Balada: When death did not exist, nor yet Eternity Part I 032

Extract from the book “Confessions, an Admirals tale volume I”

If I had know what that order to redeploy on that hill would lead me to, I would have wrapped myself in honey and bacon, find the nearest bear wildlife preserve and would have ran towards the biggest group of bears shouting ‘Just try and get me you b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, I’ve escaped something far worse than you!’

But that was not to be, for as we reached the top of the hill I saw that on the other side was a force of what appeared to be our chariots engaged against a battalion strength Volunian force, that had apparently managed to encircle the chariots on three sides and where about to close the circle on the fourth one.

“A rear counter-attack!” I said out loud like an idiot, broadcasting a live comment of what the enemy was apparently doing and unfortunately for me, Butz heard in and misinterpreted it as an order.

“Yes sir!” he said and floored the acceleration pedal and like a loosed volley of arrows, our spider-wolf jeep squad darted forward, towards the Volunian forces.

I had only a moment’s time to react to this sudden turn of events, so I quickly grabbed the heavy earth crossbow that was mounted on a pillar, in the center of the backseat and fired away, just as we smashed into the Volunian formation’s rear. They were in platoon size deployments and were all behind earth and wood defiles, no doubt quickly raised by the earth soldiers, this provided an excellent defense against the chariots, but the defiles only covered their fronts. Their backs were exposed and unfortunately for them this was what the Spider-Wolf Jeep was designed for, a fast moving vehicle used specifically for reconnaissance, outflanking and an anti-infantry role, and it excelled at all three.

We moved parallel with their encirclement, Butz activated the Jeep’s main front mounted weapon, a fire blaster located in the mouth of the wolf head that was the front of our vehicle. It incinerated the platoon in front of us and after that, Butz darted to the left to avoid colliding with the earth works, and moved to the next platoon to do the same, against our sudden attack, combined with the fire power of the other jeeps escorting us,  the enemy did not stand a chance.

I contributed to the carnage with the great earth crossbow mounted on the jeep and fired into the enemy.

I’m not a great shot and as any soldier can tell you, shooting from a moving platform is very inaccurate, but it had the desired effect of sowing chaos in the enemy’s formation. With my earth arrows being launched in every direction and the sight of projectiles that in the brief duration of their flight would gather earth from the ground and grow, thorned  and thick hided plants until it was the size of a two meter long and half a meter thick pillars, that landed in the dozens, as far as four or five platoons deep, combined with the sight of up to six other jeeps who were doing exactly the same as me, was enough of a slap to the Federal’s face and a good enough kick in the nuts, that about a third of the enemy encirclement broke rank and withdrew from this onslaught.

The chariots quickly seized the moment and countercharged so as to envelope the remaining two thirds, but the remaining foes withdrew and managed to avoid that.

I’ll give them credit, they knew their game, for the enemy force was quickly out of our effective range and had entered the thick forest near us, where our vehicles would be at a disadvantage.

“By the Glory Hole of Saint Epusculatus, it’s our comm’ander himself, bless ye sir, we din’ think you’d be the ‘one ta save us!” a voice from my right said, and I turned and saw that a spider-wolf jeep with a master sergeant standing on its backseat, had rolled next to us and he was saluting me and offering the friendliest smile I had seen in days.

And considering that his species the Albinarions, was one with a black chitinous exoskeleton, a long phallic shaped black head that extended for half meter from the back of his skull, a segmented tail with a venomous sting attached to it, no eyes or ears and a mouth that had had acid dripping venom teeth and a tongue which was in itself a second stinger, it was quite an accomplishment of a smile.

“Think nothing of it sergeant, I may be a useless louse, but I do what I can to help my brothers and sisters in arms.” I gave him a return salute, as I was being honest with him in regards to what I thought of myself and he replied with an equally honest chuckle which only a boozing sergeant could give.

“Dat ya did sir and we appreciate it! We’re about ready to commence d’e attack, Captain Rohm unfortunately bot ‘ d’e big one, when da d.a.m.n Federals ambushed us, so I’m charge fer now since da junior officers are ta green ta lead.” he replied with a grim look on his face.

“Who where those forces sergeant?” I asked wanting to see just how much this ambush had cost us.

“Holy Knights sir, looks like they were moved to d’e very rear o ‘ d’e rear lines as a r’serve.” he replied and spat on the ground, this made my eyes, which were already red ablaze with fear light up like a pair of twin suns, fortunately or unfortunately for me, anyone who saw this mistook it for battle l.u.s.t instead of cowardice.

But make no mistake, it was cowardice of the finest five star brand, for you see our spies, scouts and captured enemies had told us that the Holy Knights had been withdrawn and upon giving a discreet gaze at one of the corpses, I saw that the body occupying the uniform was an old man who had the Holy Knight’s motto ‘Strength trough faith, faith trough purity’ written on his arm, confirming that we had fallen for the enemies counter-intelligence.

This made my stomach ache even worse, since I was now isolated from our main army and going back there while a battalion of elite shock troopers, old but still very deadly, where left unchecked in the woodland just to the right of me, was not a very delightful way to spent a lovely thunderstorm riddled morning such as this.

So I thought of the safest thing to do at that moment and decided to stay with the ‘heavy armor’.

“Seeing as thought you have better things to do than babysit officers, I’ll be joining you for the attack.”

“Glad ta have ye with us sir!” he said with a crooked grin and I replied with a smile and a nod and told him to prepare the attack.

As he left, I took my first good look at the ‘chariot’ force I was with and much to my horror I realized that they were in fact not chariots, but the ‘special a.s.signment’ spider-wolf-jeep force, that I ordered to be disguised as chariots in order to fool the enemy.

 I quickly pressed a few icons on my universas screen and saw that this ambush had cost them almost 80% percent of their fuel and ammunition, and even worse was the fact that I gave them ten h.e.l.lfire Dragon spell crystals to use and now they only had one left!

 It was now too late to cancel my command, for the sergeant came up to me and told me everything was ready for me to lead them and that ‘da lads are r’eady  t’a follow yea’, and upon hearing those words the pain in my gut intensified and my eyes blazed once more, a sign that the sergeant took as bloodl.u.s.t and much to my horror I gave the order to advance.

And so I lead a force of fake  heavy armor on a flanking a.s.sault with almost no fuel and ammo, against a force that if they didn’t run at the sight of us would cut us to pieces, with the only alternative  bailing out and risk going back to the main force, which was a dangerous act since there were hundreds of enemy storm troopers hiding in the dark woods.

A very interesting weekend indeed!

So I led the outflanking maneuver and the charged itself, and by a b.l.o.o.d.y miracle me manage to fool the enemy and even do some damage with our last h.e.l.lfire Dragon crystal.

But the rotten feeling in my gut persisted and a sudden report from Butz told me, that the full body of the enemy was moving towards us, a force that was almost four times bigger that what I had just faced, I sincerely doubt that there was anybody else at the time in a more poorer position than myself.

Metternich per Pelasgiamus, Freelance Potions Maker