The Last Mission Of The Seventh Cavalry. Charley Brindley
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He reached with a shaking hand to pull it out, but the shaft broke off, leaving the arrowhead imbedded.
Autumn shoved a fresh magazine into her rifle and killed the second archer. “Incoming!” she shouted.
Sparks looked up to see two more men coming from the woods, swinging their swords. He shot one of the bandits in the thigh while Autumn took out the other one. The wounded bandit kept coming. Sparks fired his last round from the pistol, but it went wild. The bandit dove for Sparks, with his sword coming down. Sparks rolled and thrust the shaft of the broken arrow forward. The bandit yelled when the arrow cut into his stomach. He hit the ground, shoving the arrow through his body and out his back.
The deafening gunfire, along with the sight of so many bandits being cut down, turned the tide of the battle. The attackers fled into the woods, dropping their stolen goods in their panic to escape. The wagon train’s soldiers ran in pursuit.
The tall officer with the scarlet cloak came galloping down the trail, followed by a troop of cavalry. He surveyed the scene, shouted an order, and motioned for his cavalry to charge into the woods.
The officer dismounted, and as he walked among the bodies, one of the foot-soldiers reported to him, talking excitedly and pointing at Alexander’s soldiers. The officer nodded and asked questions as he looked over the platoon.
“Who’s got the STOMP medical pack?” Alexander yelled.
“It’s in the weapons container, Sarge,” Kawalski said.
“Break it out,” Alexander said. “Let’s see what we can do for these people. Check the woman in the wagon first. She’s losing a lot of blood.”
“Right, Sarge.”
“Sparks, are you all right?” Alexander asked.
Sparks unlatched his vest where the arrowhead protruded. He checked for damage. “Yeah.” He rapped his knuckles on his body armor. “These things work pretty good.”
Karina sat in the dirt by a wagon wheel, with her arms on her knees and resting her head on her forearms.
“Ballentine!” Alexander ran to her. “Are you hit?”
She shook her head but didn’t look up. He knelt beside her.
“What’s wrong?”
She shook her head again.
“Report by the numbers, people,” Alexander said into his mic as he sat beside Karina.
Everyone reported in except Sharakova.
“Sharakova’s right here,” Sparks said. “She picked off six of the bad guys.”
“Sparks, can you fix Sharakova’s goddamned comm?”
“I shall try my best.”
“Well, get on it before she wanders off and gets lost.”
Karina pulled off her helmet and dropped it to the ground. “It was too damn easy,” she whispered.
Alexander waited, saying nothing.
“When Kawalski shot that first one in the wagon,” Karina said, “then you got the one on the ground, I just went on automatic.”
Alexander patted her shoulder.
“Sarge, I’ve never killed anyone before.”
“I know.”
“How can it be so easy? These guys were no match for our guns. Why didn’t I just try to wing them instead of blowing them away?”
“Karina—”
“Where the hell are we?” Karina asked. “And what’s happening to us? I thought this was just some elaborate show until that bandit sliced the woman’s arm and real blood spurted out. Then that foot-soldier had his gut sliced open. Have we dropped into some surreal nightmare?”
“I don’t know what’s happened to us, but you reacted just as you were supposed to. All our training has been exactly for this sort of attack. You don’t have time to analyze, consider options, or aim for the knee instead of the heart. Less than three seconds passed between Kawalski’s first shot and your first kill. You are the perfect soldier, not a tenderhearted woman, at least not on the battlefield. That’s what this weird place suddenly became, a battlefield. And guess who won the battle? The best armed and the best trained fighting force in the world. If we hadn’t opened fire, those bandits would have come after us with their swords and spears after they finished off these other people.”
Karina lifted her head and wiped her cheek. “Thanks, Sarge. You’re right. The soldier in me did take over, but now I’m back, trying to sort things out.”
“Hey, Sarge,” Kawalski said on the comm. “I need help with this woman’s arm wound.”
“Coming.” Alexander stood and held out his hand to Karina.
She pulled herself up. “I’ll go.” She picked up her rifle and helmet, gave Alexander a quick hug, then ran toward the last wagon.
“I’ve never killed anyone either,” he whispered, “until today.”
“You did good, Sarge,” Private Lorelei Fusilier said on the comm.
“Shit,” Alexander said. “I always forget that damn comm is on.”
“Yeah, Sarge,” Sparks said. “You did us all some good.”
“All right, cut the chatter. We’re in a whole new ballgame now, so let’s check things out very carefully. And stay on your toes. In the heat of battle, we chose sides; now we’ll see if we picked the right one.”
Chapter Four
Karina knelt beside a foot-soldier, working on a bloody gash in his thigh. The sword had gone all the way through, but if she could clean out the wound and stanch the flow of blood, he should recover.
Lying on the ground and propped up on his elbows, the injured man watched her. The other foot-soldiers went about collecting weapons from the battlefield, and she could hear them dispatching the wounded attackers—cutting their throats or running swords through their hearts. It was barbaric, sickening, and it made her angry, but there was nothing she could do about it; so, she just tried to shut out the sounds as she worked.
She finished stitching up the wound and reached for the GelSpray liquid bandage, but before she could apply it to the wound, the man screamed as a sword came down, piercing his heart.
“You stupid son-of-a-bitch!” She jumped to her feet, shoving the foot-soldier away. “You just stabbed one of your own men.”
He stumbled backward but held onto his sword, pulling it from the man’s body. Karina looked down at the man who’d been stabbed; his mouth gaped open, working in a silent, feeble cry for help as his wide eyes stared at the sky. Then his eyes closed and his body went limp.
“I could have saved him, you ignorant fool.”
The soldier laughed and took a step toward her, his bloody sword pointing at her stomach.
“I got a bead on his forehead, Karina,” Kawalski said over the comm. “Just give me the word, and I’ll blow his brains out.”
“I got my sights on his heart,” Joaquin said.
“And I got his jugular vein,” Lorelei Fusilier said.
“No,” Karina said. “This bitch is all mine.”
“Sukal!” a woman shouted from behind Karina.
The man looked past Karina, then back at her, still with that leering grin on his face.
Karina couldn’t see who the woman was—she had to keep her eyes on his. “What happened to your teeth, Sukal?” she asked. “Someone kick them out for you?”
Sukal flourished his sword like a cobra weaving a hypnotic spell in front of its mesmerized victim.
“Unless you want to eat that sword, you better get it out of my face.”
He