Free Renewal 10 - Blind Force by Jf Perkins Page A

still seemed like a safer bet. If the Junior Dragon noticed Wyatt’s maneuver, he didn’t show it.
    Gary could almost taste it now. The town was within rifle range, and he worked hard to control his desire to open fire. He would be patient and get closer so that when he did turn his men loose, there would be no warning for Bill Carter. No escape. His own discipline was breaking down. He stopped his careful leap frog approach, and simply hiked forward. His men took that as a directive, and followed his example. Other than the flash of light almost a half mile behind them, they had seen no one, encountered no resistance, and began to think of this as another cakewalk into unprepared territory. It was a scenario they had played out in their own county hundreds of times.
    Gary crossed the threshold of the woods and stopped fifty feet inside the trees. Gray light was beginning to filter in from behind them, but it was nothing compared to the electric glare in front. He waved his army outward in both directions to build a wide skirmish line, a wall of irresistible force. He failed to notice that Wyatt had peeled off from the Dragon army at the edge of the trees. Gary stepped forward into a yellow cone of light, revealing his legs to the men in the trees. No way to avoid that. His entire army paralleled his movement. One more step and his face was exposed to the light.
    A voice yelled from the darkness ahead, “Hey! It’s...”
    Gary pulled the trigger. An instant later, the entire Dragon army was spraying rounds wildly into the woods. The smart ones were aiming for the lights. The rest were not aiming at all. Even to a man raised on guns and bullets, the sound was shockingly loud. Gary ran through a magazine in no time, and squatted to the ground to reload. It was in that brief pause of quasi-synchronized reloading that he understood. Bullets came in with shrieks and whispers, hitting his men with wet, meaty pops. He was fortunate to survive the first return volley. One hundred of his men were not. Gary saw the muzzle flashes high in the trees, but it didn’t make any sense to him in the darkness. Then it did make sense, and he shouted, “In the trees! They’re in the trees!” He rose to his feet and aimed by the afterimage on his retinas. His army adjusted their own aim upwards and began to hose down anything that looked like a target, but it didn’t help. The ghosts in the trees were invisible, but they could see the Dragon army with no trouble at all.
    The crackle of gunfire to the southwest reached Bill’s ears seconds after he had decided the Dragons in front of him were settling in to wait for sunrise. If that was ever the case, it changed in an instant when muzzles began to flash right in Bill’s face. Once he recovered from the shock of all those rounds bouncing off the front of the roof and over his head, Bill said, “Ok, Jeffry, all yours.”
    Jeffry never hesitated. His .50 caliber thundered at a target it was impossible for him to miss. A head disappeared in red mist, leaving a trucker’s hat tumbling in perverse slowness through the air. Bill’s second group joined the fight from behind the fence. In a very short amount of time, the remaining dragons were using the bodies of their fallen comrades for cover. Bill didn’t even bother to raise his rifle. The harsh popping of assault rifles blended in chattering rhythm with the steady sequence of booming sniper rifles. The pile of bodies became too confusing to target, until the Dragons began to run. It would be generous to call it a retreat. They bounded away from the fence like rabbits.
    Once the firing began, Terry called his men to their feet. Seth passed the word to the men behind the barn. Terry could see that the Dragons were withering under Bill’s defense, and he could anticipate that at some point, the enemy would run for safety. What he couldn’t see was a way to bring his men into the fight without walking right into the fire from his own people