August Burning (Book 3): Last Stand (6 page)

The Lion had never before been called out in full during its months in service after a late winter creation.

“Jaxton!”

Jaxton could see a miserable figure hobbling towards him on crutches. Jaxton’s men barely acknowledged him as they prepared for combat.

“Get out of my fucking way!” Troy’s face was ruby red. “What’s happening? A full call-up?”

“Four settlements are under assault. Two are already being overrun,” Jaxton panted.

“Four? Where are my men?”

“Half were leading Leeroy to his exile this morning. North ravines. They were one of the teams that fired the flare.”

Troy’s red face became incredulous. “A flare? My team would never call for backup.”

Jaxton finished strapping on his kneepads and fitted two tomahawks to his thighs. “It’s that bad.”

“Well who’s leading the rest of my team? I haven’t given any orders!”

“I gave them to Bennett. The Bluffs need reinforcements too. Bennett knows that part of the valley better than anyone still here.”

“Bennett?” Troy spat, wobbling on his crutches. “How dare you? How dare you take my team from me?”

“Troy! Enough,” Jaxton growled, drawing to full height in black body armor. “You have command of the Citadel. If it goes badly for us, I’ll fire a flare to signal the retreat. Cover us from above as we come in.”

Troy chewed on his words and his neck bulged with fury. He mastered his emotions and stood a little straighter. “Good luck Jax. Bring everyone home.”

Jaxton nodded sharply, furious at his friend but unwilling to continue the argument. The valley was falling. He turned to leave.

“Jax!” He heard his friend call, the violence gone from his voice. Troy hobbled over and clasped him on the shoulder. “It’s the Hordes, as I warned you. We cannot win this fight.”

Jaxton felt the Lion troopers around them stiffen. “I have to try. The Lion has never once been broken.” Then he raised his voice till it boomed under the rafters, “Haven’t you heard?!”

His men, covered in body armor from head to toe, roared their approval in answer. They snatched weapons of choice from the carts, great axes and hammers, makeshift spears, and several antique swords. His burliest drew from the second cart, and hoisted large riot shields over four feet tall onto their arms.

“Where’s Adira?” Troy asked suddenly, his eyes soft.

“The Bluffs, near the old resevoir.”

“My men are with Bennett? Good. She’ll be ok.”

As Troy disappeared into the swelling mass of men, Jaxton fitted his own helmet, goggles, and facemask. Onto his limbs he strapped armor spray-painted black, and in his hand he felt a spear pressed. His men grinned at him wildly; excited their months of preparation with the Lion would finally come to fruition. His officers chirped around them, their masks muffling voices trembling with anticipation. 

Liam forced his way through the crowd, still the bear of a man he had always been. But where he had been soft before, now there was only iron. His jacket was emblazoned with a roaring Bear.

He crossed to his friends swiftly, shoving others around him aside. “The Western Ravine?”

Jaxton nodded. “We need the carts to get us up there. By the time we get our shit together, who knows if the Wolf will even still be there.”

Liam nodded sharply. “What do you need from me?”

Jaxton clapped him on the shoulder. “Bennett has the south. I’ll take the west. We need you on the North and East. How many men do you have here?”

“At the Citadel? Twenty. Are we evacuating?”

Jaxton could sense his men listening in. He forced his head to stay up. “No. Not yet.” Then he drew Liam close. “But be ready to move.”

Jaxton mounted the bleachers and hoisted his spear. “Our brothers are in danger of being overrun in the west. They call to the Lion for aid. They call for their finest to hold the valley. In this, I know we will not fail them. LET’S MOVE!”

The following thunder was their answer.

His men, already slick with sweat in the humid air, crowded into the two horse-drawn carts that waited for them in the main drive. Jaxton took a deep breath of it in, hearing the cicadas chirping a constant chorus from the greenery.

“Mike!” He called to his first officer. “We can only take half, maybe a few more. Pick one of the officers and have them follow on foot, with supplies for an overnight operation. Tents, food, more weapons. You know the drill. Just like we practiced.”

Mike trotted off, his eyes hunting the crowd for the candidates he wanted. Jaxton wheeled, and acknowledged the crowd that had gathered below him and on the roof above. Nearly three hundred souls in the valley, all depending on him for their survival. It was he who had led them to this place originally, and he who had welcomed them all with open arms. It was he who had taken down the Lieutenant. It was he who had urged them to hold the valley, rather than attempt to run west, ahead of the Hordes. And it was he who would now be their salvation in the final hour.

Chapter Seven

The Western Ravine

“Keep fucking shooting!” Viera screeched. She fumbled with another arrow and cursed, dropping it. Controlling her breath, she raised her bow. The sun’s demise cast brilliant, dancing shadows on the ravine, and made it hell on her poor eyesight. She paused over an advancing infected form, and released her fingers. The arrow flew far wide, and she grasped her cramping arm. Viera sank to her knees and scrambled sweaty fingers in her quiver. In despair, she launched it against a tree, empty.

“I’m out! Are you out!? I’m out!” Malcolm wailed, as the infected advanced over the piles of their own dead. There had never been this many. Never. Where were the men from the Citadel?

More than three dozen torn and bloodied bodies littered the ravine at random intervals, prickled with colorful barbs. The closest laid no more than fifteen feet away, its stench wafting on the breeze. A husky inhuman snarling filled the ravine’s rocky embrace, and two more infected stalked into view, advancing to a quick trot. Viera flung wild eyes to her flanks, where the other two archers loosed another desperate volley. They were hitting one out of every three shots.

“Where is the Lion?! Where the fuck did Billy go? Is there another flare? Fire another! Fire another god damnit!!” Malcolm screamed, the veins on his narrow head bulging.

Viera fumbled with the final cartridge in her rucksack, finally slipping it into the tube. Raising it skyward, the flare gun belched. Twin pillars of red and black smoke soared two hundred feet into the sky.

“They should be here by now!!”

A snarling infected woman closed within ten feet before she took a round through the skull. Todd hefted his sniper rifle, slid the bolt back and loaded another bullet. He shifted in his treetop hunting stand. “I’ve got three left,” he said calmly, his voice drifting down from the perch.

“Malcolm, look!” Viera pleaded. Malcolm wrenched his eyes away from the fore and his heart pounded. There was another flare, several miles away to the south. “There’s another! It’s the fucking horde!”

“We’ve gotta get outta here!” Malcolm screamed. He saw more infected hastening down the chute, stumbling over the corpses of their allies a stone’s throw away.

Malcolm saw Viera drop her bow and run, even as he heard Todd cursing her cowardice from his lofty perch. The sniper rifle cracked again, and again. The other Wolf archers were gone, but the rifle snapped once more. The weapon clacked: empty.

Todd cursed quietly to himself, twenty feet off the ground, as he saw the final guard fleeing back into the valley. Todd shifted his hips, annoyed at the painful metal seat. “They don’t make these damn things for comfort, do they?” He looked up absent-mindedly, and saw the infected closing to him. He grunted. The ravine had fallen. Squinting in the dusk, he saw the stream become a river of rotting flesh.

His spine tickled at the sound of scratching, and he looked below his metal stand, to the base of the oak. Four infected were dragging their broken fingernails on the wood, their bloodshot eyes fixed on his own. He chuckled. The ladder was right beside them, but their diminished mental faculties could not comprehend its usage. Todd leaned back, and waited for the cavalry to arrive as more and more infected stumbled into the valley. The Lion would handle these, Todd knew. Jaxton had never failed them before, not for one night in four hundred.

Near the Southern Ravine

“Save your ammo,” Adira commanded. She felt the gear drop and the horses roar. 5,000 pounds of hot metal slammed into the wall of infected that were surging down the street, and scattered their broken bodies. Adira forced the wheel around, and the heavily plated Dodge Charger made a vicious turn on a carpet of wriggling infected. Kylie pulled her .357 magnum inside the window and held on for dear life.

Adira could see the reservoir to her right. At the top of a massive, three hundred foot grassy incline, the Wolf troopers manned the lip of the lake. Sprinting up the hill, the infected were closing the distance fast.

“Are they killing them fast enough?!” Adira screamed above the roar of the engine. “Hold on!” The pair of women slammed forward as the car broke apart another group of infected struggling to cross the street and mount the hill.

“There are too many Adira! Look!” Kylie pointed out the window as the steam rose from the engine block.

She could hear the screaming carry across the grass. Adira could just barely make out the arrows in flight, as they were launched from the Wolf’s bows atop the hill. They struck infected targets a hundred feet down the hill, sending them tumbling. She peered into the sunset as Kylie’s pistol went off beside her. An infected took a round through the chest but did not falter.

“Adira, drive!”

Adira dropped the steel to the floorboard and eyed the gas tank. Almost empty. Where were the others? They had to have seen the flare.

“There!” Kylie screamed. Four ATVs burst through the tree-line behind them and made straight for her Charger. A dozen infected followed ten seconds later, limbs pumping furiously as they strained in the summer dusk.

The ATV’s skidded to a stop around the heavily plated car. They only had a minute before the infected were on them. “Kylie! Buy us some time!” Adira ordered.

Bright eyed and bursting with adrenaline, Kylie stepped out of the car and took careful aim at the nearest infected. The weapon cracked, and a head exploded.

“What the fuck is going on!?” Her nearest driver screamed above the thrumming of the idling engines. His Destrier patch was soiled with mud.

Adira wiped the sweat collecting at her brow. The car’s heat was slowing her brain. “It’s the Horde.”

“It can’t be. It’s real?”

“Look around you! The Wolf fell back from the ravine, they’re stuck on that hill, at the top of the reservoir.”

The Destrier drivers shuddered, knowing what was about to be asked of them; there was room for two on the back of their ATVs.

“Take the ATV’s up that hill! Evacuate them all! We’re falling back.”

Three drivers snapped their goggles into place with shaking hands, mastering their fear. The fourth hesitated as Kylie’s magnum cracked twice more nearby.

“Donald, get moving!” Adira raged.

Donald’s 6 foot 3 inch frame would not move. The sniper rifle at his back was wobbling, and his lips trembled as his eyes feasted on the carnage around them.

“Kylie!” Adira yanked her head over. Kylie set her jaw, furious at the fear she saw before her. Everyone felt it. Only the brave mastered it.

Adira paused, seriously considering leaving Donald to run back to the Citadel on foot. “Get in the fucking back you coward! I need your rifle!” She screamed.

Donald stuffed himself into the back of the Charger, the whites of his eyes popping out of his skull.

She felt the shock absorbers struggling as the heavy vehicle crushed two more infected underfoot. As Adira let the engine roar, she could see the ATVs speeding up the reservoir hill, swerving between the groups of infected that delighted at the new prey. The road took Adira’s Charger up and around the back of the reservoir hill, so she could see the shimmering blue waters lapping up on the back of the earthen dam. Adira killed the engine and waited. She could hear Donald whimpering in the back seat, and she could hear the carnage developing on the reservoir. She hadn’t been followed. Snatching Donald’s sniper rifle from his flailing limbs, Adira raced to a little clearing beside the elevated road.

Adira deployed the bi-pod and laid down in the underbrush. Down below her vantage point, the ATVs had crested the hill. She could see the four drivers, and seven Wolf troopers with their camouflage body-suits and compound hunting bows.

Putting her eye to the scope, she searched for targets.

Seventeen, eighteen, twenty? The bodies littered the reservoir’s earthen hill below, many still moving with colorful barbs sticking out of their bodies. Others straggled in from the forest below. She knew the ravine lay deeper inside, long since abandoned by its guardians.

The infected were mounting the hill. There were at least twenty of them sprinting up the grass, swift as their compromised limbs would allow. They did not dodge or shy from the arrows that flew down the hill to meet them.