III
With the unconscious man behind him, the sniper set off for the most sensible direction, back to the camp. He had a gut feeling that when he got back there would be no one there. He had not seen an imperial in the flesh for over sixteen hours. He marched on his battered legs and tried to keep the searing pain on the palm of his hand off his mind. It was near impossible. When he had walked for just over the first hour he encountered the first imperial, he lay on the floor with a broken leg and a dozen bloody bullet wounds in his chest, his regiment helmet was one the floor next to him. The poor souls face was a mask of a miserable death, for a second he felt a feeling of bizarre recognition, but he knew it was his imagination. The hunger inside of him was replaced by a feeling of sadness, did this man know what his fate would be the day he signed up for the imperial guard. He guessed not. The sniper was determined to carve his own destiny. He had to move he thought, there was no time for sadness.
Later that cycle the exhausted man found himself on the brink of a crater, strewn around it were early two whole platoons of imperial guard. Debris still burnt and smoked in the gaping hole in the world's crust. Around burnt out wrecks of imperial tanks disgusting remains of human form were scattered in large clusters. The sight was horrifying. Earlier on the hill he had seen hundreds of explosions. Had each one caused this level of carnage? He so dearly hoped not. Trees around the crater had been uprooted and thrown around in flurries of wood and leaf, to witness such a scene would surely awaken many a general to the real horror of war. Before he had vowed to make his own fate, he wondered how many of these soldiers had done the same, only to be met by an air strike on the march. His stomach churned. He could look no more, he traversed the crater quietly singing an old song his father had taught him. The sniper, walked away from the scene unwilling to see another dead imperial. His heart beating loudly and his head full of sadness he marched toward his goal. But the crater had shown him one thing, that his chances on this world were small.
The beaten sniper arrived at another terrifying sight. The camp he had arrived at a week ago was destroyed, bodies of imperials again were raggedly scattered about the destroyed camp. This time the sniper knew almost all the bodies. He saw two of his sergeants lying next to a twisted steel table, a soldier who had pushed him out of the mess queue lay inside a collapsed tent, blood streaked down his fatigues from a large piece of shrapnel embedded in his left shoulder. Everywhere death, blood, bodies. He had never seen this side of a combat before. The losing side. Depression took hold of his body, he had come to this place in search of respite and a way off this rock. But the emperor offered him a reward for enduring the terrible turn of events.
The sniper smelt something, barely conceivable over the smoke, the disgusting smell of seared flesh and the omnipresent stench of death. But never the less he could smell it. It was food. His stomach twisted in pain when he thought it, but he knew it was here. Hell, he would have eaten it if it had mixed with the excrement of every soldier in this camp. He saw it, a pot full of boiling stew, on a flickering fire. He rushed toward it, hunger running through his veins compelling him forward. He picked it up like the chalice of the Sanguinius. And brought his head to the rim of the scorching metal pot, he tipped it and the boiling stew poured into his throat. He felt instantly invigorated as the liquid travelled down his trachea, leaving a burning trail of scolded muscle tissue. The pain made him gag but he didn't care. Streaks of pale green broth streamed down between his cheeks and chin and onto his neck. The pot was nearly empty and he was far from full but the simple act of kindness by fate had quenched his hunger, for now. He set the pot down on the floor and sat back in the death stained dirt. He laughed in joy. He laughed in the face of all that had faced him so far. He laughed knowing that he had won, for now.
There may be a short wait for 4 and 5 as they are currently in the making, but stay tuned if you want to know how it ends for the sniper
Dark-Disciple
