The gloaming ghouls still haunt me,
and I know why.
Mercenary is the only job I’ve ever
had, even back when I ran with the Gunrunners. For the first few months, I was
the powerhouse of our little gang. The gunslinger was the muscle, sure, but I
was the firepower. The preacher may have healed us, but I kept us alive. And
the schoolgirl was smart, but I was the brains.
As the movement grew and more
countrymen joined our ranks, it was my brains that ended up making me the most
gold. I routed hidden trails the magistrate couldn’t find. I gave our troops
intel about hidden supply stashes. And I knew underhanded tactics that made the
veteran gunslinger blush. And eventually, I was paid to plan the biggest
operation we’d ever done.
The gunslinger wanted to take the
magistrate’s armory. I told him we could take the magistrate’s army. When he
asked me how, I just smiled and held out my hand.
It took weeks of planning and prep.
Our guns were loud and bright, so darkness didn’t help us much. But we attacked
by night. They outnumbered us 10 to 1, so we made sure they had a full house.
We knew the magistrate overvalued the armory, even though our guns were better.
So that’s where we struck.
Because I had made something new;
something they hadn’t seen before. Special ammo made from scrap metal that
could shred through armor. What’s an unarmored man in a gunfight? Dead.
The plan was to make it look like a
last desperate assault. We staged weaker and weaker attacks against the armory.
We drew the guards in from the surrounding villages and camps. And during the
midnight shift change, in the mists of the gloaming, I fired off my special
shred rounds, and the countrymen began their barrage.
It was a massacre. All told, we
killed hundreds of them and lost only a dozen ourselves. I looked around at
what I had done, and something happened to me, though I didn’t notice right
away.
I stayed to finish the fight. When
we killed the magistrate, the gunslinger said there was still more to do. But I
was done. I was broken. So I left. I went to one of the colonies. I joined the Watchmen’s
guild. Now I only kill the dead.
Sometimes I try to forgive myself.
After all, I wasn’t the only gun in the fight. Certainly there was another that
night with more blood on their barrel; another soul the ghouls should be after.
But then I remember the dark truth
of that night. The reason the gloaming ghouls still haunt me, all these years
later.
The countrymen were fighting for freedom. I was fighting for coin.
No comments:
Post a Comment