...and all hell broke loose.
Fires sprang up as the hoarse shouts rang higher, clawing at darkness and silence, bringing them to their knees.
"Man your posts!"
"Fall in in five!"
Stumbling footsteps carried stumbling masters half-roused through to just as half-manned posts, before proceeding, conspiring with treacherous hands to hurl them, thumping dully into hellholes of precariously variable defensive value.
Sleep-leaden eyes greeted each other for those who had gotten any, fatigue mirrored each to the other in bleary, red-streaked bloodshot lids, a horrifying mix of grim looks and dark grins from equally chapped, half-frozen lips. The crazier lot, the walking, shambling living dead who had survived the ordeal of perpetual waking, groped unsteadily for their weapons, falling in obliquely to the voices of their officers as well as they could.
The scramble was over in a flurry of motion, order achieved in chaos...
...Just in time to hear the final, desperate maydays fall silent, the echo bouncing around in waves all along the line, before settling into a foreboding silence - a silence, a tide of disquiet that could crack the morale of ten thousand men, shattering flagging, exhausted spirits like flimsy dams. The men held under the immense pressure, but only barely.
The knowledge of their situation weighed heavily upon their countenances now more than ever: they were the eponymous Last Outpost. A few hundreds, no more, the last of a long-doomed force. They were hemmed in, trapped like rats, with little to no hope of escape.
An aide to the left demanded his attention, snapping him out of his walk-induced reverie. "Latest reconnaissance report, sir...the enemy is but 20 miles off as of 2 minutes back. We have already received confirmation from Marshal Shaposhnikov that they will use that, but there is no guarantee that it will arrive on time."
"Understood. You may return."
The footsteps grew increasingly distant, fading away like shifting shadows, and he was alone once more.
20 miles. Given the enemy at hand, it would not be long before their war machine arrived in full force, a malevolent juggernaut, and steamrolled their pitifully minuscule force under cruel tides of black and red miasma.
An altogether gloomy situation. A simple walk down the streets seemed like a stroll through an infernal vale of shadows; the scent of war and the coming slaughter hung like asphyxiating smog in the otherwise clear winter air, now seeming frigid, cold as Death itself, glorious or otherwise, which seemed to be their inevitable fate. So the thoughts seemed turned, darkly, inside the shell-shocked trenches.
So, in short, we are sacrificial lambs, eh? Not bad at all, those big-hats...six hundred men, not much to the motherland in their eyes, now is it? Perfect reasoning. If they get here on time, we win, and if they don't, Zukhov and his cohorts have time to regroup and rest up before getting smashed again...
But at the same time, there was a certain aura of dogged determination that one could feel rising up from those man-made ridges, cast in fragile ice rather than stone, but a hard front nonetheless. It emboldened the heart past hope, gave it resolve past despair to face mankind's enemy, even in the face of impending defeat.
...Indeed, what am I saying?
We are the 28th Orussian Guards, and with us are our brothers from Sudeten and Lithuania. We are men: we have our pride, and we will never back down.
No retreat, and no surrender. That's the way in which we shall face these Neuroi, and that's the way we will see them off!
In the deep gloom, he noted that he was currently as close to the front lines as he could get: A hasty dug-out marked "32" lay some distance in front of him, and before it in turn lay No Man's Land, where the marks of previous actions that had laid waste their defenses to that point now lay smothered - mud, blood, sweat and tears, all under a grave of mortal snow. Clearly, he could see the gun port of a single 75mm gun, a Karlsland model from Sudeten, just as the people in it surely were - sentinels in a foreign land who had kept the position secure up till now against the enemy onslaughts. He could only begin to imagine the masterful work of the men in that trench, men whom he perhaps only knew by face, and even then, whose faces he might never see again after this night.
If there is another night for any of us here.
And so he stood to, leaning a little against the half-ruined wall of a derelict house, observing the movements in that trench, how the men did not mill around as some of their own people would. Instead, they huddled together, conserving their energy, while a lone sentry stood on the fringes of the group, surveying whatever could be discerned of their surroundings. They seemed to be in fair enough spirits as well: Every now and then, his ears would contrive to deceive him as to the presence of a rare thing in such grim conditions: laughter, traveling obscured and fleeting, a mirage sonority.
His shadow was cast against the wall, and the snow and winds muffled his already silent step. He was well hidden, until the wispy spot-lit scars of tobacco smoke affected to let its smell alert all present to his presence, which surprised him.
Kraut in-house training isn't bad, I see. They could probably smell Reemtsma from further out, but nothing beats the taste of Собраниe...
The sentry had seen him first among them, and swiftly roused the rest to their feet for a swift salutation, done in strikingly brilliant unison. Morale had yet to die by a long shot in this unit.
"Major Panfilov, the D Company of the Sudeten Army's 2nd Rifles salutes you, sir!"
At the sight of these furrowed brows and leaden gazes on your young faces, one cannot help but sigh. On closer inspection, he could even see etched upon their still-ruddy faces already were the lines and shadows of trauma, its effects held at bay only by the great hearts that lay behind those masks for faces. War takes its toll swiftly, a silent killer of the soul...it seems to get to us all, small and great both.
"At ease, men."
There was an awkward silence, and then a sharp laugh. The rest of the troopers attempted to stifle the singular source of mirth, awkward as it was in the dire frost. They failed miserably, and soon almost all present were momentarily distracted from their predicament by a torrent of laughter. No, it seemed almost that they did not think themselves in any such danger at all, and were morbidly thumbing their noses at it.
Or could it be that-?
"Did I miss something?" Something was clearly not normal about them.
Their lead sergeant decided that perhaps he should be the much-needed source of enlightenment, and sheepishly, he recovered from his earlier loss of composure to humors.
"Sir, your eyes deceive you, for we..." He stated, his face barely forcing its contours into a poker-shape, "...have a lass in our midst."
The sentry grinned, her cover blown thoroughly. Lifting the hood of her winter cloak over her head, she revealed a head of slightly unkempt golden locks, freed by a brief swash of her head, and a pair of azure eyes of blue fire set as twin jewels upon her face, which was without blemish save for a single scar that ran from her left eyebrow to her upper eyelid.
More tellingly, a pair of ears that should have belonged to some animal was set upon her head. not by strength of any human artifice, as all could see, but of the thing humans had come to call magic.
She was a Witch.
"Lance Corporal Zofiya Rubhako, Orussian 2nd Armored Division, Recon, at your service, sir."
"The 2nd Armored...?!" Impossible, how could they have been so fast- He collected himself rapidly, and steered the conversation to something more official, and pertinent. "...What is your current status?"
"We of the 2nd have in fact already been here for two days, sir, awaiting confirmation that did not arrive till of late, due to some hitches we ran into at the top. However, our blitzkriegers, if I may so use the term, have rushed all night to make up for lost time, and they could possibly catch up with the Neuroi before they get here, although as of now there's no guarantee of that scenario occuring."
She was perfectly calm, her voice rock-steady. Nothing in her bearing suggested any hint of a lacking confidence; rather, she seemed the very epitome of unshakable confidence. And it was not ungrounded as the castles upon sand, or illusory as castles in the clouds, although perhaps only so to him, a suddenly lonely Zarathustra. For she had as her strong backing what could be considered Orussia's pillar of strength, her fortress in the black storm of war.
The White Wolves.
The elite of the elite.
"Thank you, Corporal, you may return to your post."
Corporal Zofiya grinned, pulled her hood back on, and turned back to her lookout periscope, leaving Major Iza Panfilov to himself, and rest of the people. Strangely, almost foolishly, he found his heart much lighter, even capable of a sudden capricious whimsy, and the desire to take it out on the unfortunate soldiers in Trench 32.
To do it, or not to? That is the question...
"...Anyway, boys, got any drink in this shithole?..."
He got little more than incredulity for his reply, no less than he had expected. At least they still have a proper sense of danger...albeit now misplaced.
The sergeant again put it most gallantly. "Not a drop sir, we need lucid men for battle, and...no drinking in front of women, you know?"
They must think me mad, to ask for wine as though it were my death wish. Many are those indeed who would ask for nothing but good wine before an untimely grave, but not I, and what more, when death's kiss will touch us not tonight?
And egad, those ignorant lads, to think that women can't drink...
Wait till they see these angels, and they'll never themselves do it again.
-------------------------------------------
That Pole, Aniela was in the corner on the far left cursing the insufferable absurdity of the situation. She was new in an already very raw group, and as such her frustration was understandable, even to be honored that no more well-deserved epithets came forth from angry lips to greet her misfortune. "Why the hell does it always happen on my shift?!"
It was hard to tell her that there was only one shift, and its duration was 'twenty-four-seven, three-hundred-sixty-five'. Worse than a nine-to-five job. Screw the lack of manpower that forces us to have groups with less than 5% concentration of veterans, and the retards that decided that the fast way to veteran-hood was key.
She knew better.
But at this point, though, there was nothing to stop the rest from chipping in their personal takes on the matter.
"The Neuroi love you, dear!"
Discipline and the weather were inversely proportionate to each other, and that was made quite plain by the complete lack of radio silence, periodically broken as it was by rapid bursts of static-plagued tease, even as their unit of 4 veered left towards their quarry: The town of Rassajnay. Funnily enough, no one in her group seemed too serious about defending the last outpost that Orussia had in its border defense.
"What, you saying no to a higher kill count?"
"Chicken?"
"Aw, SHADDUP!"
She at last felt the need to cut in. It was indeed getting a little overboard for her tastes, to say the least.
"You guys aren't helping."
Having new recruits is really hard...But at least they're in high spirits, if a little too enthusiastic.
But the fact remained that they had actually been able to join the White Wolves said quite a bit about them. They were skilled, and there was no mistake about that.
Such a damn pity they're all foreign talent. Britannian just doesn't have the local feeling, and I feel like a right fool whenever I use it.
"C'mon, Anna, don't tell me it isn't funny!"
...Screw this.
"Well, it wasn't. Anyway, it's our shift too, Aniela...Not as though you're the only one here who doesn't have a death wish or something."
"I know, but this is absurd!
"One more insult to my ears, and I'm tearing my radio set out."
That alone was enough to silence everyone, and it was no mystery why: Some words dripped venom, others burned with cankered angry flames, and still others had the chilling sleet touch. But this, this was another thing altogether: That voice betrayed but a hint of the yawning void behind it, devoid of anything, and brimming with nothingness.
Why the hell does she always speak like that? It was that emotionless, stony feel to every syllable and consonant, themselves lent an edge only by her choice of words, that scared those who listened.
Blithely, the voice then turned its unamused, caustic tones upon Aniela for a moment. "Save your breath, and your energy. Just climb if you want to live."
"Sve-"
"And I agree with the Major, those jokes aren't funny."
An awkward silence reigned for a few moments, before Major Anna Panfilova, at last confident of her fellow commander's lack of intention to continue what might have degenerated into a lambasting session, she now addressed her to confirm and establish that as a lasting ordnance for the rest of the conversation.
"Svetlana. How is it on your end with Petra?"
"Fine. We're good, Major." It was almost unnerving how her voice was too constant, too much at peace to be natural at all. It did not change save for enunciations and pronunciations, and perhaps intonation for emphasis, no matter what she was doing at that point of time. Admonishment and advisory were but one and the same to her, to be stated without inconstancy in that same stoic, matter-of-fact fashion.
Still, she had to make it sound like it was a conversation. Too much unfamiliarity hurts. "Are the rest of us ready to advance?"
"12-strong in total as we planned, all at their designated places. They will commence on order."
"Very good. Stand by for open broadcast."
"Understood."
"And Sve-"
*Click*
The line went dead. What the hell. The Svetlana I knew was no-nonsense, dead serious, but she's only changed for the worse since Lithuania...
She bit back her words of reprimand, bloodying her figurative chapped lips. They would be completely useless on someone like Svetlana K. Usov, all the same, whether she tried ten or ten thousand times. Not like we have time to argue with each other right now. That can wait. It has to wait.
She keyed on an open broadcast.
"Commencing Operation White Death..."
"...Now."
Let's give 'em hell.
----------------------------------------------------
A hillock, not so very distant altogether from Rassajnay. Ringed around with precariously craggy precipices and outcroppings, it was where the rest of the White Wolves would have already have made their base. By virtue of terrain, it was easy to defend, hard to reach, and hell to attack save by air. Just the right place for almost any defending force to be.
But it was low ground nonetheless, much lower than the one they were on, and much less cold. The air there was thin for the lack of pressure, and yet it was chokingly thick with a reckless anticipation, the salacious expectation of their impending counterattack.
A dull *thwack* barely sounded as the unfortunate headphones hit the snow.
"Maintain radio silence till the mission ends. Heaven only knows when the Neuroi learn to crack our frequencies."
...It's been 3 nights without sleep, and the 7th battle since.
"Bad pun. Therefore?" She of all people should know that I disapproved, and still disapprove of dumping new recruits into situations like these. It's only going to give them the wrong impression of the war altogether, and overconfidence kills almost as many people as lack of skill. 'Good combat experience', they call it...
Her companion, and only other veteran member of the Wolves other than the Major, shook her head resignedly. "Um, well...therefore
"Fine. Summon your cavalry."
Still, a mission is a mission. We will finish it as effectively as possible. Complaints can wait.
"Gotcha."
The brown-haired witch stood to, as her magic field expanded outwards, a sphere of arcane power swirling around with her as the epicenter, causing her hair floated, buoyed and buffeted by the constant swathes of energy as she called the name of her ride, and her familiar.
"Voytek."
A resounding roar could be heard in the distance, echoing through the frigid fields behind them. Petra's bear of a familiar was not far off, not by a long shot.
I prefer to keep mine closer at hand though.
"Palla." Svetlana bent down, and gave her stoic companion a brief, but affectionate pet on the head. Her coat was a pure white, and she had the footwork of a wraith, a ghost floating upon the rivers of snow. A master of stealth as far as the white winter was concerned, the Orussian wolf would have been near invisible even to her master, if not for their mental link, which would enlighten them to the others presence even if they were miles apart.
[It is done. We're ready to roll.]
She turned to the other Wolf veteran.
"Ready, Private?"
"Whenever you are, Lieutenant."
The barbed syllables mirrored her own, even bettered the instruction, at the rather icy reminder to them both as to the differences between their ranks, and though it was not so much of an assertion of position as it was a friendly jab, it made a mark all the same.
All in good fun.
"Very good. Let's go."
Normal life resumes.
--------------------------------------
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