War of Elysium

Chapter Eighteen: The wrong man.

        He trudged through dirt and debris. A hundred spent rounds scattered at his feet. A twelve man tank rolled alongside him as they neared the cursed tower. Some well born officer shouted pointless orders from atop a tank of his own while the hundred, hundred petty men sank their boots deep into the mud. 
The insurgents had dampened the fields and dug out hidden ditches as to trap soldiers in the mud and pin tank treads down. The vast minefields had been all but nullified by the carpet bombing artillery, but an occasional explosion rang out where a mine had gone undetonated.

"Private!" A gruff sergeant called. He was a real soldier; his voice alone told the boy that he was ranked only through experience, unlike the worthless officers. His words deserved great heed. 

"Sir?" The boy replied. He moved to salute but remembered that he had been ordered not to during the assault. Something to do with enemy snipers searching for the chain of command.
"What's your name private?" The Sergeant asked as he moved alongside the boy. The two marched forth, their rifled raised, as they regarded one another.
"Private Ellis, sir." He answered. 
"Got a first name, Ellis?" The Sergeant asked.
"I'm a Reese, sir. Ellis is my first name." He admitted. "Though, my squad calls me Dreads... Sir." The Sergeant laughed at that before he turned from his rifle to size the boy up.
"Dread? What's so dreadful about you?" He mocked.
"Dreads, sir." The boy corrected. "It's cos' I had dreadlocks before the army shaved my head." The sergeant laughed again, though not as hard. 
"Well met, Dreads. They call me Camo. My squad got wiped out in the first assault, so I guess I'm tagging along with you boys." The sergeant smacked a friendly hand against Dreads' shoulder but the impact nearly slid him across the slippery mud, straight onto his arse. 
"Wiped out?" The boy gasped, forgetting the rigid formality of military speech for a moment. Camo didn't seem to notice, that or he didn't care at all.
"Yeah, damn birds are tricky. Our commander thought we could just storm straight in. Luckily she's dead now." He chuckled darkly.
"Birds, sir?" Dreads asked.

"Down!" The commander shouted. Moments later, a volley of artillery hailed across the field, though it flew clear over Dreads and his unit. He pulled his face from the mud after the explosions had cleared and the attack force continued onwards. He noticed Camo stood upright, having not even ducked down slightly.

"Ah..." He snorted. "It was miles away!" He threw an arm out as to dismiss the idea of artillery being a danger to his life. He reached that same hand out to aid the boy up from his knees before the two continued on unaffected, though one was much wetter and caked in a layer of mud. 

"What were you saying, youngin?" Camo asked. Dreads scoured his mind but came up with nothing. It was only when he noticed a flurry of crows descend on a mound of corpses they approached that he remembered.
"Oh, yeah." Dreads said as he deepened his voice in some flaccid attempt to appear older. "You called them birds?" 
"Damn, how old are you?" Camo responded.
"Seventeen, Sir!" The boy confidently replied, if not a little too quickly.
"So, what sixteen?" Camo laughed.
"Seventeen, sir." He repeated. The lie faltered upon its second birth, but only due to Camo's leer. The boy could feel his eyes dance across him. His fledgling stubble, worn all too proudly. His slim shoulders and flat belly. His freshly shaven head and darkly freckled face.
"How about honestly now?" Camo laughed. "C'mon, I'm not gonna court marshal you son."
He looked around and made certain nobody would hear him in his shame.
"Fifteen... Sir." He reluctantly whispered, just loud enough to be heard over the distant fighting and the much closer engines. 
"Damn." Was all that could pass Camo's lips. He collected himself for a moment before continuing with a grim and defeated smile. "By days end, you'll either be a warrior... Or a corpse." He laughed. "But one things for damn sure, you'll not see thirty." 

        The dawn crept up behind them. His shadow grew long, nearly long enough to reach the tower - though he had three kilometres yet to trek. A silence had fallen and brought an end to their conversations. It wasn't a quiet silence, a hundred shouted questions and fears passed around their minds and sounded like crashing waves to the boy.