After it Happened Boxset: 1-6 Omnibus Edition, page 106
“Shhh. Shhh,” he said involuntarily into Kev’s ear, hoping that he would pass out quickly and he could try to forget this ever happened. He could not lose, because the plan wasn’t finished yet. He had to win and to put someone he couldn’t bring himself to hurt in his path disgusted him. Kev threw back one huge elbow, stinging Jan’s eyes and blinding him temporarily with the sheer force of the impact. Jan had to readjust, trapping Kev’s hands with his legs one by one to prevent the big man from injuring him.
Feeling Kev’s struggles abate slightly, he shifted his grip and squeezed tighter hoping to end it fast.
Kev had other ideas. With a strength Jan didn’t think was humanly possible he braced his body and rolled, rising to his feet and carrying Jan’s not insubstantial weight with him as though he were made of air and freeing one hand in the process. Jan buried his unprotected eyes into the back of Kev’s shoulder, fearful of the big hand flailing at him but still not releasing his grip one ounce, as he tried to hang on.
With a strangled bellow, Kev instinctively threw himself backwards. Driving every breath of air from Jan’s lungs as their combined weight slammed into the hard ground, he felt his head crack against the earth. Dizzy and winded, Jan used every bit of muscle strength he could muster to maintain his grip.
Slowly, with sounds coming from Kev which broke his heart, the struggling stopped and the big man went limp.
Shrugging his huge weight off him, Jan struggled to his feet, eyes full of tears, and checked Kev’s vital signs.
He was breathing, but unconscious. Shouting for help he saw the door bang open again and the same guards walking towards him with undisguised fear in their eyes this time; not only were they fearful of Jan who had dispatched three fighters in as many minutes, but they were fearful of the beast waking up and killing them. With difficulty, Kev was carried from the arena with Jan following and shouting at them to keep his neck supported. At the exit, a rifle barrel was prodded into his chest and he stepped back for the door to close.
Breathing heavily like he had finished a sprint, he cuffed away his tears of remorse and disgust for what he had just had to do, and looked at the faces of the spectators.
They jeered, they laughed, they pointed, they wagered.
All except one.
Singling him out with a pointed finger, Jan shouted.
“You,” he bawled, gaining the attention of most of the onlookers. “Was that your idea?”
Will smirked and shrugged. If he wasn’t allowed to fight, then the least he could do was be allowed to watch the massive simpleton beat other people to death.
“Coward!” Jan screamed, then spat towards him. His eyes never left Will’s face.
The crowd loved it. A personal challenge to one of the best. This was real holiday entertainment.
Will made a move to climb down from the raised seating until the man next to him grabbed his arm.
“Benjamin said not to fight!” hissed Will’s co-conspirator. “Stick to the plan!”
Will snatched his arm clear from the man and climbed down, happy to ignore his brother’s orders but pathologically unable to resist a direct challenge.
The crowd roared with anticipation as Jan desperately tried to get his breath back. All feeling of the cold night evaporated as Will stepped into the arena.
And smiled.
CHECK
Steve’s chosen few fell in step with him as he strode through the shadows towards the nearest weapons locker. By now, others were passing word around that they were about to rise. To wait to be given guns and to be ready to overthrow Richards. No longer accentuating his limp, he walked tall and strong towards the two guards standing by a metal container.
~
“Drink, Sir?” Max said, holding aloft an expensive bottle which he knew was to Richards’s tastes. He had intercepted it from a delivery intended for the very same office, but the Major had no idea. Things just appeared for him, and he liked that.
“Good man!” he exclaimed, dropping his pen and pulling a sheet of paper to cover his work. He beckoned the young man inside.
Max had been preparing himself for this moment, but it was all he could do to keep the bile from rising in his throat.
Stepping past the chair Richards offered him with an outstretched hand, he walked around to the other side of the desk and sat delicately on the edge. Pouring two glasses, measures which any bar would call at least a triple, he gave Richards one glass and raised his own.
“Cheers,” he said with what he hoped was his cheekiest smile.
Richards blushed and drank, pulling a face as the fierce liquid hit his throat. Catching a glimpse of the paperwork which Richards had hastily tried to cover, Max leaned over his shoulder and moved it aside.
“Sir,” he said chidingly, “you never told me you were so talented!” Richards blushed a deeper shade of red and mumbled something about always having been an artist at heart, but Max wasn’t interested in his words. He pulled out the paper and made admiring noises about what he would only describe as a child’s drawing.
Placing a hand on Richards’s shoulder, Max told him that he was wasted as a senior officer in the army and should’ve been an artist.
The incorrect inflation of Richards’s former rank combined with the compliment had the desired effect.
Max refilled Richards’s glass twice as he listened to the man waffle on about how his passion for sketching had started at an early age.
So flattered was he that this young man was taking a personal interest in him, that Richards failed to notice he was still drinking the first drink he had poured himself, and that the bottle was already a third empty.
Glancing surreptitiously at his watch, Max smiled and hoped to god that the next hour would pass quickly.
~
Standing face to face with Will for the second time in the arena, Jan felt a rage inside him like never before. Even when mentally preparing to fight the bastard without making himself lose like last time, he had no way of summoning such anger than he felt at that moment.
“You think that was sport?” he snapped at Will, unable to control himself as his voice cracked with anger.
Will said nothing. His calm arrogance infuriated Jan and forced him to strike first.
Lashing out with his left foot straight at his chest, Will stepped back and to the side like Jan knew he would. As soon as his left foot hit the ground, his right shot out in a savage round kick which Will had no chance of avoiding. Blocking it with both hands braced, the force knocked him backwards to the ground making the crowd erupt in a higher octave than before.
Rolling effortlessly backwards and regaining his feet without his hands touching the ground, he smiled again.
Jan had, in his own words, totally lost his shit. He fired attack after attack at Will, making the younger man dodge and block all over the arena until, far too quickly, Jan was blown.
He had made a fundamental mistake, and he had winded himself. Will was not only younger and lighter, but he was also fresh to the fight and he knew it. Jan was almost doubled over, desperately sucking in air to replenish the oxygen expended from his body, and Will chose that moment to counter. Raining kicks and punches into Jan’s body if he protected his head, and into his head if he protected his body, Will still smiled as he landed blow after blow on the exhausted man.
After maybe ten hits, Jan’s hands dropped involuntarily and he took harder blows as Will pressed his obvious advantage. Switching tactics as Jan knew he would, Will surprised him with a savage attack as he came in close but instead of throwing his fists into him he spun elegantly under his arms and gripped his chest from behind. Powerless to prevent it, Jan felt his body lift upwards as Will twisted and slammed his head, neck and shoulders into the dirt. Before he could even tell which way was up, his breath caught in his throat as Will’s arm slid over his shoulder and around his neck. Reacting instantly, instinctively, Jan dropped his chin to his chest and shrugged his shoulders, shooting his left hand across his body to grab Will’s right. Rolling to his left he only narrowly avoided Will securing the choke hold. Continuing the roll to escape and create distance, Jan’s failing strength hurt him as the younger, faster and fresher man landed two punches in quick succession to his face just as he regained his feet.
Wavering on the spot like a punch-drunk boxer who was overdue to retire, Jan stood in the centre of the arena and waited for his fortune to be read.
From the ranks of baying onlookers he heard one voice shout, “Finish him!” in mockery of a video game.
Will cracked at that point, and laughed.
That sound, that infuriating sound, cut through Jan’s consciousness like a knife.
Will stepped forward and lined up a show-boat of a spinning kick which he knew would please his audience. He pivoted and his head whipped backwards as he momentarily took his eyes off his target, Jan summoned his remaining strength and launched himself forward, placing all his effort into his outstretched right foot.
Will spun back, his eyes widening as he realised Jan was no longer where he ought to be, just as the boot connected with his straight left leg.
There was no room for manoeuvre. No give in that bracing leg, and the momentum of the weight behind Jan’s foot continued straight through the joint and issued a sickening crunch which was drowned out by the crowd.
Will, one leg bent backwards in a grotesque way nature did not intend, slumped to the ground unable to breathe through the pain, instantly silencing the crowd.
Staggering towards the younger man clawing at his ruined leg, Jan leaned down.
And smiled.
Not a word rang out. The crowd watched in stunned horror and Will held one hand out towards his attacker as the other gripped his ruined knee. Jan seized that hand in a vice-like grip around the wrist, rolled backwards and wrapped his legs around Will’s neck, hooking one leg over the other foot.
Bracing his body with every single ounce of strength remaining in him, he tensed and rolled back. Will emitted a single squawk of agony until the pressure around his neck prevented anything else, then his eyes bulged and spit bubbled at his mouth. His face flushed purple, but he made no attempt to extricate himself. The strength of Jan’s hold on him dragged the younger man upright where he pulled the arms and crushed his neck with his thighs. Weakly, feebly, Will’s free hand fluttered at Jan’s leg in a form of submission.
Jan ignored the futile gesture.
With a final heave of brute force Jan wrenched Will’s head sideways and upwards, twisting his whole body with the last of his might, and received a satisfying ‘pop’ from Will’s neck.
Shoving the limp body off him, he struggled to his feet once more, filled his lungs, and bellowed out all his rage and anger.
The man who had tried to stop Will from fighting had already left the arena in a dead sprint to find Benjamin.
SIEGE part 1
Dawn and dusk. The two times that every soldier, every person who has ever seen warfare, is at their most alert; the two times of the day when attacks seem to be universally planned.
Modern tactics and good sense progressed to attacks in darkness during the dead hours when everyone would ordinarily be asleep or too tired to respond to threat quickly.
Being far from a classic soldier in many senses, le chasseur ordered his troops into position before dawn and ordered them to wait, hidden, until midday when he believed that most people would be ignorant of any risk and thinking about food. His main force was five miles out, hidden in a gully which offered protection from sight. They had the British military vehicle which Sabine had taken, and they would use that to best effect after the door was opened.
His own group, a hand-picked force of six, crept forwards before the sun rose to the agreed place.
If his plan had not worked, if the weak Frenchman failed him, then they still had a plan B and C before he signalled for an aborted mission.
Much to his vicious delight, he found the rope hanging almost exactly where he had wanted it, giving his elite vanguard the shortest climb possible to the fort. Having moved as stealthily as possible over rough ground in the dark he knew they would all be tired, so he ordered a short rest before they ascended the rope.
A climb of thirty feet up a vertical wall put immense pressure on the upper body strength of the men which was another reason he had chosen the men behind him. Leading from the front as ever, he left his heavier equipment at the base of the wall for retrieval later, and began to climb.
Muscles burning and the breath rasping in his throat, he eventually placed one hand over the lip of the rough stone and followed it with the other. Raising his eyes over the parapet, he saw one man. The man was asleep with his back to a wall as he sat, and Leo’s disgust at the lack of professionalism stung him. A sentry unable to hear a man climbing only feet away was an insult to him.
Recognising the man as the one he had recruited to make their silent infiltration possible made his disgust no less evident; this man even knew to expect them. Leaning over and beckoning up the next man, his implacable sniper, he crept low to the sleeping man and placed a hand over his mouth.
Waking with a start, Olivier regarded him with wide eyes until logic overtook fear. When Leo knew the man would not cry out, he removed his hand and spoke to him in hushed French.
“Help the others up, and well done, solider,” he said with a smile dripping with insincerity.
The man didn’t notice, he just seemed pathetically pleased to be part of something. To be accepted by a man he clearly envied and wanted to emulate: his new master.
One by one the other legionnaires gained the high ground in deathly silence and took big lungfulls of air to begin the day’s work.
“How many up here?” he asked Olivier.
“Six,” he replied, “and me.”
Seven to kill then, thought Leo.
Drawing his knife and waiting for his soldiers to follow suit, he crept into the darkness.
One by one, the sleeping guards of the sky fort died.
Leo killed two himself. One young man, asleep on his back, woke to see the snarling Frenchman leaning over him, hand clamped across his mouth, and the long drive inched slowly between his ribs to penetrate the heart. Le chasseur was enjoying himself, and he took a sick pleasure in watching the man’s life fade away from his eyes.
The last man, the only one awake, stood and watched the glow of the sky from his position overlooking the road. An impressive rifle was slung over his right shoulder, but such a distance weapon was useless. He may as well have been carrying a stick for all the good it did him.
Approaching him from the shadows behind like a cat stalking prey, Leo rose and drew the wicked edge of the blade across the left side of his neck and pressed harder as he opened the windpipe to prevent any noise he might make.
Catching his body as he fell back, he watched the man spasm and die like a landed fish. His men watched his smile without betraying any emotion, but Olivier stood open-mouthed in horror.
“Strip the bodies,” he ordered him, “and dump them over the wall where we climbed up.”
Olivier did as he was told, struggling with the dead weight of each man as he dragged them by their feet or hands to the ramparts leaving trails of blood to mark his progress. Each man was stripped of equipment, and Olivier took their personal possessions without any shame.
When the last body was ready to be hauled over the side, before he heard the now familiar sound of silence ending with a crunching, wet thump, Leo reappeared flanked by two of his men.
“I will help you with that one,” he said, surprising the smaller man.
The two of them lifted the body, and Leo leaned over with a smile to watch it fall like a rag doll to the pile of broken bodies below.
“Look at that!” he said to Olivier, who leaned over out of some automatic obedience.
As he did, the two men behind him stepped forwards and lifted a leg each, pitching him over the side.
Desperately Olivier spun and scrabbled for safety, managing to turn his body and grip the stone ledge. The rough surface cut into his soft hands painfully as he stared at Leo with pleading eyes.
Leo left him there, dangling, and smiled wider.
“You know,” he said, “if there’s one thing I cannot abide, it’s a traitor.”
With that, he drew his knife and sliced deep cuts across the backs of Olivier’s hands.
The tendons and ligaments irreparably damaged, Olivier’s grip failed and he dropped into the wind-rushing silence of the void.
~
“I do not like it, Englishman,” said Pietro testily. He had joined Dan on the wall above the gate by the big machine gun.
“There is bad in the air,” he finished.
Dan, perplexed at the superstitious air about the big Russian, asked for elaboration.
“It is, how you say, the other senses?” he said questioningly.
“Like a sixth sense?” Dan asked him.
“Exactly this,” Pietro replied, failing to expand any further.
It worried Dan, because he had failed to trust instincts before. He had ignored his own and almost died. He had ignored Ash’s and almost died along with Leah and two others. He felt uneasy ignoring the instincts of the big game hunter by his side, but he did not feel the same sense of foreboding which was troubling the man now.
The Russian walked away, but Dan noticed he wore his own unique version of full battle gear; the wolf pelt, a quiver brimming with feathered arrows and likely more blades than a butcher’s shop.
Dan, similarly dressed in a fashion, wore his customary black clothing with his heavy body armour. On the back, trusty as ever but rarely used, sat the brute of a shotgun and the front of his chest was festooned with spare magazines for his new assault rifle and silenced sidearm. Ash, wearing nothing but his mottled grey fur, was always dressed for battle.
