Free Web NovelChapter 152: Fire at Will
The terrain northeast of the gorge stayed mostly flat for several hundred yards before rising into a low ridge. Godmar reached the top first and immediately spotted the camp two hundred yards ahead.
A chest-high stone wall, likely the remains of an older structure, formed the camp’s forward defense. Eighteen men held positions behind it. A fire burned several yards back from the wall, with tents beyond that. Four crossbow positions were spread across the parapet.
They had used the little preparation time available to them well, but not well enough.
At one hundred and twenty yards, two of the crossbowmen decided they could not wait any longer.
The first bolt struck the dirt eight feet short of the nearest soldier in Godmar’s squad. It skipped once and passed harmlessly by the man’s left boot. The second bolt crossed the full distance.
It missed a soldier near the center of the push by two feet, close enough for the flight to crack sharply through the air.
"Bolts. Left wall."
Nobody slowed.
At one hundred yards, Godmar raised a fist, then swept it sideways.
"Line formation. Hundred yards."
"Aye."
The formation unfolded at once. Squads six and seven spread left. Eight and nine shifted right. Ten had the center. Fifty rifles across the scrubland in a clean firing line.
Godmar raised his rifle first, making certain the alignment was steady. The line mirrored him.
He fired.
Within two seconds, fifty rifles answered together.
The mercenary at the center of the wall had lifted his head and shoulders above the parapet while trying to find a target. The volley caught him before he could finish.
A rifle shot punched through his chest and burst from his back in a wet spray, throwing blood and stone dust across the wall behind him. His body folded over the parapet. His crossbow discharged as strength left his hands, the bolt burying itself harmlessly in the dirt below.
Another mercenary rose from behind cover, trying to reach a second firing point before the next volley came. A rifle shot struck his thigh. The leg shattered immediately with a sharp crack of bone and momentum carried him sideways another two feet before it failed beneath him. He hit the ground hard and blood spread quickly through the cloth wrapped around the wound and pooled beneath his hip.
At the left end, one mercenary made the right choice and kept his head below the parapet during the volley. It still did not save him. A rifle ball smashed into the stone cap above him and fragmented, one jagged shard caught him in the temple, tearing a bloody wound across the side of his face before he dropped behind the wall without a sound.
Smoke climbed above the rifle line. Godmar already knew the wall had been weakened enough.
He slung his rifle and drew pistol and saber in one motion.
The charge closed the remaining hundred yards fast. Boots tore through the scrub as the company advanced.
At forty yards, the surviving crossbowmen tried again, likely realizing this would be their last chance before contact. The first bolt struck the ground beside a soldier’s heel and bounced away spinning. The second, fired from roughly thirty-five yards, punched through the leather of a soldier’s pack and buried itself inside the kit.
The soldier never broke stride.
"Lucky fuckin’ shot," someone muttered further down the line.
"Left squad. Wall end."
The first soldiers reached the wall and vaulted over it. On the far side, the remaining mercenaries met them with blades in the cramped space behind the stone barrier.
The mercenary at the center held a short sword in both hands. His stance was practiced. The man had survived close fights before and expected to survive this one too.
A pistol fired into his chest from twelve feet away.
The shot entered cleanly but failed to exit. The mercenary stumbled backward off the far side of the wall, coughing blood across his own chin as he fell. Blood spread beneath him from the wound and from the mess inside where the iron ball had lodged.
"Hold the line! Hold the bloody fuckin’ line!"
At the wall’s right end, another mercenary broke around the edge of the fortification, trying to reach a flanking position before the soldiers fully cleared the defense. One of Godmar’s soldiers intercepted him six feet away.
There was a single exchange.
A saber thrust entered through the right side of the mercenary’s chest and punched out beneath the shoulder blade in a spray of dark blood. The flanking attempt ended there.
"Clear," Brant barked. "Check the bastards behind the wall."
Five or six survivors fled northeast. Godmar watched them long enough to judge distance and pace. They were running, not regrouping.
He gave no pursuit order.
Instead, he turned his attention inward toward the camp itself.
The camp had the orderly structure of professional sellswords. Tools were stacked by type instead of scattered and the cooking area had been arranged for repeated use rather than temporary survival. A repair bench stood beside the largest tent.
Godmar found one civilian inside the storage tent.
The man sat on the ground with his arms pulled tightly against his chest, instinctively trying to make himself smaller. He appeared unhurt, mid-forties, perhaps older. His clothing and boots showed the wear of a long road journey.
"I came for the Stone Fang!"
The words rushed out before he seemed fully ready to speak. "They clear our roads from monsters, the Earnmere route. I came from Earnmere to renew the contract, I didn’t know fighting was coming. Fuck, I didn’t know."
He stopped and looked around at the soldiers surrounding him, as if trying to judge whether more explanation would help.
Inside the main tent, a wooden board had been nailed to the central support post. There were several papers were pinned across it. One soldier stood reading through them carefully.
"Contract from Earnmere settlement."
His voice stayed flat as he read from the top page. "Monthly patrol of the route. Confirmed clearance of Crawlers nests. Thirty marks upon completion."
He fell silent without removing the paper. His eyes remained on the board for several more seconds, as though something no longer fit cleanly in his mind.
"Mark the supplies," Brant said.
Another soldier had already moved toward the supply depot near the far tent. Chalk was in his hand before the order finished. He never looked toward the contract board.
A wounded man sat against the rear wall of the main tent with one hand pressed beneath his ribs. A pistol shot had entered there during the fight at the wall and blood leaked steadily between his fingers and soaked into his lap. Judging by the blood and the way he breathed, he already knew the wound would kill him.
He looked directly at Godmar.
"F-Fuckin’ raiders, you lot aren’t better than the monsters we kill every season."
He swallowed thickly, blood clinging dark to his teeth, then said nothing else after that.
Godmar looked from the job board to the civilian still sitting on the ground, then toward the dead men at the wall outside.
His mind tried to force everything into the hard shape that had carried him through the gorge, the stone hollow, and every camp since the oasis. Identify objective. Execute order. Continue forward. Usually it stayed clean that way.
Now it didn’t.
The order was still the order. That remained solid enough. But he searched for some way to place that certainty beside what he had just learned, and nothing made sense properly.
Rather than continue the thought, he moved to the next necessary task and walked toward the perimeter.
"We’re movin’ northeast."
The company followed him out of the camp.
The terrain continued rising another three hundred yards before reaching the next ridge. Godmar surpassed it first and stopped at once to observe the ground below.
The valley floor lay roughly a hundred and twenty yards downhill. Open terrain. No meaningful natural cover on the uphill direction.
The camp below still had its fire burning. Approximately thirty-five to forty men occupied the camp and perimeter positions. Survivors from the previous engagements most likely gathered here after the earlier retreats.
Crossbow positions faced uphill toward Godmar’s ridge. At a hundred and twenty yards against a prepared force holding elevation, those positions had little real value. Every man behind them likely understood that already.
Across the valley, on the northwest ridge roughly three hundred yards from Godmar’s position and around a hundred and forty yards from the valley camp, Aldwin’s contigent reached the opposing hillside.
At the front of that ridge stood a single figure studying the valley below in complete stiffness.
There was no hesitation. Only a command to be obeyed.
Swen.
A man climbed the near slope toward Godmar’s position. The movement carried the efficient economy common to the intelligence department.
The operative reported, "Captain Swen’s order. Fire at will, the whole company. Hold the hundred-and-twenty-yard line. No charge."
"Understood."
Godmar turned toward Brant and Osmaer.
"We’re firin’ from the ridge. No one’s movin’ down."
Fifty rifles rose along Godmar’s ridge. Across the valley, Aldwin’s formation mirrored the motion almost perfectly as rifles lifted along the opposite hillside.
Below, a few crossbowmen at the valley camp’s uphill perimeter fired toward the ridge.
The bolts struck the slope thirty yards short of Godmar’s soldiers and skittered across loose stone. Some barely reached the ridge at all. It lost momentum at the end of its flight and dropped near the boots of a soldier in the front rank without enough force left to injure anyone.
The soldier looked down at it. freёwebnovel.com
"Didn’t quite make it, poor bastard."
A few men nearby snorted.
The entire company fired.
One mercenary standing near the valley camp’s fire took a rifle shot through the chest, the impact bursting blood and cloth from his back as he collapsed into the dirt beside the firepit.
Another mercenary took a rifle shot through the shoulder. His crossbow slipped from numb hands as he crashed against the ground, the shoulder twisted at the wrong direction while blood ran dark down his sleeve.
Smoke rolled upward from Godmar’s ridge into the cold autumn air. Across the valley, smoke rose from Aldwin’s ridge at the same time and to nearly the same height.
Two gray clouds standing over the foothills.
The valley below erupted into movement.
"Reload, you lazy bastards!" someone shouted further down the soldiers formation.
Godmar watched the smoke thinning above the camp and began counting shadows, positions, and survivors as visibility returned. The second volley would be ready soon, and he intended to know exactly where to place it.
