Chime - Ambush at Lake Cairnock

This is an excerpt from a metal fantasy novel i've been writing since 2015! Slowly goes it. I have a dozen chapters done, it's pretty hardcore, with gore and swearing. It sits between The Magician and Game of Thrones - with some LOTR (oops don't be far right!) for good measure. As with a lot of my creative works, the Soul, and its mystery, is at the heart of everything. I decided to stop working on it and improve my creative writing by finishing The Soul Series - an A-Z set of stories.

This is a DRAFTED and UNEDITED bootleg post for you to enjoy.

When morning came, I woke to the sound of wind wrestling with the forest branches - every leaf fighting its own battle - and every animal that woke was joining the chorus of wails. It was the remnants of an overnight gale - a noisy one. Hours earlier, I was sure there had been what sounded like a tremor or landslide some distance away across the lake, as well. It had woken me, but I didn't dwell on it as perhaps I should have, we lived in a world of anger where lava and tectonic change maddened every hour. A minor storm was nothing, a thud was standard. 

Too soon was my attention focused on the smell of cheeses, meats and hot grog being brewed by the fire thirty feet away. Grunts mingled and huddled amongst the embers of hastily lit camp fires nearby - all I could hear were complaints about wet kit, oozing blisters and dwindling kegs of frothy grog. One even announced his morning glory to the world with a frustrated howl. Thankfully, there were no villages nearby where he could sate his libido. 

Such an attitude was typical - the men of war, the fodder of battles, didn't care about the strategic situation, let alone their fate even a day ahead. It was understandable, really, because their lot was to obey and die for their townships and clans. They weren't consulted when, where or how they were to die - just that they must fight for their lives when told. 

For men on our side of the conflict, the last breath was used to spit hate at our enemy. Surrender was never an option. They knew that a death in combat was far more preferable to death by siege or cannibalism. Each and every one of them steeled themselves as if they were dead men walking. That attitude bred a short term mindset only another trooper could understand. 

I rolled over, folded up my sleeping mat, packing away those items i'd polished, cleaned and checked the night before, and readied myself for the feed. Soldiers about did the same, emerging from their camouflaged bivouac nests, hammocks and cubbies up in the nearby trees. The more debauched still slept off their hangovers - and wafts of their combined rancid breath filled the close air around us. I was used to it, it was one of the filthy aspects of war - hygiene was about combat effectiveness; feet, hands and hidden cracks! Chewing a piece of clyptree bark to prevent rotting teeth would indeed prevent the rot, but it did little by way of adding a minty breath! 

We'd camped in a wooded dell alongside one of the largest water sources in our region. Within the central borough of Raignes, the Cairnock Lake sat astride the third finger of the giant and formidable River Lymb. It was guarded on its far bank by the densely packed and notoriously feral Feather Forest. It was an expanse of tall orange-leaf pines that teamed with megaforna wildlife. The pine forest was so-known because each tree had a feather-like fruit, it was edible if you had the patience to soak it in salt water for two days. Many didn't and wrought themselves the dire runs for their impatience. It kept though and represented excellent field craft ration when needed.

The trees of the thick forest acted as a massive natural barrier that shielded the lake's flanks all the way to the foothills of one of the vast mountain ranges that led to the west side of our huge continent. Whilst it wasn't impassable - it was sparsely populated and dotted with small trails - it wasn't possible for an army unfamiliar with its many surprises to cross it and remain cohesive or secure.

To the north of the forest lay an almost everlasting bog, known as the Acid Marsh. Its sulphur was fed by a lava river, and the semi-poisonous steamy columns that rose off it were ritually gobbled by the mass of trees like an airborne fertiliser. The forest acted like a natural sync, converting the noxious fumes into more breathable air. A few sulphur mines dotted the adjacent marsh, and some townships had latterly begun carving at the edge of the forest, but the region was largely unoccupied up to the northern strong city of Firestreak and out west to the smaller strong city of Vlosh. League upon league of wild, days upon days of quiet nature. 

My home borough of De Brasconne was North of Firestreak and made up the spine of our recently emerged, semi-civilised lands. With its two strongtowns, Brier and Oneaxe, it was a centre for trade in products from the smiths, and weaklings skilled in craft. A mineral rich borough always had a fair mix of both skills.

And far, far north, lay the largest of our motley collection of settlements  - the closest our part of the Antichy got to a capital, Conort. It was, in fact, the old capital of Mowd - the ancient and defeated faction dedicated to the more positive virtues of life - not just war and death. That was before the fledgling civilisation imploded and chaos governed, as it will, with blood-soaked hands. (But I've not told you about that yet.)Most of the cities and townships along the central block's borough were now garrisoned, and the population of weaklings - as those who were hunted by the anarchy, ill-trained, physically unable, or unwilling to fight were known - helped sustain the wider anarchic society that still dominated the continent. With no suffrage, no rights, the blocks I fought for were still known as the Mowdish lands and almost represented progress. Almost. 

There was great suffering. No budgets or social plans - no amenities, no services, no justice, no benefit system. It was a kind of medieval, wildlife. Raw, fearsome and testing. About the only service we had was the hospices where healers were confronted with the ill and dying. They were run by the odd, monk-like Fryens of the nean race. (That's nee-an phonetically, for your own sanity in reading this tale.)

When I look back, it's obvious that any civic benefit to arise was either ushered in by fear or created under the threat of it. Roads, city walls, invention - all led by fear or punishment. We knew war, because that was about survival. War has always shoved progress forward, if only for its own selfish ambitions. 

Yet there was some hope. Since my capture as a young teenager I had learned much. I started as a feral youth, but upon manhood I had a destiny. If we could hold back this next Sift, I thought, prevent all that had been built from falling, perhaps prosperity would become a word understood. Normality. 

But my company was just one small unit in a massive global militarisation. Despite being indoctrinated to the path of The Sync, the religion of the old Mowd, I was lowly in rank, although still an officer.

The lake we'd been tasked to hold by our General had always been pivotal in previous civil wars - which was less a war and more of a cull. Our General was one of Conort's champions, who'd currently assumed command of our borough's forces and earned enough respect for us to follow his plan. He was learned, experienced in battle and the only senior survivor of the last Sift. Quite an achievement for a soldier in a culture where we had preferred death to defeat or cannibalism. As I rose that morning, though, he was powerless to help us - we were blocks of wood on a situation map somewhere hundreds of miles away. 

Any map-reading fool could have seen that it was a strategic spot. The enemy outnumbered us in arms, but not brain cells - they still weren't stupid. In front of our lake lay a vast tract of land that led South to the lands of the Recz.

A huge borough, known as Roaree was propped up by the native lands of the southern Giants and the rest of the realm's men. Then there were the sou-east Neans, who formed their own dark faction aligned to the Recz. 

The Recz were the true rulers of this world, though. Their region - perhaps the size of the United States and Canada combined - was a pure anarchy of warriors and menace. Three races, many dark souls and one purpose. It was a religion of death and chaos. And there was order in it. They were also vast in number and murderously powerful. 

That tract, with its two great bastions, Carrion and Pardock was densely populated and geared for war. But I've been through that, haven't I. Go back and read about our doctrines, our religion. I think it's one of the first chapters. 

Back to this particularly bloody day - a pivotal one in my career of war - and ready yourself for battle. 

We lay on the main approach to the central region. These were the boroughs traditionally pillaged first by Recz armies during a Sift. And Southwards behind them they sent everlasting caravans of people, material and resources to restock their stores. The slaves were weaklings who did all they could to avoid becoming supper themselves - it was animalistic, dog eat dog. 

Many of the people and livestock they ate - in fact anything edible went into their soup. A kind of fermented and then hardened paste that they brewed from everything that wasn't eaten on the road. They seasoned it with narcotic herbs and spices. It could be dried into stock-like bricks and eaten uncooked or mixed with water, grog or milks. Truly disgusting, yes. They brewed it in their staging camps further down the line where fresh sift forces were reinforcing the push North. I suspect many that consumed it were addicted, and they certainly acted like it. 

We could smell the stink already - there were a couple of small townships South of us and Pardock was likely under a cull. That was a period where the older, weaker or impure weakling slaves were liquidating for field ration soup. Troops you came to observe or battle in a Sift often had a brick or two in their sacks or slung in sausage-like ropes on their chests or pack wagons. 

We of the Middle did not partake in that soup - we only ate what we had survived or hunted - yes, sometimes even our enemy. Although that had been outlawed for ten years. In fact, we of the Middle did everything we could not to be their fodder. Personally, I knew that as a soldier I'd probably be eaten like a field ration one day - that was our world's way. There was a time when I'd have done the same to one tasked to kill my people. If it's normal, it's normal. 

Yet the stink of the soup cauldrons in a Sift was still legendary. Entire towns would be liquidated, the weak literally thrown in and drowned or boiled alive with sliced throats. The useful, led back to serve, act as prey for training or for a plumper roasted meal. Our enemy was the very personification of a demonic swarm. They defiled all they saw as weak and below them. The strongest, they battled for dominion. And they hadn't lost for a thousand years.

I've said that this world was hell. The scariest thing about it was that it would be recognisable to you. Many were evolving towards a civilised existence. It had order, too, it's just that the order involved souls with demons struggling to get out and suck the weak's energy dry. 

Not that our existence in the centre of the giant world was truly civilised, either, it was just far less chaotic and terrifying.

A Sift was a generational struggle and it was our turn. 

Those thoughts were far from my mind at the time, though, my stomach rumbled and gurgled as I made my way down the moss covered track that led to the field kitchen in our bivouac village. 

This was my first true assignment after my wanderings in the northern boroughs. I'd learned much. And a lot of the violence would become useful on this day. In past Sifts, the geography of the world was key to the outcome. Our side, the North, always fell back, it was both a play for time and desperate fighting retreat. Outnumbered and outgunned, we couldn't be match the viciousness of the enemy - or their knack for encouraging betrayal in our ranks. In the past, it had been about sheer survival - at any cost. We hid as much of our resources and offspring as we could and created methods and paths to escape or evade our wretched foes. 

Under such circumstances, families were far more about practicalities and function than love, they still had value. Love in our world was at best represented by a show of respect and at worst the lowering of a sword that had the options of a killer blow. It's hard to love when survival is so critical. Habit was hard to change - especially in time of fear. 

As for their expected thrust into our region, it had to come - because we were such tempting game. But they also had to navigate the environment we'd chosen to dwell. One surrounded by ranges of huge peaks, the odd volcano and some impassible megaflora. 

Tunnels connected various townships and those strongholds were manned to hold back the bloody tide of sieges.

We'd mobilised more men for that purpose and all the strongholds agreed at a plebiscite to work together for mutual survival. Our aim was to slow the appetite, weaken the resolve and drain their batteries before they sucked our population dry.

It was only four sifts - some fifty years - prior when all the central boroughs were sacked and utterly destroyed - not a living creature of intelligence was left that had not already fled. The refugees of that sift ran to the corners of the world and only began their return five years after. Those five years were a safer existence because few southerners ventured that far outside of Sift. There was still danger, but conflict was localised and almost tribal on the frontiers. At any one time a stronghold or town would have been under siege or sacked by other local rivals. My own strongtown had just laid siege to Marvauck, which had refused to send its share of a resource barter - several wagons of fireoak amber, some clay lava barrels and weapons we'd traded for livestock and telescopics. During a full scale sift, these petty differences were put aside. 

There was little real contact or trade with the South. They only took. Like any other predatory system, though, these enemies knew when to leave us fallow. It was said that the Giants of the south, so engorged on flesh and soup bricks over the centuries, had also learned to hibernate. That gave the populations time to recover, because their appetite was the greatest. Only when they awoke did the rest of the Recz muster to sift us once more. We were the chaff thrown in the pan, our fate in the balance. 

It had been dozens of turns since the last sift fought in the central lands. Sometimes they headed out West to Nea - other times they went East past Sendria to find the humans there. 

The centre had been left quiet - it needed to be. Our numbers were around 7,000,000 across millions of square miles. The menace always returns. 

We'd been sent word of their muster by way of a message-hound from one of the lakes-men. He'd run a collective that fished the waters for a perch-like catch and then smoked them. His son had been foraging near the outlying townships near Pardock - run by weaklings who were caretakers of the great stronghold while the bulk of the Recz Giants slept. The others meditated, sacrificed, scouted us, and trained - their own microscopic kind of evolution doctrine. We saw the odd combat patrol of men, but rarely a mixed-race force larger than a company, let alone one with a giant. 

It was for him to see the tell tale sight.The first Sendrian giant awake in our time - plodding about. Hungry.

Those south Giants were a daunting sight - and only emerged to make war / seeing one meant a single fearsome thing. The boy fled, and immediately told his father - a tale of a fearsome red-skinned giant, three times as tall as a man loping around and scooping up and crunching the arms off weakling men or women at random. He was shocked at how subdued they all were, those weaklings, hoping that stillness or cowering would help them survive. It didn't. The boy knew from learnings that it must be the first omen of a sift brewing. 

Several scouting missions later our Rangers confirmed that the soup was flowing again and a sift army mustering. The township that boy had visited was now nothing but rubble. Its people - gone, presumed dead. 

I thought about that moment as I nodded to greet some of my seconds who were milling around the morning ration table. Sipping on some hot tea i'd snatched up in a black ceramic beaker  - a brew made from fragrant dried leaves and a thick condensed milk, it tasted a lot like mulled wine - I mentally mapped the region once more. That one-sided skirmish was a fortnight's walk away. How long did we have...They had to hit us, were we ready?

Our forces had a large line to defend. The odd sign of our northerly anarchic civilisation dotted the area - with camouflaged outposts and weapons caches scattered about - like the huts of the lakers. Otherwise the nearest populated areas were east and west of us over the ranges by hundreds of leagues and North of us about by three days hike. I can't tell you how vast the continent was. But we made good use of the flat expanses and natural obstacles. 

Immediately around us, though, was a diverse nature. We lay on a stretch of land that skirted the lake on its northeast edge down to the foothills of the mountains that flanked our right. There was a broken slate brough about a half mile from our position with a natural earthen jetty below it to the lake. Around it there were several sizeable caves. One of which had a lava tunnel that led to the foothills of the nearby township, Loup. 

That small settlement of some 1,000 souls watched over the road which led up to the central boroughs - it was a trading post for furs, stones and smoked fish. It was also our next rally point for the forces along our line. Another tunnel network to our East flank led forces from strongholds to the plain and a track to the township. The strategic withdrawal was always in place. 

The town had room enough for a far larger garrison within its escarpments - though the buildings were in short supply. We'd also dumped a pile of ordinance, fortification material and food there. By the time we'd fall back, the company of midland giants tasked there as engineers would have made it a far more formidable stronghold. Trenches, moats, bunkers, earthen walls and ranged defenses would all be in place. The young were already marching to the far North and the women preparing stores and training for battle. Our women were what you'd call feminist warriors. They could wield some of our weapons with deadly finesse. My best warrior, in fact, was a woman. Strong, fast, deadly. 

I gulped and wiped my mouth roughly - good tea I recall, I miss that. Through the thin smattering of trees that lined the top of our dell, I could see Cairnock. It was beautiful. The water glistened in the morning suns, as if it was molten bronze. Given that it was drinkable, although quite brackish, it made me thirst for a goblet of it. Tea is not thirst quenching, don't you find? My mouth was furred from the local mead I had shared by the fires the night before. 

Glancing along the shoreline revealed several beaches and reed beds where one could forage for eggs, shellfish and sulphur-turnips. We weren't short on food sources, but, like everything else there, they all required some effort. 

Across the belly of the lake, the locals had created a pull ferry at the only beach on the far bank. It was used to haul the smoker catches by the forest across to the track for merchants to take off to the next township. It was only made of rope, so we'd already decided to sever our end and strand the ferries to avoid the enemy using them to flank us. 

In the centre of the lake, several improvised buoys kept some fishing vessels permanently moored. The lakesmen would use these to haul in larger catches. The waters were teeming with freshwater carps, pikes and bigger mammals like giant otters and water sheep. All were abundant and hunted quite sustainably. Less people in hell meant less demand - and a barter system meant over hunting was all but pointless. Another irony of that place compared to where I sit now. 

Because of our culture of spontaneous civil war, the population of our world was still relatively sparse. Millions, for sure, but not billions. We lived in sync with nature and never quite grew enough to overpower its ebbs and flows. The apex predator hunted itself. Even when booms of population did happen, the environment could cope. 

We never made a dent and even had a kind of odd pact with nature. Endless game wandered the plains, including flocks of gigantic running birds, herds of megafauna to take your very breath that included boar, sloths, rats, horses, cattle and bison. They were hunted in turn by giant dogs and flightless birds of prey - in the forest, groups of purple and orange bear jostled with packs of red-coated wolves. 

Some centuries before, men of the glowing forest had managed to domesticate one breed of wolf, it was now known as the Bear hound. Large enough to be ridden, they were quite protective of people and you could say they had almost volunteered to serve. But they were rare in the central boroughs - and we'd not yet drafted any mounted or armoured units from beyond. Dogs were excellent for forest war, we would need them. They also wouldn't be ridden by any other race - useful for me, a human.

In fact, I had one waiting for me back at the nearby township. I'd found her abandoned on my wanderings and nursed her to adulthood. I called her Flinch and expected the giant bitch to live longer than me. She was a fine companion and a fearsome warrior and had saved my life three times. We were always safe when her markings were dotted about to deter other beasts.

I was the only member of our army who had such a partner. I'd left my treasured hound with Wels, one of my most trusted band - mentioned her earlier if you recall - a female ranger. I'd asked her to help at the township to oversee the defence. She also had my permission to take Flinch for a couple of runs if the whim took her. 

Just then, I spared a thought for that mutt as I saw a few stag running along our ridge to the lake. She could take a deer down with one paw - and deer was a fine meal! Not so today. Morning meals were all about calories in such an environment. And since we were aiming to hold as much distance between our hubs and the forward elements of the sift line, we looked to the foodstuffs that wouldn't keep too long to eat first. I was well provisioned, too. 

All my dried meat, unshelled nuts and potatoes were stashed in my gear as reserve. I was eating the freshly opened pickled wild fowl and lakesmen's cheese we'd traded for - along with a couple pieces of fresh fruit. Blue bananas were a particular favourite with the black cheese, made from milk and animal blood. It sounds awful but it was one of the most wholesome and delicious things a soldier could eat. There was also a barrel of smoked fish and another of assorted pickles. We'd had these the night before, scooping a hand in for some as we chewed and grogged the mead. 

I nodded to several aged warriors as they too picked up scran from the napkins that had been placed upon tables at the temporary mess. We didn't speak much unless it was necessary. After crunching my last lump of black cheese on a barley-like grain bread, I decided to go back to my bivouac and check my weapons. I'd only taken a dagger with me to the food - more to eat with than anything else. 

We didn't have squires, but weaklings did accompany us on larger battles. My armour was in decent shape, albeit mudded and dull. I'd warmed it by my fire to help me shape it to form. The pieces were tougher than the strongest Kevlar, but also flexible when heated. It was an ensemble usually lashed over a thick red leather-like full-length tunic. That in turn was slung over hemp shirts, animal skin jeans and knee-high war boots which doubled up as waterproof waders. We didn't need mail, the sap from fireoaks was woven like carbon fibre to be light and tough. 

Both items of clothing were also brilliantly heat proof and yet kept you cool if needed. Pockets, pouches and tube grips dotted the arms and hips of the ensemble, and basic insignia were embossed upon the chest and biceps areas that poked out from the chest armour. Pressed in the uniform were identity numbers and unit emblems. Notches were made around an emblem of a shield- that was each warrior's kill or wound count - we also ranked by our success in war. Commanders being given dots for missions and their dead, dashes. It seems morse code made it into our annals of war! I admit, it was a fine uniform for the conditions and gave me the freedom to move in any direction I wanted, and equally stand a chance of survival in our harsh environment and wilds as well as a protracted period of sweaty battle. Remarkable that so many were made by a people with a caste system that actively made most lives utterly miserable. 

Calmly lining up and then stashing my ammo, I took personal inventory. I had forty rounds for my pistol, several lithium grenades I clipped across a shoulder belt and two simple tin canisters of smoke - one acrid green, the other red. Both were rudimentary and made from dried marsh reeds rich in sulphurs. A small charge lit them and the smoke billowed from the filling. We used one offensively and the other defensively, to cover movement or, were it deemed honourable, a retreat. 

The grenades were crude, basically, explode on impact incendiaries. Most were spherical and made from giant fireoak acorns, they were packed with a flammable paste and lined with lithium substance. To ignite, you licked a small charge spike above a hole at the tip, pressed your thumb to plunge it and threw. The tiny drops of water were enough to set a small lithium reaction that heated the paste. When the lithium charge melted fully the paste caught alight or smashed, the whole thing met air and sprang to life. Others were like molotov cocktails where the reaction happened on impact and our magnetic propellants sent them flying. Both types fragmented and burnt indiscriminately - some soldiers always managed to injure themselves. They were quite a new invention but pretty powerful.

I'd only just begun using attack smoke, it felt odd not to charge in slicing or exploding. The same went for the other projectile arms to be honest. Missiles, artillery. Weapons we'd long used but rarely favoured - not because of the destruction they wrought, more because many enjoyed seeing the life sap from their enemy up close. Within sniffing distance. There's satisfaction to that, I confess. I miss it. Especially when it is a noble cause.

Those pistol rounds were all bullets. There were four blocks - that's magazines to you gun lovers. The bullets were what earth would consider precious stone, sharpened and tipped with lithium water ampules. These would smash on impact of the trigger's hammer and rapidly heat the stones to whizz off - they were usually diamonds because they were abundant. (Crazy, right?)

The firearms were magnetic rather than gas operated - as with modern earth weapons. The speed and quality of all our firing weapons was probably like earth musketry. It was lethal, but basic. Mixed with medieval and dark age weapons, it made for an odd battlefield I can tell you. . 

It was plenty to fight with and ultimately, I had food enough to sustain any number of sword swings as was required. We were tough people and knew how to use our environment to sustain our combat. Bullets could also be retrieved and re-used by enterprising weaklings. 

Our next re-up was still a full three days hike from where we'd bivouacked the night before. That's if the consensus was to move. If we were to stay put, it would be a matter of luck. This was a large combat patrol, but it didn't guarantee skirmish or battle. 

Beyond my infantryman's kit, I had my close quarter weapons. A walking lance, that was able to extend in length when twisted clockwise from the middle grip. This was stashed over my back whenever we yomped. Made from diamond infused fireoak sap, it was strong, flexible and incredibly useful. It was also rather good at skewering or fending off larger foes from a range of about ten feet. For me, in hindsight, they were the more terrifying enemy and often the lance was ineffective if said Giants had their own armour. Many didn't of course, or the inclination to, but the new divisions, the ore-troopers and assault troops of this new sift we'd heard tale of - they were to be better equipped than any unit before them. Our scouts had seen them tear through their own weakling outpost at a trundle just days before - they held no quarter for anyone when they were in their war trance. They craved fair combat and the glory of defeating the soft minded. 

This was a sift, a full mobilisation of several armies against the wilds, cities of the weaklings and free races that had enjoyed relatively civilised peace since the last armistice (basically a herald telling us they'd had their fill of blood) many turns ago.

To us from the north, most Giants we saw were rather less fierce than those that ate their foes raw and played with their food to make soup. At least when they weren't in battle. We worked with them, amongst each other. 

I knew that this horn of war meant thousands upon thousands of battle-thirsty monsters, most of whom would feel less fear for my lance than the heavier weapons ranged at them from the field through rifles, cannon and missile. Being a man who fought knuckles touching, though, I valued my most powerful weapon for that particular endeavour the highest. It was a weapon you would recognise, as familiar to earth as hell, with a handle, two bladed faces and a pointed hilt. Crafted by master weakling workers, it was a thing of beauty. 

More three-dimensional than its relatives from your medieval times, it had a thick core that offered four fighting sides at the base near the hilt, as they rose up, they filed down into a ledge from which sharp two-sided blade sprung. This offered the device huge tensile strength and considerable economy on weight to lethality. One of my blades was cerated with fine shark teeth. No two looked the same - like snowflakes. 

The hilt was clad in purple bear hide and decorated with gold infused sap. I glanced over to it and grinned with eager anticipation. It had yet to taste blood through a sift, despite my many notches. The blade had yet to earn me my name as a commander. I wanted my first dot.

With the blocks stowed in my jeans, the lance slid in its pouch at my back, I put my armour on. As if tempting me to war my blue-diamond longsword shone seductively as the sunrise passed through the tree upon which it lent - alongside a handful of other boldly coloured blades. Blues, greens, ambers, reds. It was a kaleidoscope of coloured death. A collage of menace. They looked quite beautiful - you wouldn't have known of all the bodies they were to have cleaved, torn and stabbed. Not to mention the many more mine in particular would release from their worldly anchors.

I could hear that scouts were coming in, they'd jump off their birds at a run and the clucking mounts would waddle off to eat grain tossed about in the staging area. 

Selzey, the captain of our forces, sent word that I was called for a moot of the sub-commanders. There was time for a quick wash at the lake, where my stocky frame got a rinse, at least. Then I walked with purpose to the gathering. 

First we did an inventory. We had enough food both preserved and to forage to either remain in place or get to the township, but we feared our lack of knowledge was our biggest weakness. We didn't know how long it would take the advanced elements of the first Army to secure a position around this vital water resource from which they could attack. We could have weeks or hours. 

As we spoke, Selzey unfurled a parchment and began picking black marbled volcanic pebbles from his waist pouch. Each time we'd heard tell of a concentration, he'd made a small talisman to represent them. By now, he had half a dozen of varying sizes. He would notch a line in each to assign meaning - the etched array of stones now dotted across the map of the region. 

We'd drawn our own lines on but not our unit sizes, in case the map was seized. We knew our main force had made for another staging area a couple weeks away, with a forward base at the nearest weakling town. That base had stores for a protracted siege and lay at a key position geographically. We knew the sift had to pass through there and had made sure it was ready before we headed out on our combat patrol. Besides our own unit, elements from our base had spread out across the valley to track the progress of the enemy, harass its supply lines and prepare themselves for partisan harrying as the enemy force advanced. That was our dilemma. The caves and local resources made this the ideal spot to raid and use guerrilla tactics. Plus, there was a good escape route in the lava tunnel. But we didn't know if the enemy had scouted the valley or if any maps remained from prior passings. We didn't know if staying was worth our effort - or what strength the first probe would use.

To our left flank was a larger force of nean pathfinders. These elite troops were tasked with infiltrating and counter attacking the main line of an enemy advance, which we thought would come along the main valley to our centre.  

Along with our units in the centre, a bit to our right lay a smaller force of humans. These were mostly sword infantry with a smattering of mortars. The heavier artillery and ranged units were on the far right flank. These elements were our fire support. They'd positioned in some natural escarpment by the path that led around the lake. It was an ambush position with our reserve of rifle troops. Amongst the scree in the foothills they'd arranged their mortar and missile teams. These were neans and some Giants with greystone leathers. A type of camouflage that made them incredibly difficult to pick out from distance. The plan had been for our companies in the centre to engage or await engagement and draw the forces toward the heavy fire base. Support would then be called and we would turn upon their line of advance, splitting them in half and breaking their force down. The neans on our left would then roll up the rear forces and help us pin them in on three sides with the lake at their rear. It was a good plan and the terrain certainly favoured us. 

There was no way the enemy could out flank us, the fells by which we were bordered were impassible during those turns and we knew a lookout post sat behind us to warn of a force sneaking the long way around through the dense forest. We had left this group on the small chance that the enemy were advancing in a feint, if the stronghold fell behind us, our four units would be trapped and worn down. The ob-post was at the exit to our tunnel - some one day's march away. It was a mixed company sized unit and had line of sight across the mountains to the forest by the lake as well. 

Our brigade force numbered 1,084. All well trained warriors. 528 rifler specialists, thirty-six mortar troops - twelve teams of three, each with thirty shells - one or two heavy missile launchers. And the rest were footmen, like me, laden with pistols, grenades and swords. We were men, women alike. And race-wise, had a handful of giants, with the balance made up of nean and human troopers. Each race had its strengths and drawbacks. Which I observed in all the combat to come and had learned during my time in the wilds during peacetimes. There were about 750 odd clinging to the scree to hit the advance.

As commander of the infantry, I envied the missile launcher troopers the most. Theirs was a truly awesome weapon, and it packed a punch. They each carried five rounds. Those rounds could take out six or seven Giants in one punch. And since they were so hated, it was usually in close quarters as they were rushed. A combination of shrapnel and incendiary weapon, they melted, tore and imploded anything they hit. When they were spent, other tools were drawn and hand to hand ensued. Their secondary weapons were short, single-bladed Amber axes - also rifled with four high charge lithium rounds stacked inside. Weapons they'd need - as Giants tended to hunt for them with more than a dash of eagerness. The carnage they wrought was enough for the enemy to prize the head of a launcher trooper more than any other, it paid a fine tribute from their chain of command. Riflemen, who made up the fist of most fighting units on our world, were adept at both sniper work and line fire. How they were deployed in battle depended wholly on the type of conflict. Long, steady battles, made them perfect for dug in defensive lines; quick, evolving skirmishes meant they could fire, move and pick off key opponents. I liked them a lot and always felt safe with a pack of them nearby. 

Our battles, in hindsight were quite napoleonic - ranged units combined with cavalry and hand to hand sword work. With a bit of the unique thrown in. Our armour was exceptional - this was a warring culture after all. 

Riflers were usually stocky fellows. When their ample rounds were spent, they drew shorter stabbing swords - clouded white diamond, less glamorous than then the infantry units, but just as effective. The rifle also had a bayonet of sorts, a three/pronged fork. Beyond that and standard kit grenades, they carried four heavier propelled grenades that could be launched from their rifles. These inventions all feature, so I note at least, in earth wars. They'd stand their rifle up and lean it on an angle to make the grenades short range mortars or just fire them point blank into larger foes. They were very solid examples of anarchic soldiering, those warriors. Everyone was quick, fit and spoiling to survive a fight. Even a brutal death on the field was easier than the alternative. 

Most of the 48 giants in our huge company were elements from the artillery division that had been formed just months before. Their far larger grenades were flung huge distances and for longer ranges, they carried a large gold-coated tree trunk sized barrel, lined with resin, and rifled. 

Each slung it over their shoulder or propped it up. It could breech or muzzle load a variety of shell ordinance. Sadly for us, their unit had been caught in a lava eruption before we mustered and many supplies were lost, so we had them, their precious weapons but only ten incendiary between them, which we weren't even sure worked. The Giants were armoured, though, and each wielded a broadsword of dull onyx-like diamond that was tipped with a mace shaped into an animal head. Their unit had the bust of a snarling redwolf on it.The weapon would smash through wall, flesh or armour and was just as effective at bludgeoning as it was slicing. It was so long, you had to be really careful engaging a giant carrying one. Most Giants fought with huge double-head axes on pole spikes, or battlehammers. The sergeant of our giant company had what was known as a skullhammer. It had a huge flattened plate side and on its opposite side a longer branch that divided in two. One prong was curled and barbed, the other a straight point. It was a viciously horrifying site to watch a skilled bearer tear through heads and armour with swings and flicks of their wrists. I once saw a giant snare a nean on his massive barbed prong only to use his increasingly limp and bloodied body to smash a half-dozen men aside. It was wondrous, brutal and utterly lethal. But our Giants spoke regularly of their nemesis. The lava commandos. Whilst many neans fought with us, an elite force of some 5,000 had long been drawn from cities under sift rule. Their primary weapon was a diamond bullet that was pumped full of red hot lava. They also carried a variety of grenades packed with it. Every drop lethal and most flammable. It stuck to whatever it hit and melted clean through it. Only the neans knew how to make them and had somehow found a way to contain the corrosive rivers of fire. We had access to many of the masters, too, but the raw materials were mostly to be found South, traded before the sift through the nean stronghold there. The lava commandos had long been secured to fight and supply our enemy.

I'd heard of these neans and seen only one in my life. When I was younger. I knew the commandos had been further darkened by the customs of the South, but to me they were all just as brutal. Our own neans weren't exactly weaklings. But lava- calibre they were not.

 It was told they ate only the heart and liver of creatures they hunted, farmed or defeated. As I've said before, it was not considered savage to cannibalise and butcher those that fell by your sword. It was tradition in fact. You had earned their flesh, their soul was weak. As it passed through you, perhaps it's next incarnation would not be so slight. Rumour spread of this unit targeting Giants and sharing their liver whilst they cooked them alive. Giant livers were massive and they could be opened up and eaten while the owner still lived - it was a brutal torture. With several Giants being kept alive, one could literally move to the next while the liver of the last partially healed, sucking life from the rest of the creature's body. Giant farms of war dead lined the kitchens of the lava commandos' fortress city. 

Perhaps at some stage, we would have to lay siege and destroy it. I myself would have delighted in destroying the life of their elder, the particularly evil - Zalby. As with all our company, dying in battle was quite literally the only option we had. To survive it and be captured was a fate worse than an hour stuck as the flesh on a bloody skullhammer. Giants preferred their meat dead and tenderised, you see.Selzey looked pensive as he surveyed the strategic outlook. 

"If we fall back, the units on hill seven to our left will be exposed. "I've heard nothing to indicate from our left that the enemy have fanned out. It seems their apex is headed straight for us. 

"Whilst we are outnumbered five to one" He added. ....."I believe the original plan will work best. They will advance on our line, our centre will fall right and draw them to the killzone. We fall back, then turn once they've been engaged by the heavies. "It should be clinical." He stabbed his index finger into the situation map, making one of the talisman topple over. "It seems too easy, too obvious." I interjected."If you were them, would you trot up a valley you knew was the only route to the central lane for 100 leagues. You'd expect this move."How would you counter it?" I posed, chewing on a stick of dried bear meat, then sipping more of the spiced tea i'd been given by one of his aides. "I'd probably probe." Selzey said, deflated after his overly optimistic briefing.

"Indeed. I'd pretend I was clueless and put my main advance on to these hills." I pointed at our heavies, the anvil upon which we ourselves intended to crunch our enemy."It seems the hardest place for them to attack, the landscape favours defence and the hills guard all its flanks. It has line of sight down the valley as well." I glanced at Selzey who was slowly tapping the map with a diamond bullet's tip."I don't think they are that smart."If you had such superior numbers and only a thirst for war, would you bother? "Most of these troops can't even read. Their commanders have no tactics! They never have before, it's the only unspoken rule we have, we use cunning and they use numbers and aggression!" He added, laughing coarsely. "But I grant you, Chime, our plan felt obvious before and as the sun rises, and I'm sitting here as bait, it feels even more obvious now." He sniffed and scratched his nose with the bullet."Options?"  He added, glancing around at the four of us assembled.Another Sub leant in and offered her thoughts. 

"If indeed our tactics are obvious, and our enemy does not opt for tactics, we have two clear questions to answer....

"Has our enemy evolved and do our own expectations cloud our judgement?" Said Trempler, the sub-commander of the rifleman. She was 36, a tall nean, with grey hair, broad shoulders and bright orange eyes. She wore a very similar uniform to my own, with ammo belts strung across her chest from both shoulders. She leant on a long rifle, arching out her hip as if she was being swept by a strong wind."It seems to me we either base our strategy on past performance and fact, or expect the unexpected. The latter may be foolish if the former shows us that change is rare. But war is rarely predictable, that much we know. 

"Consensus?" Selzey concluded, looking between the rest of us."I don't see why they would have changed. But we must not. Our advantage is our unpredictability. We lose nothing by being prudent. Let's be the ones to attack first and lure them in, better that than dangle like bait for the lakeman's pike." I added."Seconded." Said Selzey. The others nodded in agreement. 

"I shall send out a recon unit to pick the fight and turn tail. There's nothing the south hate more than cowards that flee." His face contorted. He knew that we liked the idea of retreat no more than our enemy. The differences in hell were small, it was not as if our culture in the north was democratic or just. It was merely and unequivocally less evil than the south, but ruthless and harsh it remained. Survival was for the fittest. We all nodded again in agreement, though, and consensus was reached. "I shall ask for two dozen volunteers, the rest shall rejoin us and coil the spring." Selzey added. He began to roll up the parchment map, dropping a handful of pebbles into his hip pouch. We all made ready to leave the conversation. At once we heard a commotion to the far end of our dell's encampment and the noise was soon verging on panic. Troops gasped and rushed to arms around us, as if sensing what they saw was going to hasten their orders. I turned to see two uniformed rifle warriors stumbling toward our group. One was severely bloodied and a had a torn tunic, the other had his arm over him and was grazed and shocked. They had just one rifle between them. The man carrying his colleague also had a blood-stained red sword in his hand. Others came to take the wounded man and tend to him, whilst Selzey, Trimbler and I spoke to the other."What gives man, where is your unit?" I demanded, taking the sword from him and examining it."Defeated. The entire right is broken. The heavies, the rifles, the gear. Beaten. We were routed. I only escaped with Brevvy because our commander ordered it and my part of the scree was on the left.  Twenty of us were ordered to break for it. If it hadn't been for our giant, Polob, we would have been slain, but the lavas wanted him alive." The man wept and gripped my shoulder. "Pull yourself together man." I said.I knew his emotions were raw, the adrenaline that had sustained him was gone and now his grief and trauma coursed through his bones. He'd clearly fought his way out and anyone that saves your life draws a debt from you. One your survival demands be paid in guilt. "How did they achieve this, I need numbers details and a report!" I insisted, attentions to distract his soul grief with practical demands.

We didn't hear a thing. Most of the explosives we used shattered rather than blew up and the sound just didn't travel far. Equally, firing the weapons made more of a whoosh than a bang - the wind dealt with that. Combat just didn't make the big bangs that travelled miles. It was noisy if you were there, but the whole place was noisy with wild animals, rumbling mountains, dry lightning and even the slopping of the lake's waves against the shoreline. 

"Lava commandos, sir. About 600. They must have crept behind our position. They fell upon us from above as well as from the lake. Our sentries didn't even see them. The rest, Giants and men poured to us once the neans had cut the morale down." He said, gulping. "It was the vanguard of their entire army. I think. And they have a bridgehead to your right. 

"We took a few dozen lava out, the heavies on our own left opened up point blank and when it seemed lost they scuttled their supplies. That was the bravest thing I've ever seen, enemy bodies took seconds to land after the smash. And in so many pieces! It must have killed a hundred, maybe several. "There'll be enough chaos to hold them there for now while they file across the lake." He said with some urgency."You two aren't the only survivors?" I asked calmly.He drank some water, then ate a roll and some of the black cheese we'd had fetched for him. We also bore off his weapon and kit. "No! More survived. But the others will either be making their way to the rally point or heading this way along my own line of retreat. We were broken, though. There was death and duel as far as the eye could see. Hundreds in combat and lives falling every second." He said, grimacing with his final few mouthfuls, as if the food was a curse. It had happened the previous night during the stormy and noisy conditions. He went on to describe the rest of the battle. His squad had met with a runner sent over to instruct the elements on their line - it had been swift and sure. 

Enemy Giants on the far lake must have smashed the upper cliff to create a land ramp. Commandos crossed the lake with their own rope and rigged up three new ferries. They then snuck around the mountain and climbed above the defensive positions. 

As the lava commandos had descended the cliffs, they'd gone totally unnoticed, falling into the rear line, they'd moved through the sleeping soldiers in the camp and slit as many throats as they could find. Our Giants were knocked out - presumably for the spits - and the alarm stifled until one of the base blew the first weapons cache. It had been quick thinking that may have saved hundreds of lives. Our main force would have been facing the wrong way to this threat had we not had advanced warning.

The main force then assaulted from the beach and built a bridgehead - our infantry and rifleman held them at the beach but as more ferries rolled in, the sheer weight of numbers and lack of heavy weapons meant the line fell. Hundreds had been killed or taken captive. 

The brave that fell may well have saved the rest of us. Nonetheless, their entire unit was now in disarray and what was left of it was now streaming into our position - exposing our now sprung trap. As sentry horns went off along our position, the survivor was whisked off to rest and finish his debrief. Now we were all in mortal danger.

"Shambles." Said Selzey. He'd quickly slung on his armour and wore his sword on his left hip. His rifle was slung under his arm and leant over his right wrist. 

"With the heavies lost, I don't see how we can fire and move, we either pull back or pull in the the elements left and dig in the only place we can." He added, scratching his beard. With this, he glanced at us and then turned to look at the mountain behind us. 

We only finished our meeting moments before. When the entire enterprise came crashing down around us. I said my piece, arguing that the enemy was likely to move on us as soon as they could, to which the others agreed. We instantly sent a runner to our left flank to pull in our nean cousins, we'd likely need them. The plan was to rapidly fortify the entrance to the tunnel that led to foothills some miles away and draw out several false skirmish lines to suck in any larger attacking force to this bottleneck. If we dug in along the tunnel entrance and deep inside it, we would be fairly secure. We'd already prepared hemp bags to be stuffed with soil, rock and sand. These presented large blocks that could be stacked or used for checkpoints and walls. The Giants of our own heavier unit - bereft of all but a handful of armaments for now - had already begun work. 

As the news spread, the initial grim expressions were replaced with the determined. Our first fight was upon us. I was dispatched to create the first skirmish lines. It was the riskiest element of our hobbled together plan. As I jogged to the initial scout positions we'd sent out, I was pleased to see a column of survivors arriving - there was even some heavy equipment, excellent salvage. I directed most of those Giants and their guard to the tunnel - there ordnance might offer us a chance. A few remained as a scratch unit with my company.

When I met the supervising officer for our lines, he ran me through our strength. We'd already created seven or eight layers of porous skirmish line.  Each one was told to fire or engage, then move smoothly through the next line to join its own buffer. That continued until the final skirmish line, the one being set up in the woods and high ridge alongside the tunnel. That would be the site of our battle, with the tunnel as the redoubt through which our best troops and kit would fall back.

I'd sensed that the knowledge of this battle, and the enemies new found ability to fox us, needed to be sent to the weaklings-  to share with the other armies in the field. If not, this would be a very short sift indeed and perhaps the last where we could put up any kind of a fair fight. We'd called on the township to prepare for battle and send some stores. Our fastest bird charged off down the tunnel, it would take him two days at his fastest burn - his animal would not survive the journey.  

More runners from Selzey spread the details of the previous assault - over 6,000 enemy troops had swept through our position across the ridge. They'd assaulted with an audacious plan - no heavies were used. I'd wondered how such a column could have crept past our connecting sentries over the lake, only to learn that they'd also been killed by the lavas. A hole over ten miles wide had been punched through our line without so much as a whisper - one more than sizeable enough to do such damage with free reign. It was the perfect salvo. Perfectly executed. Almost as if it was a plan of our own making.That's one of things that began to make me suspicious, nothing in war went smoothly. There's no way the enemy could have known exactly where every sentry post and skirmish line was set - the south neans were good, but not oracles! Given that intelligence was not something our foe was known for - we must , surely, have been betrayed. Or, although quite unlikely, we'd lost or been observed with our own plans. We with our cunning plans. How they fell to pieces over the course of the week. I put that to one side until I could do something about it.

As I continued to ready the defensive lines and ensure all had orders for the rally point, ordnance, ammo and a little food, I began to get the ominous sense that this battle was going to be very hard indeed. The battle for this brackish lake came in waves.

Their attack was methodical. The first probing elements began to make contact in the small hours. All we heard were the clashes of our stone swords - it had a glassy tinkle to it, almost musical. Each sword vibrated with a different note, the note changed tone depending on what it struck and where on the sword the impact occurred. It was both beautiful and maddening - sometimes the orchestra of battle danced along in a melody of death. Today's fight was far more staccato. Our losses were minimal initially, we knew the enemy was coming and had a preset plan to fight and withdraw. Dozens fell, but more to the sheer weight of numbers than an overly skilled enemy. Our troops were very well trained - not the finest in our entire army, but brave and able. They were drawn from weakling cities in their teens and trained for the sifts every few cycles. This turn's output were stout, grim and bristling for revenge. Many had lost their parents and livelihoods in the last sift.

As more troopers fell back, the skirmish lines became consecutively harder for the enemy to peel away quickly. When the advance came to my line, two hundred yards from where the bulk of our forces were arrayed - I was ready and it was near nightfall. 

Given that we had three Suns and two moons, every sunset was dazzling. I remember that evening even more so. Beams of yellow, gold and blue we projected across the trees and through the tree lines . They were slanted planks, beams that lit up patches of the forest through gaps in the canopy. Combined with the many coloured stone swords, it was like battling in an earth discotheque!

The noise of a running battle approached . I drew my sword and stepped a couple of paces forward to address my unit. Riflemen joined us and advanced to take their first volley. Most went prone to enhance their accuracy.

"Warriors. The sift is upon us. Our generation shall stand in the path of chaos and face it down. If we are to die let it be in battle, not like the cattle we are to this menace.

"Today we show them our strength, our courage and our ability to survive! 

"Throw them down with every swing. To life!!!" I roared the last words as loudly as I could and the troops responded with a collective blast of motivation. 

Then the battle crashed through the trees into the far side of our clearing. We'd heaped some earth and hammered together trunks to create a loose trench work and fortified line. Larger branches had been sharpened and protruded towards the direction of the enemy. Small slits in the line allowed men to pass between these mini redoubts and another line behind plugged the gaps. Any enemy coming into the raised trenches would be forced to turn left, right or try and scramble over the head high barriers. Giants could clamber over them, though. 

I looked on as several friendly infantry ran towards us to join the line, sliding between the fortifications to be greeted by allies. Another carrying a wounded colleague was limping over when an enemy giant crashed through the trees behind him. He turned and his last sight was that of a huge battlehammer smashing his torso to pieces. Both bodies were broken and shattered pieces fell off the hammer. The giant struck out at another man sprinting to his left and knocked his legs away. He then used his huge boot to stamp out the man's life with a blow to the spine. He looked up at our line, lifted his hammer arm and roared.

"Forward! Tonight we feast!!!" His words trailed off and his hammer arm dropped to point directly at me. From behind him, enemy troops poured into the clearing and broke into a run toward us. No nean commandos, however, these were men, Giants, and many of them. 

I raised and dropped my blue sword in reply and the colourful swipe called on a barrage of rifle fire from the 200yrd line we held. Our glassy ordinance ripped into the advance and enemy fell about the field. Limbs flew, heads erupted and wails filled the air. Our Riflers wrought terrible damage to the charge. But more poured into the clearing and the sound of battle also began to our left and right. Trees were shaking in the woods and flashes of light flickered as bullets and ordinance flew through the beams of the last light.

Mortars took range and slung their lofted lithium charges into the clearing, we roared each time a giant or large unit fell. 

Our weaklings crept along the line with rattling ammo crates filled with ordinance.

I took up a green grenade, licked it, thumbed down the charge, held it for a second and then flung it in the direction of the giant who approached. The flesh of our kinsman dangled from his hammer in several places and blood smeared across his face where he'd snatched a quick bite on the hoof. My grenade popped at his feet and began to cling to his clothing, he didn't flinch. And picked up his pace toward me. My allies followed suit and lit up the field several grenades hitting marks. Yet my mark kept coming. He was clad in armour over his torso and wore a helm that bore a pair of tusks. Bricks of soup dangled and jostled on his shoulder belt. His skin was thick and scarred, and in the streaks of light I could see his massive eyes were lit up, wired full of the drugs of war. He was souped up and thirsting for me next. My grenade fell off him and exploded on one of his comrades behind. With a leap, he was into our position.

He reached me with a swing of his hammer and I with a two handed blocking motion from my blade. It sounded like someone had fallen from height into the keys of a crystal piano. And a new dark melody ensued. We parried each other as he and his forces pushed my men and I back a few feet into the forest. It was there where the trees incubated and amplified the clinking music of the battle all around me.

I had no time to review the entire line, I was fighting for my life. I was aware of men and enemy falling about me, I'd managed to scream some orders to my seconds and sensed we were not yet overrun. Riflers had pulled back behind the line to plug any holes and my infantry reserves with lances supported them. I could hear as blocks were emptied, with the ordinance whizzing passed my flailing arms. 

"You puny. Little. Man." The giant screamed and panted as he desperately drew and launched his hammer at me again, and again. The odd sword fight crossed our paths and the giant was indiscriminate in his swipes. Grabbing some of my smaller warriors only to tear into their flesh with his sharpened teeth before tossing them aside. 

As his latest blow fell toward my right I ducked to the left of it, spun and severed his unprotected hammer-wielding arm below the elbow. He roared in pain but instantly drew an axe from this back with his remaining hand. He licked and gnawed at the new stump on his right arm and spat the remnants at me. It splattered my armour like blobs of mud. The reek was insufferable, but I had no time to consider vomit.

Our combat resumed, until I flipped myself backwards as he lunged with the sharp end of his weapon's handle. His movement slowing due to the loss of blood,  I then leant in and slit his exposed throat. As he fell over forwards towards me I stepped aside and used one hand to plunge the blue sword down into the base of his neck. He went limp.

I took a moment to survey the frenetic battle around me. My company had done well. We'd lost roughly a quarter by the look of the line, with wounded limping back to the tunnel. Our skirmish line had held, though. Mustering myself I threw my armour back into the fight. Five, six, seven enemy fell as I danced through the trees slicing and stabbing at dark warriors. Heads and limbs were severed and my lust for the fight energised me.

"Push forward men, on me!" I demanded at a yell, rallying troops around me. 

We'd thinned out the first wave and pushed them back out of the trees into the clearing. They were beyond our crude fortifications. With new boxes of ammo, the Riflers were once again pouring a suppressing fire over the far side of the clearing. I nodded to their commander. He was wounded, with a cut to the shoulder. 

"No Riflers. No ordinance. No neans." I muttered, to no one in particular, only to find an unranked man beside me. 

"A probe sir. And a costly one I'd venture." The young man said. 

"What's your name, lad?" I asked taking a rag stuffed down his gleave and wiping the chunks of congealed giant blood from my face. 

"Neleas, it is, skip." He said. Acknowledging my rank in a lilting accent and laughing as I let the bloody rag fall out of my hand to the floor. 

"Not often is it I seen contact like this. A sift, I'm fighting in a bloody sift." He added. Looking oddly proud. He glanced down to his ammo belt and drew a new block, he then packed it into the right breach of his rifle and cocked his weapon. 

I drew my pistol and packed in a block as well. To clear the gore from my blade, I lay it flat on the earth and trunk of our fortification and slid it backwards, leaving the gunk behind.

"We survive this night and you'll make a fine first, lad. I'll see to that." I said. But I wasn't able to add more motivation, as I turned to him, a bullet tore through this chest and threw blood over my face. He sank, whimpering to the floor, his face the picture of pain.

Behind the bullet came many more and chunks of bark and dirt leapt in every direction. The bullets lit up in the night, with coloured tracers beginning to line the air. 

Mortars, missiles and grenades flew towards us in earnest, erupting tree, flesh and light alike. 

Soldiers fell and bellowed in pain all along the line. The crunching sound of diamond bullets striking flesh and fortification was like the sound of dirt kicking up underneath your car on an unkept road, everytime I hear that it reminds me of the first battle of the sift. 

From the left side of the line, we heard an almighty roar and I realised the main attack had begun. My choices were threefold. Stay put, draw my troops left to tackle the onslaught and reinforce our flank or throw the enemy off balance. Bet you can guess which one I chose from my playbook?

"Soldiers of the central boroughs!" I bellowed, stepping backward from my fortification and alongside it.

"We don't fall back. The enemy is breaking our flank. Let us destroy theirs! Riflers, covering fire, infantry on me! Charge!!!!" And with that. I sprang forward through the entrance to our line and out into the clearing. At full pace, I aimed myself toward the enemy. Men poured out following me and my company, and our scratch units, a few hundred or so still standing joined. Bullets struck out and plucked men around me from their path, but we made it to the line and cut into the Riflers left to pin us down or push us back. Within the forest I could see that, off to the left, some strength of forces oozed into our flank. Several hundred and dozens of giants had hacked a hole into the front and the entire line was falling away to the entrance of the tunnel where the bulk of our forces were entrenched. Panic made easy meat for an an advancing force. 

Behind them, heavy ordnance units had begun clearing trees for their mortars and artillery to get a clear line of sight. The trunks from our line were quickly being pulled up and replanted in a new earthwork. It was rapid work. 

As we cleaned up the remaining dozen or so troops in our patch of forest, my remaining unitmen clustered around me. We were crouched about two hundred yards from the enemy heavies and could hear that their main spearhead had fanned out along the line and secured our former positions - presuming we'd fallen back. 

"Well done troops. We may yet be of use. For now, we are behind enemy lines. Cut off, we must fight our way back." I insisted.

"Inventory." I requested to the firsts and seconds about me. 

The group chattered and muttered quietly. Until our strength was established.

"My first, we are 8 Riflers who are 75% stocked with ammunition and have 87 blades and full compliment of pistols. Two giants with us, too, both with a single missile round they've yet to use." Said the nearest second. He was a blonde haired nean-human halfer and bore an amber coloured longsword. 

"Good." And I reflected on our capability.

"First we take out that heavy nest being set up and then we bash through to join our line." I added. The troops fell in as I assigned snap tactics to each squad.

Our attack on the nest went smoothly. And we'd even caught a group of weaklings and men in the enemy supply train heading to re-up the position. They'd begun firing ordnance over and out of the trees toward the tunnel some minutes before we hit them. The damage wrought was likely devastating. 

Once secured, I had my men draw down the range of the nests and we sent out the last of their rounds into where we knew elements of the enemy were mustering. 

I then brought my force into the tree line and we crept to the final line ahead of the tunnel. 

The battle was coming to an end, most of the left and centre lines had been destroyed and the nean unit was cut off from the tunnel. Fortifications lay torn up and bodies littered the entrance to the tunnel where birds whisked away some surplus supplies and wounded down the tunnel. The thinned out defensive line was being pressed by the moment. I knew that the battle was lost and few more would escape. I didn't know how many had made it inside to block any subsequent advance.  

It was then that I saw Selzey march out with his personal guard and their seconds to take on the squad of giants who'd broken through the dense battle and were looping round to finish the rest off from behind. They tore into the other troops that lunged in the gap behind the Giants, once the line was plugged, they turned on the Giants ambushing the fighters from behind as they duelled those at their front. 

I felt eager to rejoin the fight but was aware that a thick column of enemy was ranged out front of us. Glancing to the right I could see the balance of the Neans on our force breaking out and making for the forest beyond. The enemy pursued them, but not in force. They would likely survive and their remnants make for another lava tunnel or even the distant strong city we yet held at Mauveck. It was the right move and one they wouldn't have taken lightly. 

By now Selzey's platoon had met the Giants behind their line. One massive enemy stood out. He was perhaps a third greater in size than most of his kin, had a green helm and a huge onyx battlehammer that had an axe on one face and a flat plate on the other. He wore sap armour and shone in flashes as the light from bullets, grenades and fires that both struck and reflected upon him. He snarled and roared and split the platoon down the middle, swinging his fearsome weapon from left to right. He drew a smaller axe from his back and used it to finish off those nearby. He stopped, panted hard and immediately struck at Selzey. Three blows later and our prime warrior was broken. The Giant, still flanked by two of his squad threw his smaller axe into a bird rider fleeing for the tunnel fifty yards away and picked up Selzey in one sweep. He roared in victory and bellowed. Both lines of troops turned to see the beast bite his head off, in one mighty crunch, and throw the body at the wall above the tunnel, limp and lifeless. 

Morale evaporated. I bowed my head and contained a trembling urge to charge the enemy rear, packed with lava commandos, and throw my company upon the fire of our doom. But it would have made no sense. They were too many. 

My men gasped as our remaining lines collapsed. Some of our allies retreated into the tunnel, others were hacked aside. The whole time, I could see other lava commandos pouring out of the smoking field to follow our force of neans into the forest and beyond. But many headed to the tunnel to finish the work. Their rear was beginning to arrive off to our right and instantly began to fortify the area. Victory was assured for them by now. 

I turned to see many a panicked face and questions whispered across the company, insisting on a plan and permission to revenge our kin.

"Hush. Or you'll all be soup for nought." I said, pointing at the massive cauldrons on wheels being dragged into view. Giants were already scooping up bodies and lobbing them inside. Weaklings prepped a fire from kindling and wood they'd brought with them. 

All the while I watched that massive giant as he had the few of our men they'd left alive taken as prisoners. Dozens were giants and they were already being tied up and polled, ready for the lava nean's harvest. 

We'd watched for minutes, maybe ten, but it felt like hours.

"We make left for our old lines. We shall cross the lake, go through the forest and regroup at the township - that's if it's still standing by the time we get there." I added.

After the muttering quietened, consensus was reached as each of my seconds nodded their agreement. The orders were passed out down the column and we quickly made our way from the edge of the battlefield.

I looked around to see a giant I knew being strung up on a large pike by his arms as a nean trooper was sharpening a sickle shaped blade on a whetstone below. A tear filled my eye. Almost reflecting my mood, the sky had filled with cloud unnoticed before. Rain trickled down and slapped against canopy, rock and carcass. 

I pulled my cloak from my backpack and threw it over my head, the company followed suit. We'd make for the army in the North or die trying.