But I didn’t see any hesitation from any of them. They might not be trained, but this was their town and those were their people in Marlon’s house. They were ready to fight for them. Ready to fight to be able to bring them home.
I pulled my gun out and noticed my company do the same, their faces dead serious.
“We go in the same way I told Bob,” I told them sharply. “We’re trying to catch them unawares, and that means going in quietly. We want to capture them, not kill them. But if they start shooting at us, we’re not going to have a choice. Remember, shoot people only if you see that they’re about to engage. But I don’t want to take that step unless we’re forced. Our aim is to get close enough to them to scare the hell out of them and force them to surrender in their panic. Anyone sees Randall, point me to him. He’s mine. Got it?”
All the heads nodded sharply, and I considered that enough.
I turned and headed for the back door of Town Hall.
“You got any last thoughts?” I asked Marlon as we walked. “Any brilliant ideas or magical ways to get into Town Hall faster?”
“I’m afraid I’m flat out of magical ideas and brilliant ideas at this point,” he replied grimly. “I’ve already used everything up from my bag of tricks.”
“Well then I guess we’re doing it the old-fashioned way,” I said, and kicked the door in.
33
We crept through the back door of the building and then ran along the wall, taking cover behind the columns as we came to them and ducking down behind any structures we found in there. It looked a whole lot like Randall’s men were doing something similar to what the townspeople had been doing—namely, setting up a campground in Town Hall.
Which really just confirmed my thought that they were planning to stay. And that was exactly what I didn’t want them doing.
We got everyone into the room though, and crouched down in single file against the wall, our eyes on the empty room ahead of us. I saw a whole lot of clutter, but zero men, and wondered suddenly where the hell they all were. Had they detected Bob and his men already, and gone to the front of the building to fight with them?
Because if they’d done that, I thought there was a good chance that Bob and his men were currently outnumbered.
I paused and listened, narrowing my eyes, but didn’t hear anything. And that was… weird in and of itself, actually. We were in a large building, yeah, but it was also a building full of men. Men who had just achieved their goal—and who thought they had won a battle, if my guess was right.
So the fact that they were all quiet was… wrong.
“Something’s wrong,” I breathed to Marlon, who was kneeling next to me.
“I was just thinking the same thing,” he whispered back. “It’s too damn quiet in here. Where the hell is everyone?”
I breathed out quietly and looked around, trying to see through what looked like hundreds of tents. The place was completely packed with tents and supplies, including enormous barbecues—where the hell had those come from?—and a number of army cots sitting side by side along the wall. The men had also set up what looked like a picnic area in this relatively large room, and I could see—through a door to my right—the stockpile of weapons that they’d brought with them.
In fact, now that I was looking, the room was full of weapons. I hoped that meant they didn’t have any on them, wherever they were. It would be incredibly stupid for them to have put them all in one place and not kept anything with them…
But I was also guessing that they thought we were long gone. They’d had no idea that we were coming back. And with luck, that meant they’d let their guard down.
With luck, it meant that my plan would work. We’d find them unarmed and be able to scare them so badly that they’d just give up rather than put up a fight.
Then I saw one of the tents start to shake. And another. And another.
“Oh God, they’re not at the front of the building,” I hissed. “They’re in their tents.” I turned and glared down the line of people I’d brought with me, making my voice as loud as I dared while still trying to keep it at least a little bit hidden. “The tents,” I said shortly. “Spread out and get to them. Capture them now, while they don’t know what we’re doing. And pray to God that they’re all in here.”
Then I was racing for the far side of the room, counting on my soldiers to do as I’d told them—and to do it quickly. As I raced through the room, making for the tents furthest from the door—and the tents my people would be least likely to get to—I saw men starting to tumble out, their faces covered with shock and confusion at the number of strangers running through the room, guns in hand. I didn’t recognize any of them, but I did recognize that expression.
They definitely hadn’t thought they were going to be facing any more enemies now that they’d taken the town. Hell, they’d probably found our camping spot in the barn, done what they needed to screw it up, and then written us right off.
They definitely weren’t prepared for an invasion… Which was exactly what this was.
“Hands up!” I shouted at them, brandishing my gun. “Now!”
And that was when the shooting started. Not in the room we were in, but somewhere else. The front of the building, I realized.
Bob and his men. They were shooting. Or someone was shooting at them.
And in that moment, the man in front of me—one of Randall’s—gave me a grin that was so completely malicious that it made my blood run cold. Then he darted toward the gun that had been leaning up against his tent. Around us, I could see the other men from Randall’s camp doing the same, and I had the split-second thought that it was choreographed.
Oh God, had this been a trap? Had I actually walked my people right into a trap?
I ducked and rolled, instinct overruling the doubts of my brain to send me to ground behind the closest tent—much good it would do me once the shooting started in the room I was in—and turned to direct my voice toward the room itself, lifting it up and using the volume I’d only ever used in battle.
The tone I used when I needed to make sure people heard me over gunfire.
“Ellis Woods, they’ve got guns and they’re going to use them!” I screamed. “Take ’em down!”
I spared a glance for the townspeople I could actually see, watched them nod at me in understanding, and then rolled out from where I was hiding, took aim, and shot the guy who had smiled at me.
He went down, his face a blank, and I had the one thought that he’d damn well had that one coming. But then the world devolved into the snapshot, stop-action look it always got when I was in battle, and I stopped paying attention to the details. I saw a snap of Marlon helping someone behind a tent. A snap of one of Randall’s men going down, his face registering pain and fury.
The report of a gun way too close to me.
I ducked and hit the ground again, my body acting on instinct, and when I came up, I came up shooting. The guy who had fired was still holding the gun, but a split second later his brains were all over the tent behind him.
I jerked another magazine out of my belt, released the one in my gun, shoved the new one home, and whirled around to face the room.
The people from Ellis Woods were doing okay, I realized through the haze of gun smoke and noise. I could see most of them hiding behind what structures there were, popping up to shoot every so often but then staying out of sight.
Randall’s men, on the other hand, weren’t doing so well. Several of them were on the floor, either dead or wounded, and I knew I’d taken care of two of them myself. They might have had guns, but we’d also woken them up with our sneak attack—and they hadn’t been prepared.