WARNING WARNING
DANGER WILL ROBINSON
This story has a couple of moments of somewhat graphic war violence.
It also features demons and vampires, though they are on the evil side. The good side is the Church.
Okay....Please enjoy.
Caedes:
Brothers in Battle (Part 1)
"In early March of the 21st year since the Coming of the Six, a great
host of the enemy attacked the Alliance's forces along the Ohio river,
threatening to overtake strongholds in Cincinnati and Columbus. They
were met by the US Army's 23rd Infantry Division, 2nd and 5th Armored
Divisions, and 3rd Air Cavalry, along with the 5th Holy Militia led by
Monsignor Jin-tae Cho. There was a great battle and losses were heavy
on both sides."
- Excerpt from A History of the Holy Church by Father Cyril Adair
Imprimatur, Nihil Obstat - Bishop Theodore Crowe
It had snowed last week. Things were warming up now and deep cover of white had melted away to thin patches and scattered snowbanks. It was getting decently warm, in fact, and the sun was shining. But it was a miserable day to be in the trenches. The thaw turned everything to mud beneath their feet and filled the foxholes with filthy, stagnant water.
It was getting on towards evening now. That was when they liked to attack. Night had many advantages to the Demon Army, one of which was almost certainly that the vampiric officers liked it much better than daylight.
Corporal Sean Watt, 23rd Infantry Division, US Army lay in a foxhole, staring down the scope of his OICW at an wide open field. Once upon a time, trees and crops might have obscured his vision. But the fires of war had long ago swept this place clean of foliage. Now the tallest object in his sight the charred hull of a downed A-10, which had landed nose down in the dirt. Still visible on the plane's mangled corpse, someone had once painted a pair of dice and the moniker "High Roller".
After a moment, Sean looked over to the other guy in his foxhole. Private....Reed, was it? He thought it was. This guy wasn't from his unit, actually. He was what Sean called a "trench friend". You never really knew who you were going to end up sitting next to when you dove into a foxhole. But you might as well get to know him. You never knew when you might see a bullet drive its way through your companion's forehead and explode out the other side. Or it could be you. Either way, you could be spending the next few hours fighting beside him. And if things didn't go well you might die with him too. It seemed fitting to be friends while it lasted.
In some ways, a trench friend could be the best friend you could ever have.
Right now, Reed was taking a nap. Sean had said it was okay. Better if one of them rested while the other was on alert.
There's an old saying in war - you never hear the one that gets you. Somehow that seems small relief when the shelling starts.
The first thing Sean heard was a low whistle, then a split second later a jarring blast. The shell struck about a hundred feet away. Reed lurched up to his feet startled but Sean grabbed him and pushed him back down.
The shells came down in a wave now, enveloping them in a deafining thunder as they crouched head-down in the foxhole. The attack was coming soon. No one needed to tell them. A seasoned soldier knew the difference between mere harassment and a prepratory barrage.
The enemy would be upon them within the hour.
Sean was twenty-one now. The war had been going on as long as he had been alive and there was no end in sight now. He had joined the army when he was eighteen. Only a month later he had seen action and had killed a heretic in hand to hand combat. He could even now remember how it felt to club another man with the butt of his rifle and feel the skull crack beneath it.
The beginnings of all this were just a history lesson to him. No one had been prepared, they say, for what happened. Even the Vatican was caught totally by surprise. The Six Demon Lords had arisen at various population centers throughout the world. Selfish and evil men from all over flocked to them. Some of these were given special powers and became vampires. Then the Six began their subjugation of the free world with their armies of heretics and walking dead.
The heretics were normal humans and could be dealt with using normal tactics. The walking dead were another matter. These superhumanly strong beings could take a clip of bullets to the chest and keep going. You had to dismember them or kill them with holy weapons. Priests could also kill the undead and were quite proficient at it, but could not wear any armor while doing so. So it was that the Alliance fought with a combined army of normal soldiers and holy warriors of the Church. Artillery, aircraft, and machine guns fought right beside blessed swords and exorcists.
The barrage stopped after about 15 minutes and the two soldiers were left alive, ears ringing, but still in good health.
They were coming soon.
Reed was still a bit shaken. He had only been in the service for about six weeks. He was still hunched over, shuddering.
Sean reached over and placed his hand on his comrade's shoulder.
"Reed.....come on....listen to me. Get together. Their coming soon."
Reed looked up at him.
"This is our time now. God will be with us. Are you religious?"
Surprisingly, there were still a decent portion of Alliance who weren't very religious, though none could deny the powers of the holy warriors.
Reed wasn't one of these, though. He nodded.
"Okay....then let's do our battle prayers just like the priests taught us. They will aid us against the vampires and undead."
Both men made the sign of the cross and bowed their heads. At first, only Sean prayed, but then Private Reed joined in.
"Sancte Michael Archangele, defende nos in proelio..."
Machine gun fire started rattling not far off.
"..contra nequitiam et insidias diaboli esto praesidium.
Imperet illi Deus, supplices deprecamur;
tuque, Princeps militiae caelestis,
Satanam aliosque spiritus malignos,
qui ad perditionem animarum pervagantur in mundo,
divina virtute in infernum detrude.
Amen."
Their own artillery was going off now, battering the enemy's approach. Overhead, a trio of Apache helicopters from the Air Cav rushed by flying low over the battlefield.
"All-Mighty Lord, be with us, your servants. Live or die, we are Yours to command." Sean finished up. "In nomine patris, et filie, et spiritus sancti."
Their prayer over, the two men peaked up over the lip of the foxhole. To either side of them, their comrades were spread out along the line readying for the attack. About thirty feet to their left, a machine gun had just been set up and the gunner loading the ammo into place. Sergeant Thames, Sean's platoon leader was making his rounds between the men, issuing orders and words of encouragement.
This was the third night in a row that the enemy was assaulting them. Each time, more and more men died. Each time, their position became a little weaker.
Off in the distance, they could see the coming onslaught. It was like a great dark sea. Rank after rank of the walking dead, squad after squad of living heretics. And somewhere in their midst were the vampires, inhumanly agile and capable of demonic magic.
In the front of the horde, necromancers walked. Emaciated, almost skeletal, and ghostly pale, they seemed to live off the power of their demon masters alone. Their eyes glowed red and they wore long black robes. They raised staffs made of human bone over their heads, shaking them, screaming their defiance of God in shrill voices and urging their unholy minions onward to fight.
The demonic sea rushed towards them, a horrible scream riding the wind before them. Machine guns started pumping rounds from the Alliance lines and small arms fire erupted everywhere. Enemy troops were falling everywhere but still it was like a black ocean tide rising.
Reserve Alliance troops rushed up and took up positions with them. They were more of a solid line now. Bayonets were being fixed. A young priest, long black cassock rustling in the wind, was wrapping a strand of crimson red rosary beads around his right hand.
Sean was trying desperately to find viable targets as fast as he could. It was no use to shoot zombies at this range. So he shot at every living being he could. Trying to breathe slowly, but not really succeeding, he managed to down a couple of heretic soldiers in their black uniforms. One tried to get back up, but was trampled beneath the onslaught of his own comrades.
Clip was empty. Reload. Reload. They were coming. The scream was a roar.
The tidal wave hit.
