An Untitled Novel

Basil held down the trigger until his gun ran empty, jumping back in the driver’s seat as everyone climbed into the truck’s bed and cab. Bullets flew in their direction, but the truck roared to life all the same as they sped towards the south gate; Weston’s men opening it as he approached. “Go!” commanded Edwards as Basil began slowing down by the gate, leaving the rest unsaid and Weston to meet the same fate as his twin.

Basil drove through the streets, now littered with smoke and debris. Such conditions didn’t feel as alien as he expected; he’d seen them this way once before during the war between the Redcaps and the Lizard King. His recollections were interrupted, however, as he swerved to avoid a family fleeing a burning building. He continued on, trying to balance his speed with his intent to not crash, and after winning a game of chicken against attackers on foot attempting to stop the truck, they made it to the outskirts of the city.

Driving past a field that looked difficult to conceal soldiers in, Basil stopped the truck to allow everyone to cram into the cab and assess their wounds. Lamb, given her unique capabilities, was almost healed. Cicero had received several grazing wounds that he hadn’t noticed, though nothing that even warranted bandages until they were in a more permanently safe location. The tourniquet had stopped the hemorrhaging on Edward’s leg, and some crudely packed gauze kept his shoulder and arm from losing blood as well. Though greatly wounded, he no longer seemed to be in shock and would hopefully be stable enough to survive until they could treat his injuries in a safe location.

“Moss harbor” Cicero said, pointing to Basil’s map. “It’s a naval port a short drive east of here that’s a distance from the nearest town. There would be no civilian population to infiltrate like in our capital, and we could wait there until we can organize our forces and push these traitors out.” Basil nodded, and when his six passengers remained quiet he began the drive towards the coast.

“Shit that’s a lotta’ people” Basil said, breaking the silence as they crested a hill. “They look like Shell County soldiers, why are they here? They were directed to march on the capital” asked Edwards to nobody in particular. Basil rubbernecked, seeing the group far to the north-east, although as he watched it almost looked as if they started moving in their direction. “Maybe communication broke down or something happened?” Basil asked, unsure what else to say. “The port is just up ahead, we can sort it out safely from sea” Cicero replied. Basil nodded and accelerated down the path, cresting another hill and seeing grass turn to sand and moss covered stones. “Well fuck.”

Small plumes of smoke rose over several ships, the rest of the dock looking empty and deserted. “No, this is impossible!” Cicero shouted. Basil glanced toward the Shell County soldiers, but they weren’t visible from behind the hills they had passed. “You thinking those guys attacked the naval port, either capturing the ships or forcing them to flee?” Basil asked, gesturing to the mob concealed by the hills. “Perhaps” Cicero replied, disbelief in his voice. Basil took a deep breath. “Okay, we go south. Soldiers on foot or horseback can’t catch us in a truck. Get the Arkepello Navy to drop by and pick us up, and we get off the continent. Once we get wormholes to the Lizard King’s army and my gunship working these guys are fucked. Sound good?” Basil received a few nods, but ACE replied with a different plan. “I just pinged the Coastal Federation’s ships, they are close by.” Basil kept driving south-east while radioing the Coastal Federation. A shameful look washed over Cicero’s face.

“This is Basil, I’m calling because I need your help. I’m here with some Redcaps, we were attacked and need help getting off the continent to Arkepello.” Basil heard a crackling voice answer, recognizing the voice as belonging to Turner. “You’re asking us to risk our lives for the ones who betrayed us?” Basil responded. “I’m asking you to help me, who’s currently helping the Redcaps. It’s a complicated situation, but it’s extremely important.” Turner began to speak, but suddenly stopped and Gina’s voice came over the radio. “Basil, what’s going on?” Basil mentally breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m with the Redcap Queen, their capital was attacked and I need help getting her and some others off the continent. I know that-” Gina replied with disbelief in her voice. “What? How? What happened? Was it the Elthrice?” Basil responded, speaking rapidly. “I don’t know much other than it’s not the Elthrice. We’re in a bit of a hurry, and I may have an army on our tail. We need to get out of here now.”

“Of course, where are you?” Relief washed over Basil. “We’re outside Moss Harbor, but I’m going to head south and try to outrun a few assholes. Can you meet us ten miles south on the coast?” Gina sounded confused. “Why not bring the Redcaps to the naval base? Are there turncoats in their ranks?” Basil responded in monotone. “There is no more naval base, only an empty dock and some burning ships.” Basil heard gasps on the other end of the radio as Turner demanded Gina’s forces leave immediately if the waters weren’t protected by the Redcap navy. “We’ll be there” Gina eventually responded, despite the protests of the other voices. The truck reached the end of the dirt path and started traveling on sand, Basil turning to drive south along the coast.

Everyone in the truck was thrown to the ceiling as it became ground, then ground as it became ceiling, and ceiling once more as it again became ground. Basil pushed himself off the ceiling, feeling disorientated but full of adrenaline as the realization of their situation kicked in. Crawling across the truck’s roof and kicking out the driver’s side window, he was greeted by hot sand. “Fuck fuck fuck” he muttered under his breath before opening his PDA.

“Change of plans, how soon can you be at Moss Harbor?” Gina’s voice sounded confused and concerned. “What?” Basil took a deep breath, an odd mix of nervousness and apathy in his voice. “Yeah, some sand kinda fucked up our ride. Some of us are in no condition to run at all, let alone try to outrun a bunch of horses. We can get to the docks before our tail gets to us, it’s our best bet at a last stand until you can get to us.” Gina responded tersely, worry in her voice. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Everybody had begun their crawl out of the truck and Basil turned his attention to the evacuees. “The docks, we need to get there. The Coastal Federation will pick us up but we have to hurry and get into a defensive position.” Spiro crawled out last and Basil began “Hurry up, we need to,” but paused when he saw Spiro clutching his chest. “Are you alright?” Basil asked Spiro, helping him to his feet. Spiro laughed a pained laugh. “Of all the ways to go out today, falling on the knife in my jacket pocket’s gotta be the stupidest way. But I think I’ll be alright, just fucking hurts.” A growing red blot surrounding a small knife embedded in Spiro’s chest caught Basil’s attention.

Basil felt concerned, but Spiro gave a pained smile and shrugged before hobbling towards the docks. The knife seemed to have missed his vitals, bleeding too slow to mean death before arriving at the docks, but was still a concerning sight and something that would need attention sooner rather than later. With nothing else he could do at the moment Basil reached into the truck to retrieve his rifle, and after glancing over towards the mob cresting the distant hill, he started off towards the docks.

Basil and the Redcap Queen helped lower Edwards to sit against the wall by the door. That tourniquet had been on his leg for some time now, and in any other situation it should have already come off. What he needed was proper medical attention, but even in the field they should be loosening it to see if the wound had clotted and it could come off; else he may lose the leg by the end of this all. But this wasn’t any other situation, and credit to him; Basil knew Edwards would refuse to entertain the idea of disrupting their defenses to tend to his wounds.

“We good?” Basil asked as Casio walked out of another room in the building, finishing his sweep of the place. The big man nodded. “All right” Basil began. “If anybody comes through that door, outside of Cicero, Spiro, Lamb, or me, kill them. Gina’s crew will be here soon, but if the Shell County soldiers get here first and they’re looking for a fight we’ll try to hold them off. When Gina’s crew are about to arrive, or if our tail starts getting past us, ACE will give you a heads up so you can get a head start.”

Spiro heard movement. The army of what they feared were traitors was still a distance away, but all his friends were too, so this was probably bad news. Repositioning himself against the wall he was sitting against, and trying to remain quiet despite the jolt of pain, he waited for the unknown entities to reveal themselves. Four men in soaked Amigosian Frogmen uniforms rounded the corner, aiming their rifles at him. Spiro felt relief wash over him as he smiled and set down his rifle.

“Just when I had given up hope the ministry was going to send the help I requested” Spiro said, letting out a short laugh that ended abruptly in pain. One of the frogmen stepped in front of the others, looking slightly confused for a moment, but returned the smile. “Wasn’t expecting to find you here, sir. But I can assure you, now that we’re here, nobody else stands a chance. Let me see that wound.” Spiro gestured to the abandoned navy barracks. “We’ve been able to get the Redcap Queen with her general and top advisor out of the capital unharmed. This position isn’t defendable, we have what we expect to be an army of Redcap traitors on our heels, so new plan is to get your boat to this dock and everybody on it. We’re not risking you boys trying to hold an abandoned dock.”

The frogman’s smile turned to confusion, shortly followed by a frown. “Sorry sir, but I think you’re mistaken, we have other orders.” He raised his rifle towards Spiro, but turned to the side as gunshots rang out. Lamb opened fire while running around a corner, before dropping near instantly as the other frogmen returned fire. The second they stopped firing, however, she rolled back behind cover; leaving a trail of blood visible even from that distance. “You two, kill that one before the others get here. It’s a shape shifter, remember your training.”

The frogman giving the orders turned back to Spiro, only to see a revolver pointed in his direction. His hand became a cloud of red mist, causing him to drop his rifle. Spiro took his sights off the closest frogman and began to aim towards the second, but his revolver flew out of his hand as the closest frogman kicked at him before drawing a knife with his left hand.

The frogman moved his hand in a slashing motion, but his head jerked to the side as he collapsed into tremors. The frogman standing behind him raised his rifle and pointed it down the docks, but he too fell in a hail of bullets as Basil fired while running in their direction. The two that had broken off to pursue Lamb turned and opened fire on Basil, but one fell to Basil’s bullets, the other shot by Lamb as he attempted to take cover behind the corner she had retreated behind.

“Are you okay!?” Basil asked in a borderline shout as he ran over to Spiro. “You killed them!” Spiro said, anger in his voice as he both asked and stated in one sentence. Dread washed over Basil as he began to worry he had misinterpreted the situation and murdered several people. “They, they were trying to kill you?” Spiro had a sudden expression of either shock or fear wash over him. “They were. Fuck.” Spiro fell silent before seemingly collecting his thoughts and continuing.

“Those were Amigosian frogmen, you don’t fuck with people like that, and it would take a lot of influence to get them to do an unofficial job like this. I don’t know what’s going on, but this is bad. We need to get out of here ASAP and some place where rogue Amigosian intelligence can’t infiltrate, which basically means behind weapons held by you or ACE.”

Lamb ran over, ghastly spots of blood on her clothes despite her wounds seemingly no longer bleeding. “Shit, are you alright?” Basil asked. “I already told you, if they don’t hit anything too critical I’ll heal fast. This isn’t the first time Amigosian assholes have shot me.” Basil nodded, taking a deep breath as Cicero made his way over and they got into defensive positions.

“We need to conserve ammo” Basil said, chastising Spiro’s potshots at the distant mob. The docks fell still, Basil Spiro, Lamb, and Cicero all lying motionless, watching the mob through reticals and scopes. Spiro replied with annoyance in his voice. “In case you haven’t forgotten, it doesn’t matter how much we have left when a thousand people storm the docks. We need to slow their advance.” Basil turned his head sideways, seeing the blood stain on Spiro’s shirt had grown to encompass a disturbingly large area. “The plan is still the same. We let them get their cavalry up close, then you three shoot at them while I try to spook their horses. We buy ourselves some time before their foot soldiers get here, and if that fails, you three run off and make a swim for it while I buy you some time then slink away.”

“I don’t remember us agreeing to that plan” Spiro replied. “I only remember you proposing it. I’m not turning tail to leave you to get gunned down.” Basil sighed. “Whatever thing brought me back seems to think it needs me. If it can’t get me out, I’m guessing it can bring me back again. You three don’t have that option.” Spiro shook his head. “No, fuck that. We have absolutely no idea how that works, you don’t just get to assume it’ll bring you back.” Basil snapped back, sarcastic anger in his voice surprising even himself. “Oh, well then I’ll just consult my local Elthrice library. Oh, right, I can’t because everyone who would know is dead. The closest thing we have to information on this is what it stuck in my head when it rebuilt me, so if I say run when this all goes south you’d better fucking run.”

“Enough” Cicero said, interrupting with a worn down voice. The group fell silent momentarily before Spiro spoke with a melancholy smile. “Look, I’m not even sure if I could hobble to the end of the dock at this point, much less run and swim. Like it or not, you’re stuck with me.” Basil remained silent but tried his best to return a melancholy smile as Cicero broke the silence. “I’ll stay here as long as I can, then run for the barracks to join the others for a swim if I have to. I can’t thank you all enough for the service you have performed on behalf of the Redcaps, and it saddens me to know this may be the last time we meet.” Basil nodded, but remained silent for a considerable amount of time before asking “Lamb?”

“You’re not the only one who can shake off a few bullets, and last time I had to swim for something it went rather bad. I’m with you three, I’ll hold out here as long as I can before joining the others in the great blue if it all unravels.” Basil nodded, before watching with concern as the army making their way to the beach began to take up positions surrounding them instead of blindingly rushing towards them with the first troops that came within range. “In a sense I’m honored” Basil began, “That they’re treating us like an army instead of four barely armed assholes holed up in a dock.” Spiro began to laugh, but clutched in pain at the knife in his chest when he did so.

Bullets began to sail over the four’s heads. Some soldiers were still getting into position, but others started advancing towards the dock, seeming eager to face off against the four attempting to fight an army. Basil began returning fire, prompting the other three to do the same. Soldiers dropped left and right, suddenly scurrying into more defensive positions, being reminded why those four on the dock warranted such an approach. Still, Basil figured it wouldn’t be long before they started to push forward in larger numbers, completely negating any of the superior firepower advantages they held.

Spiro yelled over the bullets flying in both directions while moving for better cover. “Basil, if there’s someone to die fighting alongside, I’m damn well glad it’s you.” Spiro crawled to the opposite side of the dock and sat leaning against a wall, chest now completely covered in a ghastly red. “Likewise” Basil shouted before taking cover on the opposite side of the dock and entering his mantle. The Faceless Man emptied his last few shots at the still approaching crowd, but suddenly glanced down at his PDA. Laughing like a madman, Basil stepped out from cover, arms stretched wide, face a mix of his own and the Faceless Man’s.