Private Maloko, 35th day of The First Month of Shelter
No more. We are done running.
The Season Of Shelter is upon us and the bitter winds, heavy snowfall and even unseasonal freezing rain which mixed the dirt and fresh snow into a doughy, brown-gray molasses that reaches up to my ankles, like a frozen marsh, punishing invader and defender alike. Class II soldiers barely trudge through, and Class Is had to either await a rare transport truck, ground or air cavalry, or even just ride out on the shoulders of their larger comrades. Me and a polar bear called Skadusuras Decab (whom we all took to calling ‘Skad’) took turns carrying a young lapin conscript on our backs alongside our rifle, ammunition, rations and the rest of our gear. It would have been humorous, had the situation not been so dire.
Yet as we finally stopped to dig trenches and fortifications along a rocky hill, our mood was jubilant. A quarter of our nation fell in two months, yet we were in high spirits. News of our first major victory had already made the rounds.
The Eclipse Empire had been besieging the fort just before the town Aizis for a whole month. The town is small, yet its importance lies not in its size, but the resource it guards: Over 1000 acres of Purpurkrumb tree plantations. Vital fuel for the new trucks, armored motor carriages and diesel trains which both sides are replacing traditional feral mount cavalry with at an astonishing pace. Denying us a major source of the resource would have meant the end for us after the many crushing defeats we’ve endured.
The defenders fought valiantly, yet we were unable to reinforce them as the EE kept pressure on all our flanks, and they were eventually outnumbered ten to one, the fort and its walls all but shelled to pieces. And when the Lunists massed for one final push, with two full regiments of Harbingers no less, all seemed lost. However, the Aizis Fort guarded more than just raw fuel: it also housed an inventor named Lanius Maxim. And from the shelter of the fort, ravaged by roaring cannons, daily battles a mere fifty yards away, constant blackouts and eventual starvation, he and several engineers continued working on an invention he said would save our nation. And on that day, he unleashed it.
Light flashed, thunder boomed, smoke rose from windows and loopholes around the fort, hundreds of attackers getting cut down into bloody heaps in seconds, like the stories of vengeful gods unleashing their wrath upon the oppressors of their worshippers.
Yet it was no irate deity that won the battle. It was Maxim’s invention. The ‘machine gun’. And only two of them were sufficient to kill two thousand enemy soldiers and fifty Harbingers, at the cost of only a hundred casualties on our end. Indeed it sounds like something only the wrath of Providence could achieve.
And yet, as I saw it the day our regiment received three of the new inventions, they look unassuming enough. From a distance, it looks no different from the Gatling Guns we are already armed with. However, instead of six rotary barrels, there is only one. The bulbous pipe-like metal jacket around the barrel is for storing water to cool the barrel. One improvement I noticed is that in place of top-mounted magazines, it is fed from a box where the cartridges are linked by a sort of chain, which increased sustained fire capabilities, at least in theory, if that contraption was as unreliable as a Gatling. And in place of a crank to fire, it uses a spade-like trigger, where the gunner had to squeeze from both sides to fire.
When the equipment boxes arrived, the training officers boasting of how they would “help beat back the lightless bastards all the way back to Nyxpoli”, we all quietly rolled our eyes and dreaded the coming battles. Just another “wonder weapon” some puffed up tinker who’s a general’s friend dreamed up and now received royalties from a desperate ministry of defense. An “improvement” over the Gatling, a weapon we’ve already had for 50 years. Lovely…
I quietly told Skad that I was beginning to believe that the Battle Of Aizis Fort never happened. Forty Harbingers alone would have been enough to take a fort of that size, regardless of whatever wonder weapon the defenders had. Just some desperate propaganda piece so carefully crafted that no one could verify otherwise, as a last ditch effort to motivate worn down dispirited troops after a string of disasters against an unrelenting enemy.
Following the manual to the letter, we filled the jacket with melted snow in spite of the training officer’s protests (no way were we wasting drinking water on an experimental hunk of junk) and fed the ammunition box, fumbling with the unfamiliar mechanical contraption. I noted that if nothing else, it was indeed complex. I momentarily glanced the bolt and firing mechanism and it was akin to a miniature clock factory. Yet, as I had learned on the Steppe long before I did as a soldier, the more moving parts in a weapon, the more chances it had to fail. Then, the assigned gunner experimentally squeezed the butterfly-like trigger.
We all jumped in unison as the war machine roared into life, lighting up the night with its blinding muzzle flare, empty shells clattering together on the snow melting it, the entire thirty kilo monstrosity shaking with each shot. And the sound… I had expected the efficient “chug-chug-chug” of a Gatling, yet being near it was more akin to being close to an artillery cannon rather than anything firing standard rifle rounds. It was the sound of thunder shattering mountains, of its massive boulders crashing down to gore anyone unfortunate enough in its way. It was terrifying.
Even more terrifying was the effect on target. Despite the gunner’s inexperience with the weapon, the sacks of straw shaped vaguely like sentient mammals with ugly exaggerated faces drawn on them and buckets for helmets were torn to shreds. The six hundred rounds a minute fire rate was no exaggeration. Within seconds, all that was left of the fifty or so targets were pools of straw, buckets torn like tin cans trampled by equistilio and limbs represented by broomsticks.
We all looked in awe at the weapon, the barrel smoking like a beast’s fangs stained with blood, weary, yet eager for more.
For the first time, I saw everyone in my regiment dig their trenches with vigor and elation. I too was excited. As I struggled with my spade against the frozen ground, as I sweated buckets despite the cold, laboring from dusk till dawn to construct the trench networks and fortifications to meet the enemy head on, all I could think was of the nasty surprise our nemesis would experience when they charged us again. We worked with the excitement of kits studying hard after their parents promised them a much-coveted toy should they bring back good grades. I never stopped to think that for us, the “toy” would be the sight of countless mangled corpses, and that we were all hankered for it like a desert traveler desired water.
They attacked at night. As they always do. After the initial artillery duel which took only two of us, and I imagine not many more on the other side with how poor visibility was, they emerged through a fog of smoke shells.
Their sinister blasphemous battle hymns began to sound in the distance, an ugly, guttural bark like an orchestra of demons with out of tune violins. I could sense the men around me shivering in a way which had little to do with the snow up to our ankles. Lieutenant Phoebus immediately began singing our own chants, which the men joined immediately. I began to sing the Pugnazuras’s Promise:
“O, and should I by heathen blade fall,
Toss my warm corpse into the Flame,
So that my charred flesh, the Light’s thrall,
The way for my comrades it shall light through the arcane.”
I can say with pride that my father’s lengthy opera lessons had finally found a practical purpose, for my voice was heard above all others, and I could sense my comrades relax, the invigorating words defeating the Lunists’ unnerving wails.
As the only one with the Forte Of Sight from my platoon, I was the designated observer to see through the smoke. I used binoculars to limit the strain and focused to see light in spite of the gloom. I saw a wall of moving metal on cart wheels. At first, I was confused: had the Lunists conjured up some new type of battle mechanized vehicle? Probably not, as I saw no windows or viewing ports, only crudely cut loopholes to stick rifles through. Yet, as I saw an elbow, then a tail sticking out from the side, I realized what they were: giant shields, driven by nothing more advanced than muscular power. Their defeat at Fort Aizis must have been enough to make them approach the next battles assuming we had the new deadly invention. And they were right.
I felt a chill down my spine that had nothing to do with the cold and my throat went dry. In our excitement, we hadn’t tested the Maxim’s capabilities against armor. As it used the same ammunition as our rifles, it should have been able to go through walls and thin steel at four hundred meters or closer, yet that was already well within regular engagement range. Yet, perhaps its automatic capabilities would increase the stress upon the protection. Hopefully…
As I shouted my observation, Lieutenant Phoebus ordered me to join one of the machine gun squads, acting as observer. The weapon was reportedly accurate up to a kilometer away, and the gunner elevated his sight all the way up. I looked through my binoculars, watching them now at 1500 meters away. A few bullets plinked harmlessly against our sandbags, yet none even got close to harming us. These were harrying shots. Lieutenant Phoebus ordered us to hold our fire until the Maxims opened fire for maximum psychological impact.
My Forte also allowed me to exactly determine distance. 1400 meters…1300…1200…1100…
“Now!” I shouted just as the first shields began emerging through the smoke for all to see. All at once, the three death machines opened their hellish maws, belching flame and lighting the night. Initially, there was little effect. At such a distance, most bullets went wide and those that found their mark left only dents in the metal. However, I saw the shields stop. For a moment I strained my Forte to look behind one and I saw one of the white-uniformed soldiers with ice blue trim fall to his knees with a yelp as a few dozen rounds slammed into his protection.
Then, our flare shells were launched, bathing the enemy in a crimson red light, the moon’s rays twinkling against the shields’ metal as if painting a target. And we gladly engaged that target.
The three guns fired again, this time firing much more accurately, guided by the light. It seemed one or more soldiers once again panicked and released their burden, causing the shield closes to us to list on one side, exposing a soldier’s side. Several rounds pierced his flesh, making him roll back into the muddy snow. The canine hastily tried to get up, yet a merciless burst literally tore him to pieces, his hand staining the snow crimson half a meter away. His comrades did not turn back.
Their rifle fire became more insistent, both because they were now close enough to take aim, and also in a desperate response to the terrifying new weapon their enemies now wielded. Yet five round bolt actions were simply no match for the emplaced metal monsters spewing six hundred rounds a minute, each with three hundred round boxes that could be swapped out in less than half a minute even by our inexperienced crews.
A few of the shields fell, concentrated fire in one spot making short work of the armor, always signified by a crimson stain exploding above it, then the shield listed on its own and rolled back down the hill over mangled corpses, sometimes a bloodied, armless soldier trying to desperately crawl towards the safety of another shield, not realizing he had nothing left to crawl with.
As they crossed the five hundred meter threshold, the futility of their advance became undeniable. At such a range, rifle rounds retain more than sufficient velocity to punch through most cover, and shield after shield fell, leaving nothing but a crimson pile of bodies to stain the field after their useless contraption rolled away. Red marks on the snow signified the failure of their armor, resembling the face of a pimpled teenager.
Then, once it became clear that the shields offered only temporary protection, they began to retreat. First only one, then the rest of his shield team, and like a pebble foreshadowing a deadly rockfall, one by one they followed the examples of their fellow soldiers. The shields were abandoned, and they began running back towards their trenches, now fully exposed.
It was nothing short of a massacre.
They were now a wall of uniform-covered flesh, impossible to miss. There was no cover, save for the shields that already proved futile, yet a few flattened themselves against the frozen marsh, getting trampled by their own comrades. A few jumped into the piles of gore where the shields fell, playing dead.
Each boom of the machineguns, each faster than a heartbeat or eyeblink, seemed to cause another fleeing Lunist to fall in a heap, entire platoons cut down in seconds like the comical ending of a marionette show.
It was an all out slaughter. There is no other word for it. It was no battle, for the term “battle” requires either side to put up a resistance. The machine gunners, each thin, almost malnourished youths trying to maintain stony faces yet horror twisting their features, were putting in less effort to kill hundreds of men than a farmer slaughtering a svini to fill his family’s bellies. I realized with a strange clarity that each of the machine gunners, these unbloodied frightened recruits, in that moment had slain more foes in a single battle than even the greatest warriors of legend.
“War is always glorious. For you either slay your enemy or die in combat for your people and your gods.”
Those were the words of General Dreer, who a thousand years ago had resisted against a Lunist armada of elite soldiers outnumbering him five to one with a town guard garrison. In context, it was actually respectful to our foes, for he said that after ordering that the enemy’s bodies not be looted and respectfully returned to their kin, for they, as soldiers who fought and died, deserved the same respect we did. Therefore, they were as glorious as their slayers.
We, the victors, had won by holding down a strip of metal. They, the slain, died shot in the back running away. All I could see was cruelty, dishonor and shame.
I felt my lip quiver and my knees shaking as I looked upon the butchery. I still hate the Lunists. Since the death of the child I had failed to rescue, I deepened my resentment with every city we evacuated, every burnt out house we passed, every death we suffered. Yet not even they deserve such a death. Yet this is the death we must inflict. They had come to our country to murder us. We have the divine right to fight back however we see fit. That is the truth we have to accept if we hope to survive.
I remembered my father telling me long ago, while we were practicing an orchestra, that should I ever feel my sanity teetering on the edge, my hope waning, I should remember my favorite song. I closed my eyes, shutting out the chaos around me, and tried to remember every detail of Nestovik’s Fifth Concerto.
It begins with the timid clatter of a xylophone and the whistle of a clarinet, like the casual promenade and ebullient chatter of contented citizens. I could hear it as clearly as a gramophone.
Then, just as I was sinking into the ecstasy of my virtuoso fantasy, an altogether harsher instrument broke through the veil: the whistle, sharp and drilling.
“Press the iron while it’s hot, lads, run the bastards down! Take their trenches!” My equine CO shouted, gesturing with his revolver for the fleeing enemy. Eager war cries sounded off from all around, like stormy waves crashing against a stony beach, which I added my own cries to. We climbed over the wooden parapet, beyond the unused barbed wire and gave chase. It was nearly impossible to see where the snow had been white from all the blood we spilled. Our downhill advance was slowed by the sheer mass of bodies impeding us. A few were still alive, at least biologically speaking, some moaning, some trying to drag themselves back to their trench, some curled up in a ball and sobbing like babes, some muttering a prayer to their gods as they bled out. One I think was begging for water. "A-qua! A-qua!". The poor devil didn't realize he no longer had a stomach to contain it.
One of the bloodied wolves was calling for his mother. I know this because the syllables "Ma-mi! Ma-mi!" are the same in any language. No matter what the differences of peoples, those two syllables remain. A child's call for maternal protection. The stalwart defender against the darkness. And as darkness encroached, the man's brain regressed to that of a babe, begging for the one thing he always knew chased pain, suffering and fear away. And strangely enough, it came.
The trooper closest to him, missing his right arm, crawled near him with a struggle. He took his crying comrade’s hand with his own remaining one, holding it tight, perhaps thinking of his own mother.
The sobs ceased as they both perished.
Distracted by this grisly spectacle, I nearly fell as I tripped over a branch, yet as I looked at it rolling away, I noted with less horror than I perhaps ought to that it was in fact a severed leg.
The xylophone’s beats amped up like the patter of running feet. The soft clarinet was replaced with the deep moan of a trombone.
Then, I killed my first man. They say the first man you kill marks a soldier. You always remember every detail about them, their eyes filled with terror, impotent rage or disbelief, how they screamed or grunted at the blow which did them, filling you with grief, guilt, or perhaps pride whenever you reflected upon it. Not for me. They were too far away to make out any details. I saw that another of the shields listed, saw an exposed white uniform, I took aim, fired, and they crumpled to the ground. That was that. I couldn’t tell if they screamed when they died, what their eyes expressed, their species, or even if they were a man at all and not a woman. All I knew is they wore the white uniform with blue trims, which signified them as the enemy, the despicable servants of the Night who had crossed our border to snuff out all that was good, and they had to die. One moment they stood, I fired, they stood no longer. That was that. It elicited no more emotion in me than shooting a clay pot at training, and neither does it now.
Small shells exploded around us as we advanced, and I saw out of the corner of my eye two of my comrades blown to bits by them, adding to the snowy abattoir. Our own light artillery responded, giving only a brief salvo onto their trenchline before we got too close, leaving us with a smokescreen shell as a parting gift to mask our advance. Then their own rifles and handful of Gatlings opened up through the combined fog of the smoke bomb and floating cloud of snow and mud, taking out another few of us. In the back of my mind, I knew I should have felt grief, or at the very least fear at seeing my comrades fall so easily. Yet all I did was casually resort to running in a more zigzag pattern to avoid the blindly tossed shells and bullets. And none of my comrades slowed down either, the screaming tidal wave of bodies, rifles and bayonets coming down regardless of a few dozen lost.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
I was now close enough that I could smell the gunpowder from their weapons. I looked through the smoke with my Forte and loosed off a couple of shots, not hitting anything as I was still running yet enough to persuade the Lunists closest to my position to hunker down.
It was just what I needed. Skad was following me. I wasn’t sure why, yet I nonetheless appreciated the large bear’s assistance for what I had to do. His rifle was on his back and he instead carried his Falx, the sickle-like ancient weapon far better suited for what was to come.
I could see them, they couldn’t see me. My war cry turned into a growl. A low, guttural, primal growl emitted by a long forgotten part of my soul which drove me to lunge into the trench.
The violins, barely a whisper, were now shouting sharply like high winds among trees, the xylophone traded for war drums. The Allegro was beginning.
We were descending into their trenches like sand in an hourglass, their own meager reserves exiting the underground trenches to reinforce. In the trench network that could barely take two Class III men abreast, it quickly became a struggle just to get through. It was like the equistilio-drawn tram I took to University, packed at rush hour, men killing or dying in a confined press with barely enough room to move their elbows. Rifles and pistols cracked, men screamed and bellowed, blades pierced flesh, rifle butts and shovels cracked skulls in a cacophonic orgy of death.
Quite a few of their Lunists had Messers, part short blade part dagger, which they used to great effect to slay many of the first invaders of the trench in the sardine can-like confines, but we were also equipped with Falxes or Augustan short swords, equally deadly ancient implements of war, and our sheer numbers soon tipped the odds.
As I had said, the first man I killed elicited nothing out of me. If I had not written this, I trust I'd have forgotten about them before the month is out.
But I can tell everything about the second, third and fourth men I killed. The second, a giant corpulent boar, I bayoneted as I dove into the Lunist trench. He staggered as I drove it through his prodigious gut, I felt his flesh wobble my gun and I wanted to be sick.
The ground quaked as Skad joined me, swinging his massive Falx around, slashing two wolves manning the Gatling in a single swing, the first disemboweled altogether from the terrible weapon, the second requiring the giant bear to finish the job with a decapitation.
My opponent’s struggles ceased and he fell down, my rifle with him. I must have pierced his spine, for it was stuck fast.
Seeing me disarmed, a giant ox charged me with a carpenter’s hammer, looking to brain me. I dodged as his fierce weapon cracked a wooden board in half where my head had been not one second ago. With no time to retrieve my rifle, I used the momentum of my dodge to rip out my own entrenching tool, swinging it into his neck. Blood gushed onto the dirt-caked blade as his head lolled back and forth lazily, like a marionette nodding at a puppet show my father would lead. He was the third.
He fell heavily onto the packed muddy snow, and I was swung around from his sheer mass before I could free my weapon. It had saved me, for the next moment, the sharp crack of a rifle sounded as a bullet tore through my slain foe’s massive body.
The violins chirped like a flock of mockingbirds, the piano’s harsh notes foreboding against the lovely tune.
I swung around and there stood a young timber wolf, rifle shaking in his paws, gray eyes looking at me as if I were Death itself. I then realized that with how caked in blood my face and fatigues had become, I just about did.
I tackled him as he clumsily worked the bolt action after missing the first and only shot he’d take. We wrestled over the rifle and I pressed it into his neck, snarling as I looked into his terrified eyes.
He was younger than I. His jaw lacked the sharp definition of manhood and he had the gauntness of a teenager. His mother probably called him "my little man".
He desperately pushed back, grunting and choking as I strangled him with his own weapon, yet I was leagues stronger than he. His gray eyes resembled those of a cornered herbivore of ancient times. Frightened and hopeless, knowing he would die but unable to accept it. Just like the cub I had failed to save in that doomed apartment block.
Once again, I stood over a child, looking up at me hoping for salvation. I could have stopped.
He was the fourth. I now have two children on my conscience.
The piano’s notes were long and grovely, like a funeral tune, while the violins continued chirping merrily away. It was this contrast which had marked Nestovik’s style. His music wasn’t somber or uplifting: it was both, showing the world as it was.
I stood on him a moment too long, fixated on his dead bulging eyes and swollen purple tongue. A booted foot struck me in the jaw and I fell into the mire of mud and snow. What little mane I had around my cheeks was grabbed and I was yanked up painfully by two other wolves, both smaller than me, but terribly strong as one plunged the part long dagger, part short sword, for my chest.
I caught the knife hand, earning myself a white-hot slash on the forearm in the process, yet my other hand closed around his face, my claws raking his cheek and my thumb entering his eye socket with the ease evolution had designed the weapons at the tips of my fingers for.
He screamed as I carved his eye away and he dropped his blade in shock, yet at the same time he kneed me in the stomach and his companion circled round us and he struck me full in the face with his rifle butt.
All three of us fell and they wasted no time hammering me with rifle butts and bare fists. They wouldn’t use their claws. In the Lunist doctrine, that was nearly as grave a sin as cannibalism.
I kept them at bay with one paw gripping my shovel, the other going further into the unfortunate’s eye socket, seeking to pierce his brain, gore oozing down by hand and sleeve as he screamed in agony and fury, my efforts to end him only strengthening his rage.
I remembered the revolver my father had gifted me before enlisting and I tried to grab it, yet seeing it, the one I hadn’t blinded gripped me tight and slashed my forearm again with his knife. I screamed.
The violins slowed down, a furious cello replacing them. The piano suddenly went from mournful to active, sounding like a boxer’s fists punishing a canvas bag.
Then, I was saved. The combined weight of the two wolves suddenly relieved itself off me as Skad grabbed them both by their collars and lifted them up like dirty laundry in his massive paws, slamming their heads together like pumpkins. They crumpled at his feet, unconscious. He grinned down at me.
“Havin’ a rest after some light sparring, lazybones?” He said in his deep, yet surprisingly gentle voice.
I looked down at the unconscious Lunists. He’d spared them.
“We may need them for prisoner exchanges or gettin’ information. Rest a’ the boys don’t seem in a forgivin’ mood.” He answered my unspoken question.
Yet, with my Forte, I could sense that was not all. He had spared them simply because he could.
The orchestra ended very much unlike most others. Instead of an explosive finale, Nestovik’s pieces slowed down until only the faint whimper of the violins or clarinet remained, then a few seconds of silence. He said that most of his pieces represented the lives of men: kings, soldiers, craftsmen. And like all lives, they had cheer, sorrow, struggles to survive, yet at the end, invariably, death.
I went to retrieve my rifle, stepping over the bodies of friend and foe alike which began to pile up to the knee, yet I hardly needed to. The battle was over. The men cheered and waved their weapons into the air.
They were already beginning to fashion torches out of whatever was on hand, lighting the trench into a warm glow, signifying it was now of the Light, not of the Plenilune. At first, I had no reaction. I felt numb, my heart’s beating refusing to slow, as if I could not comprehend that the battle was over. Or perhaps, could not comprehend that it had ended in our favor, and a landslide victory at that.
Then I began to laugh. I cannot say exactly why, for I don’t know myself. It wasn’t a relieved laugh, it was the barking, hollering laughter of a madman. I laughed until my ribs hurt and I fell to my knees, gasping for air, yet unable to contain my laughter, my diaphragm feeling as if it were about to burst. Then Skad hauled me to my feet once again and gave me two good slaps to snap me out of my fit. The large bear was smiling warmly at me.
“Khudur’s sword, you look like shit, mate!” He grinned. He wasn’t really in any position to make such an affirmation, given that his shoulder was bloody where a lower caliber pistol round failed to injure him much and his left eye was as swollen and purple as a plum. I raised my hand to slap his shoulder, but realized that my paw was drenched in blood. The wolves’ blades had done more damage than I thought. I winced in pain I hadn’t registered until then.
I began to walk away to try and find a medic, but Skad stayed me, his powerful hand gripping me tight. Wordlessly, he took out his roll of gauze and antiseptic, and with deftness and care that belied his sheer bulk, treated my wounds. His huge cauldron-sized paws that could crush skulls can just as easily perform the soft deftness of care.
We continued to clear the Lunist trench network, and thankfully what few EE troops remained had the sense to surrender. A few men wanted to shoot them outright, to avenge all their dead countrymen and smoldering hometowns, but Lieutenant Phoebus gave strict orders to take any surrendering man in alive. He said something about them possibly about future troop movements or using them in prisoner exchanges, yet my Forte told me that wasn’t it: I could see that he didn’t want surrendering soldiers cowardly butchered, yet he knew that would currently fall on deaf ears. There were grumbles of malcontent, but no one protested much.
I finally allowed myself to relax and sat down on a munitions crate. It sounded like the other men had found the Lunists’ liquor storage, for the sounds of raucous celebration, pouring liquid, glasses clinking and already drunken laughter were clear. I felt too tired to join them just then and decided to rest for a few more minutes. The night was dying, the dark sky gradually turning into a smoky blue, a pale orange tongue of light beginning to show itself timidly on the horizon, yet slowly but surely day was breaking.
“No matter how dark the Night, the Light always prevails at dawn.”
I allowed myself to take in the sky’s beauty, feeling the bitter cold turn to a gentle breeze. I looked at the hilly steppe off in the distance, thinking of the people in the villages and towns beyond, who were having troubled slumbers or staying up all night praying for our victory, how they would rejoice upon hearing of our glorious victory. For the first time since enlisting, I felt pride at what I had accomplished, and thought that maybe, just maybe, our people would stand fast.
I tried not to look towards the mass grave we had created just a few hundred yards away from the trench. Carrion birds were already circling the corpses and were descending upon them, their hooked beaks ripping out fat chunks of flesh to gorge themselves. Just as I averted my eyes, one of the large ugly birds tried to peck at a corpse’s face, only to receive a backhand and for the body to spring up.
“One of them’s still alive!” I yelled. He yelped and tripped over one of the innumerable corpses, losing his footing and falling down the slope, rolling in the snow like a growing snowball.
By the time he stopped, he was a mere forty or so meters away from us. He was shivering violently, more so than he should have considering his heavy coat, yet as fearful blue eyes looked up at us, I realized why: the soldier wasn’t a wolf like most Lunists, he was a hyena. Possibly a volunteer from the Yahvuza Shannate. The cold was absolute Gehl on his Savannah-acclimated constitution. I couldn’t begin to imagine the willpower it took for him to stand unmoving for so long.
He looked at us in fear, at the rifles pointed at him, and either out of madness or desperation, he began to run. A bullet grazed his arm and he stopped with a growl of pain. He raised his paws and said something in his native tongue. It clearly wasn’t Alexandrian, it was a completely alien dialect to us.
We stood like that for minutes, us with rifles pointed his way, him quietly shivering as he stared us down. Eventually, one of the sappers, a tall lean snow leopard whose name I forgot, aimed his handgun for the EE trooper and fired. It hadn’t been to kill. One of the tips of the enemy’s fingers disappeared in a red puff and the hyena clutched his paw in disbelief.
“Fuck it. Let’s have some fun with this nightened wretch!” he sneered with cruel glee. I was about to protest, to call for the Lieutenant, yet before I could do so, other soldiers in the line opened fire. They shot at his feet, causing him to leap and dance in fright, then several more shots grazed his legs and arms. He yelled and gesticulated in anger, the grazing hits seeming to only increase his impotent rage. Then, one bullet tore through his shoulder, spraying red mist out the other side. This time, he screamed, his arm hanging limp.
“That one was for Geruli City, you lightless piece of shit!” One of the soldiers roared. They were all laughing like kits playing a practical joke that went too far on the urchin they had deemed the outcast. A scene from my childhood flashed before my eyes… me ten years old returning from collecting a basketful of berries for the tribe, alone in the forest for the first time… the gang of other children intercepting me, knocking the basket from my paws, stomping the sweet fruit into the dirt, then shoving me against a tree, taking turns to kick and spit on me… my brother had come and chased them away, giving the ringleader a black eye which he wore for two weeks, yet there would be no savior for the tortured soldier getting shot to shreds before my eyes.
A bullet exploded his kneecap and he fell to his remaining good leg with a roar of agony. He yelled a single word over and over as bullets kicked up snow around him and grazed him. Despite his injuries, he ejaculated the word with vehemence and venom. I somehow knew what the word meant: “Cowards! Cowards!”
“Where’s your Kirous now? I don’t see no eternal night! It’s almost daytime, ya fopdoodle!” Another one of my comrades gleefully bellowed as he loosed another shot. At this point, the Lunist soldier had yelled his throat hoarse and he instead sobbed bitterly as only someone utterly powerless could.
All of our simmering anger, hatred, frustration and powerlessness at seeing our hometowns burned, loved ones killed and proud armies humbled was unleashed on this one unfortunate soul. This was madness. I had to stop this.
I pawed the butt of my revolver. I’d shoot him clean in the head and put an end to this. Yet even as I gripped it with determination, the laughs and hollers of my comrades stopped me. Wouldn’t they then turn their anger towards me? Would they not hate me for it?
My paw fell to my side, defeated. I felt like the physically inferior kit who hid from the other children and never stood up for what he believed just. I hated myself for my cowardice.
Yet, the decision was made for me.
I felt my sidearm ripped from its holster and I turned in shock to face the unknown threat. Skad took aim and loosed a single shot right at the man’s heart. Then, it was all silent. The mocking rifle salvos had stopped, the maddened hoots at a fellow mammal’s suffering and the agonized yells and impotent insults of the tortured soldier all ceased at once, leaving only a faint screen of gunsmoke.
Skad returned me the revolver, holding it grip first, refusing to look at me. The soldiers who’d done the unspeakable deed first looked dumbly at the now dead man, then down at their weapons as if they’d just been awoken from a trance. Some glared at the big bear, others looked down in shame as if only realizing now the horror of what they’d done.
“What the fuck was that?” The leopard soldier yelled, approaching Skad with broad steps. The bear ignored him. That made the sapper even more vexed.
“Who the hell do you think you are, you overgrown tub of lard?” He snarled, grabbing Skad by the collar. Bad mistake.
In an instant, Skad twisted the smaller man’s arm, grabbed him by the throat and slammed him into the trench wall.
“Who do you think you are? Who are you?” Skad snarled as the lithe feline choked and hoarked, all his previous bravado gone.
“Hey, hey, Skad! That’s enough!” I said, putting my hand on his meaty shoulder, not wishing yet to wrestle with the massive bear. I could feel his grip slacken, yet his ice-gray eyes kept glaring into the leopard’s own terrified ones.
“Who are you?” he spat again, letting go of the man’s throat, letting him slump down on the muddy ice below, gagging and coughing.
“Who are any of you!?” he bellowed at the small group that had tortured the unfortunate Lunist. They all had their heads bowed now.
Then he stomped away just as Lieutenant Phoebus was coming to investigate. I tried to intercept him to tell him I was sorry, that I wanted to stop that awful spectacle of pain and cruelty, yet he only shouldered past me like one does a street beggar, not sparing me even a look, his eyes glittering with contempt and disgust.
He went down into the former Lunist dug out, leaving me outside in the cold, feeling a greater shame and self-resentment than I ever had in my life.