The sun bore brightly down onto the bitter, frozen faces of the soldiers, as they marched single file through the shallow path of snow created by hundreds of soldiers marching in front of them. A bitter wind blew harshly from the east, drowning out most all sounds.
Ansel blew on his hands and ferris wheeled his arms. He was not normally bothered by the cold, but this was a bit much. "I can feel the ice forming on my face," he complained to the soldier in front of and behind him. They were his new marching buddies, as he had been seperated from his ambush group last night at the camp.
"Yeah, it's there, on your moustache, under your nose," said the one in front of him, looking over his shoulder. "Damn this winter campaigning. Tarkuk would have us do this, too. He's let his Hittite campaigns make his head big. We're just securing Hoelians, damnit."
The sound and blur of a horse racing by on his right brought him back to the present, and they both listened intently for horns. The cavalry wouldn't be charging around like that if there weren't bad news
The vast snowy wasteland that northern Assyria was in the winter always bugged Ansel. He had moved away from this backwater when he was young, to Sheol, and never thought he'd have to come back.
The clarion horn sounded in the distance, signaling a hasty retreat. Something had spooked the higher ups and he did not like it. He drew his sickle sword and turned on his heel, now racing south with an army of strangers. He wished he had his friends, his drinking buddies, his brothers in arms.
A few minutes of running passed, and Ansel was not even warmed up. He had been a street urchin in his youth, after his parents died, and was a good runner, having so much experience with the hit and run of thievery. He had retired from that life after a successful robbery of a rich man, and moved, starting a new life in Assyria again.
Suddenly, the scream of horses and men alike echoed around him. A dozen soldiers in front of him slowed and turned, lowering pikes they had been carrying. An order unheard by most, save for them? Perhaps.
He slowed and turned around, to see his thousand comrades continuing the retreat, while those few stayed, to be cut down by some sort of horse-drawn carriages, with massive nails and spikes attached to the sides of the wheels. Archers adorned it at every spot possible and a spear wielder or two as well.
Ansel awoke from his position face-down in the icy, bloody mud. He could remember a battle, and bones, and blood. He looked down, to realize those bones had been his. His legs had been beaten up and mutilated, perhaps from being trampled. Not crying nor sad, he closed his eyes, and let go of his life.
OOC: False alarms and spam-posts does not a happy Eltain make.