You had to trust those skills. And the bastard was right: They were sorely needed in this situation.
With a final nod, Qhuinn slipped out of a glass door, and John closed and locked it behind him. . . leaving the male on his own.
At least the Band of Bastards would likely assume everyone was in the house and staying there - they had to know that backup would be coming, and in most situations, people waited for their reinforcements to arrive before they marshaled a counterattack.
"John! Qhuinn!" V called out. "What the hell is going on out there!"
John jogged back to the mudroom. Unfortunately, there was no effective way to communicate without losing his weapon -
"Shit, Qhuinn went out there alone, didn't he. "
Assail laughed softly. "And I thought I was the only one with a death wish. "
Chapter Forty-One
Directly after Syphon pulled the trigger on his long-range rifle, Xcor's first thought was that the male may well have killed the king.
Standing in the shelter of the forest, he was amazed at his soldier's accuracy: The bullet had sailed across the lawn, blown out the glass pane of the door. . . and dropped the king like a bag of sand.
Either that or the king had chosen to take cover.
There was no way of knowing whether the disappearance was a defensive reaction or the collapse of a male gravely injured.
Mayhap both were true.
"Open fire," he commanded into the newfangled transistor at his shoulder. "And assume second positions. "
With practiced precision, his soldiers went into action, the ringing sound of gunfire providing cover as everyone but him and Throe shifted in various directions.
The Brotherhood would be arriving at any moment, so there was little time to batten down the hatches and prepare for conflict. Good thing his soldiers were well trained -
All at once, the house went dark - smart. It made them more difficult to isolate as targets, although given the way all the glass except for that back door's had withstood bullets, it appeared as though Assail was far more tactical than your average glymera waffle-about.
Car bombs notwithstanding.
In the lull that followed, Xcor had to assume that if the king were alive and completely unhit, Wrath would dematerialize through the opening in the back door, get out of the area, and the others would attack. If the king was injured, they would hunker down and wait for the other members of the Brotherhood to arrive and provide cover for a drive-out. And if the Blind King were dead? They would stay with the body to protect it until the others got here -
A gun went off in the interior. One shot, the flash of which appeared to the left.
They were testing the glass, he thought. So Assail was either dead or they didn't trust him.
"Someone is coming out," Throe said by his side.
"Shoot to kill," Xcor ordered into his shoulder.
There was no reason to take a chance at a capture: Anybody fighting alongside the Brotherhood would be trained to withstand torture, and therefore not a good candidate for information gathering. More to the point, this situation was a powder keg about to explode, and reducing the number of the enemy was the most important goal; taking prisoners was not.
Gunfire rang out as his bastards tried to pick off whoever had departed, but naturally the fighter dematerialized so it was unlikely they were hit -
The Brotherhood arrived all at once, the massive fighters taking positions all over the exterior of house, as if it had been scoped out previously.
Gunfire was traded, with Xcor aiming for the pair on the roof whilst his others focused on the dark shapes moving around the porches as well as any who might be coming up from behind in the woods.
He needed to get in the path of any vehicle that attempted to get away from the house.
"I shall cover the garage," he spoke into his transistor. "Hold positions. "
Glancing over his shoulder at Throe, he ordered, "You back up the cousins at the north. "