From their bunkers, the soldiers of the Justitian army kept a watchful eye upon the road and the forests flanking it. The bunkers were spread half a field apart, always in range of the next bunkers. The roofs of the bunkers had a small hole, big enough to let a flare touch the skies. At the first sign of any eye contact, the whole road would be on high alert.

It was with this knowledge at their disposal that Frontsmen of three separate groups, numbering some hundred and fifty men in total, crept through the slushy forest east of the Steyer’s right bank. The temperature was a tad over the freezing point, and thus the snow had transformed into a slurry of mud and ice. Here, the cold had begun to fade, albeit barely, much to the disgust of the Frontsmen, who now crawled through the slush with soggy clothing.

Victor had a sore expression on his face. The mixture which now embalmed his claws was anything but pleasant. It felt like he had been turned into a pig, a thought helped along by the slush caked onto his breastplate, and all the groaning noises coming from the Frontsmen around him.

What a wonderful start of the day. I guess the gods haven’t had their fun in a while. First I have to pull people out of the torrents of that damned river, because Divinity almighty was that makeshift bridge ‘makeshift’! And now I have to deal with this, ugh. I could use a nice warm place to sleep… maybe even in a cave, yes, with something to drink. That would be perfect right about now.

Victor spat out a speck of slush which got into his mouth. “Hang in there, Vic. We won’t have to deal with this for long,” said Celesta, crawling alongside him.

“I’m holding on, don’t worry about me. But this is disgusting.”

“You’re right about that. But we have a task to fulfil, and I doubt that any of those heathens will ever expect us like this.”

“Given what they think of us, I’m not so sure of that,” Victor said. “Why are we crawling, anyway? I’m pretty sure any ordinary pair of human eyes can see us just fine, unless bright red and purple actually blend in with this grey mess.”

“Orders are orders, Vic. We don’t have much of a choice. The vegetation here is very thin, I’m afraid, so any little thing which will help us hide slightly longer is more than welcome,” Celesta replied, pulling a face from a speck of mud ruining her lavender face. More than welcome? Well no one’s ever asked me, that’s for sure.

“Shh! Be quiet back there!” one of the Frontsmen in front of them spat out between a narrow gap in his teeth. Celesta got nary so much as an ‘oh’ out before splashing her head into the slush; what annoyance she did have over the mud wasn’t visible on her anymore. Victor turned his head away, and crawled along further. Normally, the lavender dragoness put a great amount of care into her own hygiene. Even this morning, she’d gone to lengths to polish all the scales she could reach, especially those on her face.

Victor found it bizarre. Celesta became a different person when the gods spoke of the war at hand, as if her regular persona was but a mask for something far more fierce lurking underneath. Especially strange was how pointless it all seemed. After all, Victor had the tint of blood all over his body spare his belly, as did Celesta have a coat of lavenders in full bloom. How in Terris almighty would anyone fail to notice either of them? Even with the weather as dreary as could be on any old winter day, they stuck out like sore thumbs on a half-amputated hand amidst the slushy wilderness. And the Frontsmen were like gigantic ants from a nightmare as they crawled across the forest floor.

Splash by splash, the column of fools manoeuvred their way towards the road. Finally, half of one field-length out, the column stopped at the hands of a hesitator at the front. Victor craned his head up to take a peek. Sure enough, a dreary looking bunker loomed in the distance, four eyes peeking out onto the dirt road running in front. One other sentry kept a lazy eye out on the wrong patch of woodland, the rest of his crew was nowhere to be seen. Groups of infantrymen patrolled between the bunkers. Furthermore, cloudbusters were positioned at every other bunker: the bunker they faced was one such.

On the surface, the task at hand appeared to be simple, especially given the low concentration of men facing them. But Victor couldn’t help but spot the strange weaponry they wielded. Not a sword or a pike, but something else. Something which resembled a miniature cannon, of all things. He gulped.

No one said anything about little cannons…! “Hold on a minute, does anyone else notice what they’re wielding?”

“Quiet, you red lout. You’re as useful as a bag of bricks, do you not realise they might hear us now?”

“Nonono, look! They have little cannons in their hand!” Victor gestured wildly into the slough in front of him with a claw, though no one was able to see it. His observation went ignored, however, for it fell on stubborn ears.

“And? Look at those things. Looks like a toy to me. Nothing a good stab with the pike or a slash of the sword wouldn’t solve. Why are you complaining?”

“Quiet, you fools,” said Jim. “Get into position, now. If you don’t hurry up, I will kill you myself. Got it?”

“Yes sir...” whispered many Frontsmen and a defeated Victor. Celesta merely nodded, before crawling off to the right, as had been planned. Victor dragged himself off to the left with major reservations. It was like sheep flocking off of a cliff, and he was the black sheep. No one seemed to have so much as the slightest worry over this weapon. His nose revealed nothing but mud, wet bark, and excitement all around him. In a few weeks, so many had turned into bloodthirsters waiting for their next fix. Victor lowered his head, and felt a pressure build up on the back of his head as he mentally prepared himself for what was to come.

The men on the road still hadn’t had the slightest hint of a clue of the storm brewing. Even as the sloshing of the snow grew louder and louder, they kept to their boring routines. Victor couldn’t help but envy it, in a way. A boring routine means no fear, no suffering, no tears. Was it not the dream of all in the end, to find a comfy spot in life to call home? But alas for many today, the time had come for that dream to vanish into smoke, for William and the captains of the other two groups reached for their whistles.

The sharp hisses rang through the air. The frontsmen jumped out of the bog with nary the time to wipe down their soggy clothing, charging with weapons at hand towards the enemy, who were reeling from the dozens of unkempt fools coming straight at them. Victor jumped to his feet, and threw himself forth at the cloudbuster nearby the bunker, whose crew watched the sky for a potential death from above. Experience had taught that speed and surprise were key; thus Victor aimed to knock both the sentry and the gunner cold before they had a chance to see him coming. Both were searching the skies in a panic.

A shot from a flare cannon screamed through the sky before coming to an explosive end. Then a different, far louder sounding bang wreaked havoc. Victor flinched, almost screeching to a halt; it was as if a blast of lightning had rocketed past him. He shuddered, and threw himself forward. The sentry had by now spotted him, and screamed at the gunner to point his weapon at the monster. Alas for the sentry, it was too little too late. Victor knocked him out with a headbutt to the chest. He fell on his back, and wouldn’t be an issue for the rest of the fight.

The gunner yelled out and fired the weapon in a panic. Its shot missed, and Victor then proceeded to pull him from his seat, and onto the ground. All the kicking and screaming didn’t make things easier. Then another round of blasts ran out; in shock, Victor let go of the man, who flopped back onto the gunner’s seat before pulling out a knife. Victor tried to squeeze the man’s arm, hoping the gunner would let go. The man struck, and Victor growled out; the scales on his upper foreleg had been badly scratched.

In a fit, Victor threw his entire body weight upon the gunner. Man and dragon alike tumbled down into the slush, the man now having dropped his knife into the snow. He scrambled to pick it back up, but Victor grabbed him by the arm and twisted it around. The man screamed out in a foreign tongue. “Hold still, hold still! Or else!” Victor yelled. The man tried to slap him. Finally, Victor managed to pin him, just in time for a reinforcement to help out, who reached for a long piece of rope in his gear. With the dragon holding the gunner down, the Frontsman tied the gunner’s hands together tight, and so the cloudbuster had been neutralized.

But across the rest of the road, the battle had been anything but orderly. On the path lay dozens of soldiers, either gasping for the gods or silenced forever. The bunkers had been turned into killing grounds, reeking of the red-iron stench Victor so dreaded. It couldn’t have been more than a minute, and yet the surroundings were a scene from a nightmare. Victor shuddered.

Where’s Will? Where’s Celesta?!

An ashy scent akin to the aftermath of a breath of fire filled Victor’s nostrils as he searched the battlefield. But there had been orders specifically instructing all dragons not to breathe fire, and those cruel enough to ignore such orders had long left the Front. Victor cleared his nose with a snort. The suspense was gnawing away at his nerves; what in the world had happened? Had something gone terribly, terribly wrong?

The smell led to the bodies of several Frontsmen. A trail of smoky vapour ran from holes which had been punctured into their muddy clothing. The holes were small. As if world’s smallest spear had been fired through, and it happened to be on fire as well. There were no words to adequately describe it: Victor’s tongue scraped against the roof of his mouth.

Wait a minute… Those cannons, is this what they are capable of? Can they simply burn holes into people like this? Oh, by the gods, if this is what we have to fight against, what are we going to do in the actual city?

“Hey! You there, Red, I’d like a little help over here!”

The sound of Jim’s voice sent Victor’s head dashing back and forth. “Right in front of you, fool!” he shouted. The red dragon breathed out in relief, only for that relief to be short lived. Jim lay on the ground clutching his leg. The sear on said leg made apparent why.

“What happened to your leg?”

“The bastards got me, that’s what. Got me good too, by the looks of it. Can barely move my leg a thumb’s length without- Argh!”

Victor leaned in closer. The shot from the hand cannon had managed to burrow through Jim’s leg; though it wasn’t fatal, he wouldn’t be able to walk on it again for a while. At least, that’s what Victor thought of it, much to his dismay. One didn’t need to be a doctor to come to that conclusion from as little as a single glance at his leg.

“Hey… don’t just stand there, Red,” Jim said. I think that little metal ball’s still in my leg. Can you dig it out?

Victor almost choked on his own saliva. “Wh-what?! No, I can’t, I’m not a doctor, what if I end up making it worse? We can fix this with a bandage, before I end up hurting you even worse, you can’t make me do that to you, I tell you-”

Jim grabbed the dragon by the tip of his snout. “Settle down, you red lout, you. I can see it in there. Doesn’t seem like it hit any bones, it shouldn’t be hard. And if I end up bleeding out, whatever. My fault for being so stupid. Now stop being a squeamish little wimp, and pull this damned thing out, will you?”

There was an awful silence as Jim let go. Victor breathed in deep. Defending himself was one thing. To dig his talons into a living, breathing human being laying helplessly on the ground was far beyond the pale. But Jim would suffer either way. Victor, with a heavy heart beating against the walls of his chest, slowly sank one of his talons into the wound. The shaking underneath his skin made his scales clatter against one another like beads on a necklace. His armor felt cramped, as did his own injury.

Careful… careful…!

“ARGH!”

The talon dug into the exposed flesh. It took every bit of strength in Victor’s body to prevent himself from wincing. The ashen smell of the wound gave way to blood, which went on to haunt the area like the Grim Reaper. Fighting back tears, Victor pushed a second talon into the wound, and attempted to take the metal ball in between both talons. Jim pressed his teeth down on his tongue hard enough to draw blood. Victor shook his head; even as he got the metal ball to move, the guilt washed over him as the tidal waves washed over a stormy beach.

I’ve made a terrible, terrible mistake…

At a snail’s pace, Victor lifted the bloody lump out, and laid it onto the gravel. “You got it out… good,” Jim heaved, “there’s a roll of bandage in my backpack, let me get it out first… there. Now, help me patch up my leg, hold it still or else this will be impossible.”

Victor laid one claw onto Jim’s foot. “Like this?”

Jim shook his head. “Nonono, not like that. If my leg spasms, that weak grip of yours won’t do a damn. With those big claws of yours, you could practically pin it in place. Use them.”

Victor licked at his gums. “Alright. But it won’t hurt if I grip a little too hard, right?” he said as his tail curled up around his side.

“Maybe, but it doesn’t matter. I need bandages, and I’m not going to back away because of a little pain. Now squeeze.”

The red dragon breathed in deep, and grabbed onto the injured leg with both claws this time. Jim hissed between his teeth, as he used up the entire roll of the cloth bandage around his leg, wrapping it nicely in a bow after having spun it around his leg a few times. With the wound buried, he leaned up against Victor to try and raise himself back onto his one good foot.

“Hold on here, let me just- ACK! Damn! Red, mind if I ride on your back? I can barely walk on this damned leg. Looks like I won't be doing any work come the actual city... damn it.”

“Sure,” said Victor timidly, as he once again lowered himself onto his breastplate. Jim stumbled his way up to his back like a small child, thanks to both his leg and his inexperience. Victor ended up helping him out, which wasn’t an easy task due to the heavy armor weighting him down. Finally, after a minute of struggling, Jim was on Victor’s back, and he wasn’t pleased.

“Divinity almighty. I wasn’t expecting this to be the most comfortable, but damn me, even the terrain in the mountains isn’t this rugged.”

“Err, if you say it is. But you can’t blame me for that, can you?” Victor said, licking at his lips.

“Yes, yes, Red. I know. Lord, my arse is already starting to itch. Let’s get a move on,. Captain William should be to the east somewhere, and I need to speak with him.”

With Jim wobbling back and forth on his back, Victor wandered across the scarred path in search of the others, should they still be alive. On the way they passed another few bunkers which had fallen to the Frontsmen; either their defenders had fled or were dead, not to be seen again. What was promised as a simple battle had become costly. It was the tale of the many which spotted the road, which a mere fifteen minutes ago had been the hosts of either the clueless nitwits watching the road, or the immature nitwits crawling alongside Victor through the slush. And now, with the simplicity of flicking a switch, they had vanished.

They had exhausted the Imperial bunkers down to the very last, the defenders all being dealt with. William was overseeing the aftermath. Celesta was nowhere to be seen. Without Jim nor Victor saying so much as a word, William turned around, a dull stare resting on his face.

“We’ve got a big problem on our hands.”