A few sectors away from the ruined stretch of forest where Don and Vasco still traded blows, the remaining guards stood stationary at their positions, clustered beneath a sagging canopy that dripped steadily onto their shoulders and the barrels of their rifles.
The rain had not lessened. It came down in heavy, slanting sheets that turned every leaf into a small waterfall and every patch of open ground into black mud that sucked at boots with wet, greedy sounds.
Visibility beyond twenty meters was a shifting curtain of green and gray; anything farther simply vanished into the rain.
One of the younger guards shifted his weight from foot to foot, the motion anxious and restless.
Water ran in continuous rivulets down the sides of his helmet and into the collar of his tactical vest.
He glanced toward the distant crashes and the occasional deeper boom that still rolled through the trees, then turned to the man beside him. "Is it really okay for us to not go help Mr. Vasco?"
