The Rifleman - Ch.28 (Patreon)

Chapter 28

Slowly

Split was already awake when Wesley woke. He watched her, standing at the entrance to the tent with the wind blowing that strange hair behind her. Her face was blank, and she didn’t have a thing to say. When she saw him watching her, she glanced over and nodded once before going back to staring.

Wes joined her vigil, watching out the flap while he stayed where he was so that he didn’t wake Ben’Ta.

“They’re coming,” Split said eventually. “Wake the others.” With that, she started to fuss over her gear, making sure she was ready to fight. Wesley woke Ben’Ta first, and the word passed down the line of sleeping soldiers. When it reached the sleeping Captain, everything happened very quickly. The man seemed to go from fully asleep to barking orders in the time it took others to breathe.

“All right, everyone!” Peterson barked, “Yesterday was a rough one, and I’ll be my left nut that the pox-ridden player bastards have even more for us today! Up! Gear check in one minute!”

Wesley himself didn’t even need that long, having slept in all his gear. Still, it was vaguely reassuring to find spending a night on his ass still left it completely numb despite the changes the Tier system had brought to his body. He did a few stretches, jogged in place for a good five seconds, and called it enough for now. 

Boone handed them each some dried meat and a mug of something truly awful to drink, and by the time the approaching group entered the tent, the squad was up, ready to go, and eating the worst breakfast in the universe.

The fresh-faced and spotless man who stepped into the tent flanked by a pair of guardsmen who looked as bad off as the squad glanced nervously out the flap of the tent as if he was considering just running for it before he swallowed hard and spoke. 

“I’m sorry to hear about your loss, but I want to thank you for holding as long as you did,” He fidgeted with his belt as he talked, and Wesley felt a growing urge to slap the kid's hands off it. “I am afraid the attack continues, and we must send you out again immediately.”

“Someone throw some food at ‘im,” Mental grunted. “For Sara.”

Everyone launched what was left of their awful breakfast, with the exception of Peterson, who pretended not to see it. 

“Where are we going?” Peterson asked, not even glancing at the man and his escort.

“That is to be explained in a briefing in about five minutes,” The fussy little man brushed bits of food off his shiny, clean uniform. “The briefing tent is three down on your left.”

He left after that while the squad continued to drink whatever awful concoction they had been given. 

“We have a line about a half-mile deep surrounding the city,” a guard Captain was saying as he showed a map of the area to the squad. “The problem we are having is here and here.” He pointed to a pair of areas marked in red. “Fast attacks are breaching out ranks and striking the resupply carts going to the area, and if it continues, both those areas will be out of food and ammo before the day is out.”

“What is this?” Peterson pointed to an area marked with a skull just between the two areas.

“We have a central storage for the dead. That area is where it extends beyond the walls, including an entrance that is only able to be opened from within the city.” The man didn’t seem particularly worried. “We have a tent there where we are storing the dead who die each day before they are lowered in overnight. The gate is enchanted to hell and back. Nothing to worry about.”

“What about if they have a necromancer or a ghoul?” Wesley interrupted. “I reported one group we know of with a ghoul summoner.”

“Not your mission, kid,” the man said with a small smile. “If you reported, they know, and they will have taken steps.”

They moved on to the plan for their squad to interrupt one of these raids on the supply line before moving on to the other. Fake supply wagons were being readied, and they were to set out immediately. That only gave the squad a few minutes to get a plan together and move out.

They left the tent hurriedly, heading for the first position and, hopefully, a chance to ambush the ambushers.

“None of them lives,” Split growled as she fingered her bow. “Not one escapes.”

The western wall of the city was mirrored in several large trees planted and nurtured by several Druids and Farmers in a clever scatter that hid their use as range markers. 

One of the largest of these trees boasted a thick and heavy canopy supported by broad, thick branches, a perfect place for Wesley to set up shop. It would even have been comfortable if Split had not seemed determined to share the same branch as him. He moved twice, but the third time, he started to move to another branch; she glared daggers at him until he sighed and lay back down.

Together, they watched as the rest of the squad got into position for the ambush. 

The heavy fighting had resulted in plenty of things to hide behind, from fallen trees to craters from siege spells and weaponry.  Each of the remaining three squad members was hiding in or behind one of these, waiting as the cart began to roll their way, having made fake stops at two other areas, unloading empty crates, just in case they were being watched somehow.

Wesley hoped that whoever was watching was focused on the carts or they had just set themselves up to be killed while they crept and climbed into position. 

There was no way to know until it started, so Wes tried his best to put the stress and doubts out of his mind.

Chewing on a bit of dried meat, he scanned the area with the sights on his rifle, looking for movement or a sign of the attackers that were supposed to be coming. They were apparently as regular as clockwork, always striking within the same few feet of the lines. Two attempts to prevent it had failed so far and a third would be a disaster for the fragile defenses. 

The cart rolled by under his spot, and almost immediately, a loud, thunderous crash came from the distant lines. It seemed the attackers were on their way. Trying to act normally, the wagon driver kicked the oxen creatures into high gear, trying to get clear while also trying to lead the attackers into the perfect ambush position. 

The attackers arrived just shy of perfectly timed. A pair of blurs crossed the last of the distance, resolving into a pair of rogue types stabbing and slashing at the beasts pulling the cart, ending their lives almost immediately. 

One of the black-clad figures was a hyena man with one missing ear and dark spots across his sneering muzzle, but the other was highly familiar to Wesley. 

Alber slashed and stabbed while the cart driver dove into the back of the cart.

Wes felt his finger tightening on the trigger but forced himself to wait for the order.

The rest of the attackers arrived a few seconds later with a cart of their own driven by a laughing Priestess. 

Pru and Alber joked as they started to force their way into the armored cart with the help of the two large wolf warriors that had ridden with her.

“NOW!” Peterson roared as he leaped out of cover, shield up as he blurred across the ground in a Shield Charge while Mental erupted from the far side and smashed into the other cart, sending it tumbling.

Ben’Ta rolled over the fallen tree she was hiding behind, throwing three swords as she did so.

Wesley finally pulled the trigger, his sights still locked onto the form of Alber. The first bullet missed, the tricky bugger dodging like Wesley had expected, which is what bullets two through six were for. Alber was bloody good, but he wasn’t that good. Three of the six bullets hit him, two in the chest, another shattering his knee. Before he even had time to scream out, Wesley turned his fire on the other rogue type. They were the biggest threat to his squad.

Split had apparently agreed, as the hyena was currently lying in the middle of a cluster of arrows, twitching as it died. 

Wesley turned his fire on the next threat, the one that could get the others back in the fight. 

Pru.

His sights settled on her forehead just a fraction of a second before he heard Mental yell in pain. He switched targets, putting three bullets into the armored back of the wolf warrior. His Wolf’s Bane perk activated, and the thing was almost in two pieces as it fell. 

He looked up, seeing Pru dragging a rapidly healing and still alive Alber back toward the lines.

Wesley checked that the rest of the attackers were down and leaped from the tree in wisp form. He crossed the distance between himself and the Wyrd Watchmen in seconds, cutting them off. 

“Stop!” He warned, his rifle aimed clearly at Pru’s head. “Or die.”

Alber glared at him as Pru tried to hold the cursed man up. He was still bleeding a fair bit. 

“Get out of the way, Wes,” Alber warned. “You know how fast I can strike.”

“You can kill me,” Wesley confirmed. “But not before I kill Pru.”

“What are your terms?” Pru asked. 

“You surrender, and you live,” Wesley said coldly. “That is all.”

“You forget we know you, Wes,” Alber chuckled darkly. “You’re not a killer.”

Wesley nodded. “They are.”

The rest of the squad was behind the two watchmen. Split was glaring daggers at him, but she wasn’t firing yet.

“Don’t take too long deciding,” Wesley advised. “We lost friends yesterday, and patience is at an all-time low.”

“Sorry, Pru,” Alber whispered as he threw himself forward.

Wesley rolled away, but the cursed man didn’t strike; just blurred away over the ground in a desperate attempt to reach the enemy lines.

“You got her?” Wesley asked as he dropped to one knee.

“We got her,” Ben’Ta called.

Wesley slowed his breathing and concentrated, watching the wind blowing the sparse grass stalks to gauge wind speed before he fired three times in quick succession. There was a distant scream, and Wesley turned into wisp form, about to pursue.

“Hold it!” Peterson called. “No running off there, Rifleman Lancaster!”

Wesley sighed and turned back.

“Yeah, you, like, caught her,” Split glowered. “You can drag her ass back to the city.”

“You might not have time,” Pru sneered. “Not if you want to stop the others.”

“See, this is why we just kill them,” Mental explained to Wesley in a ‘talking to the little child’ voice.

“If you let me go, I’ll tell you where Mace and Pris are,” Pru offered. That’s too good a—" She slumped as the handle of one of Ben’Ta’s swords cracked her on the back of the head.

“I think we better send her back in the cart,” Wesley said, “I think I know where Pris will be, but I really hope I am wrong.”

They raced across the ground as fast as they could, but Wesley was almost sure they would be too late. The moment they got in sight of the supposedly safe tent where they stored the dead, Wesley knew he had been right. 

The guards lay dead outside the tent while figures moved busily inside it. 

“Expect a ghoul and a Bear man with tank skills!” Wesley reminded everyone as they closed. 

The first enemies to see them running at them were a pair of wolf mages. Split, who didn’t even slow down as she ran, killed them with a pair of arrows in each.

Bursting into the tent of carefully laid out corpses, Wesley felt his gorge rise. The wrappings lay off to one side, while a great pile was in the center of the tent with mages of the wolf and hyena men scrawling runes and sigils on a chalk circle around them. 

Mace and Pris stood off to one side, with a white-haired wolf mage in an ornate robe. 

“You!” Mace roared, charging at Wesley, only for Peterson to slam his shield into the big man’s side, sending him rolling off into one corner.

“Kill them all!” Split called as she literally split once more. 

“Wolf’s Bane!” The white-furred wolf called and grabbed Pris before vanishing into a hurriedly summoned portal. Several of the mages tried to run for the portal, but it closed before they could enter. 

Wesley fired, taking out the mages still casting while Mental and Peterson kept the enraged Mace at bay. 

When the last mage fell, the whole squad surrounded Mace, who was roaring and snarling threats even as he was backed up against the city wall. 

“We letting this piece of shit surrender too, Wes?” The Splits asked in an eerie chorus. 

Wesley wandered over to where he could see Sara’s body on the very edge of the circle. Funny thing about a pile of the dead. People you know stand right out.

So did the piece of carefully cut-out flesh.

“No,” Wesley said as he looked at the missing piece of flesh and began to drag Sara out of the circle. He didn’t look round as Mace swore at him, or when he screamed, or when he died. Wesley just wrapped Sara back up before moving on to the next, and the next, and the next. The squad came to help, and in no time, the fallen were once more wrapped and resting unmolested.

Peterson sent up a colored flare, and new guards were sent. When they arrived, the squad commandeered their cart and headed for the next ambush spot. If they hurried, they’d only be slightly too late to get there.

Some delays were worth the time.

By the time they returned to the camp outside the city walls a few hours later, they were more than ready for something actually worth eating and perhaps a drink that wasn’t lukewarm water.

Naturally, they didn’t get either of those things. Instead, they were met at the flap of their tent and marched into the city, all the way to city hall, where Wes and the squad were marched into a room featuring a stern-faced Miles Ernshaw and a defiant-looking Pru.

“Squad reporting as ordered, Sir!” Peterson snapped to attention, and the others followed suit. Wesley merely waited. He wasn’t in any army, and saluting never really sat well with him.  

“Thank you, Captain,” Ernshaw returned the salute with a nod. See? No point in salutes. “Our prisoner has told me many things, and I’m not sure I believe any of them.”

“How can we help?” Split offered with a wide smile. 

“She appears to be an adroit weaver of fiction and fact. I was hoping Rifleman Lancaster would have some better luck before we turn to drastic methods.” Ernshaw looked down at the Fallen Priestess with something like pity.

“I can try,” Wesley offered. “But I don’t think it will make a difference.”

“See,” Pru laughed defiantly. “Told you!”

“Mace is dead,” Wesley added coldly. “Probably Alber, too. There’s no one to be loyal to except yourself.”

“Liar!” Pru snapped at him. “Mace would never….” She looked at his face for a long time. “You killed him?” She paled. “Pris?”

“She’s gotten away so far,” Wesley said, leaning on the table across from Pru. “Let’s stop this before any more of you die, Pru.” 

“Too late!” She spat. “Who cares if Pris gets killed?”

“Well,” Wesley said with a tired sigh. “Alber might just be injured. He might be savable, too.”

“Give us real information, and I will keep you all contained in the city until this is over when you will be escorted from the city and the zone.” Ernshaw offered. 

“And Pris must release all summons taken during the siege,” Wesley added.

“Let me go, and I’ll tell them,” Pru sneered. 

“Fine, you’re free to go,” Ernshaw gestured to the door. “Good luck convincing the Den Mother’s forces to let you through.”

Pru fidgeted and huffed and grumbled, but in the end, she had little to no chance of surviving any other way. If there was one thing she was, it was a survivor. 

“Fine, I’ll swear oaths or whatever,” She rolled her eyes. 

“Thank you for your assistance,” Ernshaw nodded to Wesley. “Dismissed.”

“Oh, Wes?” Pru called as they filed out of the interrogation room. “I’ll make sure to settle up with you one day!” She winked, but nothing could hide the hatred in her eyes.

“Looking forward to it,” Wesley smiled back and closed the door.