Before the echo could fade, Tala stood up from behind her boulder and unleashed a barrage of rapid fire, her Winchester barking like a rabid dog. Two more outlaws fell from their saddles.
"Ambush! In the rocks!" a mercenary screamed, pulling his revolver.
Elias stood up on the opposite flank, his repeater roaring. He caught three men in a crossfire, sending them tumbling into the dirt. The pass erupted into absolute chaos.
The Redbone Gang was caught in a meat grinder. The narrow pass made their numbers a liability. Horses panicked, trampling fallen men, while bullets rained down on them from three sides.
"Push forward! Overwhelm them!" shouted the gang's leader, a scarred brute named Cutter. He rallied a dozen men and charged toward Elias's position, firing wildly.
Elias ducked behind his rock as bullets chipped the stone around him. He reloaded with practiced speed. Suddenly, Tala leaped from her cover, drawing a pair of revolvers. She ran along the ridge, firing down into the charging men, drawing their fire away from Elias. It was a reckless, beautiful display of bravery.
Elias used the distraction to pop up and drop two of Cutter's men. But there were too many. Cutter himself dismounted and scrambled up the rocks toward Tala, a massive Bowie knife in his hand.
"Tala! Behind you!" Elias roared, abandoning his cover and sprinting across the gorge.
Tala turned just as Cutter lunged. She parried his knife with her empty revolver, but the sheer force of his charge knocked her to the ground. Cutter raised the blade to finish her.
A feathered arrow suddenly sprouted from Cutter’s shoulder. He howled in pain, dropping the knife. From the cave below, Catori stepped out, a bow in her hands, another arrow already nocked.
Elias arrived a second later, hitting Cutter with the butt of his rifle, sending the massive man rolling down the rocky slope into the dust below. Elias reached down and pulled Tala to her feet. She was bleeding from a scrape on her forehead, but she was smiling fiercely.
"You left your cover, cowboy," she breathed heavily.
"You were moving too slow, warrior," Elias shot back.
The battle raged for what felt like hours, though it was likely only twenty minutes. Elu’s sniper fire was devastating, picking off anyone who tried to organize a retreat or assemble the heavy gun. Catori fired arrows with deadly precision while dragging wounded enemy horses out of the line of fire. Elias and Tala fought back-to-back, a whirlwind of lead and steel.
The mercenaries, realizing they were being slaughtered by what they thought was an entire Apache army, finally broke. The surviving men turned their horses and fled back out of the pass, abandoning their dead, their weapons, and their pride.
Silence descended on Dead Man’s Pass, broken only by the groans of the dying and the whistling wind. The red dust settled, coating the bodies and the rocks in a bloody hue.
Elias slumped against a boulder, his rifle hot to the touch, his body trembling from adrenaline and exhaustion. He looked around. Tala was leaning on her rifle, breathing heavily. Catori was already moving among the fallen, offering quick, merciful ends or tending to minor wounds. High above, Elu began her descent down the cliff face.