Realm of the Raiders

by Christopher Artinian

  A sharpshooter had him firmly in his sights; this sniper would get him before the creature went behind the next tree. But the marksman’s focus suddenly and painfully fell from his target and moved to his hand, which was covered in deep crimson blood from his own neck wound.

  *

  Screams reverberated around the dining room and the lights flickered off as debris burst through the doors from the hospital wing. Keith looked in the direction of the dust cloud billowing through the broken glass of the swaying doors. The floor above had collapsed. The hospital wing was buried. Time suddenly stood still. A thousand thoughts flashed through Keith’s mind as he tried to make sense of just one. He ran in the direction of the destruction, with two men in their forties following less than enthusiastically.

  Keith stood there, motionless, as the dust began to settle. The odd brick and tile still fell, but the main damage had already been done. His mouth hung wide open as he looked towards the rubble. His wife was there, his pregnant niece was there, Emma and Samantha were there. Where seconds before there had been a cacophony, now there was virtual silence.

  “The children, the children.” A panicked male voice shouted from behind him.

  For a moment, he didn’t understand what the man was saying. Then his thoughts cleared a little. “They’re on the opposite side, they’re fine.” His voice was barely audible and he heard whispers behind him as the message was passed around. His legs struggled to hold his weight and he stumbled towards a chair.

  Beth and Tracey appeared at the door. Parents and grandparents begged for confirmation of the children’s safety, which Tracey and Beth provided as they walked towards Keith and the devastated hospital wing. He didn’t hear or see them at first, but he felt their presence as they came up behind him. He knew the question that was going through their minds before it even reached their lips.

  “Jenny, my niece, Emma, Samantha and that girl you found this morning.” He put his head in his hands.

  “Well, we need to start digging them out. They’re under there somewhere,” Beth said, looking around at the villagers. A cloud of black smoke came pouring out of the kitchen.

  *

  Private Barnes continued to try and find targets through the scope, but it was becoming more and more difficult. Some of the enemy had taken to running; their own vehicles had been blocked in by those whose drivers had been turned. Anyone who wasn’t running was either battling RAMs or hiding. He even saw one man praying. He was going to put him out of his misery, but he was a little superstitious and shooting a praying man made him uneasy.

  *

  Mike brought the ambulance to a stop behind one of the tall turrets on the north bridge. The Jackal was parked safely behind the other, and Mike nodded towards the three soldiers manning it as he dismounted. He was about to enter when one of the privates came out almost beaming.

  “We’ve won. They’re running away with their tails between their legs.”

  “It’s a little too soon to celebrate,” Mike replied. “I’ve got Private Hughes in the back of the ambulance. He’s been shot. We’ve lost quite a few men on the east ridge and there are about twenty of the enemy heading towards the town. They’ve got a handset as well, so they can hear any transmissions.” Mike watched the glee wash from the soldier’s face. “Before he passed out he said I should come to the north bridge and get some reinforcements.”

  The soldier dragged his hand over his whiskered chin. “Right, we’d better leave the Jackal and another three men here just in case. That will give us six, plus the reservists, plus whoever we’ve got at the hotel.”

  “There’s only Marsh left there,” Mike answered.

  “Fuck me. Right, if you can take a couple of men in the back of the ambulance, I’ll load the jeep up.” The private re-entered the turret and Mike went back to the ambulance.

  He looked behind and saw Lucy in full doctor mode, stethoscope around her neck and pressing a bandage down on Hughes’s wound. She had the rest of his body covered in a warm blanket.

  “We’re taking a couple of the lads in with us. Have you got enough room back there?” She nodded.

  *

  Marsh had been the only real soldier guarding the hotel, but when he’d heard the deafening crash of the mortar shell he had abandoned his post and run through the foyer. Six reservists had followed. He’d reached the dining room in time to see the smoke billowing out of the kitchen. During his career in the army he had done nothing but take orders, but now he was giving them. He and three of the reservists swapped their weapons in favour of fire extinguishers and rushed towards the burning room. Terrified by the unfolding events, some of the villagers began to drift out of the dining room and into the foyer. Maybe they would be better off in the safety of their own homes. The first small group was about to leave when twenty-two heavily armed men appeared in the hotel entrance. The fleeing crowd screamed and ran back into the dining room, drawing the attention of all present. Curiosity soon turned to dread as the large armed gang burst through the dining room doors. Ten of them took aim towards the kitchen as the men who had proudly extinguished the fire re-entered the dining room.

  Marsh was the only one in uniform. He was viciously manhandled and dragged in front of a tall man with a bearded and heavily scarred face.

  “You in charge?” the man demanded, his thick Glaswegian accent sounding like a foreign language to Marsh.

  The soldier stayed silent. He had been scared plenty of times in battle, but he had always had his comrades next to him. Now he was in a room full of strangers facing the enemy by himself. He wouldn’t be able to fight them, but if nothing else he could stay strong.

  “I’ll ask you one last time. Are you in charge?” This time his speech was precise and clear like a teacher talking to a slow pupil.

  Marsh stayed silent. The man with the scarred face looked at the soldier with hatred, then looked towards his men.

  “Kill him,” he ordered. A split second later a bullet went through Marsh’s forehead. Shrieks of fear filled the room.

  Although Keith was still in a state of shock, the professional part of him, the part that had been a leader for over two decades, rallied itself. He was about ten feet away from the radio. The only chance they had was to get a message to the troops to tell them what was going on. There was nervous movement and shuffling all over the room, and the invading party were scanning all corners for trouble. Keith slowly and steadily stood and moved towards the table. The gang seemed to be enjoying all the negative attention and the familiar feeling of raw power as they surveyed the group of helpless villagers.

  “Everybody shut up and sit still,” the scar-faced man shouted at the top of his voice. A statuesque silence swept over the room.

  Keith knew it would probably mean losing his life, but now Jenny was gone, his life had little significance. He leapt towards the table, grabbed the handset and, like a boy of fourteen, vaulted the bar as bullets began to fly over his head.

  “This is Keith Masters at the hotel. The enemy are here...” There was some hiss and crackle, then Keith’s voice sounded less strong, less urgent. “Twenty men... all armed... Marsh dead...”

  *

  The driver of the jeep banged his fist on the horn to get the attention of the ambulance. Mike brought it to a sudden stop and he jumped down.

  “We’ve just heard on the walkie, twenty of them have taken the hotel,” the young soldier said.

  Mike climbed back into the ambulance and passed on the news.

  *

  Scar-face looked around the dining room at the terrified villagers. The leader of this little group was now dead. He had won. Not everybody knew it yet, but he had been in this situation before. Once he had hostages, the rest was plain sailing. He pointed to a scared-looking man in his twenties who was clutching his wife tightly.

  “Bring them here,” he ordered his men in a booming voice.

  The man and woman were dragged across the carpeted floor by two large men.

&nb
sp; “You! How many soldiers do you have?” When he got no answer from the terrified man, he moved across to the woman and lashed her across the face with the back of his gloved hand. A red welt appeared and she fell to the ground howling. When he raised his booted foot, ready to stamp on her face, the frightened man squealed.

  “Stop! Stop! I’ll tell you everything.”

  It always worked. Look for a couple who were clearly in love, and ask one questions while hanging the threat of torture over the other. It had worked in the world before and it worked even better now. As people had less and less to cling onto, those they loved became their entire focus.

  The cowering husband was as good as his word. He told them everything. Afterwards, the scar-faced man knocked him unconscious with a single blow and let his feeble wife nurse him in a corner. Soon all the men and some of the women in the room would be dead, but for now, keeping them alive served his purpose better. The handset that Keith Martin had made his broadcast on had been destroyed, but Scar-face still had the one he had taken from Private Hughes.

  *

  In the ambulance, Lucy slowed the bleeding to a virtual stop and applied a pressure bandage. Slowly, Private Hughes came to his senses.

  “Good to see you, Bruiser,” said Mike. “We’ve got a situation on our hands.”

  Mike jumped back out of the ambulance and rejoined the soldiers, who were discussing what they should do next.

  The walkie-talkie suddenly began to snap and hiss.

  *

  “My name’s Fry. I’m afraid your Councillor Martin has made his last broadcast. Now, I’ve got a very simple set of demands. I want to see every one of your soldiers at the hotel in the next fifteen minutes. I’ve had one of your brave young villagers here giving me a full rundown of how many of you there are. My men will collect your weapons at the door. Anybody tries anything and we’ll wipe out everybody in this room. If you’re not here in fifteen minutes I’m going to start killing them five at a time for every minute that you’re late. Oh, and we want your Jackals as well. There will be no negotiation, no counter-offers. You do this or they die, and then we come looking for you anyway.” The heavily accented speech rolled in his throat. This was a man who loved the sound of his own voice, of his own power. He took a deep breath. He could smell the fear in the room. He stared from face to face. Some were crying, some were in a state of shock, and then he saw one that was neither. There was a look of belligerence on her face.

  He marched over to the bar, and stepped over Keith Martin’s corpse. Fry took a bottle down and placed two glasses on the dark mahogany surface.

  “You, girl! Over here now.” He looked at two of his men who closed in on the young woman and dragged her across to the bar. “Have a drink with me,” he said, pouring the amber liquid into the glasses.

  Beth thought about protesting, about spitting in his face, about telling him to go fuck himself, but she hadn’t given up hope yet. A week ago if she had been in a situation like this she would have been as resigned to defeat as the other people in the room. But now things were different. She’d witnessed the impossible and she knew that one small glimmer of a chance was all they needed.

  *

  Conversations went back and forth between Lucy, Mike and the soldiers. Whichever scenario was suggested, it was instantly shouted down. Surrendering would result in certain death, not just for the servicemen, but for the villagers as well. Storming the hotel would result in too much loss of civilian life, as would trying to delay or doing nothing at all. The seconds were ticking by.

  Hughes raised his hand slowly and moved his finger, beckoning Lucy down to hear him talk.

  “Stun grenades in the jeep.” He breathed out heavily as if the effort to speak had taken all his strength.

  Lucy stood up. “He says there are some stun grenades in the jeep.”

  One of the privates held up a small rucksack. “Yeah, we’ve got half a dozen of them, but they won’t help us. We can’t get round the back of the hotel to get them through the windows without being seen, and we can’t exactly walk through the front door either.”

  An idea struck Mike like a bolt of lightning. “I know how we can get in. You three, out of the car, now.” He pointed to the three passengers in the jeep. They dismounted and Mike jumped in. “East ridge, put your foot on it.” Before Lucy or anyone had chance to ask what his plan was, the jeep sped away.

  *

  Beth knocked back the scotch like she was in a drinking competition. She wiped her mouth and poured herself another one without invitation. Fry looked on curiously. This woman didn’t seem to be intimidated by him; he had never experienced anything like this before. The six-foot-five figure tapped his fingers over his face like he was playing piano keys. “Don’t my scars scare you, sweetheart?” he asked in his best pantomime villain voice.

  Beth took a sip of her drink. “We’ve all got scars.” She looked at his face and then straight into his eyes. “No offence, but I doubt you were an oil painting before.” Fry’s piercing eyes looked at her and then at his men who were in earshot. Each of them expected him to bat her across the room for such insolence, but instead he burst into a raucous laugh, poured himself another drink and took a large swig.

  Beth was more than happy to act as a diversion. Not one of the bandits had noticed that there were no children in the room, or if they had, they hadn’t mentioned it.

  “Tell me darlin’, what’s your name?” Fry asked, licking the remaining traces of scotch from his ginger and grey whiskers.

  “Beth,” she said, taking another drink herself.

  “I like you, Beth. It’s a long time since I met a girl with a bit of spirit. It’s lovely to meet you,” he said, eyes flaring menacingly. “My name’s Fry.” He smiled like a serpent and bowed.

  *

  The driver of the jeep, Private Shaw, followed Mike to the ridge. Five minutes had already passed and time was running out for the residents of Candleton. Mike looked around at the bodies. Many had wounds that were obviously fatal, such as huge holes where their hearts used to be or bullets straight through their foreheads. Some had wounds that were a little more ambiguous. Mike picked up an enemy soldier who had a small red circle just below his rib cage.

  “We’re taking this one back to the car,” he said to Shaw, and then proceeded to get undressed.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” the soldier asked, worried that Mike had lost his mind.

  “If one of us tries to get through those doors, they’re going to blow us to pieces. But if they think it’s one of their own soldiers, they’re probably going to let them straight in.” The dead man’s height and build were similar to Mike’s own and the clothes fitted him well. Mike finished buttoning the shirt then took out his knife, cut into the belly of the dead man and held his breath as he doused his face in the slowly cooling blood. He then blotted his hands clean on his newly acquired shirt.

  “I think I’m gonna puke,” Shaw said as he looked towards the gory mess.

  *

  Hughes wanted the men at the north and south bridges to stay put, but he knew they would have been listening to the broadcast and he was worried that they might try to make their way to the hotel. The soldiers from the north bridge couldn’t get to the hotel without reaching him first, but he told Lucy through strained whispers to get one of his men down to the south approach and make sure the soldiers maintained their position on the south bridge. Even that small expenditure of energy exhausted him.

  Seconds later, the jeep came screeching to a halt behind the ambulance. Lucy looked at the figure next to the driver, and then did a double take. It was Mike, but he was covered in blood.

  “What happened?” she squealed, running from the ambulance across to him.

  “It’s okay, it’s not my blood.” Hughes grunted and lifted his head up to see what was going on. “I’ve got one of their soldiers. I’m going to pretend we were both left injured on the battlefield. By the time they figure anything out, I’ll already be
in there. I’ll release the stun grenades and then stay down until the cavalry arrive.”

  Shallow, raspy bursts of laughter came from inside the ambulance. They all looked towards Hughes, who was relishing the gory theatrics. “I’m telling you. Knackers the size of fucking beach balls.” He laughed again until it hurt him too much to continue.

  *

  “Tell me, Beth, where are you from? You don’t seem like you’re from round here. You seem to have a wee bit more about you,” Fry said as he took another drink from his glass and surveyed the rest of the terrified faces in the room.

  Beth didn’t see any point in lying. One of them would be dead before the day was out so concocting a fiction was unnecessary. “My family had a farm just outside of Leeds. We came here when everything went to hell.”

  “And what brought you here, exactly?” Fry asked, looking for any hint of a lie on her face.

  Beth quickly checked the surrounding area. She knew her Aunt Bridget was up in the function room with her sister and brother. God only knew where the rest of her family was, but if she told him the truth on this one, he might find some way to use it against her. “My dad was friends with that man you killed.”

  “Y’know, Beth sweetheart, back in the day I was a copper. My special skill was being able to tell when people were lying, and right now I think you’re telling me a wee porky pie.” His wild blue eyes lit up with the prospect of being able to get to the bottom of this girl’s secrets.

  *

  “Okay. You’ve got four repeating stun grenades on you. I’ve attached the pins of two directly to the belt buckle on the back of your trousers. When you tug them free, they’ll be live.” The private pulled out the tail of Mike’s borrowed shirt to loosely cover them. “I’m tucking two more into your waistband. All you do is pull the pins, chuck ’em and get down on the floor. Now, Mike, we’ve got respirators. You’re not going to have that luxury, so cover your mouth and eyes if you can. Like I said, these are repeating stun grenades, so they’re going to go off a few times. Once they start, stay out of the way and let us do the rest. Good luck, mate!”