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  Several people ran off to retrieve sheets. While they waited, Allistor added. “This is going to be a tough day. Not so much the fighting, though I’m sure that will be a challenge. But you’re going to have to shoot other people today. And do it without mercy or hesitation. Today it’s kill or be killed.” He paused to let that sink in. “I know from experience, it’s not easy to kill other human beings. And I’d prefer not to, especially now. But these are killers, rapists, thieves, and maybe worse. They can’t be allowed to live. They can’t be allowed to escape, to regroup and return to kill off any more friends or neighbors. Period.” He waited again, but nobody voiced an objection.

  “If you see someone who’s not one of us with a weapon, shoot them. Don’t wait to see if they raise the weapon at you. Shoot. Those are my orders. Anyone have any questions?”

  “If they’re not armed?” a voice from the crowd asked.

  “Then you capture them. Nobody passes the perimeter for any reason. I don’t care if it’s a pathetic looking kid or a kindly old grandma. Nobody passes you. We’ll interview those captured, and determine whether they cooperated with Barden, and to what extent.”

  By the grim looks on their faces, at least some of them had been told what would happen to collaborators. And they were ready to do what was necessary.

  Trucks were rounded up, along with every car, bus, and minivan available to them. They even hitched a horse trailer to the back of one of the trucks, and a dozen people packed themselves in there. They rejected a few of the vehicles for having engines that were too loud, but eventually they got everyone situated, and set off. Moira rode up front in the ranger truck with Allistor and several others. They put Fuzzy in the very back end, where he promptly fell asleep.

  As requested, Moira took them to within about a mile of the camp. There, they parked the vehicles and began to walk. When they got within a quarter mile of the camp, Allistor halted them again. He whispered to them, walking up and down the line. They didn’t know how far out the guards might be stationed, and didn’t want to lose the element of surprise. He directed his team to follow him, pointed the overwatch teams toward the targets, and sent the perimeter teams out in wide circles in both directions. Since there were too many of them for a raid, he invited ten of them to his party, so that they could at least see each other on the map. That way he’d have a good idea when everyone was in position. He also gave them a warning that if they were spotted before the attack, to kill as quickly and silently as possible. Knives or arrows, whatever.

  With that, he took his group and set off. Helen and Fuzzy remained with him as they moved down an alley to a back road that ran in the general direction of the camp. Moira was there as well, though she remained in the back.

  They moved slowly, having plenty of time as they needed to wait for the perimeter teams to move all the way around the other side. Allistor was about to step out into an intersection when Fuzzy gave a low growl. The bear’s wet nose was in the air, snuffling away at the breeze. He shook his head, then looked upward.

  Leaning against the nearest wall, Allistor slowly peaked around the corner. Looking upward, he spotted a man sitting in a lawn chair on a patio half a block away. He had a rifle sitting across his lap, and he was drinking something from a bottle.

  Leaning back behind cover, Allistor stowed his rifle and pulled out the bow he’d used against the octopoid right before meeting Fuzzy. He set the quiver down, pulling two arrows. Handing one to Helen, he nocked the other and took a deep breath. Leaning slowly out beyond the wall, he drew the string back and took aim. When he thought he was dead on the man’s chest, he loosed the arrow. He immediately held up his hand and Helen handed him the second arrow even as he watched the first slam into the man’s chest. It wasn’t a fatal shot, and the impact knocked him backward out of his chair. Allistor couldn’t see him for a moment, but he drew the second arrow and took aim. He heard the man groaning, the sound seeming like a shout to Allistor’s ears, and he began to panic.

  A second later the man’s movements pushed the lawn chair aside, and Allistor had a clear view. He aimed and loosed, the arrow flying below the rail and straight into the side of the man’s chest below his arm. It sunk deep, all but the fletching disappearing. Allistor watched him go limp and fall face first onto the patio concrete.

  Helen patted him on the back as she stepped past him and moved across the open space toward the house. She found an open door and went inside as the others followed her across. They waited outside, hugging the side of the house and scanning the area. A minute or so later, Helen whispered, “He’s dead. Heads up.” right before she rolled the corpse off the edge. It landed with a thud, and Allistor saw his second arrow had gone all the way through the man’s chest, puncturing both lungs at least, and possibly his heart.

  He bent down and looted the man, then pulled the arrows free. No point in wasting them. Helen hopped down to join them, and they moved on. Allistor kept a careful eye out, but also one eye on Fuzzy as the bear sniffed the air.

  It was Moira who spotted the second guard a couple minutes later. He was two blocks away and downwind, so Fuzzy hadn’t caught his scent. She only noticed him because he coughed as she passed by an alley, the last in line. By the time she managed to get Allistor’s attention, they were another half block away. He doubled back, leaving the others behind cover, and she pointed the man out. He had his back to them, standing outside a retail office with a broken storefront. There was a pair of binoculars around his neck, and he kept raising them to look at something, then dropping them again.

  Allistor left Moira there and crept forward. The suns were high in the sky, and there weren’t a lot of shadows, so he tried to move quickly while the man was looking through the glasses, then hold still or move very slowly when he put them down.

  It took him a solid three minutes to creep close enough that he was sure he could hit the man. He didn’t want to risk needing two shots again, so he’d moved to within fifty feet. Raising the bow, he nocked and pulled, then released. The arrow sped true, slamming into the back of the man’s head and embedding itself deeply. The guard fell forward, his hands not coming up to break his fall, which Allistor considered a good sign. He dropped the bow and ran forward, equipping a hunting knife as he went. The man didn’t even twitch as he approached, but Allistor still rammed the knife into his back and through his heart to be sure.

  Skill Level Up! Your Archery skill has increased by +1

  He looted the man, getting a few hundred klax, the binoculars, and a deck of playing cards. He picked up the man’s weapon, and unhooked a holster with a 9mm from his belt. Then he lifted the body and tossed it inside the storefront where it wouldn’t easily be seen.

  He walked quickly but quietly back to rejoin Moira, then the others. They continued until she put a hand on his arm and pointed. Leaning very close, she whispered, “That’s the hub.”

  He followed her finger and saw the long building about a block away. There were several trailers docked at various loading bays just as she’d described. He saw a few people with weapons milling around in ones and twos, as well as several people cooking or working at various menial jobs.

  Looking left and right, he backed up several steps. Whispering to his group, he said, “This is as good as any place. Spread out and find cover. Make sure you’ve got a route to retreat if necessary. When the time comes, I’m going to bring them straight down this alley.”

  He watched as his people spread out. A couple went into the buildings on either side of them and disappeared. Three more took up positions behind vehicles. The secondary group moved back a block and disappeared behind cover as well. Helen took Fuzzy and went behind a dumpster. After a minute or so, Allistor caught a wave from one of the ones that had gone inside. She was up on the second floor, her rifle barrel pushing out an open window.

  He studied his map, watching as the green dots of his party leaders moved around ahead of him. The one assigned to the water tower was in place and not moving.
The group he sent to the hospital were in the right general area, but still moving. He figured they were in the building, trying to get upstairs. The perimeter groups were nearly in place, only three of the dots still moving, and they were already well past the camp, closing the circle.

  He waited another five long minutes until all the dots were in place and had stopped moving. Taking a deep breath, he stood upright and walked forward. He almost felt the shooters behind him tense up as he moved closer to the camp. Targeting the nearest of the guards, a man holding a shotgun, he cast Restraint, causing the man to seize up. A second later he cast Mind Spike on a second guard. That man screamed and fell to the floor, causing several others to gather around him, asking what was wrong. Allistor stopped and crouched down in the shade of an office awning, raising his bow and putting an arrow into the chest of the man still frozen by Restraint. Then he began casting Flame Shot, holding the spell in his hand as it grew into a larger and larger ball. Five seconds later he hurled it at the group of guards watching their comrade squirm and scream on the floor.

  The fireball struck, blasting three of them off their feet and doing burn damage to all five of them. The screaming intensified, and Allistor fired another arrow into the crowd. When that didn’t reveal his position, he put away the bow and took out his shotgun. Running forward, he raised it to his shoulder and put a round into the gut of one of the guards on the ground. He quickly pumped another round into the chamber and fired again. This time a man’s head exploded.

  Finally, somebody pointed in his direction and shouted. Allistor turned and bolted back the way he’d come, running right past his people as shots began to ring out and impacts blasted away bits of brick and glass around him. He crouched down as best he could as he ran, going another half block before ducking around the corner.

  Breathing hard and feeling a massive adrenaline rush, he laughed to himself. “I just LoS’d a bunch of humans. Let’s see if it works.”

  Another couple deep breaths and he poked his head around the corner. There were half a dozen guards running after him, and two more of the ones he’d injured firing at him from one of the loading bays. He stepped out and fired again, hitting the arm of one of the runners before ducking back. He was about to shout for his people to fire, but they beat him to it. Shots echoed down the alley at him, followed by screams. He looked around the corner to find all six of the men down. His people had already shifted fire, and Allistor watched as the other two guards went down.

  Running back up to their position, he could now hear shots from near and far. It sounded like a TV gun battle. Concerned, he checked his map and saw that all ten of his dots were still green. There was shouting and screaming from inside the building ahead, and visions of the guards killing prisoners invaded his thoughts.

  “I’m going in. It sounds like they’re killing people. You guys hold here.”

  “No way.” Helen answered, getting to her feet and moving forward ahead of him. Two of the others got up and followed as well. Allistor motioned for the rest to stay in place, and they obeyed. He dashed across the open space with Helen and the others, hugging the wall next to the open dock where they’d just killed the guards. When nobody emerged after a few seconds, he dashed up the metal stairs and into the building.

  Instantly regretting the move, he was temporarily blind in the dark space. He crouched down and waited for his eyes to adjust, searching for any movement or signs of guns. As his pupils widened and he was able to see better, he found a score or more people lying on the ground, staring in fear at him and his people.

  “Where are the guards?” he called out to nobody in particular, scanning the floor area. It was a huge open space with twenty-foot high ceilings and piles of goods stacked here and there. Allistor felt extremely exposed, and moved to crouch next to a stack of wooden crates. Helen and the others all moved to different areas of cover, their weapons ready.

  A man sat up, holding both hands in the air in the classic ‘surrender’ pose. “I… I think you killed them all.” He pointed to the dead guards on the floor by the bay opening.

  Allistor shouted, “Get back down! Stay there till we tell you to move.” He noted that the sound of gunfire was fading rapidly. Only an occasional shot was heard. A single woman screamed somewhere on the other side of the building, and Allistor got up to move. He looked at Helen and said, “Get Moira in here. I need to know who’s who.” She nodded and stepped back outside, shouting for Moira.

  Allistor left his people there and moved across the floor. He cast Barrier in front of himself, hoping to catch any bullets flying his way. As he moved around mattress walls and stacks of boxes, he found more people laying on the floor. Some were simply scared, but others were bleeding, or dead. One woman frantically pointed toward an office at the back, saying, “He took her. The little girl. He took her!”

  Allistor ran toward the office, no longer caring whether he was exposed. The office door was open, and he could see that the room was empty. Another door at the back was also open, so he moved through the office to stand next to it. A quick look through the door nearly earned him a bullet to the head. He heard the round whiz past him and strike the door. A rough male voice shouted, “I’ll scramble this girl’s brains! I mean it!”

  Allistor dropped to a sitting position and took a couple deep breaths. His heart was racing, and he could hear his own pulse in his ears. His hands were actually shaking with adrenaline, or fear, or both.

  One more breath, and he mumbled, “Screw it.” before leaning out into the doorway just above floor level. He saw a man walking backward holding a pistol that was pointed at the doorway even as he gripped a little girl by her hair with his other hand.

  The man saw Allistor and began to adjust his aim, but he was too slow. Mind Spike blasted into his brain, and he let go of both the gun and the girl as he gripped his skull with both hands and screamed. Allistor waited a few seconds for the girl to crawl free, then put a slug through the man’s chest. When he hit the ground, Allistor got to his feet and put another slug in the man to be sure.

  He walked out the door and went over to the girl, who was curled into a ball and crying. He was just bending down to pick her up when he felt a tug at his back, followed by blinding pain. Falling down, he turned to look behind him. The woman who’d pointed him toward the man he’d just killed was standing in the doorway with a pistol in hand. A smug look on her face, she shouted, “Fool!” and pulled the trigger again. This time the round hit Allistor’s arm, dropping his health bar down below twenty percent. He desperately cast Mind Spike on the woman, then Erupt on the ground in front of her. A stone spike burst up from the ground and impaled the woman through the gut. She screamed briefly, then stopped as she went limp and her body slid down the spike.

  Allistor cast Restore on himself as he fished a healing potion out of his inventory. He gulped the potion down, then cast another heal on himself a second later. The combination brought his health back up to full. There was a grinding in his back, and he thought he felt his shoulder blade shift. He just lay on the ground for a moment, next to the crying child, and dealt with the pain.

  Helen and Fuzzy came out the door a minute or so later, Fuzzy dashing forward to sniff at Allistor’s back and lick it. The appearance of the bear that seemed, from her angle, to be eating Allistor caused the girl to scream even louder, which in turn scared Fuzzy. The bear retreated as Allistor and Helen tried to calm and comfort the girl.

  More gunshots rang out in the direction of the other warehouse. Allistor got to his feet and lifted his shotgun. His mana was still over fifty percent, and his health was full. He took a moment to load a few more shells into his weapon, then turned to Helen. “Can you take her back to the others?” Helen nodded reluctantly, taking the girl back through the door. Fuzzy elected to follow Allistor.

  They stepped through an open door, and the first thing Allistor saw were four bodies on the floor about twenty feet away. One held a shotgun in a dead hand, a long kitchen knife pr
otruding from his neck. The other three had gunshot wounds. Two were clearly dead, but the third was still breathing. Allistor cast a heal on her, then another. She groaned and rolled over. “Did I get him?” she asked, looking toward the dead guard. When she saw him staring blankly at the ceiling, she smiled. “Bastard.”

  Allistor crouched down, helping her to sit up. Fuzzy licked her bloody face, causing her to jerk back and scream. Allistor calmed her, as best he could. “It’s okay, that’s Fuzzy. He’s friendly. It’s okay.” The woman eventually calmed, and Allistor asked, “How many more guards in here?”

  She shook her head. “Not many. There were only five or six when we heard the shots. I saw at least two of them run outside before we attacked this one.” She looked at her two dead comrades, and tears filled her eyes. “That was maybe not the smartest move.”

  “You’re alive. Focus on that for now. Which way did the other guards go?”

  “Upstairs.” She pointed to a metal staircase that ran upward then doubled back and reached all the way to the ceiling. “They went up on the roof.”

  Allistor sighed. “Okay. I want you to round up the other prisoners and take them out that door.” He pointed to the door he’d just entered. “I want you to call out for Helen as you do, so that my people don’t shoot you. Can you do that?”

  The woman nodded, and he helped her to her feet. She reached down and pulled the knife from the dead guard’s throat, then looked at him oddly. A moment later she bent down and looted him, and Allistor realized she’d seen the ‘lootable’ glow on his body. “Cool.” was all she said.

  He left her to it, climbing the stairs with his faithful bear cub at his heels. Fuzzy snorted a few times and gave a small growl, as if he thought this was some kind of game. Allistor just shook his head and kept climbing. With his increased strength and stamina, the climb was no trouble, and he wasn’t even breathing hard when he reached the top.

  There was a landing with a metal security door. The door was closed, and Allistor really, really didn’t want to open it. A quick look at his interface told him his mana was up to two thirds, so he could cast several spells if needed.