Raphael’s voice was just as cold and slicing as the winds lashing over the front, he gave hardly a matching glance as he pulled the General a few meters into the woods and shoved him behind one of the trunks.
It wasn’t his job to worry about what Cirus would tell the president, it was his job to try and keep Cirus alive so he’d be able to speak to the president at all. Hiding behind trees and bare bushes might give them a chance at avoiding being spotted by the tanks, but once those had rolled past, what would follow? Infantry, most likely, to mow down who was left.
How many of those would they be able to take down with them until they eventually got crushed under the sheer difference in numbers and equipment quality?
Maybe if the General had decided to gather what remaining troops he had in this forest, prepared an ambush, maybe then they would have managed to deal a not significant, but nevertheless startling blow to the attackers. But as it was, this whole front was a mess. The few soldiers still capable of fighting they’d come across had been sent back to their deaths by Sullivan himself.But then again it didn’t matter, as it looked now, they were all going to die anyway. The only difference would have been just how embarrassing a defeat it would look to the rest of the world. And currently? It promised to look very, very embarrassing indeed.
A few more Russian soldiers had taken cover behind some trunks, using up the last of their bullets in some sort of dying effort –– everyone knew they were fucked, but what else was there to do but to keep shooting as long as you could?
Raphael, for the moment, looked down at Cirus again –– it was probably for the best that the man lost his weapon, he’d probably only end up shooting their own people in a fit of rage –– before looking past the trees and back to the hell of smoke and metal they’d just escaped from.
Between some wreckage and bloodied snow he saw the motionless body of an American soldier. If only he could get to it, but now that he’d stopped running his leg wasn’t agreeing as much as he’d like it to. Also, could he really leave the General alone, if only for a moment?
No, no, he could not.
So he did the next best thing, turned to the soldier closest to them and told him to go fetch the corpse. At the incredulous look he got he only repeated the command, and eventually the man complied. Raphael did try to cover the soldier on his way, but it was hard to see ahead with the smoke and fire constantly spreading. But that was also to their own advantage, as the man returned very much alive, with the dead body dragged in his wake.
With hardly another look Raphael thanked him and handed the man his rifle –– for what he was planning he shouldn’t be carrying it anyway –– and set to strip the American off his gear and the upper part of his clothing until there was only a bloody shirt covering his torso.
Not quite tall enough to have Raphael’s size, but it’s all he would get now, as he took off his own jacket and threw it down to Cirus to wrap around himself if he wanted to. Quickly, he set to dress in the dead man’s bloody jacket –– which he’d originally thought would never fit, but turned out to be fine except for the sleeves being too short. Which was simply proof to just how much weight he’d lost in the past months and years.
Then, he pulled Cirus back up and started dragging him into walking again.
“Follow me and be quiet.”
Although he wasn’t sure if the man was even capable of that. And it probably wasn’t the way one should talk to a General, either, but hey. He could get in trouble for this, for all he cared. After he survived, if he survived.
And thus he limped off, careful to not walk in front of any Russian soldiers’ noses and get shot by his own for looking like an enemy, and eventually found what he was looking for. One of the roads leading through the woods, the tracks being evidence that tanks had already rolled through here, but tanks weren’t what he was looking for.
No, he settled for hiding behind trees again, until a suitable victim appeared.
And after watching more tanks pass by and making sure Cirus stayed where he was, eventually he found something that fit the idea –– a humvee appearing in the distance, approaching in a cloud of snow. Giving the general one more look and a “Stay hidden and don’t move.”, he left their cover to drag himself towards the tank-made road. His movements were much heavier than before, and most of it was an act, as he dropped down into the snow and waited for the vehicle to get closer.
He waved then, waiting to see if it would slow down –– which it did.
“Hey! Help me!” he called out, knowing full well they probably couldn’t even hear him, but they’d see his mouth moving either way. It added to the performance, surely.
And perform, he did. He was shaking now when he hadn’t before, his face showing contortions of pain he usually didn’t seem to be capable of feeling. It was almost as if he was actually human for once, as if his leg was killing him, as if these men were his last hope.
And maybe they were, in a way.
The moment they stopped he knew the truck was his. That he wasn’t wearing pants matching his uniform seemed to have gone unnoticed, with one leg stained red and the other buried in the snow, and he looked up at the soldier who got out and asked who he was.
“Corporal Smith,” he responded with the dead man’s name as he’d read it off the corpse’s dog tags, “our tank was hit by an RPG. Man, you have to help me, I thought I could hide here but this forest is crawling with Russians.”
He watched the man come closer then, taking the hand that was offering with a groan and wince of pain as he was pulled to his feet.
There were only two of them, the driver and the one helping him to the car, which made the whole thing indefinitely easier –– they, too, had already lost their gunner.
Crawling onto the back seat, he waited until everyone was inside and the doors closed, looking at the driver as he turned around to ask if he was alright.
“Yeah. Thanks, man, you saved me,” he replied, with all the gratitude of someone who owed his life. “I thought I was gonna bleed out out there.”
And before he’d even finished the sentence, he’d drawn the knife from behind his back and drawn it through the driver’s throat from behind. The second man came just a blink later, at a somewhat more awkward angle but without a chance to fight nonetheless. He’d been looking at a map when his comrade died. As the driver’s body went limp his feet moved off the pedals and the car choked out, barely seconds later Raphael reemerged to pull the corpses out of the car before their blood stained everything. And again, there was not even a trace of pain on his face as he did so, dumping the bodies a bit next to the road where they wouldn’t be seen immediately and reading their names just to be sure.
“General Sullivan,” he eventually called out, “are you still there?”
Maybe they should gather some survivors and see how many of their own they could fit into this car. That was, if he wouldn’t have to run after a stupid old man first.
