The dull whump of a nearby explosion made the master sergeant duck reflexively. At first he thought there had been some sort of catastrophic accident on the course, but then the truth dawned on him.
They were blowing up the obstacles!
Horror and outrage warred within the sergeant as he witnessed another barrier, the three-meter wall this time, disappear in a flash-boom, followed by a shower of splinters and debris. Before the echoes of the explosions had fully died away, the advancing black company appeared, maintaining their dogged advance through the clouds of dust, unnervingly close now.
With the iron discipline of a combat veteran, the master sergeant turned his back on the spectacle and began loading the first belt of ammunition into the machine gun.
Let the major fight it out over whether or not the Legionnaires’ tactics were acceptable. His job was to see to it that they kept their heads down while they went under the wire. Nobody passed this position rapidly. Not with tracers whining around their …
The world suddenly went topsy-turvy around him, as the sergeant was violently upended and slammed down on the platform. Shaken and confused, he tried to struggle upright, only to be pushed flat again, this time with teeth-rattling force.
“Mmmm … You … stay down. Okay?”
A berry brown face with obsidian-dark eyes swam into focus. One of the black-uniformed Legionnaires was squatting over the sergeant’s fallen form, and Spengler could feel the light prick of a knife point under his chin.