"*Stay down! Nobody crosses that forecourt! Stay behind the walls!*"
Cronin's voice came across the junction from the doorway of the two-storey building, and the soldiers who had started to get up went flat again.
James stayed behind the barn wall with his hand on the stone. Finn crouched beside him. The forecourt in front of them was scattered with bone and glass and pieces of the jeep, and it smelled of diesel from the split engine. Up past the town the gunfire went on, faint and steady, as if nothing had happened here at all.
Eamon was still by the ambulance under Ruth's jacket. Farrell was still by the jeep's front wheel. Two medics were carrying a stretcher in through the barn door at a crouch.
James opened his window.
`[JAMES GANNER — LEVEL: 51]`
`[MANA: 1,940 / 3,100]`
`[EXP: 25,785 / 96,000]`
`[UNRECORDED COMBAT GAINS — CHALLENGERS SLAIN ×7: +7,000]`
`[EXP: 32,785 / 96,000]`
