Page 95 of New World

He stepped forward, his voice cutting through the wreckage like a blade.

“Move into the village. Find them. Kill them.”

Andri pulled a laser rifle and a blaster from a dead soldier. He followed in slow, measured steps behind the soldiers who were spreading out into the ruins like vipers in the dust. They would flatten this place to the ground until nothing remained. No reminders that it had ever existed.

He moved cautiously forward, his eyes scanning the cliffs, rising to the top, sweeping the sky, before falling back to the dry dusty floor of the canyon. Sweat, mixed with blood from his cut, ran down the side of his face. He lifted his sleeve and wiped it away.

The deeper he stepped into the village, the greater the gnawing doubt grew.

It is too quiet. The canyon walls should be echoing with movement, with fear, with retreat.

Instead—there was nothing. The ruins felt alive, waiting, watching.

A trap. It is a trap.

Andri’s hand slipped down to his side. He dropped the pistol and pulled the ornate cylinder-shaped weapon from his uniform coat. It had been a long time since he held this weapon.

“You are not worthy to carry such a weapon of honor. Neither of us were.” Coleridge’s mocking voice whispered through his head.

“That is not true. I am the only one worthy of carrying it. I will not let you trick me, brother. This is my destiny. Yours was to die!” he hissed.

“Sir?”

Andri impatiently waved on the soldier to his right who had turned when he spoke. He was about to order the man to move ahead when the soldier jerked to a sudden stop, surprise widening his eyes before he dropped dead.

“One!”

Andri’s head swiveled back and forth as the voice bounced off the canyon walls.

“Two!” a voice answered, as the soldier in front of Andri crumpled to the dirt.

Shouts of warning echoed from the soldiers in front of him. He ran for cover near the first house, reaching it just as a series of blasts opened up holes in the wall near his head. Three more of his men fell.

“Save some for us!” a feminine voice shouted, her voice ricocheting and repeating before it faded.

Andri’s heart hammered in his chest. The Ancient Knights were picking his men off one at a time. He slid around the curved remains of the building where he had taken refuge. His gaze bored into the cliff above him. He saw a flash from a darkened ledge.

He twisted when more holes opened up across the building in front of him. He lifted his Staff and extended it. Aiming at that ledge in the cliff across from him, he released a powerful charge.

The explosion of rock sent a cloud of dust and debris into the air, sending him running for cover as large chunks of the ledge above came raining down around him.

“Son-of-a-bitch! They have a rocket-launcher.”

Andri cursed as he sought coverage along the wall of the canyon behind a line of fallen boulders. There was no way he could reach the man above him from the angle, but the man could also not reach him. Andri didn’t know if he had killed the one across from him, but he hoped so.

As he moved between the massive boulders, the battle raged around him. His soldiers were falling one by one. He didn’t care.

His focus honed in on one thing. He would find Roan. The death of his nephew was the only thing that would silence Coleridge’s mocking laughter ringing through his head.

Andri threaded his way through, sometimes sliding on his belly under a boulder to avoid the firefight. He paused only long enough to look over the crumbled walls of burnt-out huts to see if anyone was hiding in them.

“They are everywhere, Andri. You can’t defeat them. This village is filled with ghosts who help protect them.”

Lies! They are dead. They will bleed. I will show you how much they will bleed.

“The only one who will bleed is you, brother. Roan will see to that. He will be the only one of us to survive.”

Never!

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