Chapter 436 — The Dead Fight Back II

Chapter 436: Chapter 436 — The Dead Fight Back II

The observers found it at a quarter to six.

"*Cronin, observer two. There’s a position. North-east, about two and a half kilometres. The old quarry above the Carrickrobin road. There’s a British section dug in round the lip of it. Five, six men. And there’s a vehicle at the back, and they’re moving something off it. Something heavy. Long. I can’t see what. Over.*"

"Is it the weapon? Over."

"*I can’t confirm. But they’re guarding it like it’s something. And it’s got a line of sight to the junction from up there. Straight down the valley. Over.*"

Cronin looked at the map on the wall.

James looked over his shoulder. There was the junction, and the road going north-east past the creamery. There was a valley running up between two low hills, and at the top of it, marked in faded pencil on an old survey map, a quarry.

It would give a clear line from the quarry lip straight down the valley to the forecourt. There would be no hedges in the way. Two and a half kilometres.

"It’s a suspected position," said Cronin. "Not confirmed. I’m treating it as suspected." He keyed the radio. "*Castlebellingham, Cronin. Request authorisation for a limited strike on a suspected Longbow position at the Carrickrobin quarry. One assault group. Junction stays held. Over.*"

There was a pause of two minutes. Nobody in the room said anything.

"*Cronin, Castlebellingham. Authorised. Limited strike. Do not get drawn north. Over.*"

"Understood."

He turned round.

"Right. Assault group, twenty. Sergeant Dwyer’s section and half of mine. Walsh, you’re staying here with the wounded, I need someone at the casualty point who knows the names. Two scouts on the Carrickrobin road and two on the back lane, watching for anyone pulling out. Everyone else holds the junction." He looked at James and Finn. "You two are with the assault group. With it. Not in front of it. We go up the valley on the east side, behind the hedge line, the whole way. The undead go up the open ground on the west side where we can’t." He looked at James. "Can you do that? Keep them out there?"

"Yeah."

"Then we go in ten minutes."

---

They went up the valley in the last of the light.

The hedge on the east side was old and thick, with a ditch at the bottom of it that was half full of water. The assault group went up the ditch one behind the other, with Dwyer’s section at the front. James and Finn were in the middle, Cronin behind them.

On the open ground on the west side of the valley, James’s skeletons walked up the hill.

He kept them spread out, each one twenty metres from the next. He put the six in British kit nearest the quarry and the two cattle skeletons behind them. None of them hurried. James kept them coming up the hill in a ragged line, out in the open, where anyone at the quarry would have to look at them.

It was very quiet. Somewhere off to the west a dog was barking.

Then, at about six hundred metres from the quarry, somebody at the top saw the skeletons.

Rifles opened up.

It was not Longbow. It was ordinary British rifles from the quarry lip, firing down the open slope at the line of skeletons. James felt rounds go into them. One went into the skull of the one in the helmet and knocked the helmet off, but it did not stop.

And now every British rifle at the quarry was firing, and every one of them had shown where it was.

"*Contact, quarry lip,*" said Dwyer, low, at the front. "*Three on the left, two right of the vehicle. One on the far right by the big rock.*"

"*Return fire,*" said Cronin. "*Sections, go.*"

The Irish opened up from the hedge.

---

It did not go all one way.

The British at the quarry were good. They had dug in well and they knew it, and they split their fire between the hedge and the skeletons. James felt the skeletons taking it.

One lost its left arm at the shoulder to a burst. It kept walking. Another took two rounds in the ribs, and the ribs on that side came apart, and it kept walking. A third, the one with its webbing still on, took something heavy in the pelvis and went down in two pieces. It did not get up.

James felt that one go out.

He could not just keep feeding the same seven skeletons up the hill into those rifles. They would come apart one at a time.

Fifty metres up the slope, inside the hedge, there were two more British bodies. They had been killed that morning, when the British pulled back from the junction up this valley. They were in the ditch, where they had gone down.

He went forward along the ditch past Dwyer’s men, keeping low. He found them and put his hands on them.

`[SUMMON UNDEAD SKELETON — 80 MANA] ×2`

`[MANA: 1,300 / 3,100]`

He sent the two new ones up out of the ditch and onto the slope with the others.

---

The British at the quarry changed what they were doing.

James saw it at about three hundred metres. Three of the rifles stopped firing down the hill and started falling back from the lip, toward the vehicle at the back of the quarry. Two men by the vehicle were struggling with something long and heavy, lifting it.

"*They’re pulling out,*" said Cronin. "*The ones at the back are running. The ones on the lip are staying to cover them.*" His voice sharpened. "*They’re getting it out. Dwyer, take your section left round the back of the quarry, cut the track. Now.*"

Dwyer’s section went left out of the hedge at a run and was gone into the dusk.

The British on the lip were not running. They were staying to hold.

"*Hale,*" said Cronin. "*There’s a gap. Right of the big rock. They’ve nobody on it. Hanlon saw it.*"

A soldier near the front had his arm out, pointing up the slope to a place where the quarry lip broke down into a jumble of fallen stone. It was dead ground, out of sight of the rifles on either side.

"There," the soldier said. "Up through the stones. They can’t see you in there."

Finn was already moving.

He went up through the stones with half of Cronin’s section behind him, low and fast. He did not run ahead of them. He went with them, stopping where they stopped and going when they went, the way Farrell had told them all on the first morning.

---

James went straight up the open slope behind his skeletons.

Two British soldiers came round the end of the quarry lip as the skeletons reached it. They had rifles, and they were trying to hold the gap in the lip where the track came in, to stop the undead getting through to the vehicle.

The skeleton in front of James walked straight into them. One of them swung his rifle round to shoot it.

That left him open on the other side.

James came round the skeleton with his hand already up.

`[NECRO BLAST — 60 MANA]`

`[MANA: 1,240 / 3,100]`

The blast took him in the side and he went down. James finished it with Durendal before he could get up.

`[CALL OF SOULS — MANA RESTORED: +30]`

`[MANA: 1,270 / 3,100]`

`[EXP GAINED: +200]`

The second man turned and went back along the lip toward the vehicle, toward his own people. He went straight into Dwyer’s section, coming round the back of the quarry on the track. He stopped, half turned, and James was there.

`[NECRO BLAST — 60 MANA]`

`[MANA: 1,210 / 3,100]`

`[CALL OF SOULS — MANA RESTORED: +30]`

`[MANA: 1,240 / 3,100]`

`[EXP GAINED: +200]`

The stitches in his side pulled as he turned. He felt one of them give.