Chapter Forty-Five - Picking Them Off

The first goblins to show up came stumbling into the trainyard from the north, right out of an alley between two hangars.

Little goblins, the sort that were even scrawnier than the average little bastard. They didn’t have anything fancier than a knife on them, and what they wore could only charitably be called clothes. One had a hat that had once been nice though. The brim was crooked, but it was a good-looking hat.

“Do we shoot now?” Clin asked.

“No,” I said.

The goblins looked around, sniffing at the air as they moved in little circles.

“They’re waiting for more.”

Didn’t take more than a minute for half a dozen more of them to pour out of the alley. They were better equipped. Bits of metal over their rags, some actual clothes poorly cut up and tailored to fit them. Guns.

I leaned into my rifle and narrowed my eyes. Eight goblins. Six with guns, only two with rifles. One at the rear was bigger than the rest. He walked slower, and shoved the others around him as he moved. The leader of the little group. Or just the toughest.

The goblin pointed to the core shed and said something that was lost over the distance.

“They know where they’re going,” I muttered. “Clin, aim for that one, with the rifle. The smaller one.”

“Understood,” Clin said.

“We fire at the same time,” I whispered.

I half-closed an eye and brought my cheek down to look through my scope. I levelled the crack in my glass over the biggest goblin’s chest.

Then an explosion hit the ground some half-dozen meters away from the band.

Caroline?

I blinked and levelled my gun on the leader. He’d stumbled back, and looked a bit dazed, but he was still very much alive.

I squeezed the trigger and that changed.

Didn’t matter how tough a goblin thought himself, even the biggest wasn’t bigger than a man, and the red-beam that tore a tunnel through his chest was meant to kill something a lot tougher.

Clin fired a blink later, a scattering of greenish smoke quickly fading out of the air before him.

A scattering of greenish dots dug into the leg of one goblin and the ground behind it. A near miss, but one that knocked a goblin out of the fight for the moment. Good enough.

“Pick the easy shots,” I said.

The golden beam from Caroline’s attack was still fading, a direct line pointing the goblins to where she was hiding away.

The red tracer line from my own round hung in the air too.

It took the other goblins all of three seconds to figure out which of the two of us they should be firing at.

Green and gold and even purple lines started to slice through the air on a course towards Caroline’s position.

I shifted, moving my hand to work a new round into my gun’s chamber, then aiming at one of the smaller goblins that had a revolver. It was firing it with a limp wrist, sending stray shots zipping across the trainyard.

I complimented its marksmanship with a round centre-mass.

My lever worked again, and I started looking for another target.

Clin fired, a booming roar followed by a scoff from the elf. A miss then.

I found another goblin behind a pile of lumber, reloading its handgun with trembling hands. A stationary target. “Behind the lumber,” I said.

“I see it.”

I blinked and searched for more green to shoot at and found one of the small knife-wielding goblins running towards the core storage. It had a stick of something brown in one hand, a fuse lit on the end.

“Bastard,” I hissed.

Tracking him, I held my breath before firing.

Not my cleanest shot, but it dropped the goblin, the stick went flying forwards, rolling a little ways ahead.

I aimed at it, tugged my rifle’s lever open and closed, then shot.

“Dammit,” I muttered.

Down to my last round. I waited as Clin fired both barrels. A glance showed the goblin behind the lumber turned into so much paste. No cheer from Clin, he just cracked his gun open and slid two shells in.

I refocused, breathing even before firing at the explosive.

The stick rolled back, its fuse cut apart where I’d shot it.

“Nice shot,” Clin said.

“Mmm,” I said.

The size of my rounds when fully charged with magic made it less impressive than it seemed. But I didn’t see a reason to mention that.

I rolled back, away from the edge of the roof and levered the last spent round out of the gun. It clattered down, bouncing on the tin while I fished out five rounds from my pocket and slid each one into the gate on my rifle’s right side. I grabbed a couple more rounds and palmed them before peeking my head over the parapet. “Anything?”

“That one’s still alive, near the alley,” Clin said.

I looked that way, and found one goblin pulling itself back, its leg a bloody mess. “Do the honours,” I said.

Clin took his time, which was only fair. I pressed a palm over my ear on Clin’s side and let him take the shot.

I pat him on the back once the retort from his gun finished echoing across the trainyard. “Well done.”

“Thank you, it means so much to me that you think I’m capable of killing a defenceless goblin,” Clin said.

I laughed. “Are all elves as sarcastic as you?”

“No,” he said.

I couldn’t decide if that was sarcasm or not.

“Did we get all of them?” I asked.

I couldn’t see any of them around. I’d taken out three. There had been eight. A glance near where Caroline hit showed two more.

“I took out two,” Clin said.

“Three and two and two,” I said. “That’s not eight.” Was there another injured around? No, I didn’t recall seeing another get hurt. “Dammit,” I said as I rolled back and started making my way across the roof.

“Where are you going?”

“One had explosives, which means two of them might have some. I’m not keen on being blown up when they reach the core storage.” I flinched as something exploded. Not in the trainyard, I realized. Just a mecha firing something that probably shouldn’t be fired in a town. “Keep watch,” I said.

I pushed the ladder down, then slid to the ground, rifle tucked up against my chest still. I didn’t linger, the moment my boots hit I was off and navigating the alleys towards the one building we had to protect. I was almost out and back into the trainyard when I heard Clin calling.

“Charlie! More!”

I slid to a halt near the edge of the building and peeked out, still partially hidden in the cooler shadows.

Clin wasn’t mad. There were more of them. Bigger ones, better armed.

I looked away from them, searching for our missing goblin.

I found the little bastard right next to the core storage shed, banging a rock against the padlock on the door. I brought my rifle around, but before I could line anything up, something distracted me.

Something was one of the buildings across the street bursting apart, a goblin mecha crashing through it as if the brick walls were so much tissue.

“Shit,” I said, a factual statement of where the situation was headed to.

I glanced back, but the little goblin was gone. Getting a bigger rock? Some help?

Either way, I had to get over there.

Clin fired twice in quick succession while the air was still filled with dust from the mecha. Smart, it would hide his location for a little bit.

It would hide mine too.

I dug the end of my boot in, and launched myself towards the core shed.

Enough dust cleared that by the time I was halfway there, some of the goblins spreading out saw me.

I cursed as a green line traced its way through the air just a hair before me.

Spinning, I started to run backwards so that I’d be able to fire towards the goblins and keep my rifle tucked against my shoulder still.

I saw the bastard that’d fired at me and fired two shots in quick succession. Another goblin screamed and ran my way, a nail-filled club above its head.

I took off that head with a quick shot, then planted two more rounds into the chest of a particularly ugly goblin covered in rusty plates of steel and carrying two revolvers.

Out of ammo. I tugged the gun's lever down and slid a round into the top gate before chambering it.

It went into the shoulder of a scrawny little goblin that ran at me with a knife. It didn’t kill him, but the blow to the face, delivered with the butt of my rifle, knocked him to the ground nice and hard with a very satisfying crunch.

Didn’t have time to linger, more of them had seen me, and the air was starting to fill with too many strobing lights for my tastes.

And then, from her corner of the trainyard, Caroline opened up with her chaingun.

***