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Prologue.
They shall be redeemed in service.
It was dark under the shadow of the mountains. Always it loomed, bringing darkness early as the sun sank behind them. Beira trees, at least the remains of them, glared like watchers on the rim.
The bunker he sat in was stuffed with about twenty of his unit. They wore grey uniforms, unadorned. All sat in silence only broken by the occasional whisper or call to watch.
"Bowman. You're up." A man said. He had no rank, none of them did.
Bowman got up fixing his gambeson, plated in tiles made of ceramic. He shouldered his rifle. A bolt action, body made of hard ceramic. It must have been twice his age. He cared for it though, and it protected him.
The trench was hard concrete and black mud. It smelled like death, refuse and was highlighted by patches of dry blood. Bowman glimpsed at the corpses of Chimaera, laying rotted only thirty feet away, spined and four legged with a matching number of eyes. They were small ones by standard. The size of some of the cattle on his old farm, when it had been more than a poisoned waste land. Before the tribes moved east, before the empire shelled it.
Where once had been fertile land, hills and wildlife.
He used to remember going into the woods with his sisters, eating mushrooms and getting thumped by their parents for coming home high. Of town festivals and home made spirits and homegrown tobacco. Those times were gone, his sisters were gone.
He must serve now to cleanse his name, to be allowed entry into the singularity, wholeness in death. After all this pain those doors of copper and gold may still await him.
He reached the post and met the other man who'd be on with him.
"Alright, lad?" He asked. He looked older than the damned rifle he held. The man offered him a cigarette. He seemed nice enough.
"As well as one can be." Bowman said. Sitting next to the older man in their alcove. More concrete with hard ceramic rises to protect their heads, wooden roof though. He accepted the cigarette and lit it with a bullet lighter he'd made the week before.
"I remember when this steppe was beautiful," he said, staring off into the nothingness. A phantom memory.
"I'm from the eastern side of the border." Bowmen confided. He didn't think he'd said that out loud since he got here. "War hit us only three years ago maybe." He didn't really know. The prisoners weren't allowed calendars, why allow them to think of freedom.
"Then we are cousins in our pain." The man said with a grim smile. His dirt coated face might have been the only bright thing that Bowman had seen that day. He could only nod at the man's sincerity.
They smoked their cigarettes and talked. The man told stories of younger days. He bragged of wooing ladies in the capital and sailing the great river to the sea. Following the coast to the southlands. He'd never given his name and never asked for Bowman's.
One story Bowman couldn't believe. He'd told of getting drunk with two traders in the capital and stealing a river boat. They'd both laughed at that story, it had been so long since he laughed.
Eventually Bowman talked of his times with his sisters, of going to school and hunting with his father. Of his mother who used to teach him letters and make him recite prayers to the Builder. He had hated it so much at the time, loathed it even. At some point in the story he'd began to weep and the old man patted his shoulder.
Bowman was angry at himself for expressing such feelings. He didn't understand that though. He just hurt.
Eventually he quieted, silence drew back in. The dark pressed in again.
The place they sat in wasn't comfortable. They sat on aluminium crates and shattered ceramic scattered the floor, decorated by the occasional bullet shell or tungsten fragment. Two Bangalores sat to either side of them, there to fire flares of warning. To raise the alarm, two for if the other one of them died before reaching theirs.
He sat there wondering why he'd opened up. In two years he never did. He wondered about that too. Why he'd finally spoken. How long he'd been there. Was it two years, or was he just going mad.
He clutched a builders mark, copper engraved with various triangles for strength. He made a silent prayer to the builder, a plea for salvation. Not forgiveness.
He whispered the words his mother had taught him and for another time that night he wept.
The old man let him be, pity plain on his face.
She used to say. 'What can anyone do against such hate?' Or 'why do you make us suffer through these trials.'
She asked and asked till she went mad. Until she let the river take her. She would never find peace in the whole. She'd never see those doors.
—-
Two hours into the watch the bowman heard something. In the field of stumps.
"Lights." His senior hissed, apparently hearing it too. Bowman wasted no time, he grabbed the Bangalore mechanical. Pulled the pin. His partner did the same.
White flare lights burned the sky and in the tree line ahead three Chimaera loomed.
Bowman's breath caught in his throat. His watch buddy started firing. He turned to call for backup but it was already coming. He joined the man in shooting. He fired, missed.
That's when he properly saw them. Eight feet tall, almost human, almost. Their jaws split as they made what Bowman could only assume was smiles for them.
Milk white skin and arms stretched taut as bowstrings. All three had long stained claws scraped the ground. All three had lifeless eyes black like something from the sea. They darted back into the forest hiding from the rifleman's barrage.
"By the builder. They are fast." He heard a man close to them on the line exclaim in a nasal voice. Nobody answered him.
The seconds after, all that could be heard was the buzzing ringing of haggard ears and the stressed breathing of terrified men. Not soldiers, men. Slaves to absolution.
"How many?" A nameless man cried out.
"Only saw three." Bowman called back, emotionless. Pushing his helmet back into a comfortable position on his head.
At that moment flares went up again a quarter mile away. The beasts had bolted the position. With a sound like tearing metal the monsters shrieked, they lunged three metres through the air Bowman thought. They landed on top of the men in the other watch post. The sounds of screams and the sound of ripping viscera tore through the night until the men's shock dissipated and the shooting commenced once again.
"You think it's the same ones?" Bowman called to whoever would answer.
His watch mate shook his head beside him, never taking his eyes from the trees.
"Send a beeper through to command." The older man yelled back, a boy no older than seventeen went to fulfill the command. "They're still out there." He added severely.
At the same time sharpshooters climbed into their perch to cover fire for the men down the line. The explosions of cased rounds began again.
The position they were in was on a small hill, this made it the perfect defence but also a prime target.
Gunshots and yells dominated, concussing the night once again as the pair cleared the watch post, allowing more space from the riflemen.
"They're usually not this slow." Bowman called to the old man as he joined a firing position. A row of boxes against the wall of the trench. They had ladders but those were too difficult to move on, too slow.
"Some of those fucking things do this. It's a game to them I think."
"Message sent." The boy from before yelled.
"Then stay inside, kid." Another man, maybe Bowman's age yelled, shoved him back in. The new and the young got to fire from the bunker. It at least gave them a chance.
That sound returned. The song of the beasts, of human laughter as the tribesmen watch afar. Bowman didn't see them at first. Not until they crashed through the shelter of the watch post, splintered wood flying past a small piece catching in Bowman cheek. Their milky white skin glowing in the ever firing light of flares.
There was no time to think of his injury, only to raise his rifle. The others didn't think about the sharpshooters still in there either. If they were lucky a stray bullet would hit them. It didn't.
He hit one in the shoulder as it pried open one of their rib cages. It didn't even flinch when the round took it. Another hit it in the head and it finally went down.
That man's expression as he got torn into would never leave Bowman but there was no time to think. No time for compassion. No time at all.
The other took longer to die. It kicked and cried in glee before it mauled into one of the other men's neck. He'd played cards with that man. Blood now ran from the steps to the post like a tributary to the larger pools.
Eventually it bled to death, still trying to feed off the poor bastard below him.
Where was the third, the bowman had thought. That was until the moment after.
It dived head first into the bunker behind them, it's screaming, ripping cackle trailing after it.
Men around him yelled and several of them, Bowman included, jumped from their posts to get a better aim at the thing. They rounded the rim of the bunker and raised rifles.
Outside, arrows started falling.
It kicked around like a child in a tantrum swinging its arms like some mad drunk, mandibles snapping. Maybe it hurt itself. Its skin was not white Bowman realised. But translucent. Despite the circumstances he almost vomited at the site of the thing.
It grabbed and slashed and men fired on it. Luckily it died quicker than the other two.
The boy who sent the message was injured taking a jab to the arm, blood poured from it.
One other was dead, the man who'd called his watch. the older man he'd been with before was there tending to the boy.
"Martin." He called. "Get someone who reads morse." A man near Bowman obliged.
"How long do you think we have?" He asked the older man.
"Minutes, maybe. Hoard always comes close to those things." He replied. "Kid. What's your name?" He asked, finishing up the bandaging.
"Arthur." The younger man grimaced, trying to ignore the pain. Bowman didn't see the injury but he could tell it wasn't good.
"Alright, mine is William. This one here's going to take you to the medical post." He Arthur, gesturing at me.
The boy looked up at him questioningly.
"Bowman." He told Arthur, "If we're moving him we better do it now." He continued, words aimed at William. He helped Arthur to his feet, locked arms. At that moment more flares fired and the cries of the hoard followed. He only had time to look at William.
"Go." He said, pushing the pair toward the door and moving back to the firing line. The people beside him were already cranking the receiver on a seven foot long material rifle.
The pair moved passed not struggling to get through, they were all where they needed to be. They left through a back entrance, hearing a thunderclap. Like a grenade firing in a barrel.
They were already using it. The sound of the continued sounds of death and gun fire chased their circumstantial escape. They didn't yet know how lucky they were. They said nothing as they ran over the near pitch darkness. The only light given by small lights along the corners of the walls but most didn't work.
More men ran past as they went, dead expressions only held together by sheer desperation.
Arthur asked to stop for a moment, the poor kid was exhausted. He couldn't have been older than seventeen.
"Are you alright?" Bowman asked, they had stopped for two long. Nobody else was moving up the line.
"I think I might have hurt my leg." The boy said. "I didn't notice it before."
"Adrenalin." Bowman told him. "I know it hurts but we need to move. Nobody else is coming and the nearest medical post is a line down.
"You don't think they'll fire R.C's do you?" The boy asked, face going paler, voice cracking in the way teenagers did.
"Doubt it." He affirmed him. "We're too close to the river." Bowman went on, checking Arthur's legs. It was bruised worse than anything he'd seen in a while.
"You'll live." He smiled. "You'll probably get a few weeks off."
At that moment the cannons fired. Not rail cannons, those sounded more electric and gave everyone near them a tingly sensation in their mouth. It tasted like iron. Standard cannons then, shell lit up the sky like rising, howling stars.
They didn't say anything, Bowman grabbed Arthur and half dragged half hurled to his feet. As their escape started so did their pursuit, behind them he could hear howling. Both human and non human. In the same instant it was drowned by explosions, he didn't look back.
The men had begun firing in the trench fifty feet away, some had made it past. Bowman couldn't hear a thing anymore, his ears were screaming.
Two rows of men stood rifles charged ahead of them. One screamed something that he couldn't hear. Twenty feet. A primal scream bellowed behind him as his hearing returned. He looked to his charge and only then realised he'd gone limp, a shard of ceramic Shielding protruding from the back of his neck. He flung the body and sprinted, no time for sentimentality. He jumped past the men in front slamming into the wall ahead, the others shot the moment he was clear. He didn't even see how close they were. He didn't even look.
His lungs felt weighted, like they'd breathed fire and his entire body heaved from the effort of his flee.
Another man yelled and heaved him to the wall where other prisoners stood fighting for their salvation. He too continued fighting, firing till his ammunition dried out. By the end of it there were small heaps of tribesmen piled in their thick coats, their pale tattooed skin free of any hair. The sun was coming up by then. He'd been fighting for maybe six hours. Night was always short in summer.
He was led on to a medical tent afterwards, he'd received a flesh wound. One of the beasts, similar to the ones before and reached the trench, punched him off maybe eight feet. Not bad enough to be let off though, he only landed on a nail.
He sat on a bench with a bandaged arm and a light sedative. He wouldn't take it, he always saved them, kept a stash. It was better to save them for when you would sleep, which was never often.
In his head he told himself the mantra that an officer bellowed at them during their journey up to the steppe.
He thought it was a taunt more than anything. But it stuck.
You shall be redeemed in service, this is your road to remission, your road to tranquility and wholeness. In your service you shall cleanse yourself. In your role you will be redeemed.
Eventually he realised where he was. That was when he screamed, the noise too loud, whispers like roars, he couldn't help but cover his ears, begin to rock in place.
Thoughts came like an avalanche crushing him in memory. They cried for William, a man he'd known for only a few hours. The boy he carried, Who would send a boy to such a place. Who would throw his corpse away as if it were a burden.
Nobody comforted him. Nobody knew how to.
"maybe they're in the singularity now." He said to his tears and muck soaked knees.
Maybe they were free now.