Overpowering the confusion came Trev’s voice on the bullhorn. “Listen up down there. We’re the Aspen Hill defense. You’re surrounded, outnumbered, and massively outgunned. We missed our first volley on purpose to get your attention… we won’t miss again. Surrender, leave any weapons behind, and walk towards the rising sun one hundred paces, then drop to your stomachs with your hands behind your heads and wait to be arrested. Any other response and we’ll—”
From among the shouting below came a sort of wordless roar. No spoken command by any leader Raul could see, no consensus. The bandits simply reached the same decision as one, and their frantic ducking turned into a charge. He watched as they poured out from camp in all directions, brandishing whatever crude weapons they had and less than ten of them armed with any sort of firearm or other ranged weapon.
Desperation shined in their eyes, so far past the line few even considered surrendering.
“You have five seconds to drop to the ground where you stand, or we fire on you!” Trev’s voice boomed through the bullhorn. No reaction from the bandits, aside from maybe spurring them to even greater speed. Raul had no doubt that they intended to find the defenders surrounding their camp and tear them to pieces if they could.
His friend didn’t count down on the bullhorn, and when Raul’s own silent countdown had reached five seconds no order came. He shifted impatiently and a bit uneasily, wondering what the holdup was. Even though the enemy was mostly armed with hand to hand weapons, if that order didn’t come soon it wouldn’t be long before their people were in danger.
Ten seconds. Still no order. Hadn’t Trev already learned this lesson about not letting the enemy get close? Raul reluctantly toggled his mic, although he allowed no reluctance in his voice as he spoke clearly and firmly. “Open fire.”
He suited his words by squeezing the trigger on the man who’d been running almost directly towards him. The bandit was now less than twenty yards away and not even trying to dodge potential incoming fire. He went down without a noise, and the rattle of gunfire once again came from all sides as the defenders followed Raul’s order.
The fact that the bandits had so viciously gone on the attack helped relieve his conscience somewhat as he picked another target and fired again, and he needed that. Because it wasn’t a battle: it was a bloodbath, with only minimal danger to the defenders and the enemy being gunned down by the dozens in the minute or so it took to finish the grisly job.
In the end less than thirty of the bandits came to their senses and dropped to the ground. Some of them maybe to dodge gunfire, not surrender. But with no one left charging the defenders and Trev on the bullhorn shouting instructions, the surviving men finally rose to their feet and shuffled with hunched shoulders to gather up as he ordered.
Raul led the team that went in to make sure they were disarmed, moving cautiously even though the bandits were lying on their stomachs with their hands behind their heads. They patted down the bandits and bound their hands behind their backs with zip ties and lengths of cord.
It almost went smoothly. Raul was the one who spotted a man in the middle of the crowd rolling onto his back, raising a pistol stolen from Brandon’s patrol. Raul was the one who put two bullets through the would-be assailant’s chest and one through his head before he could get a shot off, then screamed at the other men to stay down and stay still.
They did.
When Raul cautiously made his way over to retrieve the pistol and verify the attacker was dead, he saw that the bandit’s face was bruised. With a surge of satisfaction he realized this was the guy Deb had ID’d, one of the human filth who’d killed Brandon and the others and tried to take her.
Although it wasn’t the most worthy thought, Raul was kind of happy the bandit had been stupid enough to try something so he didn’t come out of this alive. And it felt good to personally be the one to bring him down. A bit of closure for his dead friends.
With the prisoners in hand the fight was finally over, and Raul breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn’t the only one. “Good job everyone,” Lewis said over the radio. “I’d say we handled that mess about as well as we could.”
“It was a mess though, wasn’t it?” Rick asked. Raul heard it twice, since his friend was standing right next to him as well as transmitting. “I can’t believe the idiots rushed us after we showed them how many guns we had.”
Trev cut in firmly. “It’s a mess that’s over now. Raul, start the prisoners home. Lewis, you take most of our people and search the fallen for wounded, then bury the rest. Be careful in case some are pretending. I’ll take a team through the camp and check for threats, then strip it of anything useful.”
“We’re going to loot the bandit camp?” Ben demanded. The refugee leader sounded deeply offended.
“Would you rather leave that stuff behind?” Trev shot back. Without waiting for an answer he continued. “You’ve got your assignments. Let’s get to work so we can go home.”
As ordered, Raul’s team got the prisoners on their feet and started southward. The ragged men were complaining bitterly, not seeming all that shaken by the deaths of so many of their companions. Raul wanted to gag them, but restricting their breathing while marching them wouldn’t end well. He consoled himself with the fact that soon they’d be too out of breath to piss and moan.
Trev’s team caught up with them after about a half hour, letting them know Lewis’s group would probably not catch up anytime soon, which stood to reason. The blond man came to walk beside Raul, a second rifle and a bundle of cloth tied above his backpack. Raul wondered if the gun was Brandon’s: his dead friend had no family to return his possessions to, but they should still be identified as his and his sacrifice recognized as they were turned over to the town.
“You did a good job back there,” Trev said quietly.
Raul simply nodded. He was exhausted, and not just physically. He wanted to get home, pay his respects to Brandon and the rest of the patrol if they were buried, attend their burial if not, then crash.
After an awkward silence Trev cleared his throat. “I hesitated. I didn’t think I would, but our advantage was overwhelming. It was hard to order a massacre.”
“I get it,” Raul said. And he did: He was the shield. If that included giving unpleasant orders he could handle it.
Everyone wanted to get home as soon as possible. They’d done what they needed to, they’d gotten justice for the patrol and done it in the most civilized way they could, but nobody wanted to dwell on what had happened. So they set a hard pace, slowed only by the malnourished prisoners who stumbled along with their hands bound behind them. Trev insisted they treat the men humanely, but he didn’t insist too hard.
Lewis and the rest of the defenders caught up with them just before they started down the western slope of the valley towards the town below. They’d brought along several seriously wounded bandits they’d done what they could for, along with the body of one who’d died of his wounds en route. They were all fairly grim and, like everyone else, more than eager to get home.
Not surprising considering their task had been burying the dead and dealing with the wounded. They’d been the ones to face the consequences of the attack firsthand.
Trev had radioed in their approach, and likely the sentries and patrols he’d left watching the town had also called in. A large crowd of townspeople was waiting to give them a hero’s welcome. Or at least make sure their loved ones were okay.
Mary was one of those. Raul immediately noticed the blond young woman up front, her breathtakingly lovely face pinched with worry. That worry faded when she caught sight of her family members safe in the group, and she joined the rest of the welcoming party in exchanging hugs with loved ones, relieved no one had been hurt in the fighting.