Times were difficult. Except for a few rich industrialists life was hard.I was young. I was poor. I possessed nothing. I had even nothing to eat. I had no choice but to join the army. It was my only chance. It was the only chance for many young men. The army always needed young men. At these days it needed young men more than ever before. A war broke up. Actually military service wasn't that bad, if someone was based on the mainland. Soldiers always had enough to eat. They had warm, comfortable clothes, though soldier's clothes. They lived in pretty good conditions - small, one-storey barracks, three or five man in a room. Three or four times a week they had an evening off and they could go to the towns and pick up a female. They even were allowed to take her to the barracks, where they could spend a night in special booths. Soldiers weren't allowed to marry, at least before they were over 32 years old or were ranked at least a centurion, what wasn't that easy. After all everyone wanted to be a centurion. Centurions had many rights. They even could kill somebody on the street and would be neither sued nor even questioned. Being a centurion was good. I planed to become somehow a centurion and marry. After that I could easily find a job in a stab on the manland and never see a war. You may think that then all centurions would marry and never go to war. Actually it wasn't that easy for a centurion to marry. Centurions had rarely any free time. They always had to stay at barracks and watch for soldiers and wait for special orders. Only married centurions were able to live outside of the barracks and work as clerks but because of the system a few centurions were able to marry. Being a centurion was good and sucked at the same time. Though anybody wanted to become a centurion.
I was an army soldier for a few moths and I had just completed my basic training when an order had arrived that my unit had to move to camp Black Rock - a camp known for its heavy living conditions and his extremely difficult training programs. What did this mean? Probably it meant, we were going to war. Yes, it meant exactly that! After completing the advanced soldier's training our unit was sent to the battle field. All of us were scared. Actually nobody had ever seen a war. In camp Black Rock we had to dismember corpses. Yes, they used real corpses for the training and real blood, that, I guess, wasn't human. Part of the training was to cut our hands and drink each other's blood. We had to become used to blood. At the beginning all of us thought it was stupid and dangerous. We could caught a disease drinking each other's blood. When we went to the battle field we understood the reasons, why they made us do it.
It wasn't a war as those described in the books - a war of heros and heroic battles. It was a war against daemons, war against creatures so cruel, that even veteran soldiers were disgausted by their deeds and their tactics. On the mainland we never heard anything about this war besides that there was one in a very distant land on islands far, far away from home.
We traveled by ship. When we approached the islands... I shall call them The Devil's Islands from now on ...we saw strange ships, apparently not belonging to our fleet. We thought the battle was near and everyone picked his weapons and got prepared. It would have been our first battle. Then we saw another ship with a flag so strange we were all amazed. Then I got it was a pirate ship. We were afraid they were 4 ships we were just one. We stood no chance. Then something amazed us. Our ship joined the group. What was happening - we didn't knew. The sailors were forbidden to talk to soldiers. After a week and a half the ships arrived at the islands.
When we stepped on the land we saw many soldiers from many different nations who did not fought against each other. We saw even Stepp riders, who were sworn enemy to our country. One of their units passed by and they actually greeted us as friends. What was going on? Was this a war or a competition. The very same night we understood.
I slept, when I heard a loud noise. A siren sounded. I stood up and dressed myself as quickly as I could and then left the tent. Then I was a huge fireball flying towards the tent. I run away. A horrible explosion threw me to the ground. The tent was in flames. Then I saw another fireball - many fireballs falling from the sky. The ships were burning, the land was burning. Men were crying! Something terrible was happaning. I saw a small hole in a rock and I hid mysleft in there. All I could hear were explosions, banging of weapons, and cries. I had no idea what was going on. We were never told who we were fighting. Was this a war? Was this the war? Then I saw an unit of fifteen Stepp riders heading towards me. I didn't believe they could see me in the hole where I was hiding but I took out my sword. Then in front of them a huge creature, tall as three men who stood on each others soulders, jumped out of the woods. I had read many stories about giants but they were humans, this creature wasn't a human - it was the most ugliest and scariest thing I had ever seen. The Stepp riders prepared to fight it. The creature looked at them and then said something in an unknown language to me. I was amazed that the Stepped riders answered him. I thought for a moment : I knew it Stepp riders were never to trust. Then the creature cried: "Skandaaaaaaaarrr" and attacked. The Stepp rider archers started shooting a rain of flame arrows at it but they couldn't stop it. With a single blow of its mace it killed five men. I couldn't believe it. Something so strong I had never seen, I had never imagined. Another blow killed two more people. Then something unexpectedly happened a fireball hit the creature and squashed it like a bug. I run towards the Stepp riders. I didn't want to stay alone after what I saw. They saw me and they recognized where I came from. Then one of them asked:
"Greetings, you are a freshman, right?"
"Yes... What was that? I have never seen such a devil!"
"This was a skandar."
"Skandar? What is it, where has it come from? I haven't ever seen such a horrible creature before! I haven't ever imagined that such horrible things exist! I thought demons live only in legends."
"My boy", said an old Stepp rider: "What you've just saw was nothing special. It isn't even a daemon. There are much more dangerous creatures than this one. Skandars are particularly stupid. Thought extremely strong, they are quite stupid. We could have killed it easily if my cross bow wasn't broken."
A few days later i understood what the old Stepp rider meant. A few days later I knew that two years ago a flying pot landed from the space on an island on this archipelago and two creatures stepped out of it. They gave gold to the local people and asked them to help them build a temple. These creatures were as tall as a skarnar but they were like skeletons and had very strange swords, that they used to cut wood, ropes and even stones.
When the temple was finished in a few months, it turned to be not a temple but a space warping gate and when the two skeleton-like creatures opened it: legions of alien troops started pouring into our world. It seemed that both creatures had chosen a bad place to build the space warping gate. The islands stopped their quick advance. They had to build ships to sail to other islands and the local pirates did a good job for an year stopping their attempts to conquer other islands until the creatures built a huge fireball shooting weapon that destroyed most of the pirate ships and nothing could stop their advance. During that time the local king was able to convince the rulers of a few nations to help him stop the aliens. So the Great war begun.
Almoust an year poples' armies fought already aliens' armies. An year of suffering and total humiliation for human soldiers but the worse was yet to happen. The aliens started constructing flying pots.
This was my first patrol. My unit of 7 men moved slowly through the wood that day. We suddenly came to a clearing and our foreman said: "Welcome to the hell!" Then I saw it. Another young soldier asked: "What the hell is that?".
"Roccoor, were these! Roccoors, my boy! The creatures that came from space on a flying pot to build the space warping gate. They eat everything they find. They eat everything that moves. First they suck on a living thing until they drink all of its blood and they they eat it. Or they just eat it alive. They eat people, they eat even their own troops and sometimes not just the corpses but even their own alive soldiers. Such an evil thing I have never seen before! These things look like skeletons and seem to live just to eat everything. They are so strong, that four or five of them could defeat a whole army. Nothing stops them, they never feel a pain. Beware of roccoor my boy! Luckily for us roccoor are too busy to eat the corpses of fallen soldiers that they rarely take apart in real battles. Luckily for us there are just a few and we managed to kill some of them. So we know they are mortal. Unfortunately we can kill them only when they fell into a trap. Only a strong poison could kill them if shot with a bow and an arrow. If you ever meet a roccoor run for your lives, run as fast as you can. You stand no chance fighting it. You're just a supper for them."
We continued our journey and in a half an hour we met some creatures tall as a human with heads like balls, round eyes, two arms with three figers each. They saw as and started shouting. We attacked. I easily cut off the head of one of these creatures. Another one attacked on me. I blocked its blows and it was my turn. I attacked. The creature was a good fighter. It took me a half of minute until I could stab it in the stomach if it had a stomach. We finished them in less then a five minutes.
"That was an easy one", said the foremen to the young soldier. "Too easy actually. But these creatures are quite weak. They suck as fighters."
I thought: 'They suck as fighters? I thought it was a good fighter!'
The foreman continued: "I belive their warlords send them to us to kill them so they roccoors could eat them. I belive they are a sort of a food for the roccoors. They main battle force consists of trongs. They fight well but are also weak. They aren't really better then a human. Skeds are more difficult task. They fight pretty well and have four arms so they use at least three weapons at the same time. Two ordinary human soldiers must fight against one of them to kill it. There are many more. Some are weak. Some like skandars are extremely strong and extremely stupid. I've seen once a morgon to fight. It took 10 platoons to kill him. What a furious and cruel fighter this morgon was. Morloks are also very strong and stupid too but not so stupid as skandars. To kill a platoon of morloks, humans need to sacrifice at least a company. But there is not an alien that is more strong as a roccoor. I said it! To kill a single rocoor it might take a regiment, or two. A star roamer told me once that roccoors are not yet the strongest creatures that could be wrapped in from the space wrapping gate. The most dangerous enemy must be the ruaragash race, creatures so sturdy and strong they live under the surface and they dig through the rocks using only their hands. Their bodies are impenetrable for bows and other human weapons..."
"What is a star roamer?", asked the young soldier.
"Star roamers are an alien race that is willing to help us. I know that because I was the one that found them in the woods. One of their flying pots was shot down by the roccoors and two star roamers survived. The creatures know about that and thats why they are so mad now. They are looking to kill the star roamers before more of them come here and fight them. Star roamers must be the best warriors in the universe. I saw how one of them fights! They are furious! They are unstoppable! They fight better than roccoors and could destroy a regiment as easily as a battery of fireball cannons. They told me everything about these creatures. Where they came from, and what they are trying to do! Star roamers say, these creatures sealed the technology of building flying pots from them and now they want to take over the universe! Star roamers came here to reconnoiter before their army could fly in and fight the creatures. Now we have to steal a flying pot from the creatures, so that the star roamers could fly off and call for their army to start the attack."
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