T
he moment had come.
Glaag stood in front of the tank, preparing to deliver the death blow to a broken Bearclaw.
Ruger sat straight up and, over the clamor of the crowd, shouted, “Shades, fire now!”
The tank gun squared up right behind Glaag’s broad back erupted with a deafening kaboom!
Glaag’s body sailed head over heels past a ducking Bearclaw and slammed into the barbarian crowd.
The silenced barbarians had hunkered down. Their eyes were big, and fingers plugged their ears.
Inside the tank, behind the gun slits, the Henchmen opened fire with their machine guns. Bullets ripped into the shell-shocked Gond. Tattooed and painted bodies were ripped to pieces.
Ruger was on the move. He, Vern, Apollo, and Prospero had slipped out of their knots. They hustled straight to cover behind the tank.
There, Horace waited. Their weapons were strapped up in burlap bags on the tank’s sides, and he fished their swords out for them. “It’s fighting time.”
Ruger ripped Black Bane out of the scabbard, not stopping to chat. He sought out the closest barbarian and attacked. He tore the first Gond attacker’s head from his shoulders then disemboweled two more. Black Bane became a living weapon in his hands. He split skulls to the chin and severed limbs with single strikes.
The tank started to move slowly. Inside the metal cabin, Skitts and Iris were firing the machine guns, mowing down the barbarians. It kept the savage men’s fever-pitched advances at bay. The strategy wrought confusion.
Ruger, Vern, and Horace defended from the front of the tank.
Apollo and Prospero fought at the rear of the tank with swords in each hand.
Horace punched his spear into one bare-chested attacker after another.
Vern gutted the exposed abdomens of his opponents.
Ruger hacked off more limbs.
Without Glaag to lead them, the Gond were in complete confusion, but hundreds of them stood against only a few Henchmen.
Shades shouted from inside the tank. “Fire in the hole!”
Ruger, Vern, and Horace split away from the tank gun.
The long gun barrel exploded.
Many of the Gond dove to the ground. Others died in pieces.
“Keep that fire coming!” Ruger lunged and stabbed his sword through a Gond’s chest. He yanked it out and poked through another man. “Get away from the gate!”
“What?” Shades yelled from inside.
“Away from the gate! Away from the gate!” Ruger shouted back.
The tank stopped and started rolling the opposite direction, westward. The big gun fired again. The blast blew away a host of Gond.
The barbarians fought on with swords and axes. They rushed the Henchmen in a disorganized throng, fearless of the skilled carnage the Henchmen wrought on their bodies.
Three Gond charged Ruger at once. He parried a sword and caught the axe hand of another, while the third painted reaver tried to split him in half with an axe as he cocked back to swing. A war axe brained Ruger’s free attacker.
It was Bearclaw. The bearish man was back on his feet and smiling.
Ruger ended the men he was engaged with in a single stroke. “Outstanding execution, brother!”
“Did you ever doubt me?” Bearclaw replied as he brained one more Gond.
“Of course not, I knew that you could take him.” Ruger sliced an attacker’s sword arm off. “You wield the best axe in Titanuus!”
“Perhaps. That Gond was good. I’ve never seen such a large man move so well!” Bearclaw chopped a man down by the legs. “I’d rather have had a fair crack at him.”
“Methinks you were losing!” Vern cut a barbarian in the neck and stabbed a hole with a dagger in another. “That big fella bowed you over like a spoon.”
Bearclaw let out a fierce harrumph and killed another man.
The tank gun fired again.
The Gond that weren’t blown to bits scattered. A loud howling like a whistle started, and the Gond broke away from the tank.
“What’s happening?” Vern asked as he slung blood from his sword.
“They are regrouping.” Ruger could see the Gond grabbing their assault rifles. Someone had finally taken charge. “And rearming themselves. Stay close to the tank.” He banged his sword on the side. “Shades, stop.” He pointed at the ground. “Everyone grab a dead body and get under the tank.”
