Stonewall Against the Vulture Men by Joseph Browning

Author:Joseph Browning [Browning, Joseph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Expeditious Retreat Press
Published: 2019-01-20T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

Mystify, Mislead, and Surprise

Although we had intel that the attack wasn’t until tomorrow, we went about our surveillance as normal. We took turns on watch facing east, kept an eye out on the rat men facing west, and stayed vigilant just in case the Hayden Miles Dannavant’s plans changed. One of the primary rules of my business is never trust what someone else says, or to put it more accurately with the old Russian quote: “Doveryai, no proveryai.” Trust, but verify.

We each took a nap during the late afternoon, doubling up on our rest for the day and reducing the chance of our falling asleep during night watch. I also checked on the recordings at nearly real-time to reduce the chance of being surprised if the Dannavant decided to move up the timetable of his raid.

All of our precautions proved unnecessary, as the day and night passed without incident. When I woke, the bug confirmed the vulture men’s raid was still on schedule. Additionally, I learned that there were forty-five horcs involved in the raid, split into three squads in order to attack each of the entrances. The assault would begin at the southern entrance, intensify via the hidden entrance five minutes later, and then climax with a breach of the northern entrance. The Dannavant hoped to roll up the rat men from behind.

I contacted the Deeplacers, who were already on their way, updating them on the battle plans should they need to adjust their own forces and tactics accordingly. Diana and I had a couple of hours before the horcs arrived, so we readied ourselves. We cleaned our rifles—sequentially, obviously—and double-checked our other gear. Between us, we had one hundred rounds of ammunition.

Naturally, a few vulture men would act as commanders for the raid, but Abigail doubted they would actually enter the mall during the attack. Apparently, the vulture men had a shared fear of underground spaces and never willingly entered subterranean areas. These commanders would be perched outside the mound with a clear view of Deeplac’s troops, armed with rifles, entering the fray to fight the victors amongst the horcs’ and rat men’s conflict. Such information would likely stir immediate action—a flight back to the Lancaster Building to inform the other vulture men of our attack and our unexpected weapons upgrade.

That’s where Diana and I came in; our task was to take out any vulture men once the warriors of Deeplac initiated combat. The plan was to kill them all to prevent knowledge of the Deeplacers’ strike; the longer the vulture men remained ignorant of our rifles, the better it was for us. Even if we were made, we could take out a few vulture men along the way and we all agreed that the world could use a few less vulture men.

We kept watch until five vulture men flew out of the Lancaster Building, at which point we retreated to the center of I-94 and hid behind one of the pillars to remain out of sight.

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