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For a moment, you’re caught motionless as the surreal sense of being trapped in a dream returns. You don’t quite understand what’s going on. You don’t know who these people are, or what they want with Lucian. What you DO know is that they clearly want the old man alive – if not, they could’ve slipped into his tent, cut his throat, and left with none of you any the wiser. If they want Lucian alive, that immediately leads you to one conclusion.
If rescuing the old man isn’t possible, and that’s certainly looking like the case, then you need to deny him to the enemy. By any means necessary.
Cocking back the hammer on your revolver, you peek up above the lip of the trench and fire off a quick shot. The return fire comes almost immediately, but you hear a grunt of pain before it comes. Encouraged, you keep your head low and run to the opposite end of the trench before springing back up and opening fire. Emptying the last five shots from your revolver, you see Lucian stumble forwards and contort even as one of the riflemen falls prone. There’s a brief moment of confusion before the men return fire, and you have just enough time to see them dropping Lucian’s limp body.
Emptying out the spent cartridges and loading new ammunition into your revolver, you risk another look up. The surviving men are engaged in a focused, controlled retreat now, dragging their injured – dead? – comrade along with them. You squeeze off a few more shots before they fire on you, forcing them to abandon their colleague and hasten away. They take a few last parting shots at you before vanishing into the trees, but they fly well wide of their target.
The silence that descends is deafening. Fearing that a bullet might come screaming out at you with every step you take, you haul yourself up from the trench and cautiously approach the fallen man. He’s dressed like a soldier, although you don’t recognise his uniform nor the strange metal mask he wears. The fallen man groans as you approach, and you realise that he’s not yet dead.
“Who are you?” you hiss, keeping your revolver trained on him as you approach, “What did you want with Lucian?”
Silently, the wounded man shakes his head and clutches at himself, trying to roll over onto his side. Even with the black uniform, you can see dark blood bubbling out from his stomach. It’s a fatal wound, but one that promises a slow death.
As you draw closer still the man suddenly rolls back around to face you, his hand jerking up from the holster at his belt. Before he can raise his gun, a shrill gunshot rings out the shatter one of the glass lenses in his strange mask. The man slumps back, dead in an instant, and you turn to look behind you.
With Misty’s small revolver held in his rigid hand, Cato stares at the dead man with a look of numb shock.
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