The Firefight

The first Ravagers broke from the ruined warehouses on both sides at the same time.

They came fast and in greater numbers than the earlier packs — at least a dozen, maybe more, pouring through broken doorways and over collapsed walls. Some ran on all fours through the deep snow. Others came upright, moving with that wrong, jerky speed that still carried purpose.

Lashana opened fire first.

Her carbine barked in controlled bursts, dropping the nearest runners with short, precise strings of rounds. Sydney’s bow sang twice in quick succession — two clean hits centre mass — before she abandoned it and switched to the Glock as the distance collapsed. Emma dropped to one knee, worked the bolt on the Remington, and put a heavy .308 round through the chest of a Ravager that had nearly reached the open centre of the yard.

The fight turned chaotic within seconds.

Ravagers closed from both flanks. Lashana pivoted smoothly, armour taking a glancing impact as she put three rounds into a charging figure at near point-blank range. Black blood sprayed across the white snow and across the front of her plates. Sydney met another with the machete, the blade rising and falling in short, brutal arcs that left her arms and chest spattered with thick, tar-like black. When one got inside her guard she shoved the barrel of the Glock under its jaw and fired once. The back of its head opened in a wet burst of black fluid that soaked her shoulder and the side of her face.

Emma stayed further back, using the rifle’s reach. She dropped two more at distance before a third closed too fast. She fired at near contact range; the recoil and the spray of black blood across her sleeves made her stagger a step. Sydney was already there, machete taking the next one across the throat in a wide, messy arc that painted both of them further in the same dark, viscous black.

Lashana’s carbine clicked empty. She let it hang on its sling, drew her sidearm, and kept shooting one-handed while using the armoured forearm of her other arm to smash a Ravager away from Sydney’s blind side. The two of them ended up back-to-back for a moment in the centre of the yard, both of them already drenched. Black blood ran in thick, dark streaks down Sydney’s face and neck, soaking into her jacket and the fabric across her chest. Lashana’s armour was slick with it from collar to waist, the black almost gleaming against the scarred plates.

Emma put her last clean rifle shot into a figure trying to flank them from the left, then switched to her Glock as the remaining Ravagers pressed closer. The fight became short-range and ugly. Machete, knives, point-blank handgun fire. The snow under their boots turned churned and black.

Then, as suddenly as it had started, the pressure broke.

The last two Ravagers tried to pull back toward the warehouses. Lashana dropped one with a final pair of rounds. Sydney finished the other with the machete, the blade coming down hard enough that the follow-through left another heavy spray of black across her already soaked clothes.

Silence slammed down over the yard.

Steam rose from the bodies in the cold air. The only movement was the slow drip of black blood from Sydney’s machete and the heavier runnels sliding down the plates of Lashana’s armour. Both women stood breathing hard, faces and torsos painted in the same tar-black fluid, eyes still scanning the ruined buildings.

Emma kept her Glock raised for several more seconds before she finally lowered it.

Nothing else came out of the warehouses. No more shapes in the treeline. No wet sounds of movement.

Lashana wiped a thick smear of black blood from her eyes with the back of one glove and gave a short, exhausted nod.

“That’s the local density,” she said, voice rough. “If there were more, they would have committed by now. Area’s as clear as it’s going to get.”

Sydney spat a mouthful of black-stained snow to the side and bent to recover her arrows from the nearest bodies, every movement leaving fresh dark marks in the white. Her jacket, face, and hands were saturated. Lashana looked no better — armour glistening with black, the fluid already starting to freeze in the seams.

Emma checked the map once more with black-stained fingers.

Site B was still ahead.

But for the first time since leaving the island, the ground immediately in front of them felt quiet.