486 The Reckoner (1/2)
The New Kingdom of Mecca, City of Hensink, Protectorate Trench Line
Whistles blew hard down the line as the land before Cork was smothered in a dense cover of smoke rounds. Flashes of explosions from 155 mm heavy artillery guns continued to thunder behind the smoke cover and the men of the United Nations Army 1st Rifle Regiment charged forward towards the enemy defensive works.
Further back under the cover of earthen works, mortars and artillery guns roared in support of the attack. A mixture of white phosphorous and high explosive shells blanketed the Protectorate's defensive works, keeping its defenders pinned down. The heavy artillery barrage seemed redundant and more of a gesture as the enemy lines had already been hammered repeatedly by artillery for a better part of the night.
The heavy barrage lifted just as the men entered the smokescreen. Cork emerged from the smokescreen to find an alien landscape that brought back memories of his time as an Imperial General attacking the UN. But the scene before him was a hundred times more devasted compared to his time.
The once pristine green lands that under the Protectorate's hands had turned into ugly trenches of earth and mud with metal reinforced defensive works were all now even made into a scene of absolute destruction. The overturned brown grey ground was pockmarked with hundreds of craters amidst debris and shattered defensive works.
Mud was everywhere, made from the morning dew and blood of the dead. Cork ran forward, kept his body low as the men advanced alongside him. He reached the lip of a trench and with a countdown gesture to his men, they popped up with their weapons, ready to shoot any defenders, only to find it filled several dead.
A private coughed and puked at the side as he could not handle the gory scene. The bodies had their flesh charred and white bone could be seen as the enemy had died from the deadly effects of white phosphorus. The deadly white chemical had eaten through any exposed and unprotected flesh till the bone and through the screaming mouths, noses and lungs of any unlucky souls to be caught in the barrage.
”Move! Move!” Cork shoved the retching private away and towards the city. ”Keep moving! We still got a city to take!”
The men steeled themselves as they advanced rapidly forward, stopping now and then to check and secure any intact trench or bunker. Sporadic gunfire could be heard along the attack line as unsurrendering enemies were encountered.
A heavy chest pounding thump hammered the men and they entered the bunker. Lights mounted on their harness lit the way for them as they swept the area of enemies. The bunker was surprisingly larger than expected and deep too, as Cork found out as went down the sloping passageway while sweeping his torch left and right, the smoke and dirt kicked up from the grenade making visibly low.
As the smoke slowly cleared, his beam of light shone onto a dark red surface that seemed to occupy the entire area before him. Cork paused and stared at the surface that seemed to tower all the way up to the roof of the bunk and it also extended further then what his light beam could penetrate in the darkness.
He walked closer to investigate and realised that strange thing before him was actually inside a massive pit and the surface seemed to be made out of metal and has streak marks of rust and chipped paint.
”Sarge,” One of his men called out. ”There's a way down here!”
Cork frowned as he joined his men in their discovery. Another slope led down into darkness and Cork was very certain they had already gone down at least two stories. Someone asked the question that was in everyone's minds aloud. ”What in the heavens is this thing?”
”I don't know...” Cork replied before he waved his light beam down the slope. ”Let's go find out...”
Just as he said that sentence, a series of loud ratcheting noises seemed to erupt from the depths of the pit. Hisses and shrieks of metal followed next and the packed dirt ground beneath their feet started shaking. The roof suddenly collapsed, exposing the sky and creating shafts of light piercing down.
”OUT!” Cork yelled over the dim of noises that sounded suspiciously of heavy machinery. ”GET OUT NOW!”
The men ran back towards the way they came in as quickly as they could and as they exited out of the entryway and back to the trench line, the bunker behind them finally collapsed and a large sunk hole appeared. Screams of panic echoed out amidst the sounds of heavy cranking and hissing as an entire section of the city wall seemed to protrude out from the ground.
Cork stared in stunned fascination at the massive set of skeletal pickaxe like appendage rosed over his head and stabbed down on the cratered ground behind him. The ground shook as the appendage pulled the rest of its body out, and Cork saw a massive tower like structure supported by several of the pickaxe like legs, making its way out from its hiding space.
”What in the holy heavens is that?” Krew craned his head up high, his mouth and eyes wide open like the rest of the 1st Rifle Regiment. Massive cogs and wheels could be seen turning and spinning under the 'skirt' of the tower. Tubes that looked suspiciously like cannon muzzles extended out from all over the surface of the walking tower and hissed loudly as they shot off their loads towards the UN artillery at the rear.
”Its... its... a farking giant golem!”