Summoning Earth [Hiatus]

Chapter 32: Hatred and Glory

Evening – September 8, 1639 – Southern Jungle Theater, Forward Operating Trenches

The jungle trembled.

Treads rolled over shattered roots and mud-soaked debris, heavy and unhurried. Each turn of the steel wheels groaned like the grinding of a titan's jaw. Something ancient and monstrous was moving behind the veil of gas and fire—born not of sorcery, but of steel. Not summoned from another realm, but welded in some scorched hell and resurrected in this one.

And now it was hunting them.

The toxic fog clung low to the ground, a rolling wall of poison. Already, men were dying from it—suffocating before the enemy even fired a shot. Eyes burned. Lungs collapsed. Skin peeled like candle wax. But worse than the gas was what followed in its wake.

The Iron Lindwurms.

That's what they called them. It didn't matter their real name. It didn't matter that Earth called them BMP-1s or "infantry fighting vehicles." To the average Parpaldian soldier, they were demons—dragons not of flesh, but of treads and turreted rage.

"It's the Iron Lindwurms," someone whispered, his voice hoarse, lips cracked and blackened from smoke inhalation. His eyes were wide with terror.
"They've come from the cursed desert."

A younger soldier beside him dropped his rifle, backing away from the trench wall.

"No... no, I saw one tear through the 6th Line last week. Cut them in half."

"Back! Back!" another screamed, scrambling over the wall—only to collapse mid-step. He gagged violently, coughing up thick mucus as the gas overtook him. His skin blistered on contact with the air, patches peeling in wet sheets. He thrashed, choking on blood.

No one moved to help.

Everyone else was too busy choking, or praying, or preparing to die.

Inside the trench bunker, the air wasn't much clearer. The filtration runes were overstrained, fluttering with unstable magic as the fog pressed in from every crack. Linhardt and the rest of Imperial Wrath crouched low, weapons loaded, spell reservoirs at half capacity. They weren't safe. Just slightly less doomed.

"BMPs," Juno confirmed, peering through her HUD with narrowed eyes. "Three of them. Probably Soviet-stock. APC-type. Light armor, fast treads, turreted autocannon."

"What's our best shot?" Daere asked, calmly but quickly.

"We don't have one," Elgar muttered. He was already checking the seals on his ammo pouches. "No launchers. No piercing enchantments. And the regulars? They can't even pronounce 'infantry fighting vehicle.'"

"Then we improvise," Linhardt said, rising. His voice was hard. Determined. But beneath it, the same pressure of dread clawed at his chest.

"Target tires, optics, fuel lines. Focus fire. Disable, don't destroy."

Marn blinked.

"We're capturing one?"

"Command wants proof. Earth will want the wreck."

"So we get through a wall of dying soldiers, dodge toxic air, survive drone strikes, and face down Iron Lindwurms—just to drag one home?" Marn said, half laughing.

"That's the job," Linhardt said. "And we're the only ones who can."

They prepped in silence. Rifles checked. Spare mags loaded. Emergency rune grenades activated—thermite-primed, arcane-bound, short-lived.

Marn shook his head as he clipped his cloak back into place.

"Remember those Arab trainers I told you about?"