Usual standard declarations about age, ownership etc. apply here.
Welcome back to a rather strange life on the ocean wave.
If you haven't read chapters 1-7, then this is going to be like trying to climb that new climbing wall at the gym by starting halfway up it – either way is hard. So go back and give them a try. Just click on my name and choose. You'll enjoy it a whole lot more.
This one took much longer than I expected, as things became convoluted in my mind as well as in the story. Strange, but true. Plus, it's much longer once again. More bang for your buck as they say. And sex is back on the menu – so, yay, even more bang!
So, sit cross-legged in the circle, with the fire warming your face and hands, as I dance naked around it for your edification and delight. Only kidding, I'm the guy on the other side of the fire with my face in the flickering shadows, sitting there comfortably about to tell you a story. You get to have your say afterwards, so get your marshmallow-onnastick into the fire, sit back and listen...
*****
CHAPTER EIGHT
Lachlan Reid felt a fresh surge of agony from his back, enough to bring him back from a long sleep. He lay very still, and tried to work out what was happening. The first RPG strike had come in and taken out Peterson and Gomez on the roof. There was nothing anyone could do to help them. Their bodies had fallen, along with the rest of the roof, into the dining room of the main residence in the compound. The second strike had taken out Gatts at the gate, evaporating him into a cloud of red mist.
Then the east wall had gone down to another RPG and the compound was open to the street, deserted as it was, dotted here and there with the twisted metal of someone's motoring dreams.
The surviving five members of the patrol had retreated as planned, one by one under covering fire, into the two wings of the main house. Reid had crawled from one to the other, checking on his men, the defensive positions they'd chosen, their stocks of ammo and grenades, food and water. They had accused him of trying to mother them, and sent him back to his central position in the remains of the dining room.
Peterson's body was completely buried, but Gomez' gave up six ammo clips. His weapon was out of action and Reid left it jammed barrel down into the ruins to mark their grave.
Then they waited.
Twenty minutes later there was a sudden burst of firing from the north and west sides, bullets striking aimlessly in the compound dust.
"East side! Cover the east side wall!" he tried to shout the warning, but the pillow under his cheek seemed to muffle the sound completely. Tears flowed silently as the memories flowed on.
All weapons were trained on the gap in the wall, but when movement came, no guns sounded, no bullets flew.
Singing in little thin voices in a language no one in their small audience understood, a little train of children climbed hand-in-hand through the hole into the compound, shepherded by a tall, thin woman covered head to toe in black. Surprisingly, her face was bare and Reid could see her strong, proud, but rather inelegant features as she organised the children into a line in front of her.
At a word from her the children – aged between three and six – began to dance to the song, skipping clumsily in their bulky coats from place to place, always maintaining their hold on each other, the littlest one giggling as she tried to keep up. The teacher moved with them, always behind and always shepherding their movements.
"What do we do, Reid?" ask Conway nervously from his left. Reid could feel the silent tension of his men as they waited for his decision. He knew the whole scene was being watched from a drone high in the sky above, and could only hope to hold out until the cavalry arrived. But how to handle a dozen very small children who sang and danced in the middle of a battle? What did it mean? Should he let them dance? Should he take them out? More to the point – could he even force himself to do that?
Then he saw the woman lift her hand, seeing the wire too late – a wire which lead from her and connected each child in turn to the next in a lethal daisy chain of death.
"Take her out," he yelled, pulling the trigger and seeing dust explode from her abaya as bullets struck from all directions. He saw the dead man's trigger slip from her hand.
"Down!" he screamed, as he twisted away, his head and eyes still locked on the scene. The woman and children disappeared in a roaring serial cataclysm of fire and noise.
He was flung forward, his twisted neck almost breaking with the jolt as first the shockwave and shrapnel rolled over him, to be followed by the quick, hair-crisping fireball. Somersaulting twice, he landed across the heap of rubble and slid down the far side, his back and hip haemorrhaging blood. Reid had no expectation of surviving more than a few seconds, but he was lucky, or unlucky – depending whether you saw his life from then on from the outside, or from the viewpoint of his inner torment. The action of him sliding helplessly down over the crushed and mangled remains of the compound roof forced dust and sand into the wounds, mixing them with blood and sealing them just enough to reduce the flow to a trickle.
Seven minutes later, with Reid one of just three survivors in the compound, a flight of three drones put paid to the ambitions of the local warlord who had led them into a trap and then ambushed them. The area around the compound was reduced to dust and micro fragments of human tissue, ending the warlord's tribe and his line in its entirety down to the last man, woman and child. Innocent and guilty; right down to the goats and dogs, cats and rats; all were extinguished. Twenty nine minutes later, Reid, along with the other two badly wounded soldiers, was in a medevac helicopter and starting on his long, slow, lonely journey to a home where he was no longer welcome.
Another wave of pain, and he opened his eyes. The face that breathed steadily against his own from less than a foot away was that of the children's shepherd from his memory and he quaked with fear and anger. The face was thin and pinched; eyebrows very dark; long lashes; a nose that put him in mind of a hawk as it thrust forward a little at the bridge to then slant down into a handsome, almost pointed tip; the lips – ah the lips were different. These were generous and soft, not the thin grimace of bitterness and rage that the shepherd woman had shown. Her hair hung over one cheek, threatening to tickle that fine aristocratic nose, and he wanted to brush it away for her.
Pain lanced in him again as he tried to move, and he came to realise that he was too weak to do more than crook a finger or two. Distantly, in a far off part of his brain, he realised that he should be questioning this whole situation, that something was very wrong, but everything felt so dreamlike and misty. It was too hot and there was just too much to think about. He tried again to move his fingers.
That slightest of movements seemed to awaken the woman. Her eyes popped open, and for a moment as they came into focus, he saw how dark and deep her irises were – an emerald green that seemed somehow to melt seamlessly into the black of the pupil. She smiled at him for an instant, and then that smile turned into a raging scream.
He took a fist to the forehead, and dazedly wondered what he had done to deserve that, then she had shaken free of the enveloping blanket, drawn one bare leg up, and then stamp-kicked him in the stomach. He felt the cabin whirl around him as he flew from the bed and then he was in renewed, hellish agony.
He heard a screech of rage and then heard and felt nothing further.
Wren heard her own voice crack as she yelled in both rage and fear.
"Get that bitch!" she screamed, and in her peripheral vision saw Sasha throw herself on top of the woman, who was now struggling with the blanket yet again. The blond only had eyes for Reid, who was now curled up in a foetal position, the bandage rapidly turning a deep red.
She wanted to kill the woman. What was she doing, attacking Lachlan? Was she with King Cole?
"Throw the cunt overboard!" she screeched as she tried to put pressure on fresh pads she hurriedly pushed into place over the newly re-opened wound.
Sasha had thrown her arms and legs around the woman and simply locked her in place. She began to shift towards the edge of the bed, imprisoning her within the confines of the blanket and pulling the struggling woman back with her.
She wasn't happy about the order to toss the woman to the sharks, but she was a whole lot less happy about having brought her on board in the first place and placed them in danger. It had been her decision, on seeing the shivering, unconscious wreck in the inflatable, to bring her on board, even though she had had to swim the last few yards to the bobbing boat, not wanting to leap on board and possibly bounce the woman into the sea. She had tied the boats together and then made the jump back to the little RIB. In a few minutes they had been back at the stern of the boat, which now had a large hole in it where a section had lowered to form the launch pad for the RIB.
The woman had still been unconscious as Sasha carried her onto the boat, lain her down for a moment to draw the little boat back onboard and close the platform, before carrying her in a fireman's lift up to the main cabin.
