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Lancelot rubbed away the dust that was clogging his nose, and shoved himself against the doorway. The explosion had made him temporarily deaf, and he was glad that Arthur merely nodded at his question - anything his brother would have said would have been inaudible. Their room seemed fairly stable; all the dust and debris had been blown in from the corridor, and satisfied that the roof wasn't going to come down on his head in the next couple of minutes, Lancelot made a quick assesment of the weapon that Arthur had thrown him. Glock 10mm, he thought approvingly. Very pretty, but then his brother always did have class. Curving his hand around the solid steel with the muscle memory borne of a junior shooting champion, Lancelot glanced over at Arthur.
The commander was crouched, rifle at the ready. Ducking his head around the doorframe quickly, he withdrew it immediately when a hail of gunfire bit chunks out of wall above him. Scuffling backwards, keeping low, he glanced at his brother.
How many? Lancelot mouthed. Arthur raised his free hand and showed three fingers before edging towards the doorframe again. Given the angle of the doorway and the position of the attackers, Arthur was far more vulnerable than him, and suddenly more worried than he would admit, Lancelot gestured to get his attention. Play dead, Lancelot mouthed to his brother. Arthur looked at him with confusion, and exasperated that he couldn't speak out loud without betraying his position, Lancelot used the hand not steadying his weapon to point to Arthur and mime shooting himself in the head. When his brother raised an eyebrow, he continued by nodding towards the direction of their attackers and making a walking action with his fingers. Pointing at Arthur and then himself he mimed shooting whoever it was that came to investigate.
The crack of gunfire that pinged large pieces of wood off the door way prevented Arthur from replying for a moment, but the expression on his face was fairly easy to read, Lancelot thought. Somewhere between are you trying to kill me? and are you insane? he reckoned. Before his brother had a chance to answer, he mouthed any better ideas?
Arthur glanced between him and the hallway with evident frustration. They were pinned down and there was only one exit from the barracks - past the attackers. Further along the corridor the rest of the Sarmatians were stationed, but unarmed and with no escape they had no chance against automatic weapons.
For a moment Lancelot thought Arthur was going to refuse; he was after all putting his life in the hands of someone who had managed to screw up everything he'd done before, but to Lancelot's astonishment his brother dropped to the ground, his body credibly crumpled, his rifle by his hand.
Fuck me, Lancelot thought. Suddenly his idea seemed very, very, stupid and very, very dangerous. There were muffled shouts from the corridor and although the distant gunfire carried on, the guns just outside fell silent. The heavy tread of boots thudded closer, and Lancelot tensed, his throat tight, his finger curled around the trigger of the heavy pistol. Closer, closer, they came, and shifting his weight forward slightly, nerves so taut they thrummed, Lancelot waited until a man peered through the doorway, his rifle raised as though to nudge the dead body before him. It took only a millisecond to register the man's long hair and scruffy appearance, before Lancelot raised his gun and splattered the man's brains onto the wall behind him. Leaping to his feet, he dodged into the hallway, keeping low and firing at the two Saxons who were too startled to react as quickly as they should have done. One went down with a scream as he was hit in the thigh and abdomen, but the other was faster. Lancelot felt a burn of pain race down his side, the impact knocking him sideways and smacking his head on the wall. Dazed, he only half saw the barrel of the AK 47 as it lowered towards his head before it jerked up and away as a hail of gunfire took half its owner's head off.
"Lance?" Arthur's voice was so tense it hardly sounded like him. "Are you alright?"
His brother hauled him to his feet, hazel eyes running over him worriedly. Lancelot wanted to say that he was fine, but the words choked in his throat when he noticed the wounded guard open his eyes and raise his gun towards Arthur's back.
"Arth…" Before he had a chance to finish the warning, the Saxon's head smacked backwards onto the ground, a kitchen knife buried in his left eye. "What the fuck?" Lancelot murmured, more surprised than shocked.
Arthur let go of Lancelot, who swayed but kept his footing, and turned to the direction the knife had come from, raising his rifle as he did so. Tristan stood in the middle of the corridor, eyes gleaming with an almost feral hunger as he watched the dead man twitching in his last death throes. He seemed not at all worried by the rifle pointed in his direction, and walking forward he ignored the two men and withdrew his knife from the dead Saxon's eye. The squishy sucking noise as the blade came free was something that Lancelot was fairly sure would haunt his nightmares for some time to come.
"Shouldn't turn your back on 'em," he said, wiping the blade on his trousers. "Head, throat or heart - that's the only way to be sure that they stay down when they're hit."
"Tris," Lancelot said weakly. "Have I ever told you that you're really fucking scary sometimes?"
The older man shrugged as though the thought either had not occurred to him or if it had, didn't bother him in the slightest.
"Might want to get the others," he suggested to Arthur who didn't seem to know what to make of the last minute's events. "Building's not stable, don't want to get buried here."
"Right." Arthur blinked and seemed to pull himself together. "You two stay here." Reaching down he picked up the Glock that his brother had dropped, and after a moments hesitation, the rifle one of the dead Saxons had been using. "Do you know how to use this?" he asked Tristan.
The dark haired man gave a small, sardonic smile. "Do bears shit in the woods?"
"You're the gamekeeper, you tell me," Arthur muttered. Handing Tristan the gun, he kept hold of it for a second longer than necessary, never breaking eye contact. The older man gave a tiny nod that might have been acknowledgement before taking the rifle and checking it. "You stay here," Arthur repeated. "No moving out unless I say so or there is no other choice. Is that understood?" He pinned Lancelot with a fixed stare, and despite himself the younger man wanted to grin.
Aaaand back to Commander Castus we go, he thought. Bye, bye, big brother. Resisting the childish urge to give a little sarcastic wave as Arthur made his way down the barracks, Lancelot turned his attention to Tristan. The northerner was running his fingers over the sleek lines of the Ak 47, checking the magazine and the casing with an affection most men reserved for beautiful women.
"Should I leave you two alone?" Lancelot asked with amusement. "Don't know if they've got a boudoir here, but I could ask Arthur." Tristan merely gave him a look of irritation and swung the strap of the gun onto his shoulder. There was gunfire far away, but aside from the sounds of Arthur and the rest of the men talking behind them, they didn't seem to be in any immediate danger. Ignoring the stickiness of blood beneath his boots, Lancelot glanced at the bodies at his feet before turning his attention back to the man beside him. "Where'd you get the knife anyway, Tris?" he asked. "We were all frisked when we got here, where'd you hide it?"
Tristan gave a half shrug, but didn't take his eyes off the corridor. "Nicked it off a soldier in the canteen."
Lancelot thought about that for a moment. Tristan had been with the rest of them the whole time and none of the soldiers had got too close to any of the Samartians. When?" He asked, puzzled.
"When he wasn't looking." The older man sounded faintly irritated, but Lancelot couldn't help pushing him a little.
"Got anything else hidden under the cammos?" he asked somewhat sarcastically.
"You can try and pat me down if you'd like," Tristan snapped. Registering the look in the other man's eyes, Lancelot decided that he most definitely didn't.
They were saved from making any further conversation by the arrival of Arthur and the rest of the Samartians. All of the ex prisoners looked wired - eyes over bright, muscles tense, Lancelot thought. But then who could blame them; stuck in cells waiting to be shot brought back memories none of them were willing to face. It was something he'd have to talk about with his brother, he realised. Providing, of course, that there were any barracks left for them to get trapped in in the future.
Arthur walked over to the Saxon Tristan had killed and picked up the dead man's rifle. Checking it quickly, he handed it to Dagonet. Good choice, Lancelot thought. Dag was by far the most level headed of them and a damn good shot as well.
"Do you know how to handle one of these?" his brother asked the big man. Dagonet nodded, his large hands taking the weapon with an ease that could only be borne of familiarity. "Good." Arthur said. "I want you at the back, you're our rear guard. I'm on point, Lancelot, Tristan, I want you both behind us. Bors, Galahad, Gawain. I want you to stay behind us." Unconsciously rubbing his thumb over the barrel of his gun, Lancelot noted the three men's resentment and fear at being led into a potential combat situation with no weapon to defend themselves. Arthur obviously had too, for his next words seemed an attempt to reassure them. "You'll all be armed as soon as it is possible. For now keep an eye out for any hostiles and keep together. "If we can get back to the main building we'll be much better informed and equipped." The building around them groaned, a crack racing up a wall sending a shower of plaster raining down on them, and when Arthur gave the word to move, Lancelot followed him as automatically as the men beside him.
………………………………...............................................................................................................
The light was gold and hazy as they burst out into the open, but quickly adjusting to the light, Arthur jogged swiftly towards the shelter of a large building that had once been used to stable horses and was now a shower block. The angle of the wall provided cover without pinning them down, and gesturing for the men to hunker down beside him, the commander surveyed the surroundings.
To the left of them a building had been reduced to rubble, the smoke thankfully swept by the wind away from the camp. Part of the barbed wire fence had been flattened, the cause fairly obvious by the tank that sat silently in the grass beside the civilian camp. A half dozen bodies littered the ground beside it, but other than the shouts of the soldiers it was fairly quiet. The battle had apparently been over almost as soon as it had begun. Arthur felt a prickle of unease. Either the Saxons had suddenly become very stupid or they were playing another game entirely. Tanks were not easy to come about, nor was fuel or the ammunition that had levelled the barracks. Why waste them by attacking without enough men to be useful once the parameter had been breached?
With a soldier's instinct, Arthur felt before he heard the man approaching. Keeping low to the ground as he made his way forward, Dagonet crouched down and levelled solemn grey eyes upon him.
"Whatever happened here, we missed it," he said quietly. "Everyone out there is clean up not combat. Tristan's checking things out from a better vantage point, but it looks like the Saxons are either dead or gone."
Arthur was inclined to believe the big ex-squaddie; his words echoed his own thoughts precisely. Opening his mouth to answer, he paused. "Tristan's at a better vantage point?"
Dagonet looked slightly uncomfortable. "He's on the roof," he replied eventually.
The roof. Right. Of Course. Getting to his feet, Arthur nodded at the men awaiting his instructions and gestured for them to get up.
"Drop your guns," he said quietly but firmly. Lancelot opened his mouth to protest, but Arthur shook his head. "Incase you hadn't noticed, most of the men here aren't very keen on you lot. Go out there with a weapon when the enemy aren't firing and there's fair odds you'll get shot whether your gun is pointed at them, loaded, or even being held upside down. Don't make things easy for them."
"Them?" Galahad looked at Arthur with faint hostility. "Aren't you one of them?"
Arthur almost laughed. The lad had been about to get shot by Saxons and have a building fall on his head, and he still had enough energy for an argument.
"I," he said calmly, "am the man in charge of getting you killed in combat. I have no intention of letting you get your brains splattered onto the barracks lawn before I've given the Saxons a fair go at you."
Gawain laughed, Galahad looked mutinous and Bors nudged a not entirely impassive Dagonet.
"Need to be a pretty good marksman to hit Galahad's brain," the burly man said with a grin.
Galahad muttered something venomous in Bors's direction, but Arthur was surprised when the young man looked at him with more amusement than anger.
"C'mon pup, you know it's true," Gawain said, his manner so easygoing that when he got to his feet and held out a hand, Galahad took it and let himself be hauled to his feet. "You might want to get Tristan off the roof, too," the stocky blond remarked to his Commander. "Leave him up there too long and he's likely to roost for the night."
"Would be more comfortable than our previous accommodations," Tristan said, sliding down the shingles and dropping lightly to the ground. Brushing his tangled hair from his eyes, he addressed Arthur with absolutely no remorse for ignoring orders. "The Saxons came in from the east," he said confidently. "Went through the fence then took out the barracks. One of your lot must have lobbed a grenade through the hatch, and those who followed were taken down quickly. Short sweet and pointless."
"You got all that from a couple of minutes reconnaissance?" Arthur phrased it as a question, but he had no doubt the older man spoke the truth.
Tristan shrugged. "Spent half my life tracking hare, fox and the like. Working out where a bloody great tank came from isn't much of a stretch. Even Bors could do it."
"Watch it," the older man grumbled without rancour. Getting to his feet he rolled his broad shoulders and looked at Arthur seriously. "Might want to listen to the psycho son of a bitch though. Saxons are messing with your boys, make no mistake about that." He studied his Commander for a moment. "Sir."
Arthur let his eyes rove over the men that he had been put in charge of. Only a couple of hours ago he'd wondered whether putting a bullet to the lot of them, Lancelot included, might have been the kindest option. Now…
"Drop it," he said to Tristan, gesturing towards his gun. The Samartian did as he was told without question, and Arthur nodded towards the rest of his strange band of men before setting out towards the dining hall. "I don't know about you lot, but I need a drink.
A/N: Thanks to everyone who read/reviewed the last chapter.