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.The guards at the barricades were concentrated and ready to act, but as the shooting spread through the town, they were attacked themselves…from the outside.The Warriors had timed their assault well and, just as their insurgents launched their offensive on the inside, the army outside launched its own offensive.They'd managed to get very – very – close without being seen and the defenders found themselves caught between two fires.The defences started to crumble as they found themselves being forced back.It might still have gone the other way, were it not for the remaining insurgents, who took explosives and stolen uniforms – taken off the killed guards from their first targets – and went to ‘help’ the defenders.In all the confusion, no one took a close look at the newcomers until it was too late and by then…well, it was far too late.The fanatics threw explosive charges into bunkers, touched off mines prematurely and generally wrecked an entire section of defences.The army came through the breech and…well, Katie bar the door.It almost reminded me of a poem.“Be mindful of this when you kiss yours goodnight,“Beware of the danger that lies in plain sight.”I still can’t remember where I first heard those lines.The remaining defences just crumbled.No one in the town had seriously expected to have to fight off an armed invasion in such a manner and all of the people who should have been in authority were dead or missing.The Warriors charged into the town, shouting for the defenders to lay down their arms and surrender, promising good treatment to everyone who surrendered quickly enough to suit them.They made a fearsome sight, illuminated by burning buildings and seemingly unstoppable; far too many people, in my view, surrendered to them.The Warriors were surprisingly gentle, at first, ordering men and women back to their homes while they secured the entire town.Some of the defenders, those on the other side of the town, realised that all was lost and slipped away into the darkness, others came forward and tried to hide among the civilians, preparing for a later insurrection against the new masters of Summersville.The fighting ended, roughly, three hours after the first insurgent attack in the centre of Summersville.The peace of the morning (hah) was broken by the arrival of the senior leadership of the Warriors of the Lord, a group of the Prophet’s most trusted, faithful and long-serving followers.(The Warriors, like so many other such groups, operated a seniority system.Those who had served the Prophet from before the War, those who had believed in him before Armageddon, had high status within the group.) They must have been a fearsome sight to nervous townspeople, those who watched them from behind drawn curtains, perhaps cursing their decision not to flee into the darkness.The uneasy peace was broken by an announcement through a loudspeaker, calling every citizen to come forth on pain of death.Slowly, one by one, they emerged and were pushed and prodded into an open area.They were forced to watch, helplessly, as the Warriors searched their homes.They were no less brutal than the SS, or the Religious Police of a dozen states we used to call our allies, and they made a terrible mess out of nice clean homes.They hunted, in particular for food, weapons and anything else that might be useful.They confiscated every weapon they found, disarming as much of the population as possible, and collected all the food in a set of warehouses in the centre of town.The former made resistance much – much – harder.The latter made controlling the townspeople much easier.A half-starved populace, as they had discovered over the last few months, would be much easier to brainwash into accepting the Warrior creed.Once the searches were over, the real horrors began.The Warriors went through their prisoners carefully [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]