6:15 P.M.
At the Kingdom, the elderly, children, and some of the women were ushered into the basement bunker of the high school to spend the night as safely away from the fight as possible, with a handful of guns between them and Shiva protectively prowling the stairwell outside the door that lead down to them.
When they were safely inside, in the main hall of the school, King Ezekiel caught up with Gavin, Jerry, and Richard. The king exhaled wearily and eyed Gavin sternly. "You couldn't have sought refuge for your people somewhere else?" he asked. "Or remained at your own outpost?"
"What does it matter?" Richard asked. "How long could we have bent our knees to the Saviors, my highness, before they asked for more and more? This day was coming, sooner or later. At least tonight we're prepared."
"And the Hilltop could only spare us two marksmen?" the king asked. "And a handful weapons and ammunition?"
"You have my crew at your service," Gavin told him. "My men are all excellent shots. I'm sorry if you feel I've brought this upon you, but my choices weren't exactly good ones."
"No indeed," Ezekiel conceded. "You were caught between Scylla and Charybdis."
"Between who and what?" Jerry asked.
"A rock and a hard place," Gavin said.
Ezekiel raised an eyebrow. "And here I thought your background was in construction work. Yet you understand all my literary allusions."
"My mother was an English teacher. Now can we get on with the preparations?"
"We must make the most of the time at hand," Ezekiel declared. "Advisors, round up the soldiers for the royal address!"
"Not quite the preparation I had in mind," Gavin muttered as Richard and Jerry strode down the faux marble hallway of the school to carry out Ezekiel's command.
6:20 P.M.
Abraham returned to Woodbury with the soldiers he had recruited from Terminus – Gareth, Martin, and five other men. As the new recruits walked over the drawbridge, looking down warily at the walkers thrashing in the moat, Rosita and Sasha approached Abraham by the military truck he was unloading.
"How much liquor did you promise them?" Sasha asked.
"None. I said you'd give them each a kiss."
Sasha rolled her eyes.
"The explosives are in place," Rosita said coolly. "I doubt they're going to come out guns blazing right away if the goal is to take Lori alive. So we've got time to draw them in. Between the explosives, our front and rear firing line, and the walkers in the moat…I don't see them getting through the gate."
"We aim for the ones with grenades, RPGs, and other projectiles first," Sasha said. "Even if they're not getting through, fire might. The less they lob over our fence, the better."
"And Rick had an idea," Rosita told him. "He's going to put two scouts in place a mile up the road to the west and a mile to the east. They'll each have one of Mr. Tanner's homing pigeons in a cage. If they see a squadron coming, they'll release, the bird will fly home to Mr. Tanner, and we'll know when and from which direction they're coming."
Abraham lifted a crate of ammunition from the back of the truck. "Then let's get to it."
6:30 P.M.
All of the fighting men and women of the Kingdom gathered near the central gazebo as Ezekiel intoned, "We face dire challenge and chance. Our lives - our way of life - hangs in the balance, a fragile glass standing on a wire, high above the asphalt, as we pray for not one drop of rain under an overcast sky."
This is the kind of shit I can't do, Gavin thought. All the speechification. Negan had done it, in his way. He had motivated with his long-winded speeches that inspired an uncomfortable chill. Motivation by fear. Ezekiel's style was more motivation by inspiration. He used a poetic style that was, Gavin thought, a cheap imitation of Shakespeare. But Gavin watched it work on the faces and spirits of the men and women around him, though his own men looked at one another with confusion. DJ looked at Dwight who looked at Mark - and all three appeared to be trying not to laugh. But for Ezekiel's people - hell if it didn't work.
"And yet, I smile," Ezekiel projected. "We will fight, and we will bleed… and yet I smile. We shall face men, some cornered into their roles by circumstance, some desperate murderers thrilled by blood. We shall end them all. As is our charge this day. As is our sorrow. And yet, I smile. For we will mine glory from the rock of struggle this day."
What a change, Gavin thought, from the king inside the hallway, in the secret shadows away from his people, questioning the necessity of the war that was to come and muttering over the limited aid the Hilltop had sent him. Gavin would give the man this much - when he had to turn it on, he turned it all the way on.
"We will honor and protect this bastion of life in a land of the dead, and we will win," Ezekiel continued. "I smile… I laugh… I rejoice this day… for on this day, we are joined in purpose and vision…we are of a singular heart and mind. On this day, we are one! We are one!"
Gavin looked around at the people as they chanted with him, "We are one! We are one! We are one! We are one!"
The people divided as the preparations continued. Buckets and tubs were filled with water from the wells and left lined up in rows so that bucket brigades would be ready to extinguish fires that might be lit by grenades, Molotov cocktails, or RPGs. Richard readied the Kingdom's marksmen who would stand along the fence line or take up position on rooftops and open fire on the approaching Saviors. He made sure every magazine was loaded with fifteen rounds and that each rifleman had at least one spare magazine.
Meanwhile, Dianne readied the archers who would soon obscure themselves in the forest to the left and right of the parking lot that lead to the gate of the Kingdom. They would open fire from up in the trees after the initial volley of gunfire.
King Ezekiel, with the help of Jerry, readied those who wield melee weapons – battle axe, staff, and sword – to form a line to charge any who broke through the gate.
Gavin directed Dwight and Mark to move the school busses to form a line of double, solid metal before the front gates and then stationed his men with long range rifles. As he returned to the king to say his men were in place, the radio crackled on his hip. He'd left it on, not really expecting to hear anything.
Gary was talking to Regina. "Jed and his crew are settled back at his Manassas battlefield outpost. He's in for the night. Are you back out at yours? Over."
"Yep, settled in for the night. See you at the slaughterhouse rendezvous tomorrow morning. Over and out."
Ezekiel looked at the radio with confusion. "Your information was that they were raiding us to– "
"- It's bullshit," Gavin told him. "They know I'm listening in. They want us to believe there's nothing going on tonight. But trust me, by now, they're back at my old chemical plant outpost, Jed and Regina and their squadrons, just waiting for sunset."
8:00 PM
Carol climbed the last step to the tower castle slides with a foil-wrapped plate and brought it to Daryl, who let the binoculars fall back down around his neck.
"I figured if I don't bring you something," she said, "you won't eat."
He murmured his thanks, ripped the foil off the plate, and began eating the with his fingers.
"Do you plan to keep watch all night?" she asked. "Or are you switching off with someone?"
"Ain't gonna be able to sleep tonight," he murmured around the food. "Not knowin' what's happenin' to our friends out there in Woodbury."
"I'm pretty tightly wound myself." She smirked. "Wanna screw around? I hear it's a good stress relief."
"Pfft. Might be hard for to keep watch if I go down."
"What if I go down?" she teased. "You could stay standing and still have two eyes on the prize. No one can see me up here behind the railing if I'm on my knees."
He slowly stopped chewing. "You serious?"
"No. I'm not giving you a blow job on watch, Pookie."
"Tease." he tossed a piece of venison in his mouth. "This ain't bad," he muttered around the food as he chewed. "Who made it?"
"Tom the head electrician."
"Pffft."
"No, seriously. He makes a mean barbecue. He's a real master," she teased, "of the grill." She wiggled an eyebrow.
"Stahp." He put the now empty plate down on the platform, grabbed his canteen off his belt, and took a sip while Carol sashayed close, took the binoculars off his neck, and looked around the park for a while.
"There's smoke!" she shouted suddenly. "From the log flume."
"'S just the love nest," he murmured. "Told ya there's a fire pit in there. Hole to vent it."
"But Glenn and Maggie have their own bedroom now. I thought they'd abandoned it."
"Did. Ain't Glenn and Maggie in there. Probably Beth and Dixon. So Hershel don't find out."
She lowered the binoculars. "Seriously? Are they…?"
"Dunno. Don't think so. Not all the way. Yet."
"Well, he did take a box of condoms."
"Think that's just wishful thinking."
Carol chuckled. "Well, hope does spring eternal." Her eyes flitted down to the half erection he had developed at her earlier teasing.
8:45 PM
As the Saviors neared the Kingdom, the scout who had been stationed up the road signaled using a flashlight and mirror to one of the archers in the trees outside the parking lot, who in turn signaled to the men on the fence.
Soon, the two lieutenants and their squadrons were rolling in with three military trucks, an armored vehicle, and three pick-up trucks. The trucks rolled to a stop in front of the barricade of school busses and before they could empty, Gavin and DJ lobbed the two hand grenades Shane had given them from the fence line onto the green canopies of the two largest trucks, exploding them and killing several Saviors within. Soldiers spilled out from the truck, some on fire and dropping to roll on the ground, some having escaped the flames and now opening fire with machine guns or lobbing grenades of their own as the marksmen on the fence line and rooftops began picking them off.
A Savior who was readying an RPG was shot from the tree line through the neck with an arrow, and another Savior grabbed the RPG and launched the weapon straight into the center of the double line of busses. It tore a hole through one bus and then the other and then through the gate, leaving smoldering metal and splintering wood before landing on the gazebo inside and lighting the whole thing on fire.
A Savior then plowed an armored vehicle through the hole made in the busses and gate by the RPG, widening the opening as he did so. Fire licked at the sides of the roaring vehicle as Richard took aim at the driver, only to be shot by another Savior and topple forward over the fence. His body landed with a thud on top of one of the busses.
The third, unscathed military truck followed the armored vehicle, plowing apart the last of the obstacles, while the rest of the Saviors outside the gates were taken out by marksmen and archers.
As the Saviors spilled out of the truck inside the Kingdom, the Kingdoms foot soldiers rushed them with staff and sword and battle axe. Jerry swung his axe hard enough through the air to severe Jed's head straight from his neck.
The Kingdom was a mess of fire and gunshots and shouts and blows for a mere few minutes that seemed somehow an eternity, and then the last of the Saviors were either surrendering or retreating through the gates on foot. Those who ran were taken out by the archers in the trees as they fled, except for three who escaped in a pick-up while a fourth covered with indiscriminate gunfire spread at the trees before collapsing with an arrow in his chest.
Six Saviors dropped their guns within the gates, fell to their knees, and put their hands on their heads. Those surrendered Saviors were surrounded instantly by three armed guards while a bucket brigade began to work to put out the fire in the gazebo.
Regina and another Savior, however, still armed, had fled inside the school where the civilians were stashed. Gavin and Ezekiel pursued them, Gavin limp-running from the shrapnel that had embedded itself in his leg during the fight.
When they burst through the school doors, the Saviors swirled on them and would have opened fire except for Shiva's great and sudden roar, which caused them to turn in fright toward the great cat that was bounding toward them. Shiva knocked Regina to the floor and began clawing her apart. She held the trigger of here automatic gun down, and it sprayed a hail of bullets into the tiger, finally sending it howling in pain to its side, but the undisciplined fire killed her fellow Savior at the same time.
"Shiva! Noooo!" Ezekiel cried as he clamored down the hall and threw himself on his mighty pet and buried his tears in her fur as she lay dying.
"Heeeelp..." the clawed open Regina rasped as she looked up at Gavin and tried to hold in her own intestines. With a single shot between the eyes, he put her out of her misery.
Gavin headed to the basement door to let those hidden there out to help with the remaining work - extinguishing the lingering fire and sliding knives into the foreheads of the dead before they turned. As he made his way limping down the hall, his radio crackled with cries from within the Sanctuary. Gary wasn't worried about being overheard anymore. He was desperate, crying, "Turn back! Jed! Regina! Turn back to the Sanctuary! We're under attack! Walsh is here! With an army from all the communities. There must be eighty fighters out there! Turn back! Reinforce me!" In the background was the sound of gunfire, and then the radio went dead.
Breathing a little heavily, Gavin swung open the door to the basement and was met with the barrel of a handgun between his eyes. The gun was immediately lowered, and Frankie threw her arms gratefully around him.
"It's over," he murmured. "It's over."
"Dwight?" Sherry asked from the stairs below. "Mark?" Amber called up. "Jerry?" Nabila cried, and soon other people – women and children and old men - began to shout loud question marks of names.
"I don't know," Gavin murmured. "I just don't know."
Only when the smoke settled did they begin to count their dead.
9:30 PM
Carol, who had been looking through her night vision scope as she kept Daryl company on watch, lowered her rifle. "Dr. Steven's is coming this way with a flashlight," she said.
"That can't be good," Daryl muttered.
"I'll see what she wants." Carol slung her rifle on her back, grabbed a burlap sack, and went soaring down the slide. She walked quickly to meet the doctor. "Are you looking for one of us?" she asked.
"I need to know where your medical supplies are stored. Patrick just stumbled from the house to the Royal Banquet to find me. He's coughing up blood."