Frozen Summer

Chapter 9

I was around the age of 10, I was living in a small village with my father, my mom and my 2 older brothers. We were a family of peasants working the land. I remember my dad managed to find a job for me at the town blacksmith workshop. It was the first time i was ever given any responsibility so i was kinda stressed. The blacksmith was a big mountain of a man, Ramos was his name, a literal human Ox. Once on a break I fantasized about being a soldier, a hero of the nation ready to kill my enemies. So i started using the swords from the workshop to practice but once the blacksmith caught me, i thought i was done for but he corrected my mistakes, he taught me how to fight because he was himself an old soldier. With how he was built I asked him why he wasn't in the army anymore. Such a monster would be like a god amongst men on the battlefield, he seemed awfully sad as he asked me to sit down, he decided to tell me the story of his last mission in the army.

He fought in the second war against the kingdom of Tsungstat, he was the commander of the 104th infantry unit of the king's army. He said he was a different man and one of the younger commanders. It wasn't his first time leading but it was the first time he had such a massive group of men, the company was made of 75 soldiers.The mission had even more pressure than usual because a special soldier had just joined his company, a young man, named Salim, Ramos's son. The 104th was specialised in infiltrating behind enemy lines and their purpose was to either stop any reinforcement coming to the main battlefield or to make the main forces chase after them in the hope that the rest of the king's army overwhelmed a now weakened enemy line.

To do so they had to light fires behind the enemy line that would both serve as decoy and a signal that they had succeeded in infiltrating. This tactic was quite known but knowing about it didn't mean it wouldn't succeed.

These missions could extend over a long period of time and it was hard to have enough resources for such a large group. Looting was common even though Ramos was totally against it in his company. So far he managed to limit civilian casualties to a minimum. They approached a medium sized village at night, the expert archers took out the guards at the entrance of the village, in less than 30 minutes they made quick work of any hostile forces inside the village and occupied it. They had hit the jackpot, it was quite a wealthy place and it had enough place to set camp.

As Ramos was roaming the camp to make sure everyone was at their stations, he noticed some of the archers were missing near the northern gate. Thinking that they probably were drinking or relieving their stress with some of the women's, he started looking in the nearby houses.

As he approached one of them, he heard the sound of broken furniture accompanied with screams of women. He bursted through the door only to discover a scene only possible in a nightmare, two of his men were fighting but one of them had his intestines out and was literally strangling the other with it. The one being strangled was on his knees and was desperately trying to stab the other one that was standing behind him. In the room there were 2 other men lying dead on the floor but they seemed to have sustained horrible injuries. There were also 3 women in the room, one was dead on the floor, she had been stabbed multiple times. One was screaming in horror of the situation and the last one was looking at the scene in complete silence. Ramos tackled down the man that was still on his feet.

" Have you lost your damn mind ?! Get your act together soldiers !! " screamed Ramos.

The second man was coughing heavily, trying to breathe as much air as possible. The man with the intestines out seemed in a frenzy. He was scratching Ramos' face, as if he was trying to pull the skin out, he was making beast-like growls of rage. This man had lost his mind, his pupils were dilated, he didn't seem fazed by his injury, all he cared about was to kill his commander. Suddenly the second man tried stabbing Ramos in the back, Ramos managed to block his hand , he noticed the same look of madness in the second man. Whatever happened to the first one, was also affecting the second one. He was now holding the first one at bay with a hand on his throat and blocking the dagger of the second one. Ramos got up and pushed the second man towards a shelf which broke under the force of the shock, he then grabbed with both hands the face of the other man.