“Keep pushing!” barked Sam as his four-man team pushed through a draw in the side of the valley. The sniper continued to harry the squad in the valley below, and in ten minutes of exertion, the team was only a hundred meters up the hundred-and-fifty meter slope in the side of the valley.

Looking ahead of himself, he saw that Henfri, unsurprisingly, had pushed another twenty meters ahead of them, even carrying her nearly forty-pound anti-tank rifle. She’d nearly left Sam, Kara, and the Sergeant in the dust several times in her rapid push forward.

‘Remind me to never skip leg-day again,’ thought Sam absentmindedly as he gulped down another breath of thin mountain air. Turning behind himself, he saw Kara several meters to his rear, growling as she stepped over a fallen, rotting log.

The dense, stocky woman seemed perpetually intent on matching and out-pacing Sam at every opportunity, even if her stride was just over half that of his. A dozen or so meters behind her, was the Sergeant, stoically pushing forward through what Sam could see was clear pain and exhaustion.

Sergeant Noiesjel was a man nearing his middle-age, and if Sam were to hazard a guess, had served in the military his entire adult life. When the man had taken off his wide-brimmed helmet, he’d had salt-and-pepper hair, and the gray was clearly beginning to win the battle.

Sam had known several NCO’s like him in his past life, and while they always were a wealth of knowledge, determination, and the backbone of military operations, it came at a severe cost to their mental and physical health.

The Sergeant caught his gaze and smirked, despite the deep gasps of air he was pulling into his lungs. His deep-hazel eyes crinkled at the edges as he suddenly burst out sprinting, covering the distance between them in a couple seconds.

“Not dead yet,” he said jovially in his gravelly baritone, “Just didn’t want you kids to feel pathetic!”

Sam grinned widely at the old timer’s show of dominance, but he could see the forced nature of the smile, the Sergeant was in deep pain. Nodding his head once, he turned and continued up the hill. He and Kara pushed ahead of the sergeant yet again, with Kara growling and grunting the entire trek up the hill.

Looking ahead, he couldn’t see Henfri, and momentarily panicked that the excitable lizard-woman had pushed ahead and put herself in a position to get pinned down. He furrowed his brows, squinting into the tree-line at the top of the hill for several seconds before Kara slapped him roughly on the arm, pointing to a section in the middle of the trees.

“Right there,” she said as Sam followed her finger. Sure enough, decidedly well camouflaged, was Henfri, resting her massive rifle on an overturned tree about fifty meters in front of them.

Sam nodded, and turned back to Kara, who’s eyes were completely pitch-black voids. No pupil, iris, or sclera were visible in the inky pools. Sam’s eyes widened briefly before he composed himself.

“Never seen Mage-Vision before?” She snorted, her eyes returning to their normal tree-green in a flash.

“Uh,” he stated intelligently, “Can’t say I have.”

“I thought your family employed a few Mages to spot flaws in your product?” She asked, squinting at him for several seconds as his brain slowly worked through his exhaustion to answer her question.

“I uh…” he replied, his brain finally catching up, “We do, but I was never really into all that part of it.”

He continued his push up the hill, desperately avoiding conversation with Kara. He’d have to look more deeply into just who’s life he’d assumed later, after the sniper had been dealt with. He was still absorbed in his concerns when he realized he was at the top of the hill. Turning to Henfri, he pushed low to her position. Seconds later, he was joined by Kara, and finally the Sergeant.

“Sergeant, Henfri,” Sam said, getting the two’s attention and gesturing to the side of the hill, “I need you to push out wide on our left, and get eyes on the sniper. Henfri, you’ve got the big gun, so listen to Sergeant Noiesjel, he’ll be calling the ball.

“Thom, I need you to use the scope on your rifle to spot where her shots are landing, and give her wind calls to adjust her aim accordingly. Myself and Kara will be running interference on any enemy personnel that try to flank, got it?”

Sergeant Thom nodded quickly, while Corporal Henfri looked glum for a second, before nodding once. The pair set out low to the ground, using the overturned trees, boulders, and living flora as defilade on their approach to a position where they could fire on the sniper. Sam twisted his ear in the direction of the sniper, and guessed they were about four-hundred meters out from the enemy sniper’s position.

‘Hey Ellie, you there?’ he thought at her, ‘How we looking?’

‘Not too bad,’ she replied in his thoughts, beaming him a flash of her current viewpoint. The trees seemed to be absorbing the majority of the enemy rifle fire, and a medic was treating two downed individuals behind cover. Sam could see two fireteams spread out and laying fire in the general direction of the sniper. ‘One dead, one critically wounded, and Southbranch took a grazing hit to her shoulder.’

‘That’s good, I think the sniper got a little trigger happy, engaged us from too far off,’ Sam mentally remarked, ‘Turn-of-the-century scopes weren’t that good if I remember right.’

“Alright Kara,” he said, pointing to the right, down through a copse of trees, and exactly where he’d push to flank a counter-sniper, “We’re headed down there. If I was gonna flank, that’s the path I’d take.”

He stood up, and pushed down the ridge just under the crest, hopefully concealing his position from the enemy sniper. He reached a band of trees that ran over the ridge to where he wanted to go, and pushed up through the small forest. Behind him, he heard a small popping and crackling noise, and turned his head to Kara, who surprisingly, held a fist-sized ball of fire in one hand, and a pistol in the other.

Catching his gaze, she grinned happily, jumping down an overturned log. Sam snorted, but mentally winced.

‘Don’t fuck with the Mage,’ he thought as he scanned the woods in front of them.

A deep, basal boom echoed through the valley, contrasting deeply to the, by contrast, staccato rifle-fire from the valley below and the sniper’s position. He cast a passing glance in the direction of the fire, and nodded. It was Henfri’s anti-tank rifle. More than likely, that meant she and Thom had found the enemy, and were engaging.

Sam instinctively snapped his rifle up and slowed his movement. If they were going to send their own flanking team, now would be the time. He moved his rifle from tree to tree, looking for anything out of place, any movement at all.

The fire from the enemy position abated for several seconds before it changed slightly. Sam knew this was more than likely from the sniper changing the direction of their muzzle drastically, causing the echo off the mountain walls to change.

He looked forward through the trees when he heard a branch snap, then another. Sam dropped to a knee, gripping the rifle tighter in the pocket of his shoulder. The sound of footsteps grew louder as Kara kneeled down several feet away from him. She focused intently on the same spot Sam did. A soldier dressed in a deep gray uniform with deeply tanned skin burst from the trees, sprinting through the clearing in front of them.

Directly at them, in fact. Sam trained his sights on the man, and fired twice into his chest. The report of the rifle was loud in his ears, and the recoil significantly stouter than rifles from his old world, and by the time he’d fired, his front sight had risen from the soldier’s gut to nearly his throat.

‘Holy recoil, what caliber is this?’ he griped, lowering the muzzle slightly as he followed the soldier’s stumbling steps to the meadow floor. Much to his surprise, a truck-sized ball of fire launched from the opposite side of the meadow.

“SHIT!” he yelled, instinctively diving behind the log before him. The ball of fire screamed its way overhead, slamming into a tree twenty meters behind them and erupting into a veritable mushroom cloud.

“MAGE!” yelled Kara, throwing her own, significantly smaller fireball towards the direction of the opposing sorcerer, “Get out of here!”

‘Yeah fuck that,’ Sam thought, rising to his feet behind a massive oak tree, ‘Not leaving you behind.’

“You got eyes on?” He called, hazarding a small peek around the side of the four-foot wide base of the tree.

“No!” She replied, holstering her pistol and spinning her hands before herself. Her eyeballs ignited in bright blue and orange flames as she called forth her fire magic, a basketball-sized ball of flame forming at her front. With a shove, she threw the ball of fire in the general direction of the Mage, ripping through a group of low branches and detonating loudly.

Thinking quickly, Sam leaned around the tree, resting his rifle on a low branch, and minimizing his profile as much as possible. He scanned the woods before them as time stood still for several seconds. Then he spotted the flickering light of a fireball being formed on their right.

“There!” he called, pulling down on the rifle with more force than he was used to as he dumped seven rounds into the enemy Mage’s position, “In front of the red flowers, between those trees!”

Kara launched her fireball in that direction, the enemy Mage’s fire popping out of existence before Sam caught a flash of movement, and Kara’s fireball rocketed skyward right as it was about to impact his position.

“Novice!” Called an angry voice, before a man in a decorated gray uniform stepped from the trees. Sam was still processing the fact that the Mage had redirected a fireball, probably moving faster than the speed of sound, directly upward without a scratch.

The man stepped into view, his eyes aflame like Kara. He was deeply tan, with an ice-white well manicured beard. His head was completely shaven, and he held basketball sized balls of blue flame in each hand.

“Your control was impeccable, young one!” the sorcerer called, eying their position as his long, pointed ears twitched, “your speed and accuracy deserves the highest marks! Your lack of power gave you away, though!”

Kara sighed deeply, seeming to deflate from where she hid. The man threw another massive fireball past them, clearly not intending to hit.

“Come out and fight!” The man shouted indignantly, “You’re a Mage, act like one! We have standards in Darabad, does your academy not, Lenitian?”

“He’s a Journeyman Mage,” Kara sighed sadly, smiling over at Sam, “If not a Master. Go, I’ll buy you some time.”

“Fuck that,” replied Sam off-handedly, before dumping the remainder of his magazine into the man’s chest. Round after round split the breezy mountain air. It wasn’t until the toggle-action locked upwards that Sam lowered the rifle, and looked at the Mage.

The man was smiling almost proudly at Sam behind a wall of blue fire. When the crackling inferno dissipated like a fine mist, he quirked a brow.

“Admirable,” He stated, snapping his jaw closed, “An officer willing to die for not just their squad, but their Mage as well? I imagine the pair of you would’ve gone far.”

Sam wasn’t really listening, instead pulling a fresh trench magazine out of his belt, and replacing his old one, and racked the toggle bolt on his rifle.

“Lick my hairy ass you overgrown lighter!” Sam called, ready to let loose another volley. A soft hand on his shoulder stopped him, however, and he looked down to see Kara looking pleadingly at him.

“Please Sam,” she said softly, “Get out of here, warn the others, and try to get to the fortifications. Go, you lout!”

She smacked him on the arm roughly as she finished, stepping forward into the clearing and squaring off with the Mage, summoning her own fireballs as she stared him down.

Sam beamed a quick mental image to Ellie, and set about figuring out what to do. He stalked around the clearing, watching the pair talk quietly for several seconds, pacing in slow circles around one another as they sized each other up. The elder Mage threw a small fireball at Kara, who batted it aside into the dirt, a meter wide explosion sending dirt and debris skyward through the clearing. Sam used the opportunity of the branches, stones, and clumps of dirt loudly crashing to the ground through the trees to quickly bound around the Mage, changing angles.

Kara clearly needed every bit of available help in defeating the man, as he’d thrown a pitiable attack compared to his truck-sized earlier artillery. Even if Sam served to just distract the Mage, it would allow for her to get in an attack without his undivided attention focused on her.

The mage lifted his right hand above his head and spun it, as if mimicking a vortex, and then lashed out with a twenty-foot whip of pure blue fire, which Kara thankfully rolled out of the way of at the last second.

She rose to her knees, then her feet, spitting a clump of dirt from her mouth as she stared daggers at the man. She clenched her fists, the large muscles in her forearms rippling visibly as she stared daggers through the Mage.

“Impeccable dodge, child,” he called out, actually bowing once at the waist. “Even Journeymen have trouble dodging that.”

He paused for several seconds, canting his head to the side, and then shrugging.

“Surrender,” he called. “And I’ll allow you to become my apprentice. I think I understand why you lack the power you seek.”

Kara burst forth, punching out three rapid spikes of blue flame before leaping to the side and throwing a fourth. Sam had to drop to his back as the enemy mage batted one of the fire-spikes away virtually at his head.

Rising to his feet, he saw the enemy mage literally holding one of the fire spikes in his hand, seeming to admire it. He threw it back at Kara in short order, who deftly leapt over the spike, lashing out with a fire-whip of her own. A whip that petered out feet away from the Mage, before Kara landed in a heap.

“You don’t have enough mana for that, novice!” He chuckled darkly, approaching the downed Kara, “Though I appreciate the honor in giving me everything you’ve got!”

‘Shit! Why isn’t she moving?’ Sam growled internally, staring daggers at the enemy mage. He pulled the sword-like bayonet from the side of his belt, fixing it to his rifle. Kara wasn’t going to die like this.

Stalking forward as the self-assured mage continued his monologue over Kara’s still frame, he prepared himself for something he hadn’t done since basic training; a bayonet charge.

He took in a deep breath of air as the mage leveled a fire-spike of his own at Kara’s head.

“So, Novice,” the man stated as Sam crept stealthily from the brushline. “Surrender, and serve, or die here, alone. Your officer left you! They always do. We’re just pawns to them, a gun to be expended. Does it really matter what side you serve when your nation is already crumbling under our boot?”

Sam sprinted. With all his force, the butt of his rifle pressed into his armpit, held like a spear before him. He ran straight for the enemy mage like his life depended on it, because well, it did. If he failed, he’d probably be burnt to a crisp, forgotten on some hillside.

‘Succeed where another failed.’

The words of Senire passed through his mind as he crossed the halfway point in the clearing, less than ten meters from the Mage.

“What the-“ the Mage asked no one, turning half-heartedly in Sam’s direction, his eyes going wide at the point of the bayonet aimed for his chest. “OH MY SHIT!”

Sam didn’t even have a moment to internally chuckle at the flustered, squawking Fire-Mage as the tip of his bayonet got within a arms reach of the mage, who batted it aside, out of Sam’s iron grip just before Sam collided full-force with the man, angling his shoulder downward at the last second to take him in the lower ribs.

Sam felt something in the man crack at the impact, before the mage screamed, and slammed into a tree. The mage slumped to the ground, and Sam scurried back, rising to his feet shortly before the mage did.

“Why you impudent little piece of-“ the mage shouted before Sam pulled the pistol from its holster and began to empty the magazine, not having the care to wait for his supervillain monologue.

The same wall of blue fire rose from the ground, vaporizing the rounds before they could hit the man. Sam rationalized that the best option at this juncture, because he couldn’t really escape or dodge like the near-superhuman reflexes of Kara or the mage before him, was to reload.

Dropping a magazine, the mage began to start again, but was cut off when a spike of fire erupted from Sam’s left, where Kara had lain. He shot a glance to her, and found her bloody, kneeling, and creating another fire-spike out of thin air.

The Mage had to bat away another spike of fire, as Sam made a connection. He couldn’t stop bullets and fire attacks simultaneously. He chuckled darkly as he pulled the third pistol magazine free, leveling the sidearm with his right hand, he began to fire at the mage, much slower, at irregular intervals as the mage tried desperately to jump from defending against magic, lead, and magic again.

Sam dropped the mag, and quickly shoved the one he’d readied into his pistol, dropping the slide by reflex and continuing his assault.

“UNFAIR!” Screeched the mage as he mistimed a shield, and a round took him high in the chest, causing him to miss a fire-bolt, which pierced his lower left ribs.

“Fuck you,” Sam replied cleverly, leaping forward and shoving his pistol into the Mage’s mouth. The man’s eyes widened for a split second before the muted report of the handgun sounded, and his eyes began to drift in opposite directions.