August Burning (Book 3): Last Stand (11 page)

“I don’t know anything really. People have been straggling into the citadel in ones and twos. Some settlements may yet stand. Troy is in command at the Citadel. He’s sick; it’s his broken leg. He’s not thinking straight. His fire is gone. He’s afraid.”

“He should be afraid,” a grimy Wolf trooper spat. “There are too many of them. We’ll never make it back to the Citadel.”

“Where’s Jaxton?” Bennett demanded.

“He took the Lion to the western ravine yesterday, around dusk. No one’s heard anything since.”

Bennett rubbed the dark rings under his eyes, his hands caked with mud. “Billy? Liam? Wilder?”

Joseph eyed the figures in the darkness warily, slinking amongst the stones of the old gristmill. “Billy arrived back in the Citadel earlier tonight, exhausted and demoralized. No one knows what’s going on outside.”

“We should make for the Citadel. They won’t ever get over them walls,” one of the dark eyed villains ventured.

“Where is your commander?” Joseph asked, his voice echoing eerily off the cold walls.

“The officer here took three Bear and a handful of the people that were re-building this mill, an hour before sunset. They forded the river upstream and made it to the other bank…when they were beset from all sides. We could see it through the windows. At least two dozen infected,” Bennett began, before faltering.

Another continued in his place, emerging from a crouching position near a boarded-up window. “We shot them. All of them.”

Bennett nodded softly. “They turned in front of us. We had to put them down.”

Adira could scarcely stand still, nor did she care of the others around her. She reached out her hand, feeling a wave of nausea. Joseph clutched her quickly and led her to a broken stone, where she plopped down. “If there are that many in the valley, the Lion had no chance. They would have-“

“Enough,” Joseph said quickly, doing his best to be stern. “The Lion is the finest fighting force we have. Do you remember the tryouts they had?”

Bennett chuckled softly in the firelight. “The Bear tryouts had a timed one mile run. The Lion did five.”

Joseph smiled. “That’s right, and we all saw the strength component. Deadlifts, pullups, pushups. The Lion got the best. The toughest. There’s a reason I’m not in it.”

Adira smiled, despite herself. “We need to get up at dawn, and find them.”

Joseph nodded, “at dawn.”

“Why are you helping me?”

“It’s all I have,” Joseph said.

She regarded him evenly for several seconds, and then stood. “I’m going to be alone for a while.”

The two men watched her walk and mount one of the great circles of heavy stone that had once been used to crush grain.

Joseph maintained his smile, in case she looked over. But his voice was husky. “Help us if you want. But you should know I’ll never trust you.”

Bennett looked to the soft spoken and thoughtful man. “So you ostracize me as well. I expected more of you.”

“That was a mistake.” Joseph tapped the Eagle emblazoned onto his jacket. “There’s a reason you don’t wear a patch. But I see in his desperation Jaxton was forced to give you one.”

Bennett felt his throat tighten, and he stuffed the torch into a bucket of river-water, sending the stressed camp into darkness.

…

At dawn, the valley was peaceful. Little birds flew through sighing boughs of green leaves, swaying through brilliant sunlight. At that very moment, nearly three thousand infected prowled through the valley, searching for the meat they could smell on the wind. On that morning, the morning of August the Seventh, no fewer than ten infected were coming through the ravines every minute, as the hordes from the north crashed up against the ridge walls of the valley. On that same morning, six different groups of survivors, numbering over ninety in total, prepared to make final pushes through the infected, blitzes that would take them back to the Citadel.

“We have to push west, to the valley wall,” Adira said, trying to sound confident. She stuck her breast out, so all present would see the patch of a rearing warhorse on her jacket. “There’s a Destrier depot below that ravine. There should still be some Jeeps there, maybe with enough gasoline to get us back if they aren’t there.”

The group regarded her warily, clutching their old firearms. “I’m not risking my life for those fuckers. We’re getting out of here,” a beady-eyed man in ill fitting hiking gear said. “Back the way we came.”

The other Bear troopers murmured a ragged assent. Only two stood straighter, both men at Bennett’s flanks, with Eagle patches on their breasts. They leaned forward slightly, sensing trouble.

Bennett took a step forward, his hand on his pistol. “There’s thirty of them up there. We owe them one, bloody attempt. They marched out to save us all. One good try to reach them. Can you give Jaxton that?”

Another spat on the floor, and wiped his beard. “Who are you to lecture on loyalty?”

Bennett roared and took two steps forward before he was gripped from behind by strong, callused hands.

Joseph stood. “There’s no time for this. Let them leave; they are no use to us. Bennett, Adira, come. We’ve wasted too much time already.”

“We’re with you, sir,” the Eagle duo nodded to Bennett.

The man with the scraggly beard chuckled darkly. “You have your wind-up toy soldiers. What else do you need?”

One of the shaved heads turned, and regarded the rugged coward curiously. “Live for something.”

Bennett double-checked his assault rifle and breathed in deeply, hoping to drag his mind away. The smell of death was on the air.

The tiny group burst out of the mill into bright sunlight, and began sprinting through the oak trees lining the little river

Chapter Ten

The Church

The asphalt was hot. The sun made them squint. Jaxton could feel the pulse of forty survivors at his back, willing him to get them home. They emerged from the church onto a side street, exhausted after a sleepless night. He pointed to a farm cart. “Where’s the horse?”

There was a satisfying click every time Liam loaded another shell into his shotgun. “They ate it.”

Jaxton nodded, and whistled. “Lion, form up around the cart. Any of you Wolf with compound bows, into the cart, now! Be ready to shoot. Everyone else, get in behind them!” As the survivors swirled into action around him, Jaxton stopped four of the largest men in the company, and spoke to them quickly.

Liam drew close. “Jax, if the cart gets stuck for any reason, we’re all going to die.”

“Keep your fucking voice down, Liam,” Jaxton snapped. Liam reeled, as if struck. He had forgotten Jaxton was a commander first, and a friend second.

“Sorry. Liam. I need you in the cart, to direct the archers and be my eyes from up top. Can you do that?”

Liam nodded nervously, wiping the sweat off his upper lip. He would not fail his friend.

The cart creaked, and it began to move forward, pulled by four of the strongest survivors. On its wooden platform stood survivors, armed with compound bows. Two Wolf units stood among them, ready to call out targets. The remnants of the Lion formed a ragged perimeter around the cart. Though most of the riot shields had been cast aside in the retreat, there was still a handful covering the wagon. Some of the other survivors were armed with melee weapons still bloody from yesterday’s violence. Those with firearms prepared to walk alongside the wagon wheels. Their firearms would only draw the infected closer, and would be used as a last resort.

As the convoy lumbered onto Main Street, Jaxton noticed the infected bumbling around the buildings. “Faster men. We’ll switch you out by the half-mile. Let’s get some momentum!” Jaxton cried out, too loud for his own comfort.

The sound of running feet echoed across the pavement as they passed the general store.

Liam tapped the archers on the shoulders, and busied himself with assembling more arrows. “Targets to the rear!”

Jaxton forced himself not to look behind, wanting to demonstrate his confidence in the archers. He heard the bows snap several times, and a cheer went up.

There was blood on the air. Jaxton saw flashes of movement between the buildings to the flanks, and his heart began to pound. He drew both tomahawks from his belt and took his place in the front rank, in front of those laboring to pull the heavy cart. “Liam,” he said in a calm warning.

“I see them,” Liam growled, his voice rattling from fear. “Take them down,” he ordered.

His archers nocked another volley of arrows and took aim with careful precision, their shoulders burning from the strain. Razor tipped arrows cut through the sticky summer air and punched into sickened flesh and bone.

“Back left!”

“I see it! It’s mine!”

“Fuck. Missed. Need help!”

“Got it. Watch the right.”

The archers chattered nervously, and the arrows began to dwindle. Liam stood in the center, pointing all around him as the woods flanking the road came alive with the foe. He shot a glance over his shoulder; they were leaving Main Street behind.

Still, the Lion was unbloodied. Their heavy boots and armor made them hot, and feverish. They wished the infected would break through already, so they could fight the fear out of their overloaded systems.

“Jax!”

“Liam, what is it?” Jaxton still looked ahead, making sure the road ahead was clear. They were two miles from the school, he thought. Or was it three?

“Ten arrows left. Guns?”

Jaxton could feel the burly men around him shift with the news, knowing they would soon have a chance to temper their steel in the foe’s flesh.

“No guns. Not yet. Don’t wanna draw too many.”

Liam exhaled audibly, and handed out his last arrows. “May be too fucking late for that.”

Jaxton’s will collapsed, and he shot a glance behind him. The road was filled with a seething mass of infected, a hundred yards from the rear of the column. As the survivors moved at a quick trot, the infected ran.

“Liam, keep them moving.” Jaxton worked his way to the back of the moving square, and took position in the rear line. He heard Liam bellowing near the front, and knew the cart-pullers were being rotated out.

Jaxton gritted his teeth, and tried to judge who would hit their line first. Left side. Closing fast. The infected woman vaulted over a fallen tree and came down hard, rolling in the leaves of last fall before it bounded to its feet.

“Let’s dice these fuckers up boys!” Jaxton cried.

He saw an axe rise and fall on the right, as a Lion detached and engaged an infected five feet in front of the square. The infected hit the hot pavement with a satisfying smack, and the man returned to the square as it rolled slowly forward.

Another arrow flew by Jaxton’s head and skittered wide on the road. Jaxton stepped out of line and sank both his tomahawks into an infected’s fragile torso, pinning it from both sides. As he yanked them out, his fellow bludgeoned another with the wooden end of his maul, before flipping it around and using it to punch an infected child’s weakened facial structure.

As the column inched along, the Lion absorbed the waves. On every inch of the flanks, the infected surged against the steely reserves of the Lion’s survivors. They came hard and fast, one by one in a never-ending torrent, but they were cut down. Sweating and heaving, the Lion met the relentless onslaught with a resounding answer of steel.

“Wolf, guns to the wagon!” Jaxton heard Liam cry above the din.

“They’re in front of us!” A voice sounded out, shrill with fear.

Jaxton hacked off a foe’s leg and left it bleeding on the tar. He turned, and another Lion trooper took his place. Rushing to the front, Jaxton surveyed the ground they had to pass through. The infected were coming from the front, filling the road in little groups of two and three.

“We’ll never cut them up fast enough. We need to clear the way fast if we’re guna have any chance to make it back.”

Liam looked to him from his position atop the wooden wagon, his chest heaving in the heat. “Jax, do it. Do it now.”

Jaxton swore, and signaled.

An officer raised his own shotgun, loaded with buckshot, and she barked. “Guns to the fore! Clear the way!”

The rifles and shotguns popped and snapped, their discharges entering targets less than a second later. The infected were shredded, and they fell in pieces, missing limbs. A trooper pulled the trigger, pumped the slide furiously, slick with sweat, and got another target in his sights. From atop the cart the Wolf units fired again and again, till the sweet summer air smelled only of blood and gunpowder.

Jaxton pushed his Lion units aside, so the gunners on the ground could advance and fire as well. They moved forward slowly, stopping to fire every few seconds. As the square was assaulted from the flanks and rear, the column’s firepower paved a way forward, deeper into the valley and closer to salvation. They left behind a scattered mass of broken corpses and wounded zombies.

Driving them on, Jaxton could feel the panic setting in. The woods began to blur, and the infected in front began to resemble a wall. His men heaved and screamed with their axes and spears, but they began to falter from the exertion.