Trail of Tears (21 page)

He heard an engine again as it strained
against poor grip and he knew that the time had come. This was it.
This was their Alamo. Either they held here or Carter would cut
through them and decimate the others in the open.

He heard a dull thump and the ground shook
beneath him. In the distance he could see the brightness of flame
through the swirling snow and then it disappeared.
First blood
to us,
he thought.
It always came down to blood in this
damned world.

* * *

Carter watched as the jeep was thrown into
the air. The thrall manning the .50 calibre gun was slammed against
a nearby wall and the sharp snap of his neck breaking was
uncomfortably audible in the aftermath of the explosion. Fire
erupted beneath the jeep and it turned on its side before crashing
into the snow. The passenger was crushed beneath the torn metal and
the driver was thrown free, though his legs remained behind in the
jeep, his foot still pressed firmly on the accelerator and the
engine screamed.

“That was a handheld mortar,” Carter smiled
despite the deaths of his men. “We’re close. Spread out and
advance. We have them now.” Carter leapt from his jeep and ran for
the protection of a nearby building. He watched his men swarm from
their vehicles and run to cover. A few of them fired into the
distance and he cursed their impatience. His men wore tan weather
gear and he cursed again as he realised that the dark colour made
them more visible in the storm. The gear was perfect for desert
work but useless in the snow. No doubt fucking Harris had his men
in white so they blended into their surroundings. He had rushed
this foray, he knew, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he
would miss an opportunity if he delayed.

He had to get those weapons the humans had.
Once he had their amazing ammunition he would not have to worry
about the vampires anymore. He would be unstoppable. But first, he
had to find the humans. This was the first direct attack on his
force so he must be close. He had expected to have to fight for
every inch of ground long before this but Harris must have fewer
fighters than he had expected if he had waited until now to attack.
Maybe this would be easier than he thought.

Another flaming missile suddenly appeared
from the snow and slammed into the half-track next in line. There
were no casualties but the flaming remains blocked the whole road
so it was obvious what their intention was.

“Advance,” he shouted into his microphone
and knew his words would be heard by every platoon leader. “They
are trying to delay us. There are not that many of them. We must
advance.” He saw his leaders rise from cover, closely followed by
their men. He had over two hundred thralls with him here, with a
further two hundred with the tanks and half-tracks behind. He
laughed as he watched the thralls clambering over the ruined
buildings and filling the streets. He would have them soon.
Suddenly, the front line of thralls stumbled and fell. It was only
after the first thrall had fallen that he heard the sound of
gunfire. The second line tripped over the dead in front and still
others fell to bullets searing the air above their fallen
leaders.

Within seconds twenty thralls lay dead and
the remainder were scrambling for cover. Carter screamed into his
microphone for a flanking manoeuvre and watched as a number of
thralls split from the main force and disappeared through the city
streets. Carter watched the rest of his force just sit behind cover
and he shook with anger. He broke from cover and ran towards the
main group, slamming into a wall to stop himself as his feet
slipped on the hard-packed snow.

“Send some men around the other way,” he
shouted at the first platoon leader he found. “We have to move
forward.” The platoon leader looked at him for a moment as if
considering the order. Carter felt very exposed for a moment. If
this thrall didn’t obey him then he could lose everything. With a
shock he suddenly realised that he had ordered the majority of his
inner cabal of thralls to stay with the tanks and ensure that they
followed with all due haste. In his hurry to catch the humans he
had left himself unprotected.

“Now,” he insisted with just enough volume
and threat to portray a confidence he did not entirely feel. The
thrall leader snapped a salute and gathered together his men and
disappeared. Carter allowed himself to breathe out and he felt
quite light-headed. He heard the stutter of gunfire in the distance
and rallied the remaining thralls to him.

“This is it,” he shouted, straining to be
heard over the howl of the wind. “The others are flanking the
humans. We must take the fight to them to distract them. Use cover
but move forward. You,” he grabbed a thrall beside him. “Take two
others and clear that wreck from the road. We need to clear the way
for the tanks. I want the jeeps moving in ten minutes with a
soldier manning those .50 cals. Move; we have them now.”

There was a flurry of activity as the
thralls rushed to obey their orders and Carter waited until the way
was clear before finally following.

* * *

Philip Warkowski eased the breath from his
lungs and squeezed the trigger. The Barrett XM-109 thumped into his
shoulder like a playful lover and his massive arms held the recoil
to a minimum. He was already moving to the next target before the
thrall he had hit slumped to the ground without its head. He fired
again and then moved back below the ridgeline as he changed
position.

“Three more rounds then we pull back,” he
called out to the others. He had been assigned the best shots in
the community and, while the three men and one woman in his group
could shoot, he did not consider any of them to be of the quality
he needed.

“Move position after each shot,” he hissed
at John Palmer who had dropped under cover as a hail of bullets
tore his position to pieces.
Jesus,
he thought,
what I
wouldn’t give to have Dee back at my side. Together we could hold
off the whole platoon.
They had lost so many true soldiers,
friends who he had begun this fight with and now all that remained
from the original team was Harris and himself. His mind wandered as
he recalled those who had fallen but his shots were true each time.
He felt no hate for his enemy. In war people died, especially
friends. It was part of the life and he had been a soldier for a
long time.

“Okay, pull out. We have done all we can
here.” The others pulled back reluctantly but they obeyed
nonetheless and Warkowski grunted with satisfaction. He was not a
natural leader, but Harris had asked him to train and run this
small team and he had reluctantly agreed. Harris’ logic was hard to
argue against. If he and his team could harry the enemy and make
every inch of ground costly the thralls would move cautiously
through every street, even when there was nothing there. As long as
he and his team appeared enough times to keep them worried the
thralls would delay advancing without due care. Every minute
delayed was another minute that his family and the others would
benefit from.

The storm was picking up now, the swirling
snow making it more difficult to shoot from distance but it worked
both ways. If they could barely see the thralls it was almost
impossible for the thralls to see his team. Each member was clothed
in white weather gear and they blended into the background so well
that Warkowski could barely see them as they pulled back. While
they could slow the thralls down they were too few to cause any
great problem for them either. At best they took out five or six
thralls each time they sprung a trap and each trap took time to set
up so they lost nearly ten blocks each time they retreated. He
sighed. While what they were doing helped it was not what they
needed. What they really needed was a major strike that would
cripple the thralls advance before the heavier weaponry arrived and
tore the city down around them.

* * *

“Where are those fucking tanks?” Carter
yelled into his radio but he was answered by a burst of static and
he threw it at his aide in disgust. “Keep trying. I don’t care if
they have to drive through every building to get here, I want them
here now.”

Carter was frustrated. He needed to get past
these delaying tactics. One tank would do it. Just one tank could
bring this fucking city down around the humans’ ears and his
thralls would be able to advance in safety behind its armour. He
cursed his earlier impatience in pulling so far away from his
armour. He forced himself to calm down and think. He had sent two
patrols out to flank the humans but the bastards weren’t staying
around long enough for the patrols to catch them. Twice now he had
sent patrols out but the humans had been gone by the time the
advance parties got around them.

This was taking too long. Suddenly he had a
thought.

“Get all the men into the remaining trucks,”
he shouted and the men pulled back from their positions.

“Sir, what if they have more mobile
mortars?”

“Then you won’t have to worry about anything
anymore, Lieutenant.” He glared at the officer and the thrall
dropped his eyes. “We’re going to push through. They haven’t used
anymore explosives since those first shots so the chances are they
don’t have any. Once we push through these delaying tactics you can
have all the fun you want.”

He could see the lust in his men’s eyes and
he played to it. “Remember, these bastards have weapons that we
need to keep the vampires in their place. Once we win here we can
take it all.” Despite the cold there was a ragged cheer from the
men in front of him and they quickly moved to the remaining trucks.
The engines coughed to life and he smelled the diesel in the air.
This was it. This was his destiny. All or nothing. Once he had
those weapons he would be invincible. He made a show of being the
last one to get into a vehicle, letting his men see him in the
street despite the risk of a sniper bullet. He made a show of
getting into the first truck. Despite his misgivings he knew he had
to lead from the front if he wanted them to follow him. He remained
out in the open for another minute and then shouted.

“Move out.”

* * *

“Shit,” Warkowski cursed as he saw the seven
armoured trucks power their way past their carefully chosen
positions. “Go for the tyres,” he shouted but the vehicles were
already moving too fast and they had passed before they had time to
adjust their aim. “Okay.” Warkowski pulled himself up from his
position. “We move quickly back to camp. If we’re lucky we can take
a more direct route and get there before it’s all over.” The others
nodded, their faces showing doubt for the first time that day.

* * *

Harris heard the faint growl of engines and
he sighed. He had hoped that Warkowski would have bought them
another hour or so. He pushed thoughts of his friend’s fate aside
savagely. This wasn’t the time to mourn another friend. If he was
still alive he would make his way back, if not then he had bought
them a precious hour already and that would have to be enough.

“They’re coming,” he shouted to those around
him. He surveyed the scene and took a deep breath. The bodies they
had pulled from the grave were strewn around the entrance to their
old home, mixed with some of his team and the bodies of the thrall
platoon. It looked like a last desperate stand against a
well-trained enemy force. It was important to ‘sell’ the scene to
Carter and the thralls. If the thralls believed the humans already
defeated then they might blindly walk into a trap. Carter certainly
wasn’t stupid but the scene was pretty convincing. It was all they
had.

* * *

Carter could see a number of small fires in
the distance and he signalled for the driver to slow down. Ahead,
he saw a number of bodies on the ground, the snow stained red
around them. The snow was compacted and dirty around what appeared
to be an entrance shielded from view by a complex roofing system
that made the series of connected buildings look like ruins at
first glance.

“The clever bastards,” he whispered as he
strained to see through the storm. The complex would not be visible
from above and barely visible from the ground unless you were
really examining the area.

“Sir, some of those bodies are ours,” his
Lieutenant announced.

“Yes, they are,” Carter replied. This was
exactly what he was hoping to find. His advance team had found the
humans after all. Why they had not reported the discovery was a
mystery for another day. The humans had put up a brave fight
judging by the number of bodies but the trail of bodies continued
into the building so his patrol had obviously gone in. That his men
were dead he had no doubt. After all, the humans had spent the last
hour delaying his forces. But was it over already? Had the delaying
tactics of the humans been merely a weak retaliation by the few who
were left?

His thralls clambered out of the trucks and
spread out. His Lieutenant shouted for his attention and Carter
went over. The Lieutenant had rolled over one of the thrall bodies
and he could see Sinclair’s frozen features, the thrall’s eyes
staring sightlessly at him. His body was ripped by numerous bullets
and blood stained his dark jacket.

“Should we finish it, sir? They’re probably
huddling in their beds right now.”

Carter was about to respond but something
was nagging at him. He continued to examine the scene as his mind
tried to shake free what was troubling him. His silence was taken
for assent by his Lieutenant and he began to organise the thralls
into three teams. One team was already heading towards the main
entrance and the other two spreading out to check for other ways in
when Carter suddenly stopped.