Free Renewal 10 - Blind Force by Jf Perkins

breath against the close proximity of danger, and the thudding of marching boots. He prayed that no one in the barn needed to sneeze.
    Gary Tucker was alert, as alert as he could ever recall. He was also cocky in the knowledge that Teeny Town was directly ahead, brightly lit up without a care in the world. What morons, he thought. He extended his confidence into thinking that he had managed to infiltrate the settlement without being noticed. He looked forward to the slaughter that was surely to come and the love of a God who clearly wanted him to win. Then, he caught a flash of light to his right. Off to the north were three identical houses. He held up his hand to stop the advance, and watched carefully. There it was, on the roof of the house to the right, a bounce of light from the electric glow ahead. He quickly passed orders and split his army.
    Bill responded to the new pattern with the first item on the checklist. He said, “Oh, shit!” He picked up his phone as he spoke to Jeffry, “They’re coming this way. We need to get some distance between the two groups, so hold fire until I tell you.”
    “Got it,” Jeffry replied quietly, concentrating on the world through his rifle scope.
    Bill spoke rapidly into the phone, calling the second main group up to the front guard and requesting light signals to redirect the outer patrol in from the east. When he replaced the phone handset, Bill dropped from his chair and grabbed his rifle. He slid forward to the peak of the roof, peering over the ridgeline from his new position to Jeffry’s right. The second sniper was to Bill’s right, and two more pairs were positioned on the other two houses.
    Bill was thinking at high speed. The spur of woodland held the nearest treehouse, over his left shoulder, but it was also lower in elevation and would not be able to provide a clean line of sight into the immediate area. There were men in the houses, of course, but certainly not enough to hold off the four hundred men on approach. In any case, the front guard was as safe as it was possible to be in this situation. When they had first begun the real effort of building a long term settlement, and tore down the other houses, Bill had made sure that the last three were armored with hidden steel plate in the front. Unless the enemy had explosives, they should be safe. Of course, that was assuming they were not completely overrun, or that the house didn’t burst into flames.
    He could hear the quiet approach of his second main group as they filled in behind the fence surrounding the houses. The fences were covered in honeysuckle and Osage Orange to hide the fact that they too, were armored. If the Dragons somehow got through, then Mr. Hall would get the chance to play with his toys.
    Having run through the layout in his head, Bill began to calm himself enough to pay attention. The approaching Dragons were dangerously bunched up, but almost as soon as he noticed, they began to spread out across a long span of George Carroll’s old fence. Its weedy halo provided some visual cover for the Dragons, but no real protection to anyone behind it. Meanwhile, the main force of the Dragons was still working its way west, far out of range for the two groups to support each other. Excellent. Two separate battles would work better for Bill, who was sure that his organization was superior.
    Wyatt was very nervous when Gary had split his army into two segments. His plan depended on having as many Dragons as possible, and that was aside from the simple fact that he believed the only way to win was to have overwhelming force in one place. Apparently Gary felt that he was overwhelming either way. None of these thoughts made Wyatt feel confident as the platoon-sized groups slowly took turns creeping towards the lights ahead. Trees to the left and the woods ahead made Wyatt slowly work his own men to the right of the column. There could be countless Carter forces in the open land in that direction, but it