LITMIR.BIZ

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sorry,” Nathan whispered.

      Brigid shook her head. “I couldn’t keep his arm pinned. It was my—”

      She was cut off by the boom of an explosion in the distance.

      Kane was throwing grenades, which meant the enemy camp was up and active.

      “I can make up for my fumble,” Nathan muttered.

      He turned back to his tree and retrieved the artifact staff and the rifle he’d left behind. Brigid returned to her original hiding place to get her heavier weapons, as well.

      Kane’s Commtact reached Nathan’s radio earpiece. “Nate, I’m going to need you at the bottleneck here. We’ve got the enemy force delayed, but you’ll work as the bar. You’ve got your grens, right?”

      “Yes,” Nathan answered. “It’s because I screwed up?”

      “No prisoners died. You kept the guard from harming them. You succeeded,” Kane countered. “I need a big, powerful rifle. Thurpa, you back up Nathan.”

      Nathan nodded; then he noticed Thurpa jogging alongside him, holding his mouth. The captive Africans were already conversing among themselves as they reached the path between the two encampments.

      “What’s wrong with your mouth?” Nathan asked.

      “I pulled a muscle,” Thurpa returned. “The guy twisted once I bit him, and that flexed my fangs the way that they shouldn’t have.”

      “Oh,” Nathan replied.

      “This shit is not going as easily as we thought,” Thurpa muttered. “I ended up talking to one girl who seemed awake, but she was scared out of her wits.”

      “She didn’t scream,” Nathan noted.

      “No. I put my hand over her mouth, but gently. I told her we were rescuing them, but right now we need them to stay down and out of our way,” Thurpa responded.

      The two men set up at bracketing sides of the path entering the prisoners’ clearing.

      “Stuck on defense again,” Thurpa murmured.

      “We do what we can, Thur,” Nathan answered.

      The young cobra man nodded.

      “Look at it this way—at least you’ll have grateful new friends,” Nathan added.

      Thurpa managed a smile.

      The two young men lapsed into silence, their eyes and ears peeled for signs of enemy movement down the path.

      Brigid Baptiste linked up with Kane and Grant as they cut through the woods that separated the Panthers’ encampment and their line of prisoners. She had her suppressed Copperhead in hand now, firmly gripping it and keeping its stock against her shoulder, finger off the trigger and against the frame so as not to accidentally loose a shot and perhaps hit her companions. Though all three were in the darkened shadows of the copse of trees, they could see clearly, thanks to their shadow suit hoods, and were able to pick up the movement of Mashona troopers away from the path.

      She glanced at Kane, and he held up his fist for a hold position. Brigid knew that Kane had a plan to intercept the force that was rapidly trying to flank Thurpa and Nathan. Whatever he had in mind, it was going to be simple but devastating.

      Simple but devastating could have been the mantra of the Cerberus warriors as they often had to “wing it.” Even when working around their more familiar areas, such as the Tartarus Pits, flexibility was of the essence. As such, improvisation and tactics gained from observation of the terrain and evaluation of the enemy troops were applied.

      So far, it had carried the day for them across dozens of adventures. Brigid anticipated that the Panthers of Mashona were a trained, disciplined force, despite the horrors they wrought. They had been well organized back at the power station assault, but the Mashonan militia hadn’t counted on fast-firing, quick-reloading grenade launchers and sniper rifles to flank them, surround them and hammer them with two dozen explosions and precision gunfire to slice through their ranks. The guards of this caravan moved on a schedule that gave the Cerberus explorers perfect placing to ambush them. There was a route—a slender game trail through the trees—that the Panthers were aware of and savvy enough to leave lightly attended.

      Unfortunately for the Panthers, Kane’s woodcraft and stealth had allowed him to penetrate the forest between the two camps and stumble on the trail. He’d seen the sentry at that position, unobtrusive and mirroring the one on the other side, the one he’d ambushed immediately.

      Brigid noticed movement on the game trail ahead, and she braced herself, waiting for Kane to give the hand signal to open fire. Grant drew back on his bow and took aim. Kane nodded, and the big archer loosed his arrow, putting it through the ear of the lead gunman on the trail. For a man who was a relatively new student to archery, Grant was proving to be quite lethal; Brigid marked that up to natural marksmanship training and his phenomenal strength. At six foot four, he was larger than most of his fellow Magistrates, and was much faster and smarter than he appeared.

      Brigid had formerly had a low opinion of the Magistrate Division, seeing them as faceless ciphers, right down to the deletion of their “given” names and the fact they existed as surnames in service to the hybrid barons. Then she’d worked with Kane and Grant and discovered that they had a sense of duty, quick wit and humor, and were far more observant and resourceful than she’d imagined.

      She remembered the Thunder Isle incident, before Grant had become lost in time. He’d used his kyudo lessons back then to deadly effect, alongside his lover and teacher, the samurai Shizuka. Now Grant was comfortable enough with the bow to bring it on their mission, meaning that he’d all but mastered the ancient combat art.

      Kane gestured toward Brigid, and she swung her Copperhead up and targeted the heads of the next few gunmen, tapping off short bursts from the submachine gun. The bullets made soft popping sounds, like the flutter of a large bird’s wings, but when her bullets struck flesh and bone, the result was no less bloody and damaging. Unfortunately, the loss of three of their number sent the rest of the Panthers to cover on the far side of the game trail, seeking the protection of tree trunks and the concealment of foliage.

      Kane motioned, and both Grant and Brigid hit the dirt, ducking below the inevitable stream of enemy gunfire in response to their ambush. Whatever Kane had planned became apparent when she saw him make two throwing motions. Two more grenades sailed through the night, going past the game trail and landing behind the line of Panthers. They exploded in quick succession, and Kane rose to his knees, watching stunned and wounded militia bandits stagger into the open.

      Kane popped his Sin Eater and opened fire on the dazed survivors, chugging short bursts from the compact folding machine pistol. He tore through them, using the high-density slugs of his gun as a chainsaw, ripping open chests and bellies in a grisly display of vulgar firepower. Grant had set his bow aside and cut loose with his own Copperhead. Brigid joined in the grim and brutal slaughter.

      She didn’t enjoy this butcher’s work, but she knew that there were dozens of helpless people on the other end of the game trail who needed protection. If she didn’t help to destroy this spearhead flanking maneuver by the Panthers of Mashona, they would burst in on the unarmed, naked prisoners and either retake or coldly slaughter them.

      She was protecting lives, and that made the murder of these men all the more easy to bear. She’d sleep at night because she’d seen the condition of those poor humans, wrecked by a forced march, scoured bloody and raw by manacles and yokes about their neck. This wasn’t murder. This was the end of torturers.

      Brigid caught movement from the corner of her eye. Kane motioned for her to stop shooting. She paused to reload the Copperhead, feeding it a new magazine.

      They didn’t speak. The snarl of bullets through suppressed firearms was enough of a risk to compromise their position in the dark. The enemy knew that there were gunmen in the tree line, and they could quickly adapt to the situation. Brigid didn’t know how many of these soldiers there were. Kane

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