Secret War: Upon Blood Sands

Chapter 32

The enemy seemed to pour over the lip of the incline in a never-ending tide in a desperate bid to keep the Sovrithians and The Elbyrans from meeting. The Elbyrans were locked in melee, still pushing forward despite the odds. At the same time, Jelket and the Sovrithians laid down a constant hail of las shots to somewhat stem them.

Jelket fired from the hip, racking his hell-fire through the Resurrected it was impossible to miss. Many Resurrected tried to turn to address the Sovrithians but were slaughtered. In any other battle, this flanking manoeuvre would've been devastating, maybe leading to a decisive victory.

Here it was just so two forces could meet, one resupply the other, then join into a combined, desperate advance toward an objective they had no idea would even make any difference.

Despite this, Jelket's heart sang; he'd left the guard to escape this stuff, but now he'd never felt more alive. He was never the best at anything, but here he was, saving the butts of the others, assuming they were alive, of course.

He could see the enemy's sporadic fire smack off an invisible wall over the Elbyran front line, so Karmen at least was still alive.

The next half an hour was the most intense battle Jelket had ever taken part in, hundreds, maybe thousands of Resurrected and dozens of daemons. Jelket couldn't imagine how hard it must've been for the Elbyrans for these past few hours.

Once the Sovrithians pushed into the intersection, giving the Elbyrans a break from the front line, they stopped their advance. I didn't take Jelket long to find Hayden, Karmen, Torris, Helma, Verenth, Delthasi and Vark all were dead-eyed, beyond exhausted, and barely acknowledged Jelket. It was the same with every other Elbyran around as the Sovrithians moved by to take over the rear guard. Many entered the buildings around to secure them.

"It's good to see all of you made it," said Jelket, then his relief was overtaken with concern as he noticed something. "Where's Attelus and Adelana? Halsin?"

"We don't know," said a voice, but it wasn't any of them that answered Jelket, and he turned to find a bloody, beaten commissar approaching, using his beautiful single-edged power sword as a walking stick. "We believe they are in orbit as your ship lifted off about an hour back. And the young medicae is in one of the trucks tending the wounded."

Jelket nodded, his concern somewhat stifled, and he couldn't help but wonder why Attelus and Adelana had abandoned the Elbyrans.

Dantian stepped forward. "You are commissar, Tathe?"

"I am," said Tathe.

Jelket fought the awe welling in him. So this was the famous commissar Delan Tathe? He seemed to ooze charisma and leadership beyond humanly possible, even with the exhaustion and what the other thing? Jelket couldn't put a finger on it.

"We have brought the resupply you wanted," said Dantian, straight to business as usual. "I will be honest, commissar, I was tempted to leave you and your men for dead."

Tathe shrugged. "I would understand that...if you did, and I must thank you for not leaving us for dead." Tathe's tone was stilted, robotic. "I have sacrificed too many good men and women in this; I just hope it's not for nothing."

"I pray that it isn't commissar," said Dantian. "But I am afraid that we'll lose many once we begin down that hill."

"I know, captain," said Tathe, and while he didn't roll his eyes, his voice seemed to scream he wanted to. "We're about to descend into hell. Are you and your men prepared?"

Dantian bristled. "By the god-Emperor we are. We'll fight one hundred times harder than you did, and we will show the enemy the deaths they more than deserve."