Page 104 of Elven Lies

Rebecca had no time to mourn having made the wrong call. All she could do now was get as many civilians out of here and keep as many of her operatives alive for as long as possible. And, if offered the chance, to order a retreat that hopefully didn’t destroy them completely.

Before she could shout more orders to anyone, another deafening explosion ripped through the air. This time, though, it didn’t come from inside the warehouse.

Where was it?

Then the roar of multiple engines rose over the din of battle, followed by a bevy of automatic magitek rounds firing non-stop in the distance.

Rebecca kept firing herself, waving the panicking civilians toward her to usher as many of them as she could back toward the road.

Then a car horn blared. From around the northwest corner of the warehouse, a soft yellow light bloomed, growing stronger by the second as the deafening car horn only grew louder. With thesqueal of tires and the churning roar of vehicle engines quickly approaching, the yellow light intensified.

Then a single vehicle Rebecca recognized as one of Shade’s barreled around the corner of the warehouse at a sharp turn, going way too fast. The rear tires squealed and fishtailed before the whole vehicle banked and drifted sharply to the left. The second it straightened out again without slowing, a convoy of three other large utility vehicles barreled around the corner next in hot pursuit.

The three utility vehicles careened into sight, one right after the other, each of them with multiple passengers firing weapons from inside the cab while a soldier on the back of each stood up top, firing mounted artillery at top speeds.

Right as the fleeing Shade vehicle took another sharp turn to throw its pursuers off course, the mounted artillery began a new assault. Weapons fire sprayed across the dirt and into the tree line as the gunners struggled to accurately perfect their aim.

Shade operatives on the ground shouted and dove away from their own vehicle hauling ass through the battle, swerving at all the worst times in all the deadliest directions.

During the short few seconds of the Shade vehicle barreling across the ground in a straight line before it changed directions, Rebecca got a brief but undeniably clear view of the driver.

It was Rowan.

What the hell was he doing up front with the bulk of the fighting? She’d told him to stay around back, where she’d fully expected him to go rogue anyway but in an entirely different way.

Not to bring even more of the fight up here to the front where they didn’t have the manpower or the ability to effectively deal with this new surprise.

Once the rest of her teams recognized the Blackmoon Elf behind the wheel, they all tried to divert their focus, firing onboth the enemy targets still surging from the warehouse and now the three utility vehicles hurtling across the battlefield in pursuit of one of their own.

It was too much to handle all at once. No Shade team this size could accurately tackle the severity of a situation like this and come out of it victorious on the other side. They were totally screwed.

Rebecca fired at every Harkennr soldier in her line of sight, refusing to give up even when the odds were stacked unequivocally against them.

She exchanged fire with a warlock channeling his own magic through an augmented weapon for extra juice and noticed the next stream of blazing orange magitek cannon fire racing toward her across the ground, spraying up a constant eruption of upturned earth as it moved.

Rebecca dove out of the destructive path just in time, skidding across the ground on her chest and stomach, but the warlock wasn’t as quick to react.

His blood-curdling scream ripped through the air a second before the orange beam of light passed by where he’d just stood, obliterating him in half a second to leave nothing but the echoes of his scream lingering in the air.

Bruised and furious, Rebecca pushed herself to her feet and searched through the chaos again for the most immediate threat.

Finding Rowan in his misused getaway car was easy. He’d circled the front of the warehouse and now doubled back, the tires throwing up plumes of dirt as he fishtailed back and forth, his arms pumping the wheel this way and that to avoid Shade operatives while continuing the chase.

His vehicle hurtled dangerously close to a tall pole strung with electrical wire to power the warehouse. He swerved aside at the last second again and picked a new direction seemingly at random.

The constant, deafening rapport of gunfire from the pursuing convoy cut out for half a second as all three drivers desperately tried to avoid the pole and the power lines to get back on Rowan’s trail.

The driver of the first enemy vehicle fatally miscalculated and let out a terrified scream before ramming headfirst into the electrical pole.

The deafening crash rang out across the battle, joined by more shouts and the squeal of shredding metal. The vehicle’s occupants were thrown forward, their weapons scattered across the ground as driver and passengers flew from the cab like popcorn from a pan over the stove.

The gunner up top was equally unlucky and flew off in another direction before disappearing. His heavy artillery ripped free from its mount on the back of the scrunched utility vehicle, missed the pole altogether, and crunched to pieces against the building’s outer wall.

The second and third utility vehicles managed to escape, their drivers once more desperately redirecting their course to stay on Rowan’s heels as he zigzagged all around the warehouse like a madman.

“Get out of the way!” Tig bellowed, ushering Shade operatives away from the building’s west wall. “It’s going down!”

The grating squeal of ripping metal and snapping parts filled the air, joined by the thick twanging of live electrical wires snapping before they whipped in every direction, sparking and sputtering and threatening to set the entire battle ablaze.

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