From atop the walls the Guldur could see Stolsh women and children in the remote distance, far down the avenues, fleeing from their righteous wrath. All that stood in the way was a handful of defenders manning a feeble barricade in the street. Again a volley of snipers on the rooftops dropped their leaders.
Westminster and Valandil kneel on the roof of a carefully selected building. Before the rangers open fire, Westminster looks out at the approaching enemy horde and mutters those fighting words feared and dreaded across the galaxy, “Y’all ain’t from around here. Are ya?”
A group of Stolsh volunteers were reloading their weapons, feeding loaded rifles to the two buckskin-clad rangers as fast as they could fire accurately. Which was very fast.
The rangers were the last of the crew to acquire monkeys, as though the little creatures were intimidated by them. These monkeys were quiet, taciturn creatures, much like the rangers themselves. They stayed low and hidden most of the time, giving quiet encouragement while keeping an eagle eye out for bullets to block.
Other teams of Stolsh sharpshooters were performing similar tasks, but none was half as effective as the two elite Westerness warriors. The enemy was evil. What they would do to the innocent Stolsh noncombatants was horrible, it was vile. And so the two rangers found nothing but satisfaction and pleasure in killing the enemy. But they knew, from their contact with the Guldur crew members on board the Fang, that the real evil was the nasty little Goblan “tick.” And, most of all, the odious leaders and the repugnant system that perverted the average “doggies” into these packs of ravenous beasts.
Thus the rangers took particular joy in killing the leaders. All snipers, throughout history, have found it easier to kill leaders. For one thing, killing the leaders had a much greater impact on the enemy’s effectiveness. But there was more to this than the physical, tangible, objective aspect of reducing the enemy’s fighting power in the most effective way. There was also the fact that, to the degree that they liked to kill anyone, most snipers liked killing leaders.
In most cases the average soldiers weren’t too different from each other. It was often hard to get excited about killing them. But the leaders. Ah, the leaders who were sending those poor schmucks to kill you. Killing them was a different matter entirely. This was something a fellow could sink his teeth into. It was almost as good as killing their damned politicians who started this damned war in the first place.
It was this process of seeking out leaders, the idea of “common” soldiers knocking the muckety-muck nabob off of his pedestal. This was what, at least in part, appealed to the sniper. And offended their leaders. The idea of contributing to a brand of warfare where leaders were intentionally sought out and killed (nay, murdered!), by lowly, vulgar, baseborn soldiers, was offensive to a certain breed of military commander. Common, peon, pawn soldiers could die by the thousands and that was okay. But a kind of war where people systematically tried to kill them, the leaders, from a distance, where you couldn’t even fight back? Well, that was something that it was best not to get started!
In this case the Stolsh leadership was able to bend far enough to accept the killing of the enemy’s mid-level leaders. After all, things had deteriorated quite a bit! The Stolsh might have grudgingly tolerated it, but the rangers took great delight in it. An old saying put it like this, “Fighting with a ranger is like wrestling with a pig. Everyone gets dirty, but the pig likes it!”
For those who have never participated in long-range marksmanship, it’s difficult to communicate the intense satisfaction that can come from that endeavor. Perhaps the golfer, striving for a lifetime to achieve a hole-in-one, can understand what it would be like if he could make every shot a hole-in-one. Even on a par five. And the result of the endeavor isn’t to put some stupid ball in some silly hole in some sad little game. This game is real. In this game, if you’re good, at the moment of truth you can slay a wicked foe and save the lives of your friends. And if, at the moment of truth, you fail . . . you might die. Your friends and family might die. And in the end, your nation may fall.
Josiah Westminster spends a half second scanning the battlefield, picking out the most obnoxious, offensive, insistent pack master whipping his beasts into a frenzy. The ranger chuckles to himself. When he was a boy, “He needed killing,” was considered to be a valid defense in a murder trial. Well, here was an ol’ boy who just needed killing.
He puts the front sight on the target, sighs, and strokes the trigger. “_____!” As always, when hunting men or beasts, he did not hear his shot. Ahh! The power, the godlike power to smite the enemy from afar. The satisfaction, the intense satisfaction as he watches Mr. Bloodlust R. Frenzy lose interest, gurgle blood, and fall. “Hooah!” says the ranger with satisfaction, then in the blink of an eye he picks another target, brings the front sight intensely into focus, sighs, and strokes the trigger for the other barrel. “_____!” and another leader drops his whip, looks confused, and crumples to the ground. He switches rifles and does it again, and again.
Piss on golf, thinks Josiah. “_____!” Piss on basketball. Even baseball and football. “_____!” Those are pathetic little games for dismal little men. Fresh rifle and . . . “_____!” Sad, pale replacements for the real game. “_____!” The game our ancestors played with stones and arrows, with bullets and lives. Fresh rifle. Success in this game meant your children wouldn’t starve and you could put meat on your family’s table. “_____!” Success in this game meant no foe would lightly come to claim your land and defile your family. “_____!” Success in this game meant the difference between life and death. Fresh rifle. Piss on golf. “_____!” This is a man’s game. “_____!”
Now comes the tricky part. Deciding when to fall back to the next position. For the rangers the temptation to stay and kill, and kill, and kill . . . is intense. For the Stolsh helpers and loaders with them there is another temptation: the desire to pull back too soon, before all the juice has been squeezed out of this position. The perfect balance is what a true professional seeks.
The tactical situation is just right when Westminster, Valandil and their helpers pull back. The enemy catch only a brief, fleeting glimpse of buckskin as the foe that has been tormenting them pulls back.
Trotting over the rooftops, across narrow bridges (bridges pulled down after they pass), scrambling up ropes hanging from walls (ropes which are then cut), they fall back to the next position. Westminster looks at Valandil and grins. “I love this job,” he says and his Sylvan comrade smiles back.
“Too bad the dog can’t be here,” he says to his companion, “she’d love this.” They both drop to one knee and scan their sectors for the most deserving leader from amongst the abundant, target-rich array set before them. Ahh, life is good, he thinks, as he strokes the trigger . . .
With a roar, the Guldur headed down into the avenues, squeezing into the streets, packing together in a great raging mass of bloodlust and rage. Then the carefully primed explosive charges in the surrounding buildings blasted out from every window and door, just as the cannons on the barricades fired grapeshot at point-blank range. Nails, screws, and old hinges, lined with high explosive, and set carefully where an inside wall reinforced an outside one. They wanted the city? They got it. Metal bits first. At very high velocity.
Horse-drawn limbers stood by behind each cannon. As soon as the ambush with field-expedient claymore mines was detonated, the cannons fired one last volley of grape, hooked to the limbers, and galloped back to the next barricade.
The sappers who blew the charges slipped off through a series of mouse holes cut through the walls, along prepared routes, back to the barricades. For a little while, on that street, all that was left of the enemy’s bloodlust was . . . blood. And still the snipers picked off their officers like a cook might flick the weevils from his flour.
Finally the unstoppable, irresistible mass crawled over the bodies of their dead and dying comrades and reached the hated barricades. Only to find them empty.
On every street coming into Ee, the situation was the same. At great cost of blood and lives they reached the barricades, only to find them empty, with yet another barricade waiting for them a few blocks farther down the street. And always there were the hated snipers, picking off the leaders like lint off a sweater.