The expected smoke plumes of the Elf Expeditionary Force lined the ridge they currently occupied. Gilmuriel smelled cooking fires, roasting meat. His keen sight distinguished dug-outs, trenches, camouflage netting—
“Mother of Forests…” the elf lieutenant breathed. “Shit!”
Morning sun glinted on the shining, sticky, dripping black carapaces of Bugs.
In every dug-out, every position…
“There’s Bugs encamped all right,” Sergeant Dakashnit whispered. “On this hill! We got a whole company round us, ’cept it isn’t ours. L.t., that’s the last time I trust elf instincts over a map.”
“That’s the last time I trust Military Intelligence!”
Gilmuriel, heart pounding, watched the scorpion-tailed insectoids moving in dug-outs not twenty feet from the hole of the goldentree. The fronds of the forest plants shrank back from touching the blue-black carapaces and shrivelled when a Bug brushed through them.
“I want fire support!” Lieutenant Gilmuriel whispered. “I want tanks, mortars, artillery, and fighter-ground attack!”
“It’s all miles behind us, L.t., at the original map reference. Leastways, I hope. Shit, lookit that!”
A particularly large specimen of Bug, some eight feet tall, stood just below the tree the squad occupied. Morning sun striped its dripping jaws, powerful exoskeleton, and faceted eyes. At this close a range Gilmuriel could make out the straps of its body harness, and the pouches and packs hanging off it.
“HHHRRRASSHHHHH!”
Twenty Bugs poured from the nearest dug-out. Gilmuriel witnessed claws adjusting peculiar long-barreled weapons, fixing straps and clips, and grabbing for equipment. The seven-foot-tall insectoids shambled into the open space under the tree and formed a straggling line, facing the large Bug.
“HRASSSH-SKKKRRRAGHH!”
The line instantly straightened. Bugs shuffled on their clawed hind feet. Gilmuriel surveyed the row of carapaced heads below him. Each quartet of eyes faced forward. Each pair of dangling skeletal arms hung down by the slumping thorax.
The large insectoid hissed, slime dripping from its jaws. Each Bug froze into immobility. It paced up and down the line, snarling sibilantly. It stopped at one Bug to straighten a strap, at another to jingle a loose neck-harness, and at a third—its hiss rising to a furious pitch—to wave skeletal arms and spit slime.
The Bug dug its claws into its soft underbelly. They emerged holding a weapon. It slammed its exoskeletal heels together, scorpion tail jutting over its head at a strained angle.
“SKAHHHH—SRISSH-KAAAH!”
The line of Bugs faced east smartly and jogged off into the insectoid encampment. Gilmuriel and the orc gunnery sergeant gazed down from the fifty-foot drop either side of the branch they stood on.
“Y’know, L.t.” Dakashnit scratched her head. “That looks familiar, somehow…”
Gilmuriel shook himself and moved back to the main trunk of the goldentree, beckoning Starlight squad to join him.
Aradmel Brightblade chuckled under her breath. “Hey, sir—tell the orc to go and crap in the Bugs’ dug-outs, sir—it’s called ‘area denial’!”
Dakashnit uncharacteristically ignored her. “L.t., they got the ground sewn up down there. We ain’t going anywhere.”
“Move with the shadowed silence of our ancient race,” Lieutenant Gilmuriel directed. He gestured at the surrounding goldentrees and at their broad branches that stretched away like paths above the forest floor. “We don’t need the earth. We’re elves, Sergeant, and we’re out of here!”
A long hour later, the elf marines descended from the trees.
“You’re on point, Sergeant,” Gilmuriel said.
There was nothing from the orc but a soft “Yo!” and when Gilmuriel looked, she vanished, blending with the rain-forest’s shadows. He led the marine recruits off down a faint track, ears pricked, elf-instincts at full stretch.
Dakka-dakka-dakka-FOOM!
Bushes rustled. Gilmuriel heard a succession of thuds. He looked back from where he stood alone on the track. All twelve elf marines had dived into the bushes, only the shaking leaves marking their passage.
Gilmuriel abruptly ducked his head and slid into cover beside Corporal Silthanis. “Get your elves up, marine! This is the real thing! Our first firefight!”
“I know that, sir.” The elf looked up at his lieutenant from under a too-large GI helmet with BORN TO SING stencilled on the cover. “Lord Gilmuriel, let’s go back. Call in the helicopter and let’s go home!”
The bush under which Silthanis Blackrose cowered shook itself and became the orc sergeant Dakashnit, camouflage fatigues stuck at every point with tree-fronds and rushes. Her piglike eyes gleamed under the rim of her kevlar helmet.
“I’ll take a recon team down there, Lieutenant,” Dakashnit volunteered enthusiastically. “Yo!”
The sound of real gunfire made Gilmuriel’s stomach flip over.
“No, orc. We return to the main company, or better still, the City of the Trees. Byrna Silkentress, call the helicopter.”
With no rustle of leaves, the orc’s GPMG swung up to cover Gilmuriel. “Get down there and fire on the hostiles, L.t. The enemy might miss you. I certainly won’t.”
Gilmuriel glared with the arrogance of fifty generations of High Elven ancestors. The orc, head sunk down almost between her shoulders, showed a yellow fang.
“There’s elf recruits down there, L.t. I just saw. Marines don’t leave their own. Even if they are a useless mob of squeakies. What are your guys down there gonna do to the Bugs, Lieutenant—sing at them?”
An unexpected smile broke on the elf’s fine, aquiline features. He put one finger up, still with harp-string callouses on the pad, and pushed the machinegun barrel to one side. Dakashnit noted that it now pointed directly at Byrna Silkentress. Assuming this to be an accident, she elevated her weapon’s muzzle skyward.
Takka-Takka-BOOM!
“If there are other forest elves down in that mess, we must come to their aid, of course. Very well. Gunnery Sergeant, line the recruits up for order of march.”
“Awrriiiight! Marines Illurian Swiftbow and Aradmel Brightblade, take the back door. If anything comes up behind us, I wanna know about it. Marines Dyraddin Treewaker and Elendylis Goldenfire, you’re on point. The rest of you, five-metre spacing, don’t close up, watch your buddies, watch for silent signals, and keep your fucking golden eyes open for the enemy!”
Gilmuriel took his place towards the centre of the line of march. A very un-elven sweat trickled down between his angular shoulder-blades, soaking the coarse cloth of his combat fatigues.
The orc sergeant reappeared by becoming a bush Gilmuriel had not noticed. “L.t., take ’em up to the top of that ridge and we can make a killing zone of this valley.”
Takka-Takka-FOOM!
Shredded leaves spattered Gilmuriel’s camouflage-painted features. A chunk of raw wood dripping sap caught him in the stomach and he sat down heavily. Rounds whipped over his head. Rolling and crawling, he made cover behind a moss-shrouded rock.
FOOOM!
“Number and distance!” Dakashnit bawled, from behind another rock. “Come on, you fuckwitted shit-for-brains marines! Didn’t I teach you anything? Anyone see where that came from?”
“Over there,” a shrill elvish voice quavered. Belluriel Starharp.
“Over where?”
“Over there!”
“Over where?—oh, fuck it,” the orc sergeant swore. “This is what your training is devised to avoid, grunts. Give me a fucking clock direction on axis of march!”