Forgotten Ruin: An Epic Military Fantasy Thriller

by Jason Anspach

  I’d certainly never imagined being out here and in it all by myself.

  Be meaner than it, Talker.

  “Yeah,” I mumbled, shaking in the darkness.

  I could feel sweat breaking out all over my body. The battle was raging across the island now. More explosions and chattering heavy-weapons fire to the south and closer than it had been just a moment before. Mortar strikes landing out in the water, this side and to the south where some new enemy force was trying to flank and come ashore. The pit off to my right firing everything they had into the dark shapes out there on the water. Star-shells falling through the forest in other sectors. Dancing illumination shells, the dying light they made causing the shadows of the trees to move like living things all around me.

  I flipped my NVGs and just stood there. Trying to control what seemed uncontrollable. Impossible. My heart, and my breathing. Knowing I had stuff to do.

  And then… it all just stopped and I felt myself take a big breath. And let it go. My fingers were ejecting the magazine in my MK18 and getting a new one out of my carrier. Smooth. Easy. This was the next step. This is what was done and I was fine with that now.

  This was what I was supposed to do.

  I felt calm and I knew the answer then. I didn’t need to think about it and figure it out later to put it down in this record no one will probably ever read.

  Ever since I’d walked away from those Ivory Towers of Education that would have become fusty old prisons I’d grow doddering and old in, I’d wondered about this moment. Even if I hadn’t known it. CQB. Wondered if I could really Ranger. Ranger—it’s a noun, a verb, a personality trait, a thought process, et cetera. No one had ever said I couldn’t. They’d been too busy being bewildered by the fact that I was walking away from everything I’d worked so hard for to do something they considered beneath…

  … beneath me?

  No. Beneath them. They’d thought that way. In their ignorance.

  My reasons are my own for why I joined the Army and got my chance to hang with the Rangers. Maybe I’ll write them, those reasons, down someday. Here. But I never considered that being a soldier was beneath anyone. If anything, I’d always considered myself beneath what it took to become one. And I wondered if that was true. If I could. Until this moment, with dead orcs all around me, I’d wondered if this was just some little game I was playing at that I wouldn’t be able to pay for when the bill came due. When it came time to put all my chips on the table and go all in. When it really came time to pay with my life. When the lives of others were on the line. When it wasn’t just assault lanes and warrior faces. When it wasn’t me and forty of my heavily armed best friends supported by an M1 Abrams tank, artillery on demand, and air cav in the skies all around.

  In other words… when other people were expected to do the fighting that needed to be done. Not just me contributing with a few rounds downrange and where the enemy might maybe be.

  But CQB. In it.

  Be meaner than it, Talker.

  Running into a room with nothing but a weapon and the training you had and the attitude that you were gonna be the winner today.

  Because that’s what a fight is. Winners and the dead.

  There are no participation awards.

  There are just winners. And the dead.

  I was breathing normal now. The sweat felt good. Cleansing. Like I was sweating out all the doubt that had been with me from the day I walked into a recruiter’s office just to see if I could.

  I won this one, I told myself.

  Okay… rinse and repeat, as Drill Sergeant Ward liked to say.

  Do it again.

  Just like the sun. Every day.

  Chapter Eighteen

  They weren’t dead. Staff Sergeant Jasper’s squad wasn’t dead. No wounds. Or at least no fresh ones gushing blood from hacks and slashes by small curved swords or long daggers. Or blunt trauma and broken bones from massive war maces. All the first aid I’d learned in Basic Training had consisted of identifying wounds and putting a bandage on them, or even applying a tourniquet when necessary. But that was it. Sword slashes and concussions and fractured skulls were going to be a bit beyond my ability to repair.

  Chief Rapp had been training, and using, some of the air crew as medics to support his casualty collection point. I’d told myself I probably needed to get that training so I could be of some assistance when things got serious. But I’d been busy, and so now I fell back on the basic stuff I knew, which seemed woefully inadequate right at this current moment of seriousness.

  Evaluation. That was the first step.

  The first guy I checked wasn’t dead. I shook him, and slowly, like he was shaking off a three-day bender, he came around a little. I chanced a glance across the river and saw that the tracer hurl of the two-forty to our north had stopped. I tapped back into the command net and heard the first sergeant ordering all units to pull back to Phase Line Charlie now. Phase Line Charlie was to the rear of our current position.

  There were clusters of dark shapes out there on the river, crossing directly for us. Orc shapes. Even the mortar fire had stopped, and it seemed like there was a lull in the battle as both sides reloaded and took up new positions in order to recommence killing one another. The problem for us was our position was in front of the forward line of friendlies, other Rangers. We were now in what would be, for the next few hours, enemy-held territory.

  I went to work on the next soldier laid out outside the pit. Yeah, this one was sleeping too.

  “C’mon!” I wanted to shout at them all. “Wake up!”

  But I didn’t say anything because I was too busy trying to hustle and hunker and get to each of them. Still, they began to stir. As if they’d heard what I’d been thinking. Just like McCluskey seemed to have during the debrief.

  Was that a thing here? Could people hear your thoughts? Or was it just me? Because I could see that going really badly for me the next time I tried to advance my cause with the cute co-pilot of the C-17.

  “What the…” began SSG Jasper when he sat up. His primary wasn’t at hand, and fast as he could he had his M18 out and pointed into the darkness all around like he’d just woken from the worst nightmare ever, mixed with a case of the DTs for bonus terror.

  He then, not politely I might add, asked me who I was. When I told him I was the linguist and that that wasn’t the most important thing right now, he asked me what was the most important thing at that moment. Exactly. Again, not too politely.

  “Sergeant Major says we’re pulling back to Phase Line Charlie, Sergeant Jasper,” I said. “We lost comm with your section and he sent me out to reconnect with you. Also, still not the biggest problem, Sar’nt.”

  “Yeah. Then what is?” he raged accusingly.

  Rangers were going for their weapons. Scrambling through the dirt and the sand to find them near and around the fighting position.

  “We got bad guys coming in from all directions, Sar’nt.” I pointed toward the river where what looked to be at least a company-sized element was wading ashore as stealthily as a company-sized element could possibly do.

  Sergeant Jasper swore and hissed his orders. He wanted the SAW up and working them. Grenadiers were to start dropping smoke to cover our retreat.

  Then I pointed toward the three trolls tearing apart trees directly to our immediate south. Surrounded by teams of orcs on foot. They were moving slow. Apparently Captain Knife Hand had left a bunch of explosive surprises for them to find and they were getting leery about advancing too fast. One of those booby traps detonated and ripped into a troll who staggered from the hundreds of tungsten balls that zipped through its leathery hide. But then it just continued on. The dead orcs around it continued to be dead, torn to pieces by the explosive’s fast-moving shrapnel. Lying about like the victims of a massacre.

  “Gotta boogie!” hissed the sergeant, changing plans. Ever
yone in the section grabbed as much as they could and a minute later we were headed down the trail toward the center of the island to follow the path back into the one lane clear of explosives that would take us to Phase Line Charlie.

  Sergeant Kang was on point and SSG Jasper brought up the rear. The rest of the section carried the SAW and the extra cans of ammo. I was with Kang and pointed out which way we needed to go when we emerged at the edge of the field the C-17 had landed in. Off in the distance I could see the shadowy bulk of the plane. Someone was retreating out of there and we could see the two SAW gunners laying down suppressive fire on some element out there in the woods threatening to come in close.

  A moment later the three trolls stormed into the position we’d just left behind. They tore large trees right out of the ground and pounded the dug-in fighting position along the riverbank. The heavy weapons section to the north engaged them, slowing them with outgoing fire.

  It was an ominous sight. The towering creatures moving through the tall trees, their mean yellow eyes blazing with fury as they scanned for something to rend limb from limb. Trying to dodge the bright tracer-laden fire of the two-forty coming at them from the north.

  Sergeant Kang was watching forward, trying to find the trail we’d take next, when I spotted a line of orcs racing across the field around the plane. They’d cleared the southern defenses and were now storming forward into the CP. There were other creatures, strange and bizarre, mixed in with this enemy infantry force. Misshapen, twisted freaks. I had no idea what they might be called in PFC Kennedy’s games.

  Kang was on the comm and talking with the platoon sergeant. Trying to figure our next move. We couldn’t go back because we’d run into the trolls. Forward was someone driving the command team out of the CP. And to our right was the main body of the enemy’s attack from the south.

  And there was one more problem with our movement to the rear. We didn’t want to run into anyone’s ambush or booby traps.

  “Streambed to our northwest. Take that, Kang. Watch for tripwires,” ordered Sergeant Jasper.

  Kang sighed, shrugged, and hunch-walked underneath the burden of his overloaded ruck into the bushes, leaving the trail we’d been following back to Charlie. The twisting sandy-bottomed streambed that ran through the center of the island was just off to our left. It didn’t fill with river water unless the river got high enough, and that hadn’t happened in the three days we’d been on the island.

  Twenty meters into the brush we found the bed and dropped down into it one by one. Kang and I set up security while the rest of the team came down in and Jasper advised command of our situation and position. They noted our loc and told us to hold.

  A minute later mortars started sweeping across the front just behind us. The first few indirect strikes landed out in the field the orcs were moving through. That should have checked any enemy troops and sent them for cover or pulling back. Not orcs. These warriors ululated, war-whooped, blared their tribal horns, and charged right into the raining maelstrom of death being dropped down all over them. The snipers atop the hill were engaging the huge trolls who were getting weirdly crafty about not getting hit by two-forty fire. For things so large and menacing, they somehow hunkered and ducked behind stands of trees and even slithered like giant snakes on their bellies to get closer to the line.

  Here now, it’s just words I’m writing down for no one to ever read. At the time, there in the dark and already behind enemy lines shifting forward faster than we could move, it was one of the freakiest things I’d ever seen. And if I thought I was close to death in that firefight I’d pulled not ten minutes ago, seeing those trolls get crafty to avoid sniper and heavy machine-gun fire made me feel even closer now. They seemed unstoppable. One even pulled up a huge boulder half-mired in the earth and overhand threw it like a big-league fastball pitch straight at the hill. It snapped off the tops of trees along the way and rocketed right into the raised earth.

  One of the Rangers down along Phase Line Charlie replied with a Carl Gustaf round. It didn’t kill it, but it went straight through the thing’s chest. That troll stumbled off toward the river. To die or recover, I had no idea. Kennedy told me later that in his games, trolls could regenerate hit points.

  Then he had to explain what hit points were.

  So, that could be a thing here.

  Or not.

  Who knew?

  But right now, the front line turned into a battle all around us as we hid in the streambed. We were only three hundred meters from Phase Line Charlie. But we might as well have been a thousand miles and all out of gas away.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The forward elements of the enemy were hitting our line at Phase Line Charlie along several points now. Sergeant Jasper was in communication with the captain and we were being told to continue to hold our position for the next few as the outgoing fire got heavier. Orcs were streaming through the forest above our heads as we hunkered down in the gully.

  “Suck dirt!” shouted the sergeant as a sudden line of mortar strikes landed across the enemy front to both sides.

  Down in the streambed we were ducking below the plane of outgoing fire from our teams along the line to our rear. Fire was being directed away from us toward the flanks, but we were still keeping our heads down. The SAW was being carried by Specialist Mercer, with PFC Soprano acting as the AG carrying reloads. Sergeant Kang was with me at the rear, and Jasper and one other Ranger were on opposite sides of the gully watching our flanks.

  When the enemy came at us under a minute later, we were effectively fighting what’s called a “Reverse Slope Defense.” Before joining the Army I read a few primers on military tactics just to better understand what I was getting involved in. What I’d be a part of. Yeah, it was above my paygrade, but I’ve found a little knowledge can vanquish fear of the unknown. Now I was watching what I’d learned come into play.

  It looked a lot different in the book.

  Because we couldn’t poke our heads up beyond the gully for fear of getting hit by our own outgoing fire from friendlies, we had to defend the gully and kill whatever came into it until it was time to pull back to safety. The SAW was positioned toward the front of the gully where we expected the enemy to come from as they advanced along their axis of attack. We’d switched to night vision and were ready to go as, overhead, tracer rounds streaked and zipped off into the night beneath the crystal blanket of the universe night vision always showed you despite the mess you found yourself in down below. Sergeant Kang had placed his rucksack facing outward toward the perimeter with a Claymore mine mounted atop it.

  We concentrated on our assigned sectors. Of course, I was watching everything as I was pretty sure I’d been given the least important sector to watch: our escape route to the rear and back to Phase Line Charlie.

  The SAW opened up in a short burst and I turned my head around to see the targeting laser dance along fast-moving rounds in night vision, ripping into five orcs carrying wickedly curved swords and small shields. Hot 5.56 rammed into heavy-browed orc heads and beefy armor-clad green scarred bulks bristling with axes and armor. More orcs came in behind those currently being cut to pieces, no doubt sensing the depression in the landscape and trying it as a route to sneak up on the enemy lines. Instead they got a nasty surprise from Mercer squeezing the trigger on the squad automatic weapon and Soprano directing fire.

  Sergeant Kang nearby engaged something that looked like a cross between a small dog and a lizard. Bipedal. Humanoid, sorta. Carrying a small spear and a dagger that could have been the tooth from a megalodon shark. I’d see one in a museum once. The dog-lizard thing landed down in the sandy bottom of the gully and Sergeant Kang, who’d been watching the lip of the gully in his sector, saw it spring down and land near the SAW gunner and Private Soprano. Kang pivoted on his belly and double-tapped the thing with two rounds that sent it sprawling off in the dirt. When it landed, he shot it again and yell
ed at me. “Watch your sector!”

  My sector, facing our lines, was a dizzying array of outgoing fire streaking through the shadowy green trees and bright crystals of stars revealed by my night vision. It was a lot to process. Especially the tracer ricochets that seemed to want nothing more to do with the battle and disappeared off into the universe.

  I heard Jasper and the other Rangers open up from the flanks, but I watched our exit and made sure we didn’t get cut off when the time came to move. The rounds were moving so fast and close above our heads it felt like you could just stand up and they’d tear your head off and keep going off into this strange world of stars and night forever. I pushed myself deeper into the sandy bottom and waited for the order to move. Hoping it would come soon.

  Three minutes of fighting like this, taking random spurts of enemy who seemed too overwhelmed by the fire from our lines to realize there were targets among them in the dry streambed, and then Mercer cried out, “Loading!”

  The Rangers moved into a new posture to accommodate the reload. I thought it would be a process and I knew it would have been for me. I was ordered to shift fire to Kang’s sector while Kang covered forward. I could see Soprano assisting. It was easier than I thought it would be. At the same time Mercer got a new belt fed into the ammo tray and that was when the first of the enemy cavalry came thundering down the gully.

  These weren’t orcs.

  They were human-shaped riders dressed in shrouds and armor. Like ghost riders. Hoods over their heads, they rode lean, bony, and gray or even dark horses. The first one came down the gully at a full gallop, following the streambed up from the south and riding close to the gaunt horse’s neck as the rider tried to avoid fire. He appeared around the bend farther down the dry streambed and Mercer had just pushed the ammo tray closed when the rider saw us and simply charged as if to ride us down, waving a long sword that shimmered in the night.