I bobbed my head up above floor level, then ducked down again as quickly as I could. I had seen nothing to suggest a trap, but the gunfire and explosions from outside provided enough competition that it was hard to be certain I had not missed something. I took another quick look, then took two more steps.
Again I saw nothing.
I had just turned to wave Pearl forward when the bullet hit me in the backpack. The impact tossed me across the stairway and bounced me off the railing on the far side. I hit hard and rebounded out of control. I dropped my Ingram, which clattered its way back down the stairs, me tumbling after it.
Clomping steps rushed toward me and the salty taste of blood made me panic. Adrenaline coursed through my body like lightning through a computer. Though my last somersault landed me flat on my back on the landing, I knew immediately what I had to do to avoid death.
My fist closed on the Ingram as the grunge appeared at the top of the stairs. Shoving the gun in his direction, I tightened down on the trigger. I made no attempt to fight the recoil, but just let it drag the gun upward. The bullets first tore into the stairs less than two meters below him, then sliced him open from groin to forehead.
Pearl looked over at me. 'Blood in your mouth, not good. He must have gotten you bad.'
'Dolt!' I spat and rose to a kneeling position. 'The case was designed to protect what it contains from bullets and bombs. Kissing the rail put blood in my mouth.' I ejected the Ingram's empty magazine and slapped a new one home. 'Go!'
Seeing that my slow movements had gotten me shot, Pearl apparently decided that speed was the only way to outwit the Orks in the building. This worked beautifully for traversing my stairs again and then the next flight. but on the landing between the second and third floors, Pearl found himself trapped by the Ork sniper.
Pearl yelled for me to help him, but I hesitated. I'd seen the happy look on his face when he thought the Ork downstairs had mortally wounded me. If I let the sniper kill him, what would I lose but a watchdog? Then I thought a bit more. I would also lose my bait.
From my position on the lower stairwell, I determined that the Ork had to be just inside the doorway of the apartment to the left of the stairs. With Pearl's shrieks of terror echoing in my ears, I retreated and shot the lock from that apartment's mate on the floor below.
Darting inside, I saw a woman and her two, wide-eyed gutterkin children huddled on the floor. I motioned them to silence.
I answered the next burst of fire from above with one of my own.
The Ingram's bullets tunneled up through plasterboard and plywood, covering the ceiling with powder burns. I heard a thump from above, then ducked back out of the doorway before the blood raining down could touch me.
I sprinted up past a cringing Pearl and secured the third floor. I stepped over the Ork's body, then stooped to pick up his AK-97 assault rifle. Crossing to the window the sniper had used, I shrugged off my pack and studied the situation below. While doing so, I unbuckled the flap on my pack.
The fortunes of war had shifted more in the Ancients' favor. The Meat Junkies, reinforced by two more war wagons, had managed to pull two or three groups of their people together behind a makeshift barricade. The Ancients concentrated their fire and magic on that formation, confident that the Meat Junkies would pull out once they could regroup.
Pearl drifted toward the window but I pulled him back from it.
'Idiot, get down. Do you want to get shot?'
'No.'
'Good. Now, go get me the sniper's body. Strip off his ammo harness and give me the AK mags.'
'Why?'
I looked at him. 'If you want us to win this little battle, do it.'
He set about his grisly task as I popped open the case. Its stainless steel exterior showed a dented hole from where the bullet had hit, but the kevlar lining had caught the slug before it could damage my rifle or me. I pulled the rifle body from the foam pocket securing it, checked it quickly for any problems, then reached for the barrel.
As I screwed the SM-3's barrel to the body of the rifle, I caught my first glimpse of a massive ork goading the Meat Junkies on to great acts of heroics. Seeing him brandishing twin Uzis, the plan Wasp had not allowed me to share again flashed to mind. The trucks were just over 300 meters away, an easy shot with this gun and scope.
Down below, Tiny was up and moving again. He lumbered forward, his AK-97 smoking as he stabbed it into the face of a Meat Junkie and pulled the trigger. Yet even as he voiced a cry of triumph, I saw another Meat Junkie let slip the leash of a Barghest. Its unnerving yelp made Tiny hesitate, and in that moment of weakness, the infernal canine leaped for him, fangs bared and eyes as red as the fires of hell.
My brain instantly calculated the odds that I could bring the beast down before it killed Tiny, and the calculation said he would die. If he did not it was because, moving from the shadows, Sting intercepted the Barghest. The curved blades protruding from the back of her right hand sliced clean through the nightmare-hound. It slewed around and tried to snap at her just as its two halves were flying a meter or more apart.
'I got the ork, Greenie.' His ammo harness landed at my feet. 'What do I do with him?'
I nodded to the wall on the other side of the window. 'Just stand him up there.'
'But he's dead. He'll fall down.'
'So hold him up.'
Snapping the rifle's bipod into place, I looked up at the dead grunge Pearl was supporting. 'Too bad you did not choose a more secure position from which to snipe, my friend. Right idea, wrong address, I believe they say.' I pulled the collapsible stock into position and locked it down, then mounted the scope.
The flanking attack, led by Sting and Tiny, nibbled away at a junkie position, centimeter by centimeter. A junkie stuck the muzzle of a gun out and tightened down on the trigger. As his random fire punched a line of holes across Sting's chest, the Elf went down. I feared the worst for Wasp's rival, then I saw her roll to her feet and dive back behind cover. A second or two later, she was moving forward, albeit slower than before. The kevlar lining of her leather jacket must have saved her life.
The battle was by no means over and I wanted to make my contribution to the war effort.
'What are you doing?'
I slapped a magazine of.655 caliber bullets into the sniper rifle and rested the bipod on the lip of the window. 'That's the Meat Junkie leader down there. If I take him down, they are done.'
'Wiz, Greenie.' Pearl murmured reverently.
I smiled. One gunshot and the gang would be leaderless. One gunshot and my position within the Ancients would be assured.
'Subdue the arrogant,' I recalled the High Lord quoting Virgil as he exiled me for attempting to overthrow him. I settled the cross hairs on my target. I took up the slack in the trigger. 'Subdue the arrogant, I shall,' I breathed, stroking the trigger.
Pearl's jaw dropped. 'What you did do, you… '
I swung the sniper rifle around and jerked the trigger. Pearl smashed flat back against the wall at the center of a gory sunburst, then flopped forward onto his slack-jawed face.
The ork started sliding toward me. I filled my left hand with the Ingram and triggered a full magazine, blasting him out through the window. His body slowly arced over and landed headfirst on the steps, then rolled to the sidewalk. Stunned, Ancients looked up to me and then off toward the center of the battlefield.
The first 900-grain bullet had taken Wasp in the bridge of the nose and blown what passed for his brains out through a gaping exit wound. The Ancients' magical assault stopped abruptly and the fighting slowed as if Wasp alone had powered it with his sorcery.
I appeared in the window and brandished the sniper rifle. 'You want a sniper, Meat Junkies?' I screamed like a madman! 'I give you a sniper!'
My first two shots reached the Meat Junkies' stunned leader before he could even think to find cover. The first clipped him in the left bicep, whipping him around, with only his jacket keeping the severed limb anywhere close to his body. The next bullet punched into his right hip, coring him from flank to flank. The force of the second shot tossed him like a doll and he rolled to a stop in the gutter.
The Meat Junkies, leaderless and confused, crumbled and retreated. Sting shouted sharp commands, directing
