A quick glance to my right revealed a stream of armed boys, running down the drive towards us; Norton and reinforcements. But looking at the scene in front of me I realised that it was already too late. The Blood Hunters were overwhelming the opposition. We were losing.
The heavy machine gun next to me chattered once more and then fell silent.
“All gone,” said Rowles simply. “What now?”
“Back to Castle. Run!”
As Rowles legged it down the drive, waving for Norton and his troops to fall back, I stood and yelled into the mêlée as loud as I could: “Retreat! Back to the school! Retreat!”
Bullets from a host of Blood Hunters smacked into the sandbags, and I dived for cover again. This time I crawled across corpses and flung myself behind the school wall, out of the line of fire. Then I got up and ran for Castle as fast as I possibly could.
I could hear the sounds of pursuit behind me, cries and crashes and weapon fire. Running is bloody difficult with only one arm; you get unbalanced and wobble all over the place. I got halfway to the school, with bullets whistling past me all the way, and then my torso somehow outpaced my legs. I ploughed, head-first, into the grass. I tried to roll with it, and get back up on my feet, but my useless arm threw me again and I ended up in a heap.
I regained my feet and chanced a look behind me. Twenty or so Hildenborough men, Green, and a few of his surviving actors, were racing towards me, a horde of screaming Blood Hunters in their wake. Mac was leading the pursuit. He was bellowing encouragement to his cohorts, waving a bloodied machete above his head.
As the human tide caught up with me I turned and was swept along with them. Ahead of us I could see Norton lining the boys up into ranks. They shouldered arms and took careful aim right at us. What the bloody hell was he doing?
When we were within ten metres of him he shouted: “Get down!”
We didn’t need telling twice. All of us dived to the ground. There was the most tremendous noise as all the boys fired at once, sending a wall of lead into the massed Blood Hunters.
“Positions!” yelled Norton.
We scrambled to our feet and ran forward. Then Norton shouted: “Down!” We dived again. A second volley thundered over our heads.
“Inside!”
We leapt up and piled in through the large double doors. As I stood at the doorway, herding people inside, I could see the results of Norton’s volleys. They had wiped out the first rank of approaching Blood Hunters, maybe thirty or more, who lay twitching and groaning on the blood-soaked grass. Once those behind them had realised no third volley was likely, they’d kept running, trampling their dead and wounded underfoot in their eagerness to slice us open. They were nearly upon us. I couldn’t see Mac. Had he fallen?
I ushered the last man through the doors and then followed him inside. Norton was there amongst the boys, manhandling an enormous barricade. Constructed from bookcases and table tops, it sat on two wheeled trolleys. They pushed this up against the flimsy main doors. A group of boys at each side took the strain, the trolleys were whipped away, and then the edifice was lowered to the floor. It was buttressed with thick wooden beams at 45 degrees, and once it was down it covered the main doors entirely. Almost the instant it hit the ground a huge body of men slammed into the doors and began pushing. The barricade didn’t move an inch.
“Positions!” yelled Norton. Two groups of boys ran left and right out of the entrance hall and into the rooms that faced the lawn on the ground floor. These each boasted huge windows through which the Blood Hunters could pour. But each had thick wooden shutters inside, with metal crossbars to secure them. Through the doors I could see that these were all closed, and had been buttressed and reinforced with anything the boys could lay their hands on. Norton had done his job well. Another group ran upstairs to take up sniping positions at the windows on the first floor. A few moments later I heard the first shots from above as they rained fire down on the attackers. The final group ran backwards to take up defensive positions at the rear of the house.
The group of men and boys who’d survived the battle at the gate milled around, tending their wounds and catching their breath. Mrs Atkins moved amongst them, selecting those who needed the most urgent care.
Norton came running up to me and pressed a Browning into my hand.
“What happened?” he asked
“The wild card got creative,” I replied. “Are all the defences in place as discussed?”
“Yeah, we’re ready for them.”
I turned and shouted at the people in the hall with us. “All those of you too wounded to fight make your way to the top floor. We’ve collected all the medicines and stuff in a dorm up there. Go patch yourselves up.”
Mrs Atkins led about ten wounded men and boys up the stairs.
Green was standing right in front of me. He had a nasty gash across his forehead and his hair was matted with blood. He was gripping his machine gun tightly, but his lower lip was trembling. He looked like he was about to curl up in a ball and start weeping.
“Green, take these guys to the armoury and issue them with new weapons and ammunition.”
He nodded wordlessly, and ran back into Castle, towards the cellar. The others followed.
Suddenly the banging on the door stopped, and the Blood Hunters’ guns fell silent. Norton and I exchanged worried looks and ran up the stairs and into one of the rooms overlooking the lawn.
“What’s going on?” I shouted.
“Dunno sir,” replied one of the boys who’d been shooting down at them. “They all just ran around the side of the building.”
At that moment there was a terrible scream in the distance.
“That came from the back,” said Norton, and we ran out of the room and across the landing. We pushed through the double doors and ran across the main hall balcony to the rear stairs. Norton was in the lead as we crashed through the door and jumped down the stairs three at a time. We came out next to the cellar entrance, and found ourselves in the middle of a pitched battle. Green and the men he’d been arming were fighting hand-to-hand with a group of about ten Blood Hunters, but I could see more pouring into the courtyard outside.
How the hell had they gotten in?
Norton and I opened fire from the stairs. I could see Green, both hands raised, trying to slow the descent of a machete that a big, muscled Blood Hunter was forcing down towards his head. The Blood Hunter was grinning as his biceps flexed and the blade inched down. I couldn’t get a clear shot through the crowd, so I lowered my head and shoulder charged the fighting men, barrelling through them until I was next to Green. I shoved my pistol into the Blood Hunter’s perfectly sculpted six pack and squeezed the trigger twice. The man staggered back and slid down the wall, clutching his guts.
Green fell backwards too, into a corner. He curled up, buried his head in his hands and began to sob. I couldn’t worry about him now. Someone banged into my left side and sent me staggering against a door. Which was open. I tottered for a moment in the doorway but I couldn’t regain my balance. I reached out with my left arm to steady myself. But my left arm was in a sling. I fell headfirst down the hard stone steps into the musty cellar.
While I sprawled on the damp brick I heard someone slam the door against the wall and come running down the stairs behind me. Still on the ground I turned and saw a Blood Hunter woman charging towards me. I shot her twice but her momentum carried her forward and she collapsed on top of me. Her lolling head cracked into mine and the force smashed the back of my skull against the brick floor.
Bright spots danced in front of my eyes, and felt myself starting to pass out. I closed my eyes, steadied my breathing and tried to focus, but it was hard. God knows how many blows to the head I’d taken in the last twenty minutes. I was pretty sure the only thing keeping me conscious was Matron’s home brew. I wasn’t looking forward to the comedown.