The Encampment –
Continuous
Tiber
moves first. He grinds his boot down over the fire, smothering
the embers in a hiss of dying heat as he shoulders his rifle in one
smooth, practiced motion. Smoke curls up, bitter and acrid, blotting
out the last orange glow.
Arruns
and Decimus are already shifting, boots scraping low and quiet as
they pivot toward the direction Lucille had been staring into. Rifles
come up. Fingers find triggers. Breaths go shallow. Marcus and Cain
break apart, snapping to their feet and backpedaling in opposite arcs
to widen the spread. Training takes over, distance, angles, lines of
fire. Cain’s pulse hammers in his ears, but his hands are steady as
steel as he brings his sights up.
Lucille
doesn’t even have time to finish sliding the straps of her shield
over her arm.
The
night explodes.
Gunfire
rips out of the shrubs in a deafening chorus. Not one rifle. Not two.
Eight.
Ballistic
fire barks from the darkness, muzzle flashes blooming and vanishing
like predatory eyes. The air fills with cracking thunder and snapping
leaves. Stone chips. Dirt sprays. Something screams past Cain’s ear
close enough to kiss.
They
have no targets. Just light. Just sound.
Lucille
reacts on instinct.
She
slams the shield up and throws herself sideways, planting her body in
front of Cain as the first rounds hit. Three shots hammer into the
shield in rapid succession, clang, crack, shriek, the force
rattling through her arm and straight into her bones. Pain flares
white-hot, a deep, bruising ache that makes her teeth snap together.
Cain
doesn’t hesitate.
His
hand clamps her shoulder for half a heartbeat, I’ve got you,
then drops away as he sinks down behind her, one knee bracing
hard into her lower back. He leans into her shield, using it as
cover, and fires over her head, rifle kicking against his shoulder as
he sends controlled bursts into the muzzle flashes.
“TWO
CONTACTS, LEFT FLANK!” Tiber shouts.
He
fires as he calls it, shots cracking sharp and precise, then shifts
hard toward a slab of broken stone. He gains cover from one angle,
and exposes his back to another. He knows it the second he moves.
They’re
surrounded.
Rounds
chew into the ground around Decimus’ boots. Arruns drags him down
behind a low rise, returning fire in tight, disciplined bursts.
Marcus ducks, rolls, comes up behind a fallen column and fires blind
into the dark, jaw clenched, eyes wild.
Lucille
plants her feet, shield locked, arm screaming as more rounds strike
and glance away. Her breath comes fast and rough. The world narrows
to weight, impact, Cain’s heat behind her, the thunder of guns.
This
isn’t an exam. This isn’t simulated. These are real bullets. Real
weapons. Real armor. Blood is already in the air; metallic, sharp,
undeniable. Death has stepped out of the shadows, and it is taking
aim.
Lucille
doesn’t wait for debate.
“Move,
now!” she growls, voice rough and feral through clenched
teeth.
Cain
taps her shoulder once, signal received, and they move as one. She
pivots, shield leading, Cain glued to her back, boots digging hard as
they break from the open ground and dive toward the nearest stand of
trees. Rounds snap past where they were a heartbeat ago, tearing
through leaves and bark.
They
hit cover in a crouch.
“Frag!”
Decimus shouts.
The
pin sings.
He
lobs the grenade into the darkness with a sharp overhand throw.
Everyone ducks, backs pressing to trees and stone, forearms up, jaws
clenched.
The
explosion punches the night apart.
Shrapnel
rips through brush and trunks in a screaming halo of steel. Bark
detonates outward. Leaves are shredded into pulp. Smoke blooms thick
and choking.
Blood
sprays out of the dark.
A
wet sound follows, someone screaming, cut off too fast.
The
clearing is suddenly scarred, trees stitched with fresh metal wounds,
the ground torn and cratered.
Lucille
doesn’t flinch.
She
leans out from behind her shield and brings her rifle up.
Her
senses burn hot, ears catching the scrape of boots, the wet drag of
breath, the panic under the discipline. Her nose catches iron and
cordite. Her eyes track the brief, stuttering blooms of muzzle flash
like stars blinking into existence.
She
fires. Short. Controlled. Deadly. The recoil punches into her
shoulder. She corrects. Fires again.
One
shape jerks, stumbles, collapses.
She
knows she got him.
“Contact
down!” she snarls, already shifting her stance.
Something
clatters across stone.
A
dark cylinder skids into the clearing, bouncing once, twice….
“GRENADE!”
Tiber roars.
Lucille
is already moving.
She
throws herself sideways, shield snapping up as the blast detonates.
The explosion slams into her like a charging beast. Shrapnel screams
across the shield’s surface, sparks flying, metal shrieking under
the impact.
The
force hurls her backward.
Her
boots lose purchase. Pain explodes through her arm, through her
shoulder, through her ribs.
She
would have gone down, but Marcus is there, hands catching her under
one arm, Decimus bracing her other side, teeth gritted as they absorb
the impact together. They stagger but hold.
Lucille
gasps, breath knocked half out of her.
Her
shield smokes, surface cratered and pockmarked, scarred like it went
through hell and came back screaming.
She
stays on her feet. Still standing. Still breathing. And the gunfire
hasn’t stopped.
Decimus
barks over the gunfire, half-snarl, half-laugh, “Just ’cause you
got a shield don’t mean you gotta play guardian angel, Lucy!”
Lucille
answers with a low, animal growl that never leaves her throat. She
doesn’t look back. She raises her rifle and fires into the dark
again, muzzle flash painting her face in stark white for a heartbeat.
Then
she moves.
She
breaks from her tree, boots tearing up wet leaves as she sprints for
a thicker trunk farther right, better angle, better cover from where
the remaining fire is coming from. The grenade took one flank clean.
What’s left is dug in opposite, disciplined, angry.
Rounds
snap past her. One punches bark inches from her head.
She
hits the tree hard, shoulder-first, shield up, breath rasping. She
leans out and fires again. Short bursts. Suppressive. The team shifts
with her, the fight flowing forward in fits and starts, ground taken
in blood-slick inches.
Then
someone screams.
Arruns
stumbles, drops to one knee.
Blood
pours from his side, two wounds, black and glossy in the
fireless dark. He gasps like he’s drowning on land, rifle
clattering uselessly from his hands as he claws at himself.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“Arruns!”
Tiber lunges for him.
Gunfire
answers.
Rounds
chew the dirt at Tiber’s feet, snapping him back behind his tree.
He slams his shoulder into cover, breath ragged, eyes wild.
“Arruns
is down!” he shouts. “He’s hit bad!”
Lucille
hears it.
Something
cold locks into place behind her eyes.
She
pivots, already moving.
She
finds Cain without looking, she always does. She drops her rifle, the
sling catching it against her ribs, and reaches across her body.
Steel slides free with a whisper as she draws her sword.
Cain
mirrors her instantly.
He
lets his rifle fall, unsheathes his own blade, and meets her eyes in
the dark. No words. No hesitation.
He
nods once.
Lucille
lifts her shield, sets her stance.
Then
they dive.
They
plunge into the darkness together, Lucille in front, shield raised
high, Cain glued to her back, their shoulders almost touching.
Bullets slam into the shield in sharp, concussive impacts, sparks
flaring, metal ringing like a bell struck by wrath.
Lucille
pushes forward anyway.
Step.
Step. Step.
Cain
moves with her, blade low and ready, breath steady, trusting her
completely to keep him alive.
The
gunfire grows louder.
Closer.
And
for the first time, the enemy realizes too late, they are being
charged.
Marcus
and Decimus stare into the dark, stunned. For half a heartbeat,
neither of them moves.
“They’re—”
Decimus starts, then cuts himself off, disbelief choking the word.
Marcus
swears under his breath. “They charged.”
Before
either of them can react, the gunfire shifts, then stops. Not the
echoing pops dying out, but the pressure lifting. No rounds
snapping bark. No dirt kicking up around them.
Tiber
doesn’t waste the gift.
He
bolts from cover, skids to Arruns’ side, and hauls him back by the
straps, teeth clenched against the young man’s pained gasp. Blood
smears across the leaves as he drags him behind a thick oak, slams
him down, and gets hands on the wounds.
“Stay
with me,” Tiber growls. “Don’t you dare check out on me now.”
Arruns
wheezes, eyes glassy, fingers slick with his own blood.
Down
the incline, Lucille and Cain hit the enemy line like a falling
blade.
They
burst from the brush in a blur of motion and metal.
Lucille
leads with her shield.
She
slams it into the first gunman with a brutal, full-body bash. The
impact knocks the breath clean out of him and sends him sprawling
down the slope, rifle skittering away into the leaves.
The
other two shout in surprise, scrambling back, swinging their rifles
up, not to fire, but to club.
One
swings first.
Cain
steps inside the arc.
Steel
rings as he deflects the strike, pivots, and drives a boot into the
man’s knee. Bone pops. The scream cuts off as Cain’s sword
follows through, a clean, practiced thrust that drops him instantly.
Lucille
barely has time to breathe before the third enemy tackles her.
They
crash into the dirt together, rolling hard. Dead leaves and mud smear
her vision. He’s heavier, desperate, clawing for her throat, trying
to pin her shield arm.
Lucille
snarls and headbutts him.
He
grunts, reeling, but not enough.
Cain
is already there.
He
swings hard into the man’s backplate, the impact ringing like a
struck anvil. The enemy jerks upright with a strangled sound, spine
exposed for a fraction of a second and that’s all it takes.
Lucille’s
knife flashes. She drives it up into his gut, all the way to the
hilt.
Cain’s
blade follows a heartbeat later, plunging into the exposed spine with
brutal finality.
The
man goes slack.
Cain
shoves the corpse off her and to the ground. He breathes hard, chest
heaving, then looks down at her and offers his hand.
Lucille
takes it without hesitation.
He
hauls her to her feet.
The
clearing falls silent.
No
gunfire. No shouting. Just the faint rustle of disturbed leaves and
the distant echo of shots fading away like bad memories bleeding out
into the dark.
For
a moment, it feels unreal.
Too
quiet.
Lucille
stands there, shield dripping with soot and blood, knife still in her
hand, heart hammering against her ribs. Cain exhales slowly beside
her. They are alive. And the night, for now, has stopped trying to
kill them.
Arruns
wheezes, the sound wet and broken, each breath a fight he’s losing
inch by inch. Blood slicks his fingers where he clutches his side,
dark and too fast.
“Hell,”
Tiber mutters, already on him. He tears open Arruns’ jacket, hands
shaking just enough to betray the fear underneath. “Two hits. Damn
it, damn it—”
Arruns
groans, jaw clenched, eyes glassy. “Burns… burns like fire…”
“I
know,” Tiber says through his teeth. “I know. Stay with me.” He
presses down, then curses again, sharper this time, patting
frantically at his belt, his pockets. “Shit! Where’s my light—”
“I
got it,” Decimus says, already dropping to a knee beside them.
He
flicks on his flashlight. The beam cuts through the darkness, stark
and unforgiving, illuminating blood-slick hands, torn fabric, torn
flesh. The forest around them feels wrong now, too quiet, like it’s
holding its breath.
Decimus
angles the light steady while Tiber works, tearing open a field
dressing with his teeth, hands moving fast despite the tremor
creeping in. The echoes of the firefight fade completely, swallowed
by the trees, leaving only labored breathing and the soft rustle of
leaves.
Marcus
watches for half a second longer, jaw tight.
Then
he turns and runs.
He
crashes through the shrubs, branches clawing at his armor. “Lucy!”
he calls, voice cutting sharp into the dark. No answer. “Lucy!”
Louder now. “Cain!”
He
breaks through the brush on the other side and stops.
Cain
and Lucille stand a few paces apart, hands still clasped, Cain having
just hauled her upright. For a heartbeat, they look frozen in time,
framed by bodies and churned earth and shadow.
Relief
hits Marcus so hard it almost buckles his knees.
“There
you are,” he breathes, more to himself than to them.
Lucille
releases Cain’s hand as she stoops to retrieve her sword. She
sheathes her knife, then hisses sharply, one hand flying to her side.
Her face goes pale beneath the grime.
“Easy,”
Cain says immediately, gripping her arm, steadying her when her knees
threaten to give. “You’re hurt.”
“Stitches
tore,” she growls, breath tight. “I can feel it.”
Marcus
steps in. “Alright. That’s enough heroics for one night. C’mon.
We’re headin’ back to the others.” He glances around, uneasy.
“After all that noise, I don’t like stayin’ put. We don’t
know who else might come sniffin’.”
Cain
nods. “Agreed.”
Lucille
swallows, then lifts her chin despite the pain. “We oughta search
’em,” she says, voice rough but steady. “They might’ve got
ammo. Med kits. Rations. Somethin’ useful.”
Marcus
considers it for half a second, then nods. “Yeah. You’re right.
Once we’re back with the others.” He jerks his head toward the
clearing. “Me an’ Decimus’ll handle it.”
Cain
keeps his grip on Lucille as they turn back the way Marcus came, the
forest closing in around them again. Somewhere behind them, Arruns
groans, Tiber swears softly, and the quiet presses down like a
weight.
They
move back into the clearing together, boots crunching over churned
earth and shattered leaves. The place looks smaller now. Meaner.
Trees are chewed up by shrapnel, bark peeled back in raw strips, the
ground pocked and torn like diseased flesh.
Decimus
and Tiber are already on Arruns, working with a desperation that
borders on frenzy. Blood coats their forearms to the elbow.
“Hold
still,” Tiber snarls, though Arruns can barely move. His hands
shake as he tears open another packet. “Hold still, damn you.”
Arruns
whimpers, breath coming in ragged pulls as Decimus pours quick-clot
powder straight into one of the wounds. The reaction is immediate,
Arruns screams, back arching, fingers clawing at the dirt.
“I
know,” Decimus mutters, voice tight. “I know it hurts. I’m
sorry.”
When
the powder isn’t enough, Tiber jams a syrette into the wound and
depresses the plunger, microsponges disappearing into torn muscle.
Blood slows. Not stops, but slows enough to matter.
Cain
breaks away from Marcus, guiding Lucille by the arm.
“Sit,”
he says, already lowering her to the ground with care.
She
slumps against a tree whose trunk is peppered with fresh scars, bark
still bleeding sap. Cain drops to a knee in front of her, yanking off
her IFAK. He bites down on his flashlight, the beam jittering as he
works, hands moving fast, practiced.
Lucille
hisses as he peels back fabric. “Son of a—Cain, careful—”
“I
am,” he says around the light, though his jaw is tight. “I got
you.”
She
grits her teeth, breathing shallow, then reaches up suddenly, fingers
catching Marcus’ sleeve as he passes.
“Hey,”
she rasps. “You’re hurt.”
Marcus
stops, blinks. “I’m—” He looks down at himself, then notices
the dark smear on his arm, blood seeping through a tear in his
sleeve. He frowns. “Huh.” He flexes his fingers. Only then does
the sting register. “Didn’t even feel it,” he mutters, more
puzzled than alarmed.
He
looks at Lucille, brow creasing. “How’d you know?”
She
doesn’t answer. Just gives him a look. A tired, knowing one.
“I’ll
handle it,” he says, instinctively brushing it off. Then he glances
toward Arruns, toward Cain bent over Lucille, and shakes his head.
“Actually—”
Marcus
steps over to Decimus, taps his shoulder once. No words. Just a look.
Decimus
nods, understanding immediately.
Marcus
turns away from the group and moves toward the bodies scattered
around the clearing, rifle hanging loose in his hand as he starts
checking pockets, belts, rigs. Methodical. Quiet. The work of someone
who knows that survival often comes from what the dead leave behind.
Behind
him, Lucille exhales shakily as Cain tightens a fresh bandage.
The
clearing reeks of blood and burnt powder.
Cain
lets out a quiet chuckle as Lucille hisses through her teeth, fingers
digging into the dirt while he works the needle through torn flesh.
“Oh,
come on,” he murmurs, voice low and amused. “You’re actin’
like a baby.”
She
glares at him sideways, breath shaky. “I didn’t act like this
when the nurse stitched it.”
“That’s
because the nurse wasn’t stabbing you with malicious intent,” he
says, tugging the thread tight.
She
sucks in a sharp breath, then manages a crooked smile anyway.
“Maybe,” she mutters, “or maybe you’re just not as gentle.”
Cain
snorts softly, shaking his head, and for a heartbeat, just one, the
world narrows to the two of them, blood and pain and quiet warmth in
the dark. Lucille can’t stop smiling, even as another stitch bites
and she winces again.
Across
the clearing, Arruns’ breathing finally slows from frantic gasps to
ragged, uneven pulls. Tiber exhales, some of the tension bleeding out
of his shoulders as he finishes packing the wounds.
“It’s
slowing,” he says, mostly to himself. “Through-and-through. Lucky
bastard.”
He
presses fresh plugs into both entry and exit, cinching them down.
Blood still seeps, but it’s controlled now. Manageable. Not the
unstoppable red tide it had been moments before.
“If
it hadn’t exited…” Tiber trails off, then shakes his head.
“We’d be cutting.”
Arruns
swallows hard, eyes squeezed shut, but he nods faintly. Alive. Still
alive.
Marcus
and Decimus work a short distance away, splitting the bodies without
speaking. Marcus drops to a knee beside one, fingers moving fast and
practiced. He strips magazines from the chest rig, checks them by
weight, and slides them into his own pouches without ceremony.
Decimus
kneels by another and rolls the corpse onto its back.
His
flashlight sweeps across shattered armor, torn webbing, then stops.
The
beam lingers.
The
arm is gone. Not severed cleanly, but obliterated, armor peeled open
like a broken shell, flesh and metal fused and ruined by the blast.
Decimus
recoils a half step, breath hitching.
“By
the Gods!” he curses loudly.
The
words crack through the clearing, sharp and sudden, making Marcus
look up and the others stiffen where they sit, able to hear him, but
not yet able to see what he’s found. The forest seems to hold its
breath.
