Ambush (3)

We kept running through the dense foliage as we tried to lose the enemies at our back. The forest that had helped them sneak on us was now helping us hide our tracks, and after a few minutes, we finally stopped in a place surrounded by the same trees.

I turned my face to look at all the soldiers who had succeeded to flee. My eyes couldn't help but widen on their own. In front of me, were standing a bit less than sixty soldiers, trying to catch their breaths.

The fight hadn't even taken more than a few minutes before the captain had decided to get out of there, and already so many were lost, forever. Of course, I knew that the decision to flee had put big pressure on the ones who were closing the march, as they were trying to repel the assault of the enemies while the others were running toward the forest.

We didn't have a choice. I knew it. But these men were brothers with whom I have lived for more than a year. For some of them, it has even been two years. My eyes keep darting around to look at all the exhausted faces, trying to know who I will never see again in this life. Who knows, maybe I would see them all again in another one.

"On me!" The yell of the captain woke all of us, and without even thinking about it, my legs moved toward the man. Of course, this one would still be alive, after all, he was standing in the middle of the troop all the battle.

What pained me more though was that I could see Sergeant Lamy at his side. No wonder why I didn't see this bastard when we were fighting. My blood boiled for a second but now wasn't the time.

As I headed toward them, I sensed a gaze fixed on me, and turning my eyes to the side, I saw Lieutenant Barnes looking at me right in the eyes. Damn. This guy already knew what I was thinking about even before I could formulate the idea in my head. Fine, I wouldn't do anything to this bastard then.

Once everyone was gathered around the captain and the other officers who had survived, the former began to talk with a serious expression. The time was counted.

"Men." He stopped to look at each one of us, we were all full of blood, ours, but also of the enemies. I could see him nodding his head. He was a bastard, but still, he was always proud of us, and he knew when to take the good decision. "We had succeeded to get out of this hell, you all had fought like lions, and killed like tigers. But sadly it isn't the end. Our brothers are fighting against these fuckers right now, and they are without a doubt in the worst situation than all of us."

He was right, and I knew exactly where he wanted to go. We needed to go help them. That could be the end of us all if we didn't play it correctly, but still, he couldn't let them die without doing anything. He bent down to the ground, and with the tip of his sword, he drew on the ground.

"The first to the fourth companies are right now fighting in all this long path, they are spread in a long road, and that makes their defense a difficult one." He drew a snaking line on the ground, representing the road we were on a few minutes before.

"The 4th Company is having it tougher than the other, and without us, they will have more enemies to fight." He wrote numbers from 1 to 4 to specify the placement of the companies, with the first one in the front of the whole regiment and the fourth just behind, the last without us.

"But, we won't help them." A tough decision, but I agreed with him, it was for me the most logical and easy way. "We will help the 1st Company, kill all these fuckers, and sweep them all from the 2nd, then the 3rd, and finally the fourth. This one will suffer more, that is true, but we don't have a choice."

I could understand the choice of the captain. It was maybe a cruel decision, but inside a forest, the help from the bowmen of the 4th Company would be far worse than the help from the 1st Company. Plus, fewer enemies were fighting them, making the whole rescue plan easier.

All the soldiers were standing around, with grave expressions. There was always a competition between the different companies, even more so against the 5th Company since we didn't have any specialties.

But even so, it was mostly a friendly one. Of course, there were some rotten apples that I wanted to make disappear, but still, among them, there were a lot of faces I knew.

There were all brothers at the end, sent here the same way as me, for the greatness of the Empire or whatever they called that. And they were currently dying. For such a stupid reason.

"We don't know how many enemies there are, but we don't care about such a detail." Honestly, I still cared about it a little. "Prepare your weapons, we'll destroy them all."

""Yes captain!""

Without wasting more time, we ruched toward our target. We didn't go back in the direction from where we came from, as that would just be stupid, but we run in parallel at the road to sneak behind the enemy fighting against the 1st Company.

We only had taken the time to recover our injuries. By luck, everyone could still fight, although it only meant that everyone was able to raise their arm and hit with their weapons.

Since we were the famous 5th Company, we were far from being uniform, and thus, before launching the assault, we formed small groups composed of the teams. I, my men, and the second team led by the corporal Menguy were under sergeant Lamy. Sadly, two soldiers from the other team had found their death in the ambush.

That way, we formed seven groups each composed of 8 or 9 guys. Some of them were a whole squad like us, but others were just mixed ones. The war was blind, and soldiers, corporals, and sergeants have the same value on the battlefield. Some died, some lived, but we must do with it.

In any case, after we had reached the deployment point, we rushed to our left, where the road should be. The plan was a simple one, seven groups will form a semicircle and appear on the rear of the enemies.

Three groups inside the forest on the left, three others also inside the forest but on the right, and one on the road. I didn't know if I was lucky or not, but it was my squad that was on the road.

Once all the squads were at their positions, each at the sight of at least another one, we charged.

We run with all our force, crashing our steps against the ground, cracking the twigs and roots, bruising the leaves and the branches in the way of those inside the forest. We moved like specters, ready to hit these fuckers in the back.

Before long, the roar of the battle began to fill our ears. We were approaching them! Yell and clash of metal were beginning to be discernable and it didn't take more time to see the fight in front of us.

The scene that appeared in front of my eyes was a painting of hell. Blood was flowing down everywhere, and the green trees and the bushes, with their foliages, were now completely red. Dismembered limbs could be seen all around, as piss and shit, bowels and guts, bones and flesh, were making this vision one of the worst ones that I had ever seen.

But it wasn't even what caught my eyes. No. Far from that, as what made my mind blanked for a second, were the soldiers, the warriors, the beasts fighting for their lives.

We couldn't wait for more, and like one man, my squad charged against the back of the enemy at an impossible speed, as if wings had appeared on our armor.

Then, as only a few steps were between us and the enemies, we let out the most powerful warcry that we had never done before.

""TO KILL!"" The forest shook under our might, the earth trembled under our step, the sky hid in front of us, and without any pity, we killed our enemies.