The forest seemed to burst apart as hundreds of Rovers ran out in a weird, ghastly silence. No cheers, no battle cries. This was the real attack. Cold and precise and silent. While all eyes and ears were drawn to the sniper, the ladder teams on the west and the big assault at the front door, the army of the Rovers raced across the open lawn to where their ladders were hidden beneath blankets of loose sod. It was clockwork. Three men flipped aside the sod; four men grabbed the ladders and rushed the walls; teams of shooters knelt and trained weapons on the wall in case anyone was up there. They needed only thirty seconds to do this and then the wall would be theirs. Once they were inside, they had the numbers and the training, and the town would fall.

This, Big Elroy knew, was how battles were won—training, nerve, imagination, and discipline.

The ladders rose. One, two, three, four . . . all the way up to twelve. Big men took up positions to brace them as other Rovers swarmed up, weapons slung, ready to take and own the wall.

If any of them noticed the stink of alcohol or gasoline on the rungs of the ladders, there was no time to stop and check it out. There was no time to comment on it. They had to move fast, fast, fast.

Only a few of them saw the two handlers in white Hazmat suits stand up from behind a hillock. Those few saw the Molotov cocktails and did not understand. Was that part of the assault? If so, when was that added to the plan? And why?

And why were the handlers throwing the flaming bottles toward the base of the ladders instead of trying to lob them over the wall?

From his hill, Big Elroy saw this with a clearer perspective. He felt the blood drain from his face.

“No,” he said. But he said it to himself, and he said it too late.

The bottles broke and splashed flames everywhere. On the lawn, where the Rovers clustered, waiting for their turn to ascend. On the ladders themselves, which were doused with accelerant. On the men crowding every rung of each of a dozen ladders. Everywhere.

The whole eastern wall became a sheet of flame.

In the space of five seconds, seventy-nine of the Rovers were burning. In the space of five more, the spilled gasoline on the turf chased down many more.

Big Elroy watched a third of his army burn.

And then above the flames, all along the walls, there were people. Men and women. Even from that distance, Big Elroy could hear the crackle of gunfire.

The Rovers tried to run. And died.

They tried to fight back. And died.

A few swatted at the fires that consumed their friends. And died.

Some dropped to their knees and begged for mercy. They died, too.