Forgotten Ruin: An Epic Military Fantasy Thriller

by Jason Anspach

  Mercer pulled the trigger release and started firing.

  Rounds smashed into the weird horse and rider, but even though the beast screamed like something straight from a nightmare, it kept on coming straight at us. Sergeant Kang was engaging an ogre, a big mean one with a massive bow that was larger than anything I’d ever seen. The ogre, smashing his way through the trees above, had apparently leaned down over the gully to check and see what was going on down in here. The thing was easily nine feet tall, and it moved fast, its powerful muscles pulling the giant arrow it had nocked and ready to go back into firing position. It wore nothing but a tasseled kilt and high leather boots caked with mud and debris. A giant sword that was little more than a chunk of beaten pig iron hung from its belt.

  Sergeant Kang squeezed a whole mag across the ogre’s bare chest. The thing didn’t seem like it much minded. It turned and fired its bow, sending an arrow right at Mercer, who swore and began to grunt hoarsely, attempting to control the sudden pain.

  In the dark light of night vision, I watched the straight and true green beam of my targeting laser land on the looming brawny ogre’s brow as it drew another massive black arrow into its bow. I’d kept my MK18 on semi because I didn’t want to freak out and burn through more mags on full auto. I squeezed fast, but not so fast I couldn’t keep the laser right on the ogre’s upper torso.

  Again it was the blur of combat, and while certain elements were hyper-real, I was also cognizant of two things at the same time. One, the arrow that had struck Mercer, which was about four feet long, had gone straight through his thigh and pinned him to the ground. I could see that in the foreground as I fired at the ogre, not needing to look through the sight but instead letting the IR beam settle each time I pulled the trigger. Allowing the targeting laser do all the work of finding where the rounds needed to go.

  Meanwhile the rider and nightmare bony horse were still bearing down on the SAW gunner and Private Soprano. Mercer Rangered through the pain and kept firing, hitting the screaming horse and the dark rider trying to hide behind its rearing fear-taut neck.

  At the same time, I was firing at the ogre as it nocked and pulled back its second arrow. One of my rounds must’ve climbed from upper center mass because the thing’s jaw suddenly exploded, spraying bone fragments and iridescent gore in night vision. The monstrosity dropped its bow and threw both of its mallet-like paws up to its face as it fell forward into the gully and broke its neck.

  Yeah. I heard it. It was loud and clear. Like the dry snap of a big dead branch in a quiet forest on a lonely winter’s afternoon despite the battle all around us. Just like that.

  When I looked back, I saw that Mercer had brought down the first gaunt horse and shrouded rider of rags and bones. This must’ve been the enemy cavalry’s scout, or their version of the point man, because more riders were appearing around the bend in the gully to the south, down along the enemy’s line.

  The riders surged and Sergeant Kang mashed the firing device clacker for the Claymore. As if to say, I see your doomsday riders and raise you one M18A1 Claymore mine. The explosion devastated the sickly horses and riders, sending steel balls tearing through horse flesh, gaunt riders, and forest.

  That was when we got the order to pull back. The line was shifting fire and the snipers had us acquired. And if that sounded like we were suddenly on Easy Street, the captain made it clear to Jasper that we weren’t.

  “CO says the gully’s filled with tangos ahead of our position. Gotta clear it the whole way back, guys. Snipers supporting.” After this, Jasper got us organized and moving.

  What happened next was three hundred meters of pure nightmare.

  With more riders still coming up the gully and Soprano now acting as the SAW gunner while Sergeant Kang went to carry the wounded Mercer, we gave up our defensive position in the wash and headed out the back door.

  Soprano was firing short bursts into the riders as Kang and I dragged the wounded man after Jasper, who’d taken point. Sergeant Kang had managed to get an emergency tourniquet around Mercer’s leg above the wound; the arrow had been cut at both ends and left in. To his credit, Mercer didn’t pass out or scream bloody murder when they quick-applied a tourniquet and some clotting agent. He did promise someone he was going to kill them slowly someday.

  It was a tight squeeze into the next section of the gully and we barely got Mercer through it. Something rubbed the wounded area and he arched his neck and back and it was all I could do to hold on to him until he went limp and finally passed out, his face and arms covered in cold sweat.

  Kang shouted over his back, “Private Soprano! We’re leaving! C’mon!”

  More fire from the small gunner. A long burst and then an almost comical, “Eh, Sergeant! Hole up… I’m-a comin’.” He spoke like some awful actor doing his version of bad Italian-American.

  We were holding the unconscious Mercer up against the side of the gully and Kang was telling the gunner to “Fall back, man” when the dark-eyed and smiling Soprano squeezed past us like it was just another day on the subway and not actually raining flaming arrows all around us while trying to thread the needle of making it through a combat front with both sides throwing everything they had at each other.

  Then near at hand, some sort of ballistae had been moved up to fire on the hill. Sniper Hill to the north. We could hear their high and ominous twangs as the grunting and howling crews worked to fire and reload and then fire again at the Rangers on the hill.

  “Scusa,” murmured Soprano almost politely as he pushed past us while we held up the wounded man and he kept the SAW upright. “Hey Sergente… this-a count for Ranger School, right?” He laughed as he passed by. “’Cause-a I was due to go and all, Sergente, before we got to this-ah… how to say… this… crazy place…”

  Mercer groaned and went paler.

  Sergeant Kang replied in short, clipped tones. “Not now, Soprano. Save the accent and go forward. Sergeant Jasper needs you with him.”

  I could hear Jasper and the other Rangers engaging up there, but I couldn’t see what was going on. Then the little gunner was off with the machine gun that seemed two sizes too big for him.

  Kang slapped Mercer across the face, and not gently.

  “C’mon, Ranger! Don’t go into the light!”

  But Mercer either didn’t care or simply wondered too much what that light was all about anyway.

  “Let go of him,” Sergeant Kang ordered me, and I didn’t. But I did say something really stupid as suddenly ahead of us in the dark gully we heard Soprano open up hard on something that screamed like a horror movie version of a tentacled beast that lived in a pond. It was titanic and ear-splitting as Soprano hosed it with the SAW.

  I said to Sergeant Kang, “We ain’t leavin’ him!”

  Which was a stupid thing to say to a Ranger.

  I didn’t see the look Sergeant Kang, who was Korean, and yes I spoke that one too, gave me. I’m sure it was pure wither. As in, if looks could kill I’d be cooling in some morgue on the wrong side of town.

  “Rangers don’t leave anyone behind,” Kang muttered as the unconscious gunner fell toward him while he bent and in one smooth motion, so perfect it seemed choregraphed, he hoisted the limp Mercer up and into a fireman’s carry over one shoulder.

  Then…

  “Stay with me,” he grunted, hefting his rifle up.

  Chapter Twenty

  Three hundred meters of pure nightmare still lay directly ahead. It was enough keeping the orcs and shadow riders off our backs. They kept pushing from the rear and it was only Kang firing and falling back, with me covering as he carried the still-unconscious Mercer, that kept them from riding us down right there in the gully. I was doing what Kang directed me to do, providing cover and making sure our way forward was clear as we maintained visual with the rest of Sergeant Jasper’s team fighting forward. The team leader and the other two Rangers were k
illing their way through pockets of orcs who’d made it this far and were staging for their next rush into Phase Line Charlie. The last thing they expected to see was Rangers sweeping up the gully and engaging as they came, shooting the orcs down.

  Jasper had already declared “Mag out” indicating he was down to his last magazine. Chatter over the team comm erupted about redistributing. And that was when I came up on Soprano who was busy getting in the last reload he carried for the SAW. He kneeled in the darkness of a part of the gully wash filled with the twisted and maimed bodies of dead orc warriors. Their faces were frozen in wicked snarls, even in death.

  Sergeant Kang came up behind us, turning and firing short bursts to keep the pursuit back and then hustling forward to the next cover. Arrows suddenly rained down into the wash. These, at least, weren’t on fire. But it indicated that the enemy was talking between its various elements and someone had decided to group-select and target us with indirect ranged fire. Like this was some kind of computer wargame simulation. That was the only way my mind could understand how they managed to fire at us down inside the twisting gully. For the most part, the incoming arrow fire fell across the sand and fallen logs that had washed down in here during storms of the not-so-distant past. The arrows made different sounds when they struck. At first they hit the sandy bottom with soft, almost whispery hushes as they suddenly appeared in the streambed. Then they hit logs with loud CHUNKs. By then we’d covered under the logs as best we could, and Sergeant Kang threw Mercer down on the sand and lay on top of him to protect the wounded Ranger.

  One of the arrows managed to slam into Soprano’s knee plate and shattered with a loud crack. The comical Italian gunner exclaimed, “Hey… lookee that, mi amico.” Amico means friend. Yeah. I speak Italian too. Actually, I think I already mentioned that. “I tooka arrow righta in the knee. Like in that game. Now I can retire and be a town guarda!”

  Guarda means guard. Obviously. Other than that, I had no idea what he was talking about.

  The arrow fire ceased and moments later a dozen heavily armed orcs surged from the south along the dry streambed, pushing forward fast and lobbing spears at us. I was the lightest armed and the first out from under cover. Soprano was still duck-walking from under the fallen log we’d been covering under and Kang was just getting to his knees and putting in a new mag for his rifle when the orcs swarmed, running fast up the wash, axes out and screaming bloody murder.

  I fired at the leader, pulling the trigger on the MK18 as fast as I could squeeze off rounds. Then I was out and there were still more coming straight at us. I reversed the rifle and slammed it into the helmeted head of the first one to reach us because there was no time to get a new magazine in. I thrust the butt of the MK18 forward and fast just like Drill Sergeant Ward had taught us all back in Basic Training and caught that one right between the eyes and along the bridge of his wide flared black nostrils. It rang his bell for sure, but he wasn’t down.

  Another of the roaring orcs battle-cried and swung a notched sword at me. It was short and small like the kind ancient Roman centurions used. A gladius. The gladius hit my front plate and bounced off, but the blow knocked the wind out of me, and I stumbled backward, letting my rifle go and thinking only of getting out my sidearm once I could breathe again.

  I was on my butt when I had my M18 out and I just started pulling the trigger on that one as it closed to finish me off with a stab. At that point I had no idea how badly I’d been hit. Whether the sword had slashed through my armor and into me… I had no idea. I didn’t feel any pain, but maybe, some other part of my mind was saying, maybe I was in shock and an artery had been cut deep. It was probably serious, but I was just thinking it was best not to die right this second.

  Maybe someone could help me if I survived this fight.

  I continued to fire, emptying the magazine at the orcs pushing forward. There were three now and I couldn’t tell if I was hitting anyone because my eyes were watering and like I said I was having trouble breathing. My M18 had a targeting laser, but I hadn’t activated it. It was the sergeant major’s and I remember thinking as the last round left the weapon and the slide locked back that I was supposed to “clean” Volman. Retire. R&R. And that I hadn’t done that yet. Now I was going to get hacked and chopped up into little pieces by monsters from some fantasy game turned nightmare.

  Of all the ends my mother had ever foreseen for me, which was her way of loving me despite her patrician upbringing, she probably hadn’t seen this one. Life is crazy and unexpected like that. It moves fast, as some like to say. And apparently death wasn’t any different.

  Then Soprano opened up and I watched as right before my eyes, belt-fed 5.56 in adult-sized doses slammed into the misshapen heads, exploding brains and sending bone matter all against the sides of the gully. All of it really up close and luridly graphic in the moonlight. His work belonged in a museum with the other Italian masters, I thought as I processed all the destruction. And then I realized, Oh, this is how they think. Rangers. Violence is also an art. To them.

  I recovered my rifle and breathing in gasps as I fumbled for a new mag when Sergeant Kang, with Mercer back over his shoulder and still holding his rifle, hauled me to my feet.

  “Load your sidearm, PFC,” he grunted at me, and started off up the gully once more.

  Soprano was still hosing the orcs farther back down the gully with the SAW, keeping them back as we pushed forward once more.

  Then the sniper fire from the hill got re-tasked to assist our flight and crossing back into Phase Charlie. Some new creatures that looked like small dragon-dog humanoids came yip yip yipping in at us, waving their curved little daggers and shouting something unintelligible that sounded like “Breeeeeyaaark!”

  The rounds coming from Mjölnir up on the hill just vaporized these things as they struck.

  I followed Kang around the next bend in the streambed and we found the rest of Sergeant Jasper’s team linked up with the main body and letting us through the line. And just as Soprano ran through and behind the improvised fighting position the Rangers here were fighting from, carrying the empty squad automatic weapon and running like a track star, the flanks redirected their fire on the gully and closed off that route with extreme outgoing violence for our pursuers. The mortar team even obliged with a few rounds of white phosphorus just to make sure they caught fire. I had to flip my NVGs up real quick once those things came.

  We’d made it to Phase Line Charlie. Barely.

  Chief Rapp was there and apprised on Mercer’s condition. He’d brought PFC Kennedy. Even though Charlie was on the verge of collapsing, and we were pulling back to the hill itself, Chief Rapp started a transfusion on Mercer right there using PFC Kennedy as a universal blood donor. The Ranger O-Low Titer Protocol was something we’d all been briefed on and trained in during RASP. It had a high rate of success in preventing battlefield deaths. Identified universal blood donors such as Kennedy carried a “Universal” kit that could assist the medics in making a critical blood transfusion in minutes right there on the battlefield. Chief Rapp was a stud of course. Special Forces guys are not just competent at what they do, they’re gifted. First he got some tranexamic acid in the wounded man while Kennedy got the kid ready. Seconds later Mercer was being carried rearward and transfused at the same time.

  That was it for his fight. At least for now. For the rest of us…

  If we thought that was the main attack… if we thought that had been the best they could throw at us… we were wrong. Turtled on Sniper Hill at the northern end of the island with every fighting Ranger and their weapon facing outward toward the enemy, we were now in a fight for our lives. The enemy released everything they had, and it was clear from the get-go that they were going to wipe us out tonight or die trying.

  That was when the captain ordered us into gas masks and detonated the body bags full of chlorine gas as we retreated up the hill.

  Chapter Twenty-On
e

  The wounded were organized at the first line of defenses on Sniper Hill. The more seriously wounded were carried up to the next casualty collection point halfway up and protected by a large rock that jutted out the side of the steep slope. Past the rock lay the trenches that had been dug up to the top of Sniper Hill, passing various improvised defensive positions.

  The defense of the hill was made easier because there were only two accessible trails upward: the western route and the eastern route. The hill was too steep to ascend safely without using either of these routes. But then again, at least some of these creatures out to kill us had wings.

  The Rangers, mainly the sniper and mortar teams, had fortified these trails as best they could for the majority of the enemy, not given to fly. Holding the giant rock about a quarter way up was left to a rifle squad, while both heavy weapons sections pulled back to the trenches on either side of the hill.

  Below, the orcs and other monsters were boiling up from the ruins of the defenses at Phase Line Charlie, clearly unsure if we had pulled back. The snipers targeted the heavier elements like the trolls and ogres and either put them down or wounded them badly. Occasional boulders were flung up into the dark night to land on the side of the hill and go rolling back down. Little damage was done, but it was clear the orcs staging down in the woods and gully at the bottom of the hill were going to have to deal with those rolling rocks.

  In gas masks we watched the battle suddenly grind to a halt as the enemy dealt with the invisible chlorine gas. With night vision we could see them struggle, and we ceased fire just to conserve ammo and let the gas deal with as many as it could. Ten minutes later there were a lot of dead down there. But as suddenly as the chemical death came, a windstorm arrived out of nowhere and drove the lingering gas off to the west. It wasn’t a natural wind, like some night breeze that comes up unexpectedly with the night. This felt hot and dry like a desert wind. And it smelled of sulfur. You could feel its sting in your eyes even through the filters of your mask.