The Dragons of Men (The Sons of Liberty Book 2) (71 page)

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 kind 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?”

“Tell me, oh great and mighty Sigmund. How could a man that has lost everything destroy the king who has gained the world?”

“That’s just it,” Sigmund began, his anger quickly dissipating into a smile. “I haven’t lost everything. I may have lost nearly everything I have worked for, but I have also gained much. In fact, I have gained some of what I had once lost. For example, I lost something very precious to me months ago—something I held very dearly.”

“Which is what?”

“Your end. Or, more specifically, the weapon of your demise.”

Lukas paused, wondering what Sigmund was talking about. His eye began to twitch uncontrollably as he stared at Sigmund, fear and fury filling the pit of his stomach.

“So what was this weapon you lost and found again?”

“A nuclear bomb,” Sigmund said casually. “A hydrogen bomb, if you prefer to be technical, and nearly as high of a yield as the mighty Tsar Bomb. I can assure you that I have managed to bury it deep within your jugular vein. If you shoot me right now, I give you my word that it will detonate, thus beginning the end of everything you have forged. Now, please demonstrate to those around you who is really in charge and order your men to withdraw.”

Lukas glanced over at Jacob with concern. Those behind him began to murmur with confusion. Lukas muted his mic, turning to Clark.

“How could he have snuck a nuclear bomb into DC?”

“We would have located it,” the Battle Marshal replied. “A bomb that large could not have been through our ports or borders without us knowing.”

“Could he have hidden a bomb close enough to still damage us?”

“Perhaps, but we’ve monitored everything within a hundred miles. It would have had to have been here before the war began.