Chapter 9. Red Ground of Tellus
This is not about heroes.
This is not about victory or defeat or the things that will be written in history books by people who were not here tonight.
This is about the ground. About how much granite and asphalt and dust can absorb before they can absorb no more. About lines drawn on maps by hands that didn't tremble because those hands were not at those lines.
In sector thirteen, Legio Imperialis holds the line.
For now.
— — —
Decimus Varro Sulla. 19 years old.
He had just climbed down from the transport truck twenty minutes ago.
The briefing was brief — one sergeant speaking too fast about coordinates and sectors and who was on their left and right. Decimus didn't retain all of it. What he retained was only one thing: advance, shoot, don't stop.
The AK-XII in his hands felt heavy in a way different from training.
The rebel line was at the end of a road that used to have a name.
The sergeant gave an order. Decimus didn't hear the individual words — only the tone, and the tone meant move.
He moved.
The first shot came from the right — not toward him, but close enough for him to feel the displaced air. The soldier on his left — a name he hadn't had time to learn — went down three steps after they started running.
Decimus didn't turn.
He raised the AK-XII, chose an angle the way he'd been taught, and pulled the trigger.
Dor. Dor. Dor.
The recoil was harder than training. The barrel rose slightly with each shot. At the end of the road, something went down.
"TRADITORES!"
The cry came from behind him — from whose mouth he didn't know, perhaps from many mouths at once — and before he realized it, the same word was already in his own throat, already out, already joined with all the other cries filling this road.
"TRADITORES!"
Then — something different from all the sounds before.
BOOM.
Not the sound of a shot. Not the sound of an explosion in the distance. This was a sound that entered through the chest before entering through the ears — a wave of air pushing in a way that couldn't be refused, making Decimus's step stagger half a second even though his legs weren't asking him to stop.
Ferrata.
The tank appeared from the left corner — large, paint faded until the unit number was almost unreadable, moving in a way that paid no attention to anything beneath its wheels. Its main gun was still smoking from a shot that had just turned the road corner ahead of them into something that no longer looked like a road corner.
Where there had been twenty rebels behind a concrete barricade, there was now something that could no longer be counted in the same way.
Decimus saw this in one second and forced his eyes not to process its details because something was still moving on the right side and moving meant threat and threat meant shoot.
Dor. Dor.
His ears were ringing. Ringing in a way that was no longer sound — a high frequency covering all sounds beneath it, making the cry of "Traditores" from the soldier on his right sound like something coming from behind thick glass.
He shot even though his ears were ringing.
Dor. Dor. Dor.
Ferrata fired again.
BOOM.
This time closer. Decimus staggered two steps left — not from injury, only because air displaced by something that large can't be ignored by a human body. Ahead, thick smoke rose from the point where the gun had struck, and in that smoke there were things moving — not moving with purpose, moving in a way different from that.
One of them was still making sounds.
Decimus didn't turn toward those sounds. He pulled the trigger again.
Dor. Dor.
First magazine empty.
"TRADITORES!"
Decimus shouted the word with a throat already sore and ears already not hearing properly and hands that changed the magazine without asking permission from his head.
Second magazine.
Dor. Dor. Dor. Dor.
Ferrata moved forward to the next corner, its wheels passing over something Decimus didn't see because he was looking ahead, but that he felt as a different vibration in the ground beneath his boots.
Then — a sound different from all the others.
Not the BOOM of the gun. Something deeper, more total, more like the world deciding to repeat itself in one second.
Ferrata exploded.
The shockwave reached Decimus from twenty metres away and lifted his feet from the ground for one second — one second that felt longer than all the seconds before — before he landed on concrete in a way that didn't choose which part of his body took the first impact.
He was on the ground. His hands still held the AK-XII. His ears were no longer ringing now — completely silent, silence more frightening than the ringing because ringing was at least still something.
Smoke. Heat. The smell of burning metal he had memorised since morning but that was now much closer than before.
Decimus stood.
His legs worked. His hands worked. The AK-XII was still in his hands.
"TRADITORES!"
He didn't hear the cry. But he saw mouths moving around him and his own mouth moved following the shape of the same word because the word was already in his muscles, not in his ears.
Dor. Dor. Dor.
Decimus Varro Sulla died on the ninth shot from the sixth magazine, from a bullet that came from a corner not on the map given by the sergeant who spoke too fast twenty minutes ago.
He didn't have time to know which direction it came from.
He was nineteen years old.
— — —
Marta Callien. 24 years old.
Marta had been in sector thirteen since morning.
The line behind them had shifted twice since dawn. Each time the line shifted, there were people who didn't shift with it. Marta stopped counting how many since the count reached a number that was no longer useful.
What she watched now was the road corner ahead — the corner that thirty minutes ago was still held by a rebel barricade, that was now no longer a barricade because the Ferrata that passed had taken care of that, but also no longer a functioning Ferrata because something from the southeast had taken care of that too.
The wave of the tank's explosion was still felt in her chest twenty minutes later.
On the right side of the road, in a hollow between two buildings that no longer had complete walls, another unit was operating — Marta heard it before seeing it. Not the sound of the AK-XII. Something different. Heavier. More regular. More like someone very patient knocking something repeatedly.
Heavy MG.
Dor dor dor dor dor dor—
Pause.
Dor dor dor dor—
Pause.
The soldier operating it worked in a measured way, rotating the barrel slightly every few rounds, firing to a range far longer than the AK-XII's effective range, bringing down rebels trying to move from point A to point B and not making it to point B. One by one. Or two at a time. Or three.
The heavy MG didn't discriminate.
Before the MG's position — at a distance Marta could see from where she stood — was something that had been a rebel assault wave trying to break through from the south. Now that wave was no longer moving in the same way. Some of them were retreating. Some had already stopped retreating anywhere.
Dor dor dor dor dor—
Pause. Magazine change. Click.
Dor dor dor—
Marta didn't stop to watch longer.
Her AK-XII was already on the last magazine — the sixth, thirty rounds — with hands that didn't tremble not from bravery but because trembling was something that required energy and her energy had already been spent on other things.
"TRADITORES!"
Dor. Dor. Dor.
In the corner of rubble — forty metres ahead, behind what had been a lamp post — someone was crouching. Rebel uniform. But the way they crouched was different from the way people crouch for cover. The way they crouched was the way of someone who didn't know what to do with their body.
Marta looked for one second.
A young rebel — no older than twenty, perhaps younger — with both hands covering their ears. Their mouth was moving. Not shouting, not giving orders. Moving in the way of someone crying but who had run out of voice to cry with, whose body was still making the motions of crying while nothing came out anymore.
Around them, their comrades were still advancing, still shooting, still trying to reach the line Marta and the others were defending.
They didn't move.
Only crouching. Only hands over ears. Only a mouth still moving without sound amid all the sounds filling this road.
Marta looked for one second.
Then shot toward another direction because something was moving from the right corner and the right corner was a more immediate threat.
Dor. Dor.
When she looked back at the lamp post corner sixty seconds later, the young rebel was no longer there. Marta didn't know where they had gone. Perhaps they retreated. Perhaps they didn't have time.
There was no time to find out.
The last magazine ran out on the twenty-seventh shot. Three rounds remaining that she didn't fire because there was a rebel already too close for useful shooting distance.
Pistol. Twelve rounds.
Dor. Dor. Dor.
Eight. Nine. Ten.
Empty.
Field shovel. Short handle. Forged steel.
"TRADITORES!"
Marta Callien died twenty minutes later, not from a bullet, but from something that happened too fast to record in any useful way.
She was twenty-four years old.
— — —
Sergeant Horath Kess. 31 years old.
Horath had been in Legio Imperialis since the age of seventeen.
Fourteen years. Long enough to know the sound of war, the feel of ground when it has absorbed too much, the way people walk when they still have hope versus the way people walk when all that remains is momentum.
Tonight everyone in his sector walked with momentum.
The Ferrata that exploded twenty minutes ago left a hole in their formation — not only a hole in the tactical sense, but a hole in the more literal sense: an area where no one could stand because the rubble was still too hot and too unstable. Horath filled that hole by counting who was still there and placing them in positions that made sense.
Of the twelve under his command since the morning briefing, what he counted now was seven. He stopped at seven because counting further didn't change how he had to fight.
His seventh magazine went in with a click he had memorised so completely it no longer sounded like a mechanical sound.
Dor. Dor. Dor.
Ahead, the rebel line moved forward. Many. More than yesterday, which was already more than the day before.
From the position on the right — the gap between two ruins giving a firing angle south — the heavy MG was still speaking with a rhythm unchanged for the past hour.
Dor dor dor dor dor—
Pause.
Dor dor dor—
Rebels trying to approach from the south found themselves in the MG's firing angle and the result was consistent. But from the east, there were those not in the MG's angle, those already close enough to be no longer relevant to heavy weapons range.
Horath handled the east.
Dor. Dor. Dor. Dor.
In the east, between two buildings that no longer had roofs, he could see part of what had been an assault wave — what remained of the Ferrata gun that fired before exploding. Horath had been fighting long enough not to look there longer than necessary. Long enough to know there were things still making sounds from that corner that he couldn't do anything about and that it was useless to think about.
What he could do: shoot. Move. Shout the word that was the only thing that could still come from a throat that had been shouting for a long time.
"TRADITORES!"
Seventh magazine empty. Eighth. Ninth — last.
Thirty rounds. He used them in the most measured way he could manage.
Dor. Dor. Dor. Dor. Dor.
Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine. Thirty.
Empty.
Pistol. Twelve rounds.
Dor. Dor. Dor.
Pistol empty.
From his belt — field shovel. From his hip — standard sword, rarely used. Horath held both and realised there was something almost funny about this if there were time to laugh.
There was no time.
"TRADITORES!"
Some rebels ahead slowed when the cry reached them. Not stopped. But slowed. And in that one second of slowing, Horath was already moving forward.
A shovel is a poor weapon.
He used it anyway.
Sergeant Horath Kess died seventeen minutes later, still standing, in a way that exists in no military training manual anywhere and never will.
He was thirty-one years old.
— — —
Kayla Brennan. 22 years old.
Kayla had never imagined she would shout "Traditores" in a way like this.
It no longer felt like a formal word. It felt like the only word with enough edges to wound something inside her when released — something she wanted to wound because if it wasn't wounded outward, it would wound inward.
"TRADITORES!"
Her AK-XII was already on the fifth magazine. On her left, someone went down in a way that wasn't dramatic. Too undramatic. Here there was no moment, no narrative weight. Someone was standing then wasn't standing, and the only sign that something happened was the sound the body made when it reached the ground.
Kayla shot toward what caused that.
Dor. Dor. Dor.
From the heavy MG position on the right, the rhythm of firing changed — faster, more continuous, with fewer pauses than before. Something in the south was trying to move more aggressively and the MG operator had noticed before Kayla.
Dor dor dor dor dor dor dor—
Long pause. Magazine change, click. Then:
Dor dor dor dor—
Kayla shot east. Left. Ahead.
At a point between the fifth and sixth magazine — she couldn't determine exactly when — she saw it.
Behind rubble that two weeks ago was a shop wall at a road corner, amid everything moving with purpose or moving without purpose or not moving at all, there was a rebel standing still.
Young. Younger than Kayla. Perhaps eighteen, perhaps younger.
Not shooting. Not taking cover. Not moving forward or backward.
They were standing and crying.
Not crying dramatically — crying in a way that looked like someone who hadn't chosen to cry but whose body was doing it by itself, with tears continuing to flow while their eyes stared at something between their feet and the sky, between here and there, between everything happening on this road and whatever was inside their head.
Around them, their comrades were shouting, shooting, dying, still advancing.
They only stood.
Only crying.
Kayla looked for two seconds — two seconds where she didn't shoot in another direction, didn't shout, didn't move — and in those two seconds there was something inside her chest that had no useful name, something that wasn't sympathy and wasn't recognition and wasn't either but perhaps something older than both.
The third second: something from the right — not from her direction, not her shot — answered the existence of that young rebel in a way that couldn't be undone.
Kayla didn't see that.
She had already turned forward because something was moving from ahead and ahead was the more immediate threat.
Dor. Dor.
Fifth magazine empty. Sixth — last.
"TRADITORES!"
The cry now came from all directions at once. The same word. Different tones. From mouths already exhausted and mouths still fresh, from people who died half a minute later and people who somehow were still alive an hour later.
Last bullet from the last magazine.
Pistol. Empty.
Sword. Hands.
"Traditores."
Not a cry this time. The word said with remaining breath. With a voice whose volume had run out. In a way somehow louder than all the cries before.
Kayla Brennan died nine minutes later.
She was twenty-two years old.
— — —
Unknown Soldier. Estimated 17 years old.
No one had time to ask their name.
They arrived in sector thirteen with a reinforcement unit that came late. The sergeant who was supposed to lead them to position was already gone. Someone took over, stated positions, soldiers moved.
They moved with them.
Their AK-XII was still full. Six magazines, one hundred and eighty rounds.
The first thing they heard was not gunfire. The first thing they heard was the heavy MG.
Dor dor dor dor dor dor—
They turned toward the source by reflex — and saw, from a distance far enough not to require detail, the way that fire worked on the rebel wave trying to move from the south. The way of standing then not standing that happened in a sequence too fast to count individually but slow enough to be seen as a pattern.
They looked away from that.
"TRADITORES!"
They joined the shout because everyone around them was shouting and the word had already left their mouth before they decided to say it. But the word — when it came out, when they heard it with their own ears amid all the other cries — felt like something larger than themselves.
Dor. Dor. Dor.
The first magazine ran out faster than training because in training no one shot back.
Second magazine.
Around them, soldiers from their unit diminished. One. Two. Three. They stopped counting at three because counting further didn't change anything about how they had to move.
Only shoot. Only move. Only "Traditores" coming from a throat already starting to hurt.
Dor. Dor. Dor.
Third magazine. Fourth. Fifth.
The heavy MG on the right position began to slow — not stop, but its pause interval was longer than before, which could mean many things but none of them good.
Dor dor dor—
Long pause.
Silence from that direction.
A pause too long.
Dor dor dor dor—
Still there. But different. This unknown soldier didn't have enough knowledge of heavy MGs to know exactly what was different, but their body noted the difference as something relevant.
Sixth magazine — last.
They had no backup pistol because there was an administrative process that hadn't been completed.
Field shovel. Two hands.
"TRADITORES!"
The word left their mouth in a way that no longer felt like a word — it felt like a sound made by a body when the body has passed beyond everything that can be explained with words.
Rebels ahead slowed. Not all. Not enough. But some.
They kept advancing.
This unknown soldier died twelve minutes later, in a part of sector thirteen that had no name on any map, in a way that exists in no official record because there was no one left to record it.
Their estimated age was seventeen years old.
— — —
Legio Imperialis. Sector Thirteen.
They kept coming.
Reinforcement units. New faces. AK-XIIs still full. People who didn't yet know that in two hours, three hours, four hours, those magazines would run out and those pistols would run out and those shovels would be used for things not in any standard soldier job description.
The heavy MG on the right position sometimes stopped. Sometimes came back. Sometimes didn't come back. Ferratas passing by fired their guns at points that made the ground ahead become something hard for those on top of it to cross — those on top of it before those shots arrived. Some Ferratas exploded. The shockwaves sent whoever was standing within a certain radius to the air and to the ground and to places in between.
The line didn't advance.
Neither did it retreat.
Only existed — diminished, bleeding, with weapons changing from sophisticated to primitive to nothing.
"TRADITORES!"
The word echoed among the ruins. Entered the ears of rebels who had just thought momentum was on their side. Made some slow. Only slow, not stop, but slow enough for one second longer that meant something different in a place where one second is a meaningful unit of time.
In the distance, the artillery spoke again.
No one counted which direction it came from.
— — —
The names in sector thirteen that night:
Decimus Varro Sulla. 19 years old.
Marta Callien. 24 years old.
Sergeant Horath Kess. 31 years old.
Kayla Brennan. 22 years old.
Unknown. Estimated 17 years old.
And hundreds of others whose names were never recorded because there was no one left to record them.
Including one young rebel who cried among the ruins, amid everything inhuman about that night, and who also died because war makes no distinction
between those who cry and those who don't, between those who chose to be there and those who never had the chance to choose.
They all shouted the same thing.
Or cried quietly among the ruins.
Until they could no longer do either.