A Woodland Ambush

'This means Narrator'

Empire Handgunner Benny POV: I've just finished my training in Imperial Gunnery School, where my father managed to secure me by socialising with Nuln nobles, with my family part of the merchant class, and am now deployed in this horrible, dense, dark forest supposedly called "Athle Lren". We are scouting with my unit of 30 for signs of the Savage Elf's main cities and encampments, likely a pile of woodland barns or shanty shacks that these uneducated heathens call home. I mean, they don't even wear proper armour, whereas I am here in my new reinforced steel breastplate, greaves and shiny helmet that no bow could ever go through, and my trusty recently cleaned handgun. I mean talk about overkill.' The sound of birds suddenly stops, all the unit can hear is the winds blowing through the branches and the moans of pain by the trees generated from it. 'My Unit leader, Lieutenant Reinhart, who comes from the uppity noble class, who is currently suffering from disfavour from the captain at forward camp due to a cowardly retreat from the knife-ears, signals us to stop and get ready to fire, square for no reason at all. The paranoid fuck, I give an almost silent sigh as I brace myself for the Lt to get over his nerves. We wait in statue still silence as we were trained in Nuln for at least two minutes, ready for the 'Reincoward' to signal us to move again.

I mean I am staving its been 15 hours since we left our camp I wonder if we have any more of that fancy white elk stew that we got treated with yesterday as I consider what I am having for dinner later the birds finally end their silence and Lt Reinheart finally lets out a sigh of relief saying "We must of just spooked the birds" as he airs his cowardness to the unit I turn to Kenny my friend from the Gun school next to me and just shake my head silently wondering if this what our supposed veteran leaders are like, this means all I have to do is not be a coward like Reiny and I would be shortly promoted to an officer and get that full armour and nice helmet that does not expose my face.

'Sir Reinhart the Vetran of 3 battles and a recent skirmish where he tactically retreated, sacrificing another unit and fellow officers on good terms with the Captain for a more advantageous ground. The men hear a weird sounding bird whistle, and suddenly the birds start chirping away again with the odd unknown sounding bird song mixed in between. So the Lt signals after the birds ended their silent vigil to make ready to march declares "All right, that's enough of a break, form up and ready to march" 'As we move to complete an order that we must have completed in school thousands of times, all a sudden this distressing screech is heard that almost makes my ears bleed for no more of a second and then a thunk. Me, Kenny and the rest of the unit look about for the bird of prey that just got lucky hoping to scavenge a few meals for the camp. When a second thud is heard I look to see where it came from and see the "fake vet Reincoward" kneeling down nearly as if in praying to the mighty Sigmar. As if Sigmar would bless this coward but as I contemplate this by looking at his still form from his hind quarters I see him start keeling to his right side (I feel a rock start forming in my gut) then splays himself facing skyward on the muddy ground, then I see why Reinhart felt like it might be time to honour Sigmar as a wooded pole with some leaves on the sides reveals its self from the slitted eye-socket of Reinharts helm to the company I hear the new leader of the unit off to the side of Kenny in the middle of our formation literally the Second Lieutenant Quinnilos shout "Ambush reform square formghugh ghh ghh!". Cuts off to the sound of gibber all by a wooden accessory through the side of the neck as we begin to obey his unfinished command as quickly as had been drilled into us in school, with 2 others falling prey to their primitive arrows.

As the next leader quickly assumes command whilst the 2nd Lt drowns with no water in sight, the now in command sergeant Falko Jost who helped me and Kenny integrate into the unit and is always someone you could rely on, is now safely in the middle of the formation as the leader of the unit, shouts "Left side 1st line fire volley into trees" As the first line unleashes its shot directly straight at the treeline, I quickly think myself and Kenny lucky covering the rear as an exchange of fire coming from high inside the foliage of the tress, reaping 2 more bothers in arms, with arrows luckily landing in unprotected gaps. I hear the following order, as Segant Falko Jost screams "2nd rank fire when ready at any movement flanks look for archers in foliage, 1st rank continue volley fire to disperse". I just heard over the volley of fire.

Then I hear of to my left on the woodland path a moaning noise that I recall from my childhood in woodlands of Reikland, before my father got that promotion while working for Imperial Lumber and Carpentry and had to move to the company headquarters in the great engineering city of Nuln. It was the sound that is often followed by the well known words "Timber". A cold feeling sweeps through me, and it's not because of the large quickly moving shadow that just passed over me. As the moan of wood gets louder and louder, I get colder and colder at what should have brought warm home felt feelings to my heart get corrupted into terror. I chance an undisciplined look over to the left, and I have to look over Kenny's shuddering head, as we both risk breaking the discipline drilled within us. Kenny is the first to see as if he has gotten the front row seat at a luxury play in Reikland. Being on the far left of the rear of our formation, he breathes out an almost silent whimper that I can only confirm I heard from the vibration from his throat to his arm where we are met in tight formation. Then I confirm what has shaken my steadfast friend. I almost congratulate my deduction till my reality sets in. That a giant log about 8 feet wide and 7 feet tall made of some of the heaviest wood in this godforsaken forest, with some "tastefully" decorated for mass destruction spikes singing a physical hymn right for us. I feel the cold feeling intense in the crotch of my leggings as I utter a prayer for Sigma to grant me strength in my head, the hymn still gets louder way louder than the decaying gunfire as my brothers in arms realises whats coming and the log closer I hear the command from Falko"Brace for ImpAACT!" as the log connects with my brothers I can see the spikes from the far right side of the log get logged into Kenny quarters of the spike coming out from his shoulder, chest and waist and spearing into my shoulder but thankfully due to my friends' unwitting sacrifice my breastplate holds from being penetrated like Kennys but joins my friend's final sacrifice by deforming its gleaming plate its vanity to never show again till rebirth into a new piece for the next unlucky private if I can still hope to get back to the camp in a single piece which as the formation is propelled into the air I feel is less chance of it happening and more of it being pieces, I can hope they keep my head intact enough to be identified when they goad the camp with our failure.

'As the log connects and the formation is sent skyward and far back along the path by the massive impact, and people fracture off into the treeline to never be seen in one piece again, the three leftover wood elves from the original five that the other two has split off to finish the 5 imperial that have been flung into the treeline prepare for the final confrontation. The log finishes its swing, displacing the remaining unit of 10 out of 30 the others either dead or dying from the previous engagement between Elven verse Human, Wild verse Order, Experience verse Discipline, Improvisation verse Tactics, Nature verse Industry, Accuracy verse Control, Speed verse Logistics, Old verse Young and Manoeuvre Warfare verse Guerilla Warfare.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Sorry, I couldn't help myself with the sentence of Kenny getting logged. If you read, please give feedback, as I am new to writing, but I feel I have a decent imagination for it. I will likely update this chapter to improve my writing until moving on to the next. I've already put paragraphing in and changed FOB to camp to try and make it less modern thanks to the review left by Spatialyeti8. Spartial also mentioned that the tactics used by the empire is a bit too modern and I agree that its likely that only the dwarfs would implement a defence like square formation. But due to the chapter already being written, I would have to change a lot of the story. I will say in my personnel iteration of Warhammer Fantasy that the Handgunners are a much more elite unit, as it stated that the handguns are a personally crafted item that is expensive. When a unit gets the best items, they normally get the best training available to use those items (Royal Marines,SAS,SEALS,SWAT,MI5,CIA).

P.S. Grammer has never been my strong suite tho ')