Found Sound Foundation

     Excerpts from the recollections of Lieutenant Belan Five-oaks, tank commander during the Battle of Sprucedale.

Ald read my mind.

     “Sir? We can back into the ruins to our side, here. They might not expect us to hide,” he suggested. The burned out husk, giving us our cover, loomed over us, as inviting as a tomb. No room to move once inside, but we were out of time.

“Alright, get us in there,” I told him. He nodded, and gave us a turn and a reverse, our rear plowing through decrepit bricks. Ald parked us some ways inside, facing our makeshift entry. The ceiling was crumbling, punched with holes. Shafts of light illuminated spiraling motes of dust. I told him to kill the engine.

     We sat there for a good minute, waiting for the black hulk to trundle down the street, past our nest. Hoping they hadn’t heard us. Hoping they’d miss us. Birch got the shakes, so I set my hand on his shoulder.

“Down the sights, Birch. Just keep looking down the sights.”

     He nodded, and pressed his face against the dirty hatch, hands still quivering.

First we heard its treads. Stone and cobble crushed beneath obsidian gears. Under its immense weight, they seemed brittle, cracking alarmingly. Like dusty skulls popping open. And the engine. That cackling diesel engine, announcing its dreams of death, of revelry in apocalypse.

     Then we saw the barrel. That black and jagged tube coming into view, covered in spines and bolts. And heads. This close, we could see the dozen heads impaled on its spikes. Grisly trophies taken from the massacred. Birch sat bolt-upright, sweat pearling on his brow. Finger on the trigger. He’d loaded our last armor penetrating round. Ald sat hunched over the driver’s console, fingering the ignition switch. A break-out seemed a dim prospect, but he had to occupy himself somehow.

The main body now, slowly edging forward. A wrought-iron carriage propping up a a black throne. I imagined their commander, herald of an age of murder, sitting in there, scanning for us. Just keep going, I prayed. Just keep going. Just keep — shit.

The tank drew to a full stop. I could almost hear their filthy voices now, laughing at us. Their turret began to swivel.

     “Fire!”

Our tank shuddered and hissed, spitting bitter venom. I’d like to say that this shot was for Green Pines. For the Hundred Acres. For the Barrowlands. Dead names for dead places, the rallying cries of the dying masses. Not quite. This one was for ourselves.

     I saw the impact. I saw the flash. I felt the shock. I heard the crash. But the fact was, when the smoke cleared, that iron abomination was still standing, its side plate slightly dented. Its hateful turret pointed at us. Through its lens I saw only destruction. I heard the insane roars of laughter, the whoops of spite. I was utterly dismayed.

Our engine roared to life. Ald gave our beleaguered motor full power forward; our last valiant charge, a rush at ramming speed. The enemy armor roared in cruel defiance, spewing its heat. The round clipped our turret, giving Birch a nasty shock. I could see our barrel crumpling, ruined.

     Our tank collided with the nightmare beast, metal grinding against metal. We were wedged right under its barrel. It tried to shift forward, but to no avail. Our frontal plate had impaled its treads. We were at an impasse, though the greenskins wouldn’t recognize the word.

I checked on Birch. He was slightly concussed, but otherwise unwounded. I helped him down from the gunner’s seat.

     “What now, then?” asked Ald. A fair question. I hadn’t the slightest idea, which was why I was shocked to hear myself speaking.

“Grab your weapons and bail out. We’ll kill them on foot.” Ald nodded and drew his hand-crossbow. Birch sighed and retrieved the scatter-gun. I grabbed my pistol and the grenade satchel.

     I threw the top hatch open, breathing in the cold, oily air. I staggered out, off-balance after so many hours cooped inside. I noticed that the enemy tank’s hatch was firmly shut. I scrambled on top of their hull, mindful not to cut myself on the sheer edges, the others following suit.

I heard them now, muffled voices arguing in their poison tongue. They must have heard us too, as they shut up and made a commotion. We climbed onto their turret, dark grease covering hands and feet. Ald went around it, taking position behind their hatch. Birch and I stood ready, aiming down at it.

     It flew open suddenly. A monstrous face thrust itself into the open air. In an instant its hateful eyes locked into mine and it raised its hand-cannon.

I shot it in the face. Black blood spattered the back of the hatch. The limp body slumped and fell back down. Ald dropped his crossbow and grabbed ahold of the handles while Birch rushed forward to pump shots into the darkness of the cabin below.

     Angered voices now, hateful roars, some firing back through the open hatch. I saw desperate hands reaching to close it. The deadly bark of the scatter-gun sent limbs tumbling back. I readied a grenade. Pulled the pin. Crept up to that gaping maw of madness. Looked at Ald, still gripping the hatch with both arms. He gave a black-toothed grin.

I dropped it. Birch and I leaped off the wounded leviathan while Ald slammed the hatch shut with his body, cradling it, eyes shut tight. Panicked screams. Mad bellows. The hatch shook while Ald desperately held on.

     The dull thump.

Silence.

     I glanced at Ald, who stood up, giving a grim look.

“Another one? Just to be sure,” he asked. I shook my head. He shrugged, and shoved off the turret to join us.

     I fished in my pockets, found my cigarettes. Offered them to Ald and Birch. Lit theirs up first, then mine. Inhaled deeply. Gazed at the ceiling, avoiding the sight of the black iron tomb.

Ald sat cross-legged in the rubble, chin resting on his hand. Birch leaned against our hull, head tilted.

     He looked up at me with those sunken, mournful eyes.

“Boss,” he whispered. “Can we go home yet?”

     I laughed in his face.

Excerpts from the recollections of Lieutenant Belan Five-oaks, tank commander during the Battle of Sprucedale.

 Our tank turned the corner of the building. I peered through the gunner’s sights, trying to discern any shapes in the fog. I froze up when I saw it: that black iron barrel, quivering in the mist, coddling its deadly payload.

“Enemy armor, dead ahead!”

     Ald jerked back and brought us to a full stop, fumbling to reverse. Too late. Time seemed to dilate. I saw that jagged barrel, belching greasy flame, illuminating the monstrosity for a moment. The greenskin tank. Black spikes and welded panels, spewing forth its deadly exhaust fumes. The shell edging closer now. Time snapped back. I flinched and slammed my eyes shut, imagining heat and flame.

I heard a dull thump and the hull vibrated. Ricochet. The shell had bounced clean off the angled front plate. I snapped back into life.

     “Birch! Damn it man, fire!”

He gave me a haunted look, that of a man who’d resigned himself just moments ago. He was young, barely 20. He’d been handsome once, but two years of siege and city fighting had taken care of that. He pulled the trigger, violently shaking the hull. Our puny shell scored a glancing blow, leaving naught but a soot-mark on the enemy armor. We were completely out-classed by that abomination, the steel-clad heavy tank. I swore.

     “Full reverse, get us out of here!”

“Full reverse, aye,” answered Ald, the driver. He was the level-headed one, hardened by years of desperate fighting, in the wars and in the slums of his youth.  He grappled with the engine levers and our treads clattered back, back over twisted steel and broken glass. Back around the corner, and down the street. We heard the enemy tank take a last shot at us, catching only air. I sensed that the beast was positively leering at us.

     Speed, at least, was on our side. We drove a light tank, better suited for reconnaissance and lightning raids, not city fighting, and certainly not suited to counter orc battle tanks. Yet here we were. Absolute desperation had sunk into us, all of us city fighters, the last line of defense. We were running low on fuel, on ammo, on food. Certainly, if we lost our tank, there would be nothing to replace it. Maybe we’d resort to throwing stones at the invaders instead.

Still, we could out-maneuver our foe. Maybe take another route past, to hit it from behind. Better yet, evade it entirely.

     We were half-way down the block when Ald spotted the second tank.

“More armor!” he cried, pointing at the side hatch. Sure enough, there it was, sitting in a wide alley with all the subtly of a charging bull. In an instant it barreled forth, its grinding treads bellowing a shrill battle-cry. Birch didn’t wait for my orders as he moved to shift our turret round, but too sluggishly. The wrought-iron engine closed for the kill, intending to murder us point-blank, its exhaust billowing smoke, its barrel pointed at us like the judgmental finger of a wrathful god.

     Our world exploded. I was tossed to the side, bruising my limbs on the compartment wall. I knocked my head on some jagged corner and felt a jolt of pain. Blood trickled behind my ear. Birch had been knocked from the gunner’s seat, and scrambled back into the turret. Ald lay sprawled on the floor, looking dazed. Our side plate had withstood the blast.

“Kill him, then!”

     Birch needed no further encouragement as he aligned the turret. There was no damn room to aim at such close quarters, he just pulled the trigger and prayed.

The enemy hull crumpled, swiveling the turret wildly, its barrel jolting skywards with the blast. We’d caught it right in the turret ring, that ugly scar of twisted iron, now gouged and widened. I saw flames licking forth a moment later, with a figure darting about within. Then the ammo cooked off. Shreds of black metal were tossed into the air, and the tank’s very frame seemed to sag. I admired our handiwork for a moment. Birch wiped sweat off his brow as I helped Ald back into the driver’s seat.

     “Shit. The other tank.” Alarmed, Ald glanced at me. We could hear it now, its trundling gears, just around the corner, it seemed. Nowhere to go now. Down the street and it would catch us in the open. The alley opposite was blocked by dead armor. Nowhere to go.