either side of her waist, pinning her against the ground. He rolled his hands into fists and rained two off balance blows down on her head. She blocked the next blow and grabbed him by the collar, meeting his face with a quick head butt. Before he could recover she trapped his arm against his side, snaked her other arm around his upper back, and pulled him to her chest. She kicked a leg out, bucked her hips, and turned him over on to his back, gaining the mount. She laid into his ribs with her knee, it didn’t take the fight out of him for long, but it gave her enough time to reach one of the knives holstered at her waist. She came around and drove it into the top of his bicep.

  “Bitch!” He pummeled her jaw with his fist.

  She rolled off of him and retrieved her pistol before coming up to her knees. Blood began to fill the inside of her mouth. She spit a ball of red mucus into the dirt and held him in her sights. “Perkins, if you attempt to get up I’m going to end you, plain and simple.” The settlers, seeing that their captor was no longer a threat, began to flee the square.

  Dominic knew the gunshots would get their attention. He was counting on it. He watched them from behind the flames, his face and arms covered in warm ash, the perfect camouflage given the conditions. He was crouched down within the remnants of a collapsed hovel, the front porch and the support columns still burned and the flames broke high enough to conceal his position.

  There were three of them. They were moving in a tight formation, each one covering an angle.

  Well trained.

  Alert.

  Ready.

  He launched from the wreckage, his machete in hand, pointed downward and thirsty for blood. He landed atop the soldier at the center of the group, burying the machete between his clavicle and shoulder blade, pressing down with every ounce of force he could muster, sending it right through the top of his heart. Dominic released the machete and took up the fallen rifle. He kicked out, sweeping the soldier at the rear off of his feet while simultaneously firing from the hip and blowing the guts out of the pack leader. Dominic dropped the rifle and worked the machete free from his first target. The man at the rear was just registering what’d happened when Dominic lopped his head from his shoulders.