Hello hello, we are back here to continue this whacky adventure! Get comfortable as this is a long one. Also, college is starting back up for me again, and uploads could get more hectic for a good while (as if they weren't already tbh). Anyways, without further ado, here's the story;
Koan Forest, the previous day
Tuka Luna Marceau, daughter of Hodor Marceau, was sound asleep in her bed, enjoying an afternoon nap in their humble home, the windows above her bed left open, a gentle breeze billowed the curtains and caressed her skin. Hers was a simple life, never taking more from Nature than she received from it. In turn, her, her village and her ancestors have watched over these woods since before humans entered this world through the Gate on Alnus hill. She loved those around her. She hunted and gathered each day no more than she needed to satisfy her hunger. She stood warden over the forest. Their forest. The humans might call her way of life crude, savage, primitive. Whenever she heard that her answer was let them think what they would. The Wild will outlast them, as it has outlasted all that came before, and will outlast all that will come after. Yes, they did not erect great marble structures, palaces and arches to testify to their 'greatness', their building blocks torn out from the living earth's entrails, only for those 'marvels' to return to dust by the time she would witness the birth of her first grandchild millennia later. Her kind did not need such trivial things. All they needed was the Woods to call their home and be their provider. Life for high elves was serene, peaceful, in balance. Good.
She did not hear her father's hurried footsteps as he entered their home, not initially, at least. She opened her eyes just as her father placed a hand on her shoulders and shook her.
"Tuka, wake up." He said, a coldness in his voice that was so uncharacteristic of him. His expression was as grim as the day he lost Tuka's mother.
"Nnn…" She let out a soft, sleepy groan as she rubbed her eyes. "Father? What… What is the matter?" She asked as she sat up. Just then she heard a raw, animalistic roar that she felt rumble through her stomach and made the blood chill in her veins. She heard people outside shout in panic as an enormous blood-red shape swooped by above the canopy. Tuka rushed to the open window to get a better look at it and instantly wished she did not as she laid eyes on an ancient Fire Dragon circling above her village. She had not seen one before in person but the legends and tales she heard of those who bore witness to the fury and devastating power these monsters wielded upon their unfortunate victims described them exactly as the giant red-scaled being in front of her. She looked back at her father, who was gathering his bow, quiver and sword. Tuka hurried over to her own bow and quiver in another corner of the room, her hands quickly strung up the weapon.
"Tuka, no." Her father said sternly, already knowing what his daughter was about to do. "You must flee. I promised your mother that I would keep you safe." Tuka felt that his voice was laced with regret and guilt, many layers below his strict tone.
"Father, you know as well as I do that there is no escape from a Fire Dragon." She said as she fastened her quiver around her hips. "And an extra archer won't hurt out there."
Before her father could protest further, the flying monster above opened its maw and bathed a large part the village in flames. Tuka heard screams. The screams of pain that only a living creature being burned alive could make. The elves outside that managed to grab their bows let loose a volley of arrows at the dragon that harmlessly glanced off the hard scales. The ancient dragon bathed the offending mortals in another torrent of fire, this one hitting close to Tuka's home before it descended, its weight creating a small shockwave as it landed on its feet. Her father realised they had no time to argue as the temperature rose in the room from the infernos outside, and he grabbed his daughter's hand as he rushed out onto the street with her.
"HELP!" Tuka heard the scream from a familiar voice, and she stopped in her tracks as she turned towards the source. "TUKA!" It was her friend, Yuno, whom she knew since they were but mere toddlers more than a century ago. She was rushing away from the fires and the monster, running towards Tuka as fast as her legs could carry her, her eyes wide open with fear. The dragon was already reaching for her with its jaw in an almost casual manner.
"YUNO!" Tuka shouted back as she drew her bow, aiming for the dragon. Half a second later she let loose, the arrow closed the distance between them almost instantly before it pinged against the scales and fell to the ground uselessly. Another half second later the beast's jaw closed around Yuno, ending the elf girl's frantic screams with a sickening, wet crunch, leaving only little pieces of mangled flesh and bone remaining of Tuka's friend.
"Yuno…" Tuka could only shakily whisper her dead friend's name as she stared at the remains. She looked up, her eyes following the monster's tree-trunk sized legs up to its body, craning her neck as she looked up at it. Then she saw that thing, that abominable, terrifying monster with power that was only rivalled by Gods, that butcher, was looking her straight in the eye. She wanted to run, she wanted to scream, she wanted to hide, she wanted to flee from this nightmare, yet her body refused to cooperate, her legs remained still like they sprouted roots into the soil below her.
"TUKA RUN!" Her father screamed, though Tuka was frozen in place from fear. He drew his own bow and began chanting a spell that he prayed would work as he felt the winds swirl around the arrow.
"Acutehno unjhy Oslash-offi wholon!" He shouted as he let loose. The arrow flew faster than any ballista could have launched it, more perfectly than even the most skilled human archer's, propelled and guided by gusts of wind straight to its target. The dragon's eye. The arrow penetrated the yellow orb straight through the middle of the vertical pupil. The monster let out a roar of sheer fury and pain as blood trickled from its left eye, a front leg reached up to try and claw the arrow out of its eye.
"The eye! Aim for its eyes!" An elf nearby shouted to his comrades, another volley of arrows was launched towards the dragon's head, missing the remaining eye. The dragon roared again, flailing its powerful front legs and tail around wildly, pulverizing more elves around it before its eye settled again on Tuka as it opened its jaw to swallow the elf girl. Hodor ducked under one of its swipes as he rushed towards her daughter, his sword drawn. He pushed her out of harm's way as and stabbed upwards, lodging the sword in the roof of the dragon's mouth. It recoiled and roared in pain again, giving him just enough time to pick her daughter up and rush her to the well nearby.
"You will be safe here. I love you." Hodor said to her daughter as he felt the dragon close in from behind him. He offered his daughter one last smile before he dropped her into the well. The last thing Tuka saw before she plunged into the cold water was the maw of the dragon closing in around her father, that same, loving smile still on his face.
She impacted the water with a loud splash. She quickly oriented herself into a vertical position and stood up, her torso breaking the surface as it only reached up to her waist, just deep enough to cushion her fall. She gasped for breath and looked up towards the rim of the well. She did not see her father, nor the dragon, though she could still hear its roars and the sounds of fighting from above for a while before she heard the beast flap its mighty wings and fly off, then nothing but the sound of the forest burning above. She hoped, prayed with all her might that she would see her father, someone, anyone would appear at the rim. She tried to climb up the wall but neither her hands nor her feet found purchase on the stone. She waited. Half an hour passed. Ash began to fall from the sky, drifting slowly down the well like snow. She heard thunder rumble above and it started to rain heavily. She spent the next hour in the well, the events of the day crashing down upon her in her solitude with the weight of a mountain. She wept. Wept for her father, wept for Yuno, wept for her village, and wept for the forest she called her own. She wept until she had no more tears, her only companion the constant droning noise of the rain until that too ceased. Hours passed, yet no one came for her.
She did not know how long she had spent down in the bottom of that accursed well. It was starting to become difficult to tell apart a minute from an hour down there, though she could tell from the amount of light she had and the colour of the sky above that the sun had set and risen again. She spent the entire night awake. With nowhere to lie down or sit she was forced to keep herself upright lest she sink deeper into the freezing water. She was feeling hungry now, hungrier than during their worst winter in her long memory, she was soaking wet and was shivering uncontrollably. She started to resign to her fate until she heard the noises. Rumbling. Loud, unnatural rumbling, the soft screech of metal against metal and the wet splashes and squelches of mud under something heavy. As the noises stopped somewhere close by, she heard men speaking in an alien tongue that she could not make out. She did not call out to them, she was too cold, too weak, too scared to make a sound. An hour had passed again as these strange men milled about above her; her elven ears picked up the sound their steps made in the mud easily. She counted around 12 pairs of legs. Tuka could hear that a few of them were now right next to the well. She could just about make the words out, but their meaning still eluded her, though she recognised their sombre tone.
„Sie sind wie leichte Fahrzeuge. Wenn man von der Größe dieses Dings ausgeht, brauchen wir verdammte Panzer oder Artillerie, um es zu überwältigen. Sag den Männern, sie sollen aufsatteln. Es gibt hier nicht mehr viel für uns zu machen."
Once the man finished his speech, she could see that he had thrown the well's bucket down, straight towards her. Before she could do or say anything, the bucket hit her straight in the temple, and the world went dark.
"I need rope, now!" Karl ordered as the members of the recon team around him sprang into action. A stretch of rope was quickly produced from the truck parked nearby while Sebastian got his medical tools ready.
"Rope, here!" Hans handed it over to Karl who wasted no time and tied it into a knot around his waist.
"Lower me down, I'm going in for her." Karl said as the rest of the troops grabbed the other end of the rope, lowering him into the well as he rappelled down. After a minute his boots splashed into the cold water, and he felt it soak through his socks. He shivered a bit at the sudden, unpleasant feeling before he went to check on the girl. He made sure no bones of hers were broken and she only had the bump on her forehead where he nailed her with the bucket previously. After his quick check was complete, Karl hauled her over his shoulder. He went back to the wall and gave the rope a few tugs.
"I got her, pull me up!" The rope went taut as he was hauled back up. He kept a firm grip on the girl with one arm around her waist while the other held the rope. It took the men a bit longer to pull him and the girl back up due to the added weight and wanting to avoid harming her further. Once Karl emerged from the rim of the well, Sebastian immediately reached out to take the girl off him while a few more hands pulled him out onto solid ground again.
"Wait, look at her ears!" Hans said with a hint of excitement in his voice as Sebastian checked on the girl. "Leutnant is that an…?"
"Yepp, that is an elf… She is a goddamn elf from The Hobbit…" Karl said in astonishment.
"Quit gawking, she could be hypothermic! We need to get her out of these wet clothes!" Sebastian exclaimed as he and Arnold hurried over to the truck with her.
Karl shook his head, getting himself back to the current situation. "Alright, you heard the doc, show's over." He ordered. "Get ready to move out once he clears the girl for transport."
While Spähtruppe-3 dispersed again to carry out his instructions, Karl sat back down against the well, pulling his boots and wet socks off to pour and wring the water out of them. It was a good thing he carried an extra pair of clean socks, otherwise he would risk getting trench foot. Just as he put his boots back on Sebastian came walking back towards him.
"Leutnant." He said to get his attention as Karl stood up.
"How is she?" Karl asked.
"We managed to get her body temperature back up, and the injury to her forehead seems superficial. She is not awake yet, but I think we can chalk it up to exhaustion rather than injury to the brain. I predict that she will make a full recovery." The medic answered. "So… what happens now?"
"Well, her village is destroyed and there's not a single soul out here, so we are not leaving her here." Karl said. "We're going back to Coda. We'll have to warn them about the dragon. Hopefully, they will be able to take the elf off our hands."
"Understood, sir." Sebastian nodded.
"Oh, and good job. Keep your eyes on her until we reach that village."
"Yes sir!"
He then turned towards the team's radio operator, Stabsgefreiter (Specialist) Mann Hahn.
"Mann, get me the radio. I'm going to report this to Command."
"Sir." The radio operator acknowledged him as he set up the boxy, drab and tan contraption at the edge of the truck's bed and handed the handset to him. He put it against his ear as Mann switched it to transmit on the correct frequency and Karl spoke into it.
"ST-3 to Control."
"Control to ST-3 send traffic, over." A bit grainy male voice answered him a second later.
"ST-3 to Control. A village in our area of operation was attacked by a dragon last night. I repeat. Dragon. Several stories tall. Red scales, could fly, breathed fire. The village was destroyed, we estimate more than a hundred dead. We found one survivor, female, appears to be in her mid-twenties. She has minor injuries but is unconscious. We are providing her with medical care. Over."
"Control to ST-3. Understood. Continue your mission and report any more sightings of dangerous wildlife. Take the civilian with you until you can hand her over to the locals to take care of. Over."
"ST-3 to Control. Copy that. Out." Karl said as he hung up and turned back to the troops around her. "Alright, that is that. Mount up and head out for Coda."
The troops soon climbed back inside their vehicles, started their engines and left behind the desolate forest.
Several hours later, Coda Village
"A-All dead…?" Karl Schmidt was once again standing in front of the chief of Coda village, a horrified look on the poor man's face as he repeated his words. Karl absolutely did not have the necessary vocabulary to explain it all and Sebastian was busy tending to the elf girl, so he fumbled with his pockets getting both his language book and notebook out as well as a pencil. He did a quick, crude drawing of the dragon burning down the forest and a few buildings on a page of his notebook before he skimmed through his language booklet.
"Uhm… Went to forest. Big red bird there. Throw fire. Village Forest burn down." Karl said in very broken Saderan as he showed the chief his drawing. As the man heard his words and looked at the picture, his face immediately went pale, his eyes wide with fear as he clutched the paper with slightly trembling hands.
"That is an ancient dragon! A Fire Dragon!" He exclaimed, a fearful, anxious murmur went through the small crowd of villagers that were assembled around the pair and the German vehicles that parked in the main square.
"Village attacked, many humans burned." Karl added.
"Not humans, those were Nymphs." The chief corrected him before handing his notebook back to Karl. "We are very grateful that you came to warn us." He said as he bowed his head deeply and shook Karl's right hand with both of his before he turned to the villagers around him.
"Send someone to every house and tell them to pack their belongings! Send messengers on horseback to the nearby villages as well!" He ordered as those gathered around him hurried off, the village soon erupting into a flurry of activity as people ran to and from between the houses in a near-panic, much to Karl's confusion and slight alarm.
"One survivor. Girl." Karl said and led the chief over to the Opel Blitz where the elf girl laid on the truck bed under a bundle of blankets, a bandage wrapped around her forehead. Sebastian was kneeling next to the unconscious woman, checking her blood pressure and heart rate.
"How tragic…" The man muttered sombrely as he looked down at her.
"This child is now alone. Everyone she knew is gone; may the Lord rest their souls." Sebastian said to the chief with a few nods of his head.
"Yes." Karl added. "Can village care for girl?"
"I'm sorry, but we cannot." He shook his head as he took a small step back. "Their customs and way of life are too different from ours. You should entrust her with her own kind. Besides, we must flee."
"Are you abandoning your village?" Sebastian asked.
"Yes. We have no other choice. A Fire Dragon that has tasted human or nymph flesh will keep hunting them for decades." The chief said. Karl's eyes met Sebastian's at those words as they shared another worried look.
"Right, right…" Karl muttered as he quickly fished his map out from his pack. "This where you go, yes?" Karl asked as he pointed at another village several kilometers away that was still within Spähtruppe-3's section of the map. The village chief simply nodded.
"We help you. We can escort until that town."
On the other side of the village
Lelei La Lalena was packing their mule-driven cart full of her and her master, Cato El Altestan's, belongings. Books and tomes were stacked high under the cart's tarp, alongside chests containing magical gems, bags for ingredients to all manner of potions, and of course food and some wine to cleanse any questionable water source they encountered but had to use on their escape.
Cato was a master mage, and Lelei was her apprentice since she was the age of eight. Cato loved having Lelei as his apprentice. She was bright, eager and had a lot of talent. Nevertheless, her and Cato couldn't be more different; Cato was casual and laidback, while Lelei took her studies very seriously and did not stop studying and practicing even late into the night until she completely understood a given subject or could perform a given spell flawlessly. He liked to crack jokes often, while she was brutally honest, rarely joking or even smiling, always having the same neutral expression on her face whether she was discussing the weather, bandits attacking towns nearby town, or indeed just an hour ago when a boy from the village warned them about a Flame Dragon attacking the Koan forest.
"We must prepare to find somewhere safer, then." She simply said back then in her usual, monotone voice. It was that same expression and tone in her turquoise eyes and voice she turned to her master with as she loaded one more stack of books unto their cart.
"Master, the cart is now getting too heavy. We can't load it any further."
Cato let out a quiet, frustrated groan. This was another difference between him and her. Cato was sentimental, rarely parting with something that was his unless it was broken beyond repair, especially if fond memories connected him to that object. In contrast, Lelei was on the pragmatic side, and she rarely had qualms about parting with or exchanging something that was hers if it meant she would get something of greater value in return.
"What do you think we should do then, Lelei?" He asked her.
"I believe we should leave behind the koum seeds and the lokde pears, as well as the last two sets of books. That should lighten us enough." She said as she unloaded said items and put them into the comparatively small 'Not Important' pile inside their cottage behind a locked door. With any luck they would later be able to come back for the things they left behind.
"Even so, this is most peculiar…" Cato murmured under his beard as he helped Lelei pack. "A Flame Dragon is only predicted to appear in 50 years from now… What could have awoken it early…?" He mused.
After a few more minutes, they were ready as all the many, many items Cato insisted were essential to take with them were inside the cart and Lelei climbed up onto the box seat.
"Climb up master. We are ready to ride."
"Oh, you're way too young for me to ride you." Cato said with a smirk. It was a habit of his to crack bad jokes in dire situations to ease the tension, both within himself and others, though for Lelei it only resulted in her expression becoming even more unamused than it already was.
"Maybe your sister, she is more my taste." He pressed on, and that was when Lelei briefly glared daggers at him before extending her hand towards her old master. A stream of cold, almost icy wind shot out from her open palm at the speed of a gale, blowing Cato back a few feet and turning his robes as well as his long white hair and beard into what people would generally describe as a 'huge mess'.
"HEY! HEY! MAGIC IS A SACRED ART! DO NOT ABUSE IT FOR FRIVOLOUS THINGS!" Cato exclaimed as he struggled against the mighty gusts. Lelei halted her assault after a few seconds.
"Gods…" Cato muttered as he fixed his clothes and hair. "Still can't take a joke I see…" He grumbled.
"Joking about having intercourse with one's sister usually causes friction in human relationships. You should be aware of that as an adult." Lelei said, with her usual calm voice.
"I'm sorry Lelei…" He mumbled sheepishly. "Gods, I think I strained my ankle a little back there…" He winced as he climbed up next to her on the box seat. "I don't like getting old. Be more careful with your old master next time."
"I wouldn't worry, my master is as resilient as a cockroach." Lelei answered.
'Ah, so she can be sassy if she wants to…' Cato thought. "You can be a very rude apprentice, you know that?" He shot back, half-seriously.
"I learned everything I know from you, master." She said, an almost imperceptible tone of amusement in her voice as she snapped the mule's reins. The animal pulled but gave up after a second of it being unable to pull the heavily laden cart.
"We are not moving…" Cato stated.
"My master told me to load everything else. The cart is still too heavy." Lelei said.
"Well, we are mages. We have ways to get out of this conundrum now, don't we?"
"'Magic is a sacred art. Do not abuse it for frivolous things.' Your words, my master." Lelei told Cato, earning a sheepish expression from her master.
"But I guess in this matter, we do not have a choice." She added as she reached behind for her staff. Holding it out in front of her, Lelei casted a simple levitation spell on their cart. With the magical force reducing the cart's weight like a giant invisible hand had just pushed the bottom of the cart upwards a bit, they were finally able to make progress.
"I'm sorry, Lelei…" Cato mumbled again as they steadily made their way out of the grove.
"It is fine. I'm used to what my master is like by now."
A few minutes of riding in awkward silence later, the pair of mages exited the grove and came up to the village proper. The situation there was chaotic, to say the least. Everyone in the village was preparing to leave, packing as much of their belongings as they could into their shoulder sacks, while those who owned carts were making the same mistake as they had made earlier by loading them to near-breaking point.
"You are a clever girl, Lelei." Cato said. "All these people must seem like fools to you." He said, gesturing to one family in particular whose cart audibly groaned and creaked under the weight as they loaded it up, yet they did not show any signs of stopping.
"It is part of human nature to want to bring as much of one's belongings as they can when fleeing their homes. I do not judge them." She answered.
They turned to the left unto one of the streets leading through the village, though did not get far as it was blocked by more carts as far as the two mages could see, the row backing up almost to the end of the street.
"Hey, Gabinus!" Cato waved to a man on foot who stood close by. "What is going on? Do you know why people up ahead aren't moving?" He asked, having to raise his voice slightly above the tumult of people around them.
"Oh, Master Cato, Lelei!" The man waved back "You may have better luck finding another way through! A cart ahead broke its axle and flipped over and it's blocking the street." He spoke. Hearing that, Lelei was about to lean back and prepare to wait a while since there were even more carts coming up behind them, making it impossible to turn around their carts. But then he heard a shout from behind, a gruff, male, authoritative voice.
"Lasst uns diese Scheiße endlich in Gang bringen!" She turned around in the direction of the noise and saw a group of men running up next to the carts. They were all wearing an unfamiliar olive-grey uniform. To her surprise they did not wear any armour, besides their helmet. Instead, they wore what looked like leather belts across their torsos to which were affixed bags, pouches and the occasional metallic-looking container, almost like saddle bags above their uniforms. They carried things she could not identify, some sort of mechanical contraptions made of wood and iron. She assumed they were their weapons, as the way they handled them reminded her of crossbowmen. These strange men spoke in a language she never heard before.
"Oberleutnant, holen Sie das Dorfoberhaupt. Sagen Sie ihm, dass wir starke Männer brauchen, um die Karre aus dem Weg zu räumen, bevor der gesamte Teil des Dorfes zum Stillstand kommt!"
„Verstanden."
One of the gray-clothed men ran off towards the neighboring street while the rest ran past their cart. As they did so, Lelei could make out some of the finer details of their uniforms. A white, crowned eagle was emblazoned on the left chest of their uniforms, the emblem's detail and intricacy stood in stark contrast to their otherwise spartan and utilitarian appearance. She could see small shields painted on the two sides of their helmets; on the left the shield was diagonally divided into three equal stripes with black at the top, then white and red on the bottom, while on the right side was a similar shield, this one divided into four squares of black and white, the squares arranged so they only bordered those of opposite colors.
"Bergmann, Sie bleiben hier und sorgen dafür das diese Kolonne und alle anderen die hier durchkommen umkehren und einen anderen Weg nehmen, bis wir mit der Karre fertig sind!"
„Aber, Herr Oberstabsfeldwebel! Ich spreche nicht...-!" The man he just spoke to said in a hesitant voice before getting cut off.
„Finden Sie einen Weg! Benutzen Sie ihre Hände wenn es nicht anders geht!"
'That man certainly seems to have a no-nonsense attitude.' Lelei thought to herself as she watched one of the men, a bit older than the rest of them shout what she assumed to be orders. Probably one of the leaders of this strange group of soldiers.
„Sebastian, du kommst mit uns, schau nach, ob es Verwundete gibt."
„Jawohl!"
She noticed that the man he was just talking to had a symbol at the front of his helmet that the rest did not; a white circle with a red cross in the middle of it. Lelei had a quality that not many people around her shared, which was her insatiable curiosity. Of course, every mage was also a scholar of the sciences, and all who walked this path of life were curious about the world around them. But Lelei's curiosity was truly insatiable. She wanted to understand everything around her. From natural water cycles and farming practices to the newest theories on the finer workings of magic. She never stopped in her quest for knowledge until she found the answers she was looking for. These soldiers, definitely not Imperial Legionnaires nor troops of any lord, obviously from a land so far away that neither she, nor -she wagered-, anyone else this side of the Empire had heard about, drew her curiosity in like moth to a flame.
"Master, I will go take a look." She said to Cato next to her as she handed him the reigns and hopped off the cart. She hiked her light green robes up a bit as she ran after the soldiers. She followed them to the scene of the accident. A wrecked cart was indeed blocking the road, its contents spilled across the street in a mess of sacks, boxes and chests. The horse that was drawing the cart was thrashing and neighing in panic on the ground next to the cart. She saw a few people lying unconscious nearby. Cato taught her that as mages it was their duty to help those in need that were born without the gifts the Gods blessed mages with. She immediately rushed over to kneel by one of them. A young girl, not much younger than Lelei, unconscious with blood dripping from her nose. Just then one of the grey-clad men, the one with the red cross on his helmet, came to a halt by the girl and knelt on the opposite side of her.
"This is not good, I think she has a concussion and several fractures!" He said as he examined the wounded girl in a heavily accented, yet still understandable dialect of Saderan. His brown eyes met her turquoise ones for a moment as he looked up. Before Lelei could say or do anything, she heard the clop of hooves right next to her, the horse's neigh and people shouting in a panic.
"Lelei! Watch out!"
She, and the man next to her snapped her head towards the noise of the horse. It got upright, yet the horse was still in a panic. The animal raised on its hind legs, and Lelei's eyes widened as she realised that it was about to bring down its legs on either her or the man beside her. She did not have time to duck away or even to protect her head.
She then heard three rapid booms behind her. Impossibly loud, they made her ears ring. But the more terrifying thing was what happened to the horse immediately as she heard the booms. Three holes appeared on the animal's neck and shoulder, blood spurted out from the wounds as the animal fell to the ground with a thud and a quiet whimper, dead.
She looked behind her, and saw that one of the grey-clad men, the older one who was giving orders earlier had his weapon drawn, the faintly smoking iron barrel pointed above her, to where the horse was.
"Guter Schuss, Maximilian." One of the soldiers, a younger one spoke as he gave a light punch on the older man's shoulder. Lelei could just about make the words out through her ringing ears, her eyes still wide with shock.
"Ich hatte Glück, Leutnant." The latter said with a shrug.
As the ringing in Lelei's ears and her adrenaline rush slowly subsided, the realisation came to her. These people had just saved her life.
Several hours later
Karl Schmidt, his men and the Coda refugees had been on the road for the better part of the morning. Thankfully, besides the overturned cart, getting people out of the village went smoothly. But problems arose within the first few kilometres. Their progress was painfully slow. The rain from yesterday had turned the dirt road into glue-like mud. The recon team's vehicles managed it fine, driving at a walking pace so the refugees could keep up, but several carts got stuck in the mud outright and his men had to pull and push them free. More accidents kept occurring, carts broke their axles, slipped and tumbled into the ditch beside the road. Sebastian soon had his hands full caring for the rising number of injured. The atmosphere was starting to become filled with tension among the refugees, and his men had to break up a few fights. Karl himself had to make a few tough choices.
He could clearly recall one instance where another overloaded cart had its axle broken. It was beyond saving. A family rode in it with all their belongings. A man, a woman and a baby girl. Karl tried to get them to move and keep up with the convoy, but they wouldn't budge without their things, so he called the village chief over. The old man calmly explained to them that to remain still here was a death sentence and that their most important belongings were their lives. Then he told the family to go on with only what they and their mule could carry, then walked away. Karl watched them fumble, just stand around at the cart, unable to decide what to keep and what to leave behind. At some point he had enough and told them that he would order his men to set the entire cart on fire in 10 minutes no matter how much of their stuff was still inside. That finally got them to pile what food, water and clothing they could on their and their mule's backs just in time for Karl and a few of his men to come back around with a couple lit torches. The man had an empty look as he turned around, one hand holding a shoulder bag, another leading the reigns of his mule that carried his wife, daughter and a few more bags as the rest of their life went up in flames behind them.
A few minutes later Karl managed to catch up to the front of the convoy and hopped back in his seat in the truck. Sebastian was behind him on the truck bed, having just got done a quick check on the elf.
"How is she doing, Sebastian?" He asked.
"She is stable. She's still tired but she is starting to regain consciousness." The medic answered.
"Well that's good at least." Karl sighed. Sebastian looked out behind them, watching the rising smoke through the opening in the back of the canvas covering the truck bed.
"Sir, why are they setting their carts on fire?" He asked.
"You saw that too. The cart was beyond repair, and they were just standing around. Couldn't decide what to leave behind. This way I got them to keep going with the essentials." Karl answered.
"Then why aren't we requesting more vehicles from the base? We got enough trucks on this side that we could get this whole evacuation done in an hour!" Sebastian said with perhaps more emotion than appropriate.
"Hauptfeldwebel, we are behind enemy lines." Karl answered calmly. "We defeated them twice at the hill, sure, but we still have little idea what forces remain in this area. We are a recon unit, we are not meant for, nor are we equipped for large engagements. And that is what will happen if we do not keep a low profile and get more vehicles and soldiers here. And if any skirmish takes place because we garnered someone's attention, the civilians will be the ones caught in the crossfire." He explained. Sebastian nodded, understanding where Karl came from, but he did not like the situation any better.
"I see…" He said with a sigh.
"That's why all we can do is give them what help we can on our own." Karl added, himself sighing as well, as if to say that he did not like this more than Sebastian.
Another hour passed as the convoy made its slow progress across a vast, grassy plain. Karl could make out a gently sloping hill just a few kilometres in front of them, a copse of trees growing on its left side. According to Karl's map, the village they were escorting the refugees towards should come in sight once they crested the hill and got eyes on the valley beyond. He checked his watch, 11:30am. At least what he assumed to be 11:30 on this side of the Gate. The higher-ups and the scientists couldn't quite figure out the exact time difference between here and Berlin yet, but at least it had a roughly 24-hour day-night cycle. So, as a stopgap measure the watches of the troops on this side of the Gate were synchronized to 6am when the sun rose on their side. Judging by the sun's position above them, it was mostly correct as it was approaching its zenith. He would have to report in soon to the base.
"We should be at that village soon, correct, Leutnant?" Hans asked from Karl's left.
"Yepp… hopefully that is as far as these people need to go."
"It'll be good to not have to worry about them." He mused. "I haven't driven this slow since I studied how to drive."
"Hang in there for a bit more." He said with a smirk. "After that you can race up and down the road to your heart's content, as long as you don't crash and kill us all."
"Me? Crash? I never crash, Karl. I'm a better driver than you!" He said with almost genuine upset in his tone.
"Yeah, yeah keep telling yourself that."
"Man, screw you!" Hans shot back, though his lips were curled into a smile before it turned into a confused frown. "Uhhh, Leutnant…?" He asked hesitantly while he pointed slightly to his left. Karl followed where he pointed at and saw thick black smoke billowing up into the blue sky.
"For crying out loud, not that thing again!" He groaned and ordered the convoy to stop. He and his men climbed out of their vehicles, watching the smoke. Behind them the refugees shared worried glances, and quiet murmurs. Karl wasn't about to lead his men or the refugees into another dragon or something equally as bad, but he had to make sure what was happening.
"Right, here's what we will do. Hans, Sebastian, Maximilian and Bergmann with his machine gun, and the 222 are coming with me to check what is going on over there. Everyone else stays here and guards the refugees until we give the all-clear. Let's go, let's get it done!"
The 5 of them and the armoured car steadily made their way up towards the top of the hill. Maximilian was the first to the top and he went prone, followed by Karl, Hans not far behind him while the 222 crested the hill to his right. He looked down into the valley. The village, not unlike Coda, with modest thatch-roofed homes, fields surrounding the settlement, was on fire, as he expected. Thankfully he did not see any monstrous flying lizard wreaking havoc, but that was little comfort as he laid eyes upon the actual cause of the fire. Horsemen, at least 80 of them, armed with spears, axes and swords. They rode in-between the houses, looting whatever wasn't nailed down before setting the buildings on fire with torches. What he assumed were the inhabitants were trying to desperately flee. The men were cut down as they tried to defend their families with whatever they had on hand. The women were grabbed by their clothes or hair and wrestled to the ground as their assailants forced themselves upon them. Even from that distance Karl could make out the sounds of human anguish. The screams and the cries of both men and women, young and old.
"Shitty hell…" Maximillan muttered as he watched the raid unfold. "Leutnant, what are your orders?" He asked as he glanced at Karl to his right. Before Karl could make a decision, the bandits and raiders made it for him. One of them spotted the 222 atop the hill, and shouted, pointing at the armoured car with his sword. It was quickly picked up by those around him, and soon more than half of the raiders were galloping towards them, screaming bloody murder.
"OPEN FIRE!" Karl shouted. He fired single shots from his Sturmgewehr, wanting to conserve his ammo, his men doing likewise, letting the armoured car's autocannon, as well as it and Bergmann's machine guns do most of the work, firing long, suppressive bursts into the middle of the charging horsemen. Karl fired at those on the flanks that their suppressive fire didn't affect. Men and their horses died, bullets and shrapnel killing them, throwing them out of their saddles. Riderless horses stopped and fled from the terrifying noise in all directions. Some riders were killed when the horses under them were hit and fell, crushing the bandits under their weight. The whole fight barely lasted more than three minutes as the raiders, losing half the numbers they started their charge with, turned tail and fled. Karl and his men gave them a few parting salvos, killing another quarter of them.
The villagers who were previously fleeing watched on in stunned silence as the raiders met their deaths, those demons on horseback now fleeing for their lives from the power that just these four men and their strange contraption in an odd dark yellow color, mottled with green and brown wielded. Some looked on their saviours fearfully as they approached, afraid that they would now turn their terrifying, loud weapons on them now. But others approached, cautiously, yet gratefully. Someone cheered, a lone man, almost hesitantly, then his voice was joined by another, and another. Before Karl could realise, they crowded around him and his men, showering them with their tearful gratitude, a few of them went down on their knees in front of the soldiers. Karl was glad that Sebastian was able to cut it short and ask whether they had any wounded.
An hour later as the Germans took stock of the situation, the prospects of the evacuation became even more dire. Half the village the Coda refugees planned at stopping by was gone, another quarter was wounded. They got the word from Coda about the dragon and were preparing to leave as well when the bandits showed up. The bigger gut punch was when Karl recognised the armour some of the dead raiders wore, being the same ones that the dead at Alnus had. What remained of those armies had turned to banditry. Sebastian nearly exhausted both himself and the spare medical supplies they had with them, trying to take care of all the wounded.
The Coda refugees weren't enthusiastic about the raid either. Many of them hoped to sell off or barter away some of the belongings they had for some money or other things they'd have a more immediate need for. At least they could refill their water from the well in the village, but that was small comfort. Now these new surviving villagers decided to join up with the ones from Coda, often with nothing but the clothes on their backs, reliant entirely on Karl's men and the goodwill of the rest of the refugees. The number of lives that now more or less depended on his leadership was starting to be entirely too much for his taste. He stepped over to their truck to get a hold of Mann so he could get in contact with the base. He quickly set up his radio and handed it over to Karl.
"ST-3 to Control, do you copy? Over." He spoke, his voice sounding more tired than he would have liked.
"Control to ST-3 send traffic. Over." The same male voice from hours ago answered him.
"ST-3 to Control. The village due North-West to the village closest to the base in our area was attacked by bandits. Their armour is the same as the army we fought two weeks ago. They probably went rogue after that. We fought them off, but we have a couple dozen wounded villagers and at least 50 dead. Over." There were a couple seconds of silence, no doubt the aide was relaying the information to the Major, before he answered Karl.
"Control to ST-3. Acknowledged. Render what assistance you can and continue your mission. Over."
"Understood. Out." Karl said with a sigh as he handed the handset back to Mann.
He then went to look for the Coda village chief with Sebastian in tow. They found him hunched over a map laid out on a tree trunk in the company of men who were of similar age to him. He looked up at the two Germans as he wiped some sweat from his brow with a handkerchief.
"What do you plan to do now?" Karl asked him.
"It is dire…" He said with a tired expression. Karl could see that his face seemed to be even more wrinkly now than before. "But we need to move on."
Karl could only nod. "Me and my men now have to take the road that leads North-East until the next junction near the river, and then we will head to the East. If you decide to follow us, we won't stop you." Karl answered, with Sebastian helping in on his translation here and there.
"I think that would be best, yes." The chief answered, with those around him murmuring in agreement.
The soldiers of Spähtruppe-3 soon headed out, followed by a slightly larger column of refugees than it was an hour ago. A few spared glances at the smoking remains of the village as they left it behind, at the shallow graves they dug for those they loved.
A few hours later at the village
A lone figure approached the husk of the settlement, dressed in long, dark robes. Midnight-black hair spilled out from beneath the hood, from which sharp, bright red eyes peered out at the ruined village, at the dead. In the figure's hands was a halberd, large, taller than its wielder, made of a purple-tinged metal that no mortal blacksmith could work, and no armour of mortals could hope to resist its blade. The figure evoked a multitude of different emotions in the inhabitants of Falmart. They represented hope, dread, life, death, mercy and terror at once among the mortals. Yet, she was greeted with none of that. The lone figure was met with nothing but dead silence, the rising wind carried the smell of smoke and blood to them as the gusts billowed the robes they wore like great dark wings.
The figure beneath the robes had been following a smell like that for days now, yet the current scene was not the reason they were here. The lone traveller was remorseful that they weren't there to help the innocents of the village in time, of course, and made sure the souls of the fallen that fought passed on. But something else called to them. The figure went to inspect the bodies. They were buried a few feet deep, yet she was able to sense the way they perished not so long ago. And what she found was most peculiar. The villagers had wounds that the lone figure expected; stabbed, cut, sliced, chopped by sword, axe and spear. But their assailants, some of them with armour on, were different, buried together in a single pit in a less honourable manner. They had wounds they never saw before, either torn apart like someone with thousands of blades viciously tore into them, or smaller punctures, just large enough for the figure's index finger to fit inside, penetrating through both armour and flesh, often leading to a slightly larger hole on the other side of the body. That was strange. Anything with the power to punch through even metal armour in such a manner should have obliterated them like the previous category yet left them with wounds smaller than the most delicate elven spear would have made.
The figure's keen eyes noticed small bits of metal on the ground as she walked around the scene of the battle. They picked one up. It was cylindrical, as thin as their fingers and even shorter than them. One end was sealed with a flat, circular piece of yellow metal. They could make out some kind of writing the lone figure never saw before along the circular edge of the bottom, in impossibly small letters. The other end was open, and the object's interior was hollow. It had a faint smell, alien, though it reminded them of smoke.
They could also make out tracks leading to the North-East. Human and animal feet, the thin tracks of carts' wheels, yet among them were something stranger. Continuous, deeper, wider tracks than that of a cart with consistent patterns of indentures in the soil, unlike anything they saw before. The grass the tracks led to smelled of something foul, almost like the pits of dark oil the figure occasionally encountered during their travels.
But there was another scent among it all. The one the figure had been following these past few days. She felt that it led away from the village, towards where the sun set. She figured a couple bursts of speed would be enough to get in front of whoever emitted that scent. The one that reeked of bloodshed and conquest, the one that subtly permeated the air ever since the Gate opened on the hill of Alnus. And to Rory Mercury, Apostle of Emroy, the God of War, Darkness and Violence, it was… Oh…
So…
Delicious.
An hour later, refugee convoy
After they got suitably far from the previous village, both to keep the last hour's events out of sight and mind, and to avoid any more groups of bandits who may have been prowling around the villages, the convoy made a stop to rest and eat a quick and simple lunch. Karl and his men did not have a lot to offer the refugees, but they made sure they gave their extra rations to those that were the most exhausted. Sebastian shared the chocolate and sweets in his rations with the children, with every member of the recon team following suit. Seeing their faces light up as they tasted the sweet delicacies served as motivation and reason for both soldier and refugee to keep going on, and they had a need for that soon as another problem arose.
Shortly after they got back on the move, the temperature peaked as the sun was at its zenith, and it reminded Karl of some of the hottest summers he ever saw. Soon both men and the animals drawing the refugees' carts were getting exhausted from the heat. The soldiers offered the most vulnerable refugees to ride in the vehicles while they walked in their stead; children, the elderly, the injured and the occasional pregnant women.
Karl checked his map again. It would still take them a few hours to reach the junction, and then he would need to make his choice. Should he tell them who he and his men really are? Should he bring them with him back to the base? Without orders, nonetheless? Would leaving them behind, vulnerable to bandits and the damn dragon be the right choice? Was he ready to have more blood on his hands if he did? He could only hope that he would be able to make right choice then.
"Leutnant? Do you see that flock of crows up ahead? What could they be circling?" Hans' words brought him out of his thoughts. He blinked a few times and noticed that there indeed was a rather sizeable flock of the birds circling above the road in front of them.
"Huh… Probably just a dead animal. Hopefully. And not yet more dead people…" He said as he took out his binoculars to look at the flying creatures. He brought his gaze down towards the ground, and that was when his eyes caught the end of a halberd, a really big, and very intricate halberd, made from an almost pitch-black metal with an ominous purple hue.
"What the…" He frowned as he brought the binoculars away from his eyes, blinking a few times before he brought the device back up. He looked closer to the ground and then saw her. A woman, sitting on the road, her dark robes pooling on the ground around her, her long ebony black hair spilled over her shoulders like liquid midnight. Her eyes, bright red orbs like blood, were looking right at him, into his own even though there were still a couple hundred meters separating them. In her left hand she held the halberd, casually resting it against her shoulder while her right propped her chin up as she looked at Karl in the passenger seat. There was something about her, something unnatural that Karl couldn't quite put his finger on, but it unnerved him to no end.
"Stop. Stop the convoy." He ordered Hans as the column of vehicles and carts came to a halt. He hopped out, walking over to the half-track behind them.
"Herbert, Bergmann, go out and check on the girl. She could be a villager who fled from raiders or the dragon." He ordered. The two men clambered out of the Hanomag and walked out towards the girl while the rest remained with their vehicles, an increasingly larger crowd of the refugees gathering behind them. Karl watched as his men approached the mysterious woman. He could see them waving to her, trying to talk. The woman, in response, simply stood up, brushed the dust from her clothes with a few elegant flicks of her hands, and walked over towards the truck, followed by the two Germans who shared confused looks and a couple shrugs. At that moment a gaggle of children rushed past Karl from behind, happily shouting "Oracle! Oracle! Oracle!" followed by another group of adults who approached more cautiously, almost reverently.
"O-Oracle…?" Karl muttered as he shared a confused glance with Hans, who simply shrugged as well.
The woman stopped as the kids reached her, a smile on her red lips as she reached out to stroke the hair of the first boy who stopped in front of her, smiling back at her. The adults stayed a couple feet away as they got on their knees, clasping their hands together in prayer as they bowed their heads deeply.
"Who are you people, I wonder, and where are you going?" She asked.
"Coda village, Oracle. But some are from Tomis." The boy whose hair she stroked previously answered enthusiastically.
"A Flame Dragon has awoken; we had to flee our village." An elderly woman added, bowing even deeper, still in prayer as she answered.
She walked closer, the kids eagerly following her while the adults parted from in front of her, giving her ample space. She started circling the truck at the front of the column with slow steps like a vulture, her eyes taking in the details of the vehicle, lingering on the iron crosses painted over the front doors.
Karl watched her with a raised eyebrow as she walked around the truck, then decided he might need to talk with this mysterious woman and got back into the truck, rummaging for his language book, leaving the door open.
"And these people in grey?" She asked mid-step.
"We don't know who they are, but they are nice people! They are helping us!" A girl answered from the dark-clad woman's left as she tugged at her robe.
"So, they are not forcing you to go along?" She asked.
"No, they are not. They have given us food and protected us from bad people at Tomis!" Another boy said.
"Hmmm… I see…" She said as she arrived back to the front of the truck. She curiously brushed her palm against the hood, feeling something rumbling and vibrating under the metal. "I wonder how this carriage moves without any horses pulling it?" She mused.
"I don't know either, but it is better to ride in than our carriages!" The first boy she met said as she stopped by the passenger-side door, looking at Karl intently.
"I wonder how comfortable it is…" She mused, a devilish smirk on her lips. Karl blanked out for a second as she stepped uncomfortably close. This close he could see that her features were smooth and youthful, her skin a little pale. She looked like she just entered her twenties, barely an adult, and her eyes held a mischievous glint. Before he could realise it, she was climbing inside, quite intent to sit on Karl's lap despite his protests spoken in a frantic mix of German and Saderan.
"HEY! HEY HEY! STOP! WAIT-! NO, FU-! DON'T TOUCH THE PISTOL! GET OUT!" A small crowd of both his men and villagers were starting to gather around him, all having amused expressions and a few snickers. Karl finally had enough and threw her behind unto the truck's bed among the villagers, halberd and all in a rather undignified manner. She remained determined however and she and Karl kept struggling for another few minutes before they both claimed partial victories by ending up sharing a seat, with Karl managing to retain a modicum of personal space.
As the convoy finally started moving again, with the she-devil sitting in-between Karl and Hans, looking rather happy with herself, the Oberleutnant knew that his men would never let him live this one down.
Several hours later
After their shenanigans with the halberd-wielding woman, the convoy's trip went on without further incident into the late afternoon. They were now nearing the crossroads where Karl knew he would have to make his choice. He did not want to think about that, so instead he distracted himself with his language book, though the words spilled out of his mind just as easily as they were registered, his memory retaining nothing.
He was once again brought out of his thoughts, this time by the sound of something whooshing repeatedly in the distance, just about audible over the noise of the truck's engine. He furrowed his brows and glanced in the direction of the noise. He saw nothing out of the ordinary at ground level, so he gazed up, squinting as he covered his eyes from the sun's glare. That was when he saw movement, the flapping of a pair of great wings, and the blood chilled in his veins at the realization.
The dragon was here. It swooped down among the refugees behind them, snatching people up in its maw while its claws cleaved those unfortunates caught in its path in half.
"SHIT! IT'S THE DRAGON! PREPARE FOR COMBAT!" Karl screamed. The refugees who were riding in the truck and the half-track were quickly unloaded from the vehicles and told to run for the nearest treeline and not stop for anything. The only two civilians remaining with them were the elf and the dark-clad woman, the former still laying unconsciously in the back, the latter stubbornly refusing to move. Karl could not afford to waste time on either of them. He managed to hop back inside the truck just in time as Hans turned the vehicle around with screeching tires as he pressed the gas pedal down to the floor, speeding past the fleeing people.
"Orders, sir?" Maximilian asked as he flipped the safety of his Sturmgewehr off while the truck sped off towards it defiantly, followed closely behind by the armoured car and the half-track.
"We're going to distract that thing, give the villagers time to flee!" He said, getting ready for what was quite possibly the fight of his life.
Meanwhile, the disaster was quickly unfolding in front of them. The refugees were running in terror from the monster. Both the horses drawing the carts and the men driving them panicked, and several crashed together, crushing more people beneath them as they flipped over.
Karl could see the people running away from the dragon in every direction, some, those too exhausted or too terrified to run, were on their knees, praying desperately. The dragon, having finished its first victims, opened its maw and bathed a swath of the humans in flames. Their screams were drowned out as it swooped over into the inferno it created, savouring the taste of the burning flesh of both man and animal. Karl grit his teeth at the sight. 'That fucking thing will pay.' He thought.
Their vehicles finally arrived within the effective range of their weapons and Hans brought the truck to a screeching halt.
"GO GO! MOVE!" Karl ordered. He did not even wait for the truck to come to a complete halt as he jumped out of it, followed by the rest of his men in the truck and the Hanomag while their armoured car kept on driving, circling the beast.
"GET OUT IN TEN SECONDS! NOT TEN FUCKING MINUTES!" He could hear Maximmilian screaming close by.
"LOOSEN UP! DON'T GIVE IT ONE LARGE TARGET!" Karl shouted at the top of his lungs as he sprinted away, putting some distance between him and the truck as he brought his Sturmgewehr up. He saw the rockets of a Fliegerfaust streak towards the dragon from somewhere next to him, impacting against its head. It recoiled like a giant hand just slapped it and shook its head, the rockets only causing small scorch marks on its scales. Karl and his men followed it up by unleashing volleys of small arms-fire from assault rifles, submachine guns and machine guns, tracers streaked up against its neck, head and body, the bullets harmlessly deflecting from its scales. Karl could hear the autocannon of the armoured car thumping away uselessly against the beast's chest.
"SHIT! WE NEED ANTI-ARMOR!" Maximilian screamed.
"HERBERT, GET THE PANZERSCHRECK READY!" Karl ordered before he fired off more bursts.
"SIR! WE MIGHT AS WELL BE SPITTING AT IT!" He could hear Arnold close by as he reloaded his MP-40.
"JUST KEEP FIRING!" He hollered back as he saw the dragon open its maw, its throat already glowing with the fiery breath it prepared for the soldiers.
"INCOMING!"
Close by on the battlefield
Cato and Lelei could count themselves among the luckier ones. Thankfully for them, the dragon chose a part of the column of refugees to start its attack with that was relatively far from them, so they had little trouble getting to relative safety. That was when they heard the grey-clad men's weapons. They looked back and saw that they were fighting the dragon defiantly, buying time for the villagers to flee. They would not have doubted their exotic weapon's effectiveness against more mundane threats, but against the dragon, they still stood little chance.
Unless they helped them in return, Cato thought.
"Follow me Lelei!" Cato said as he climbed down from their cart. "We are going to help them."
"Yes, master." She said as she hopped off as well without any hesitation, still as impassive as ever as she readied her staff.
"Remember that spell you hit me with, back at the cottage? Use that again on my word." He told her, receiving a nod.
Cato and Lelei then rushed off, towards the loose battle line of the men in grey, despite the aching protests of the aging mage's bones, and their ringing ears from the loud weapons they used.
They arrived besides them just as Cato noticed that it was preparing to unleash a flaming breath, and he prepared his spells as well. He saw its maw opening, saw the flames and the heatwaves emanating from its throat.
"NOW LELEI!" He shouted, and his apprentice acted without hesitation, raising her arm and unleashing the torrent of frigid, icy gusts towards the dragon's mouth, her staff glowing as she used as much power as she could. Cato did likewise, feeding his own power into the spell, swelling its force to the speed of a hurricane. The fact he and Lelei were powering it together allowed him to weave his own spell into it instantly. It was a handy one he learned while he was teaching in Rondel, back in his heyday. The spell allowed him to create a stream of liquid, colder than any winter could be in the world, it froze anything it met instantly. He unleashed it from his palm pouring every last ounce of his strength into it to create a vast torrent of the liquid, feeding it into the mighty blast of wind he created with Lelei, resulting in a force that was the complete equal, yet opposite of the dragon's flaming breath.
The two forces collided in the middle, the flames creating a violently expanding cloud of steam and mist as the freezing liquid met the beast's fiery breath, the shockwaves felt by even those soldiers furthest from the dragon as the two elements crackled against one-another in bursts of gas and vapor. A ball of fire emerged briefly at the point of contact as it tried to push through, smoke rising above the spectacle.
Cato felt sweat start beading on his brows despite the frigid temperatures around him as he kept the spell up with all his magical might, countering the dragon's breath with his apprentice, but he knew they would not be able to keep it up forever…
Just a couple meters away Karl watched in awe as he saw wizards, actual wizards; one an old man with a long white beard, the other a young girl he remembered seeing back in the village, both dressed in robes, carrying some kind of staffs with glowing gemstones. The two joined into the fight against a dragon of all things and had actually saved him and his men from its flaming breath. A few months ago, if someone would have told him he would fight alongside mages against an evil dragon, he'd have a laugh and told them to become a writer, yet here he was, undeniably doing just that. He quickly stopped gawking as the dragon ran out of breath, and the mages behind him stopped whatever spell they cast as well, looking utterly exhausted even from a distance. The vast cloud of steam they generated came in useful for his men to hide in while the dragon's size made it difficult for it to do the same.
He fired off a few more bursts at the figure beyond the mist before he felt sharp, impatient tugs at his sleeve. He turned in the direction, coming face-to-face with the elf he rescued just this morning. She was buck-naked. She must have just woken up and used the mist to rush over to him undetected, he thought.
"What th-!" He stuttered but she cut him off, not caring at all about her nakedness in the moment as she was frantically shouting at him.
"ONO! YUNIRYU ONO!" She shouted. Karl did not understand a single word and the girl must have seen his confused expression as she pointed at her own eye and repeated her words with more emphasis just as the dragon raised its head above the steam.
"ONO!"
The realization immediately clicked for Karl as he screamed as loud as he could to anyone around him.
"THE EYES! AIM FOR ITS EYES!" He fired off bursts upon bursts, making sure to connect the tracers as close as possible to the yellow orbs while the girl next to him covered her pointy ears with her hands. To his relief his shots were joined soon by others as the new information quickly spread among his soldiers.
The dragon felt the bullets ping and crack against the scales uncomfortably close around its remaining healthy eye. It remembered the pain an elven arrow caused for its other eye just recently. It growled in anger and narrowed its remaining good eye while it attempted to shield it with its front legs and wings.
"KEEP SUPPRESSING THAT THING! HERBERT, FIRE WHEN YOU HAVE A CLEAR SHOT!" He ordered as he kept trying to blind the dragon with his Sturmgewehr.
The monster then raised on its hind legs, flapping its wings to blow away the steam that hid them from its wrath, preparing to punish the mortals for their insolence. However, that was all Herbert needed as he settled his loaded Panzerschreck's sight on its chest through the blast shield in front of him.
"FIRING!" He shouted. But the one thing he did not anticipate, was the moment the dragon's front legs came back down on the ground. The force of the titanic weight crashing back down shook the ground beneath him as he crouched. It threw his aim off at the last moment, just as he pulled the trigger. The propellent ignited with a flash, sending the Raketenpanzerbüsche-54 rocket loaded inside the tube shooting out of the weapon with a bright flash, trailing white smoke behind it as it almost immediately reached its peak velocity of 110 m/s.
The dragon saw the flash and the projectile flying towards it. It may have sensed the danger, even if it looked like it would achieve a near-miss and dodged away to its right. Before Karl could order Herbert to reload, a large and black blur sped by him, fast as a speeding bullet, he heard the air boom around it as it flew by a couple of meters from him. Whatever it was landed right at the dragon's feet, cracking the ground and causing a shockwave of its own. It almost looked like the beast had a look of surprise as it stumbled, undoing its previous dodge just as its left frontal leg crossed the rocket's path at the shoulder.
It hit its scales less than a second later.
The impact kicked the detonator in the rocket's nose into action, which detonated a high-explosive filler of a cyclonite-TNT mix inside the warhead, shaped in a way to create a focused detonation towards the steel cone liner in front of it. The explosive pressure stronger than the planet's atmosphere several hundred times compressed and collapsed the steel cone, causing it to become hotter than the lava of the volcanoes of two worlds, turning the steel cone's tip into a 6000-degrees Celsius plasma, while the rest was heated up to "only" 4000-degrees Celsius. The superheated steel and plasma were forced forwards from the warhead by the explosion's pressure at the hypersonic speeds of 10 kilometres per second. The focused plasma tip at that speeds could penetrate 16 centimetres of steel tank armour. It penetrated the dragon's scales easily, continuing on further inside to burn and push its way through flesh and bone until it reached the other side of the dragon's shoulder, exiting its body. The plasma was followed shortly after by the rest of the steel, expanding into the wound, a mix of fragments of both hot metal and shattered bone shooting into the dragon's flesh, severing the limb. It fell to the ground with a loud thud.
The dragon roared in pain, pure pain, the deafening scream echoing across the plains. Karl snapped his head behind to see where the projectile came from that made the beast lose its footing. He saw the woman in the black robes just a couple meters away, her halberd nowhere to be seen, and her right arm extended too much like she had just thrown something. His mind raced, trying to think of any other explanation than the impossible prospect that the petite girl managed to somehow throw that oversized hunk of metal towards it at that speed and accuracy, yet he could come up with no other reason for what he saw in the last five seconds. She smiled devilishly as she witnessed the dragon's injury while she slowly brought her arm back to her side. Karl snapped his head back to the dragon.
There was a long second of silence as everyone present, his soldiers, the two mages, the nude elf, the refugees in the background, and even the dragon itself, stared at its severed arm, at the bloody, still-smoking stump. That dragon, the monster that terrorized these people, the beast that took lives with as much ease as a man ate his afternoon snack, that natural disaster on wings, was humbled beyond any doubt by mere men, and the application of mundane physics and chemistry, in under a second. Karl held his breath in anticipation of its retaliation, that it would lunge forward, bathe them in flames and tear them apart for daring to harm it. The monster would have done just that; however, it felt something it had never felt in its centuries of life. Something that made it halt in its tracks. It felt fear. It feared the pain these mortals could cause to it, it feared their weapons, it feared them. With a final, furious roar it extended its wings and flew off.
Karl flipped the safety of his weapon back on and slumped to the ground, resting his Sturmgewehr in-between his knees as he fished out his cigarettes and lighter from his pockets with trembling hands. He managed to keep his fingers steady for a few seconds to light the cigarette and put it to his mouth, taking a drag. Somehow, despite the odds, his men came out victorious against a literal fire-breathing dragon. He figured it was worth celebrating with a quick smoke, at least. But looking back at what remained of the column of people put a stop to any notion of a victorious cheer.
The troops spent the remaining hours of daylight treating the injured villagers and helping them sift through the wreckages, burying their dead. It did not feel like victory, wiping away both blood and tears, digging more graves. As the sun set Sebastian held a sermon in the last light of dusk for those the refugees lost. His men were in attendance as well, some clasping their hands together in prayer, some, like Karl, did not pray, yet remained in respectful silence as they bowed their heads slightly.
"'Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted'." He led the prayer in Latin, the refugees understanding his words well enough, accompanied by the choked sobs of those who grieved. "We have lost many today. Husbands, wives, sons, daughters, parents, friends; people we loved. Now they are in God's care. Cherish their memories, just as they cherished us in their lives. It is God's will to separate us on earth, so that one day we may see each-other in Heaven. So, I tell you to grieve today, but tomorrow go forth with hope, for the Lord loves all and cares for all. Please, join me in prayer. 'Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.'" He finished. Karl stayed in place for a minute after to remain respectful before the gathered people started gradually leaving.
He went to find Mann again to report in once more. Mann went through his usual procedures again with his radio. Karl spoke into the device, his motions nearly automatic, mechanical.
"ST-3 to Control."
"Control to ST-3, send traffic. Over." A new, female voice spoke with him. The previous radio operator back at the Gate must have had his shift end while they were busy helping the refugees and the woman was his replacement, Karl thought.
"ST-3 to Control. Our convoy was attacked by the dragon we reported this morning, approximately 12 kilometers East from the Gate on this side. Reporting no dead or injured for our recon team, but we have around 80 dead civilians and a further 30 wounded. We fought off the dragon and flew away in a Southern-South-Western direction. Over."
There were another couple seconds of silence. Karl knew the radio operator just relayed the information to the Major and he was making his decision.
"Control to ST-3. Understood. Continue rendering assistance to the civilians and return to base as soon as you can. Over."
"Will do. Out." Karl said before he stepped away from the radio. He quickly called the 12 soldiers under his command over to him, leading them some ways away from the refugees. He stepped in front of them as they formed a half-circle around the Oberleutnant. He sighed as he took his helmet off, looking each of them in the eye.
"Alright, boys. I want honest answers." He said quietly to his men. "Do we leave these people out here? Or do we bring them back to base?"
Hans was the first to break the silence. "Leave them? To the bandits and that oversized lizard? Hell no, Karl. Not happening."
"I cannot leave them behind in good conscience either, Leutnant." Sebastian added after Hans.
"They ended up helping us, didn't they?" Maximilian said. "Hell, if it weren't for them a lot of us would have died back there. I say we bring them home with us. We are the Gardekorps, after all. I will not have us dishonour it by leaving those who can't fend for themselves defenceless."
"They aren't our enemies, at the very least…" Arnold shrugged, though Karl could see conflicting emotions behind the man's eyes. "I'm in favour of bringing them home as well."
Most of his men voiced similar opinions, or did not voice any objections. Karl nodded, his hand rubbing his temples.
"I think the same as you do." He said as no one spoke up again for a short while. "But it is not without risk. We don't have orders to bring them back to the base." He added. "If we go through with this, there might be serious consequences for all of us." Karl looked over his men again. "If anyone wishes to object to this, do it now." Not one of them decided to even make the smallest of noises, just standing in silence, staring at him, taking glances at one-another.
"Very well." Karl nodded. "I will go talk to them. Sebastian, I will need you to translate for me.
He made his way over to the Hanomag parked nearby, climbing up on top of it, so people would see him more or less clearly in the rays of the setting sun.
"Okay, listen, everyone!" He said in a raised voice so those in the very back could hear him. Sebastian next to him was repeating his words to the refugees in their language. All eyes turned to him. He could spot a few familiar figures at the front of the crowd; the pair of mages who helped them, the elf girl sitting in the back of the truck, covering herself with the blankets, the mysterious dark-robed woman staring at him with that smirk of hers. "I told this to your village chief, but I tell this to you as well. Me and my men will start heading to the East. We have a camp in that direction, where you can be safe. We will not force any of you to come with us, nor will we force you to stay away if you wish to come. The choice will be yours. Those who want to come with us, turn right at the crossroads up ahead and follow us. Those who do not, take the road to the left. It will lead to other towns and cities." He finished as he stepped down from the vehicle to some muted cheering.
He made his decision now. He knew that not all the higher-ups back at the base would say it was the right decision. Perhaps none of them would. He knew that he could receive the biggest dressing-down of his life for what he was about to do. That did not matter to Karl, nor any of the consequences. At least his conscience was clear.
We'll leave the story here for now. Thank you for reading, and I'll see you in the next one. Take care!