The Dream of the Iron Dragon_An Alternate History Viking Epic by Robert Kroese

Author:Robert Kroese [Kroese, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Culain Press
Published: 2018-01-08T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-one

Gabe’s reprieve lasted only a few seconds. Many of the men he’d hit were merely wounded, not dead, and one of them might still try to take the lander. He pulled himself to his feet and surveyed the area. A few of the men on the ground had gotten to their feet, but none seemed particularly eager to continue the fight. One man lay on his back on the wing, moaning, his tunic soaked with blood. Gabe took a seat on the casemate wall. He grabbed a box of bullets from the crate on the floor of the casemate, reloaded one of the magazines, popped the empty one out, and shoved the refilled magazine into place. When it was clear that none of the survivors was up for more, he holstered the pistol. After resting a moment, he reached down and grabbed the spear that had belonged to the man whose head he’d shot off. Then he climbed over the casemate wall and approached the wounded men. He lifted the spear over his head, and shouted, “If you can walk, go! Anyone who remains behind will be killed.” To punctuate his point, he drove the spear into the man’s heart. The man’s body jerked wildly for a moment and then he lay still.

The other survivors seemed to get the message. Those with minor injuries helped some of the more severely wounded men to their feet. Those with non-life-threatening wounds were bandaged up; those who were beyond saving were put out of their misery. All in all, eighteen men limped away from the battlefield. Gabe thought one of them was Gunnar, but he couldn’t be sure. When they’d cleared the spike barrier, Gabe climbed down from the lander and looked for other survivors. He found two more men who were barely holding on. One had apparently been hit in the head with an axe—a friendly fire incident. He was babbling incoherently and drifting in and out of consciousness. Gabe stabbed him through the neck. He gave the same treatment to another man with a massive chest wound who was lying on his back, gasping for breath. And then, at last, there was silence.

Gabe fell to his knees and vomited into the snow. For some time he crouched there, trembling, aware of nothing. Then he rolled onto his back and lay in the snow, staring up at the sky. The sun was still just above the horizon; the entire battle had taken only a few minutes. It had seemed like hours.

He closed his eyes only to be met with a barrage of images of men being torn apart. The faces of the men were a blur—all except the last two, whom he’d killed in cold blood. He told himself he’d had no choice, that the men were going to die anyway. He didn’t have the time, expertise or facilities to save their lives. It was better to kill them quickly than to let them suffer. But it didn’t matter what he told himself.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.