Shepherd moved down the stairway silently, Desert Eagle pointing
inquisitively at every place there could be an enemy. He reached the bottom
of the first flight of stairs, back against the wall. He then balanced his
gun on the banister and looked over it down the second flight of stairs.
There was another damn suit of armour and a few oil paintings along the
three corridors which came off from the foot of the stairs. Wait, what's
that stuff all over the floor? Blood. It had seeped there from around the
left corner and it hadn't been disturbed for so long a skin was developing
on the surface. He moved from the banister to the wall side of the second
flight of stairs, steadying his gun with both hands. He still couldn't see
anyone, so he continued walking down the stairs silently, gun extended and
ready to fire at any threat. Shepherd hated walking down stairs in front of
corridors, for the simple reason that if there was anyone at the far end of
the corridor they'd see your legs before you saw them and they could tattoo
you five times over before you even realised you'd been targeted, but here
he had no choice.
He reached the bottom of the stairs (to his relief) and there wasn't anybody at the end of the corridor. But the blood splash was very disconcerting. He shimmied along the left wall, looking to make sure there wasn't anybody immediately on the right, and then swung his gun around the left corner. The blood splash came from a dismembered corpse of a twelve- year-old wearing robes less than a metre in front of Shepherd. Flies buzzed around it, and it looked as though some creature had torn out his heart and eaten it. He looked further along the corridor. There were four other corpses in various positions, two of them very young witches, one of them a very old wizard and one of them a soldier. The soldier's shotgun, sidearm Desert Eagle and ammo pack were in perfect shape. Then Shepherd looked slightly further and saw the creature that had done all this.
It was quite short, but extremely muscly and imposing. It was human- looking, but with dirty grey fur all over its body, matted with dried blood, and with massive paws in place of hands. It seemed to be patrolling this stretch of corridor, stomping up and down it wildly, looking for its next kill. Shepherd could only assume it then smelt him, because although he'd been completely silent, its head snapped around, and it charged at him with remarkable speed. Shepherd tried to get a good aim on it, but it seemed to understand the danger of the gun, because the instant the weapon was pointed at him it flitted to the side while still running forwards. Shepherd continued trying to aim properly, then fired. The bullet ricocheted off the wall near the creature. He fired again. This bullet hit it in the shoulder, and it fell to its knees. He fired a third time, the laser sight helping to get a perfectly accurate round to the forehead. The creature toppled over backwards without a sound and didn't move.
Shepherd exhaled - then he felt the air move behind him. Instantly he hurled himself down and to the right, looking backwards. A ten-foot-tall troll had somehow snuck up on him and with its stone club swung a redwood- smashing blow directly at Shepherd's chest. The massive club bashed into the stone wall, pulverising much of it into dust. On the ground, Shepherd aimed for centre mass and fired four times in fast succession, emptying the Desert Eagle. The immensely stupid troll groaned in pain, but didn't even move. Shepherd jumped to his feet, pocketed the empty sidearm, and sprinted down the corridor with Olympic proficiency. He reached the soldier's corpse and picked up his shotgun, checking the gauges. Suddenly a door was booted open several metres in front of him and another of the snarling, bloodthirsty creatures came out. Automatically Shepherd whipped up the shotgun and pulled the trigger, spraying buckshot into its abdomen, knocking it over backwards. He recocked it just as the second and third ones came out of the door and he fired again, knocking both of them over too with one blast. He recocked it and glanced backwards. He dove to the side with inhuman speed, the troll's thrown club sailing just past him and smashing into the one gutshot creature who was still alive and trying to get up. He fired at the troll once, made it flinch, fired twice, made it stumble, and pulled the trigger again. There was an empty click. There were no more loaded shells. The troll was still jogging forwards, badly hurt. He dropped the shotgun and snatched up the Desert Eagle on the floor. He fired into troll's chest. It stopped, gasping, and leant against the wall. He fired into its chest again, and it fell down screaming. He walked up to it and fired into the back of its head. It stopped screaming abruptly.
Shepherd spat on the troll and walked over to the soldier's corpse. Shepherd ripped off the man's dog tags, then looted the weapons and ammo. He now owned an eight-gauge shotgun with quite a few spare shells, two Desert Eagles with four and a half clips between them and a combat knife. For the first time since Goose-2 dropped, he felt like a soldier.
Shotgun extended, Shepherd walked into the room three of those bear- things had come out of. One possibility was that there was one bear-thing left in the room waiting for him to come in, which would then knock the shotgun out of his hands. He knew this possibility, so he was just as prepared to dive backwards and draw two D Eagles as he was to pull the trigger of his Remington. But the room contained no more creatures. There were two guys passed out and tied up in the corner, however.
Shepherd looked around the room. The creatures had obviously spent some minutes turning it into a shoddy hovel, judging from the open fire in the middle and the sleeping spots made out of diced paper from textbooks. There was also a bucket of water near the centre, and it looked fresh. Probably for drinking. It appeared that the four bear-things had feasted on the five people now lying dead in the hallway, and had been too full to eat these two soldiers, so they instead strung them up for eating later. Their weapons lay in the corner, one of the assault rifles smashed in half, but the other assault rifle (an M16 and M203 combo) and the two sidearms were in excellent condition.
The two soldiers woke up instantly as the bucket of water was sloshed across their faces. They sputtered and looked around.
One of the two gave a feeble smile. If he hadn't been beaten up so much, with one eye swollen shut and several teeth missing, it would've been a handsome, winning smile. "Thanks for helping us out, man. I thought I was a goner. Could you cut these ropes, please?" Shepherd nodded, drew his combat knife into one hand, and started sawing away at the thin ropes binding their hands and feet. In seconds both were free. One of them immediately got to his feet and retrieved his assault rifle and pistol. The other one tried to get up and howled in agony.
"Brian? What's the problem?" his friend asked, concerned.
"It's my ankle, Sean. It's fucked. I can't walk."
Shepherd leant in for a closer look. "Yeah, that's more twisted than a stick of liquorice. Come on, soldier. On your feet." Shepherd supported Brian under his shoulder, letting Brian walk on his good leg.
"What's your name, sir?" Sean asked, handing Brian his Desert Eagle, who immediately holstered it.
"Corporal Shepherd." he answered automatically.
"Sir, we were separated from our unit before we could receive our orders, sir. Um, what are they, sir?"
"I don't know either, private, because I got separated too."
"Great. Just great. I've finally served my tour of duty in Iraq and then I pull this hellish assignment. Which egregious politico is responsible for this shit? Who decided that it would be a marvellous Goddamn idea to attack a wizard school infested with mythical creatures?"
"We'll probably never know, soldier, but if we're lucky we'll survive long enough to get out of here and sign an Official Secrets Act, and maybe the American equivalent too. Now this place, as you've noticed, is a magical school. This school has an infirmary upstairs, and there's a magical nurse in it. She could probably treat your ankle in seconds, Brian, so that's our first stop. Sean, act as advance scout. We want to turn left out of this room, go up the first set of stairs, turn right down that corridor and follow it to the end. But watch out for the suits of armour which have been bewitched to attack anyone who comes close."
Sean was very nervous as he moved out of the room. He managed to keep a trigger on both ends of the corridor while Shepherd helped Brian limp after him. Sean got to the stairway with Shepherd several metres behind, and looked down the corridor coming off the stairs. "Freeze!" he screamed, then the characters he was talking to must've decided not to freeze, so he opened fire, letting off three-round bursts. Shepherd picked up Brian in a fireman's lift and handed him his shotgun. Shepherd then charged for the stairway, chancing a look down the corridor. There were ten dead troglodytes, armed with spears, down the hall, with swarms of other troglodytes pouring into the building after their fallen brethren. Brian fired three times with the shotgun at them before Shepherd took them out of sight up the stairs. Sean sprinted up the staircase after them. He stopped after the first flight of stairs and rummaged in his kitbag. He came up with a small laser mine and set it on the banister.
"Let's go!" Sean shouted, and darted in front of Shepherd. He slammed himself against the wall of the staircase, looking left down the corridor, then threw himself across the hallway at the other wall and stared right. "Clear." was his verdict and he ran on. Shepherd hustled along behind him as Brian acted as rear guard with the shotgun. An explosion rocked the building, and shrapnel flew up the staircase like a cloud. Shepherd handed Brian some shotgun shells to reload, and Sean put his weapon and eye around the corner. "Clear." he reiterated. Brian cocked the now-full shotgun and immediately fired at two troglodytes who had just run up the stairs, ripping them apart. They were replaced by five troglodytes from the stairs. Shepherd ran around the corner.
And there, at the end of the hall, were the two suits of armour Shepherd had run away from, attracted by the gunshots. They held their bastard swords just as surely as they had before, even though this time they were outnumbered and hopelessly outgunned. Sean fired a launch grenade from the M203 attached underneath the barrel of his M16. It sailed through the air and hit the foremost suit of armour in the groin. It was instantly reduced to tin foil, and the suit of armour next to it lost its sword arm. Its magic ebbing away, it tried to retrieve the sword into its left hand. Brian blasted the damaged thing into several parts, and it did not move. Neither Sean nor Shepherd broke stride while doing this. Brian then turned around and fired again, tearing up four more troglodytes because they were so tightly compacted. Sean suddenly fired three times into one of the rooms Shepherd had entered before, resulting in an unearthly death snarl. Alerted by this, Shepherd drew a Desert Eagle while still running and pointed it into the room Sean fired into; he fired once at one of the three live harpies in the room, but missed. Brian fired twice more during this time, then fired three times at the harpies who flew into the hallway and chased them, emptying the shotgun. Brian pulled out his Desert Eagle and emptied it too, killing the harpies and a few more troglodytes. He then ceased firing and held onto the two empty weapons as Shepherd still ran on, lactic acid seizing up his muscles.
Sean got to the infirmary door. "Open up the God damn door! Now!!" he screamed urgently. There was no reply. "Open it now!" Still no reply.
"Please, Madame Pomfrey!" Shepherd begged with what little breath he had left. He kept on running, ten metres from the door, dozens of troglodytes ten metres back. Sean reloaded the M203 and launched another bomb, mincing maybe ten, then continued firing. The idea of a last stand right here set in his head, he fired on full-auto, a tortured glint in his eye as he shrieked loud enough to wake the dead. Because of this he didn't notice when Madame Pomfrey yanked open the door behind him. Shepherd charged past, and Brian grabbed Sean around the neck and dragged him in after them. She slammed the door and did some very fast spellwork to seal the door. There were the apparent sounds of nearly a hundred troglodytes all shoving at the door trying to force it open, but not even the dust was shaken from the door.
He reached the bottom of the stairs (to his relief) and there wasn't anybody at the end of the corridor. But the blood splash was very disconcerting. He shimmied along the left wall, looking to make sure there wasn't anybody immediately on the right, and then swung his gun around the left corner. The blood splash came from a dismembered corpse of a twelve- year-old wearing robes less than a metre in front of Shepherd. Flies buzzed around it, and it looked as though some creature had torn out his heart and eaten it. He looked further along the corridor. There were four other corpses in various positions, two of them very young witches, one of them a very old wizard and one of them a soldier. The soldier's shotgun, sidearm Desert Eagle and ammo pack were in perfect shape. Then Shepherd looked slightly further and saw the creature that had done all this.
It was quite short, but extremely muscly and imposing. It was human- looking, but with dirty grey fur all over its body, matted with dried blood, and with massive paws in place of hands. It seemed to be patrolling this stretch of corridor, stomping up and down it wildly, looking for its next kill. Shepherd could only assume it then smelt him, because although he'd been completely silent, its head snapped around, and it charged at him with remarkable speed. Shepherd tried to get a good aim on it, but it seemed to understand the danger of the gun, because the instant the weapon was pointed at him it flitted to the side while still running forwards. Shepherd continued trying to aim properly, then fired. The bullet ricocheted off the wall near the creature. He fired again. This bullet hit it in the shoulder, and it fell to its knees. He fired a third time, the laser sight helping to get a perfectly accurate round to the forehead. The creature toppled over backwards without a sound and didn't move.
Shepherd exhaled - then he felt the air move behind him. Instantly he hurled himself down and to the right, looking backwards. A ten-foot-tall troll had somehow snuck up on him and with its stone club swung a redwood- smashing blow directly at Shepherd's chest. The massive club bashed into the stone wall, pulverising much of it into dust. On the ground, Shepherd aimed for centre mass and fired four times in fast succession, emptying the Desert Eagle. The immensely stupid troll groaned in pain, but didn't even move. Shepherd jumped to his feet, pocketed the empty sidearm, and sprinted down the corridor with Olympic proficiency. He reached the soldier's corpse and picked up his shotgun, checking the gauges. Suddenly a door was booted open several metres in front of him and another of the snarling, bloodthirsty creatures came out. Automatically Shepherd whipped up the shotgun and pulled the trigger, spraying buckshot into its abdomen, knocking it over backwards. He recocked it just as the second and third ones came out of the door and he fired again, knocking both of them over too with one blast. He recocked it and glanced backwards. He dove to the side with inhuman speed, the troll's thrown club sailing just past him and smashing into the one gutshot creature who was still alive and trying to get up. He fired at the troll once, made it flinch, fired twice, made it stumble, and pulled the trigger again. There was an empty click. There were no more loaded shells. The troll was still jogging forwards, badly hurt. He dropped the shotgun and snatched up the Desert Eagle on the floor. He fired into troll's chest. It stopped, gasping, and leant against the wall. He fired into its chest again, and it fell down screaming. He walked up to it and fired into the back of its head. It stopped screaming abruptly.
Shepherd spat on the troll and walked over to the soldier's corpse. Shepherd ripped off the man's dog tags, then looted the weapons and ammo. He now owned an eight-gauge shotgun with quite a few spare shells, two Desert Eagles with four and a half clips between them and a combat knife. For the first time since Goose-2 dropped, he felt like a soldier.
Shotgun extended, Shepherd walked into the room three of those bear- things had come out of. One possibility was that there was one bear-thing left in the room waiting for him to come in, which would then knock the shotgun out of his hands. He knew this possibility, so he was just as prepared to dive backwards and draw two D Eagles as he was to pull the trigger of his Remington. But the room contained no more creatures. There were two guys passed out and tied up in the corner, however.
Shepherd looked around the room. The creatures had obviously spent some minutes turning it into a shoddy hovel, judging from the open fire in the middle and the sleeping spots made out of diced paper from textbooks. There was also a bucket of water near the centre, and it looked fresh. Probably for drinking. It appeared that the four bear-things had feasted on the five people now lying dead in the hallway, and had been too full to eat these two soldiers, so they instead strung them up for eating later. Their weapons lay in the corner, one of the assault rifles smashed in half, but the other assault rifle (an M16 and M203 combo) and the two sidearms were in excellent condition.
The two soldiers woke up instantly as the bucket of water was sloshed across their faces. They sputtered and looked around.
One of the two gave a feeble smile. If he hadn't been beaten up so much, with one eye swollen shut and several teeth missing, it would've been a handsome, winning smile. "Thanks for helping us out, man. I thought I was a goner. Could you cut these ropes, please?" Shepherd nodded, drew his combat knife into one hand, and started sawing away at the thin ropes binding their hands and feet. In seconds both were free. One of them immediately got to his feet and retrieved his assault rifle and pistol. The other one tried to get up and howled in agony.
"Brian? What's the problem?" his friend asked, concerned.
"It's my ankle, Sean. It's fucked. I can't walk."
Shepherd leant in for a closer look. "Yeah, that's more twisted than a stick of liquorice. Come on, soldier. On your feet." Shepherd supported Brian under his shoulder, letting Brian walk on his good leg.
"What's your name, sir?" Sean asked, handing Brian his Desert Eagle, who immediately holstered it.
"Corporal Shepherd." he answered automatically.
"Sir, we were separated from our unit before we could receive our orders, sir. Um, what are they, sir?"
"I don't know either, private, because I got separated too."
"Great. Just great. I've finally served my tour of duty in Iraq and then I pull this hellish assignment. Which egregious politico is responsible for this shit? Who decided that it would be a marvellous Goddamn idea to attack a wizard school infested with mythical creatures?"
"We'll probably never know, soldier, but if we're lucky we'll survive long enough to get out of here and sign an Official Secrets Act, and maybe the American equivalent too. Now this place, as you've noticed, is a magical school. This school has an infirmary upstairs, and there's a magical nurse in it. She could probably treat your ankle in seconds, Brian, so that's our first stop. Sean, act as advance scout. We want to turn left out of this room, go up the first set of stairs, turn right down that corridor and follow it to the end. But watch out for the suits of armour which have been bewitched to attack anyone who comes close."
Sean was very nervous as he moved out of the room. He managed to keep a trigger on both ends of the corridor while Shepherd helped Brian limp after him. Sean got to the stairway with Shepherd several metres behind, and looked down the corridor coming off the stairs. "Freeze!" he screamed, then the characters he was talking to must've decided not to freeze, so he opened fire, letting off three-round bursts. Shepherd picked up Brian in a fireman's lift and handed him his shotgun. Shepherd then charged for the stairway, chancing a look down the corridor. There were ten dead troglodytes, armed with spears, down the hall, with swarms of other troglodytes pouring into the building after their fallen brethren. Brian fired three times with the shotgun at them before Shepherd took them out of sight up the stairs. Sean sprinted up the staircase after them. He stopped after the first flight of stairs and rummaged in his kitbag. He came up with a small laser mine and set it on the banister.
"Let's go!" Sean shouted, and darted in front of Shepherd. He slammed himself against the wall of the staircase, looking left down the corridor, then threw himself across the hallway at the other wall and stared right. "Clear." was his verdict and he ran on. Shepherd hustled along behind him as Brian acted as rear guard with the shotgun. An explosion rocked the building, and shrapnel flew up the staircase like a cloud. Shepherd handed Brian some shotgun shells to reload, and Sean put his weapon and eye around the corner. "Clear." he reiterated. Brian cocked the now-full shotgun and immediately fired at two troglodytes who had just run up the stairs, ripping them apart. They were replaced by five troglodytes from the stairs. Shepherd ran around the corner.
And there, at the end of the hall, were the two suits of armour Shepherd had run away from, attracted by the gunshots. They held their bastard swords just as surely as they had before, even though this time they were outnumbered and hopelessly outgunned. Sean fired a launch grenade from the M203 attached underneath the barrel of his M16. It sailed through the air and hit the foremost suit of armour in the groin. It was instantly reduced to tin foil, and the suit of armour next to it lost its sword arm. Its magic ebbing away, it tried to retrieve the sword into its left hand. Brian blasted the damaged thing into several parts, and it did not move. Neither Sean nor Shepherd broke stride while doing this. Brian then turned around and fired again, tearing up four more troglodytes because they were so tightly compacted. Sean suddenly fired three times into one of the rooms Shepherd had entered before, resulting in an unearthly death snarl. Alerted by this, Shepherd drew a Desert Eagle while still running and pointed it into the room Sean fired into; he fired once at one of the three live harpies in the room, but missed. Brian fired twice more during this time, then fired three times at the harpies who flew into the hallway and chased them, emptying the shotgun. Brian pulled out his Desert Eagle and emptied it too, killing the harpies and a few more troglodytes. He then ceased firing and held onto the two empty weapons as Shepherd still ran on, lactic acid seizing up his muscles.
Sean got to the infirmary door. "Open up the God damn door! Now!!" he screamed urgently. There was no reply. "Open it now!" Still no reply.
"Please, Madame Pomfrey!" Shepherd begged with what little breath he had left. He kept on running, ten metres from the door, dozens of troglodytes ten metres back. Sean reloaded the M203 and launched another bomb, mincing maybe ten, then continued firing. The idea of a last stand right here set in his head, he fired on full-auto, a tortured glint in his eye as he shrieked loud enough to wake the dead. Because of this he didn't notice when Madame Pomfrey yanked open the door behind him. Shepherd charged past, and Brian grabbed Sean around the neck and dragged him in after them. She slammed the door and did some very fast spellwork to seal the door. There were the apparent sounds of nearly a hundred troglodytes all shoving at the door trying to force it open, but not even the dust was shaken from the door.