Forgotten Ruin: An Epic Military Fantasy Thriller Read online

  Contents

  Technical Advisors and Creative Destruction Specialists

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Epilogue

  Ranger Creed

  Book One

  by

  Jason Anspach

  and

  Nick Cole

  An imprint of Galaxy’s Edge Press

  PO BOX 534

  Puyallup, Washington 98371

  Copyright © 2021 by Galaxy’s Edge, LLC

  All rights reserved.

  Paperback ISBN:

  Hardcover ISBN:

  www.forgottenruin.com

  www.jasonanspach.com

  www.nickcolebooks.com

  www.wargatebooks.com

  Technical Advisors and Creative Destruction Specialists

  Ranger Vic

  Ranger David

  Ranger Chris

  Green Beret John “Doc” Spears

  Rangers lead the way!

  Chapter One

  When I began to dream in Elvish, it was then I knew I could speak it. And it was when the orc horde overran one of the fighting positions along First Platoon’s sector on the east side of the island the Rangers were defending that I knew we weren’t in Kansas anymore. The US Army had sent us someplace no one had ever gone. And it was looking like the kind of place no one was ever coming back from either. Back then, we had no idea where we were. And by we, I mean all of us lowlies in the Ranger detachment tasked with defending the grounded C-17 and her complement of crew, Deep State, and science and tech personnel.

  I was attached to the detachment, which was part of a larger element known as Joint Task Force Tarantino.

  Also, I’ve never been to Kansas.

  It was just after 0300 when the enemy came through our defenses along the west side of the big island in the middle of a river in a lush green valley. I was down close to First Platoon’s command position, or CP, just before the whole line of First’s fighting positions and foxholes got hit. Corporal Brocker, whose machine-gun team’s position anchored the north end of the hundred-and-fifty-meter line of the platoon’s fighting pits, had the tactical forethought to launch an IR pop flare well out in front of the line and a few hundred feet high. The comically small parachute attached to what could be described as a road flare came down in slow motion out over the sluggish river and off into the dreary wetlands on the other side. This had the effect of bathing the entire scene in soft light invisible to the naked eye, but as strong as direct sunlight inside the dual-tube night vision devices we all had mounted on our helmets.

  Someone in our pit swore in the darkness. I think it was Tanner. Everyone else just hunkered there for a brief moment. Assessing the situation. Too stunned by what we were really seeing out there in the river and along the wetlands on the other side to react immediately.

  What were we seeing? Sometimes, after long hours of using night vision, NVGs, IR light can play tricks on your eyes. But not like this.

  Not. Even. Close.

  A real live orc horde was storming across the river bottom, making for our fighting pits along the shore. Coming straight for us.

  Why do I call them orcs, you ask? Because that’s exactly what they looked like to us. Our patrols had spotted them in the days leading up to the attack, and we’d even seen them on the ISR feeds being pushed from the Raven drones we’d sent out. Hairy, misshapen brutes in ancient Bronze Age armor carrying swords, wicked-looking axes, and feather-laden spears. Fangs and eyes that seemed alive with menace in the ghostly night-vision feeds.

  Now, along the river, in the shifting, almost supernatural glow of the falling IR pop flare, the orcs looked blue-black as they waved spears and swords, gave battle cries, and rushed for us. They looked to me like monsters. But a guy in our platoon—Kennedy—who knows about orcs and wizards, who loved all D&D and all that stuff, he said they were more like the orcs in Ralph Bakshi’s animated version of The Lord of the Rings than the ones in Peter Jackson’s mega-blockbuster epic. They moved fast and silent through the gentle river. If someone over in one of First Platoon’s forward observation posts hadn’t spotted them barely splashing as they entered the river, swords, scimitars, and spears ready to go… they would have been a lot closer before we opened fire on them. Things would’ve been much worse than they were about to get.

  The weapons squad leader had been busy improving the fighting position that consisted of a two-man pit and a defensive berm. He worked like a man possessed in the middle of the night, but that was Sergeant Kurtz. Rangers are highly motivated as a rule, but they don’t like to dig. Kurtz, the heavy weapons squad leader, didn’t care what anyone liked.

  Sergeant Kurtz swore at Private Watt for not spotting the orcs coming to kill us sooner. We were only running one active pair of NVGs to a fighting pit to conserve battery power. The Forge inside the C-17 back at the CP was busy cranking out as much ammo as it could gin up. Guys who understood the tech said we couldn’t use it to charge batteries at the same time. Go figure. It was made for the government.

  We expected to get hit hard and no one knew how long we’d be in a fight. The Forge had been on ammo crank since the captain made the decision that this horde… yeah, he used that word specifically, and yes, everyone—you could just about feel it in the TOC—thought the usage was a little…
grand. A little too geeky for the tactical operations center aboard the grounded C-17. Call it whatever, but this horde was coming right for us, no doubt about it. The captain had overridden the Baroness and the Deep State guy and demanded we switch our Forge over to ammunition production.

  They wanted to “parley.” The Baroness’s word.

  She’s a scientist, not an actual baroness. It’s just that the Rangers think she looks a lot like the villainess from the G.I. Joe cartoon they all grew up watching. The other guy, Deep State guy, who’s here as a “civilian adviser” actually said, “Slow down. Let’s just see what they want first before we start shooting at them.”

  The captain ignored both Deep State and the Baroness and ordered his detachment to dig in and prepare to repel.

  All of us who had boarded the C-17 were carrying a basic combat load of ammunition, plus some. And though I’d never been to war with the Rangers, nor combat at all, I was aware that every Ranger around me in the task force knew a basic combat load probably wasn’t gonna be enough to go properly medieval on what we were facing.

  “Never is enough,” said the only guy in the detachment with a beard. The only tabbed Ranger who is generally tolerant of my non-Ranger presence. Everyone calls him Thor, and not just because it’s what’s on his issue nametag. The man could probably go to Hollywood and get cast playing Thor’s double in one of those super hero movies. That is, if he weren’t here with us about to die in the big mystery that is this bizarre place of orc hordes storming the sandy beaches along the riverbanks in the night. Now Thor is looking through his scope at the approaching horde. As far as Rangers go, Thor’s one of their best snipers. And that’s really saying something in sniper world.

  One of Kurtz’s two-forty gunners opened up from their pit with tracers in the mix. A hot streak of 7.62 slammed into the forward line of the orcs coming across the water, cutting down a bunch of spear carriers at the front of the swelling mass. A tribal leader of some sort went down too. He had dangly teeth-necklaces and a big horned helm, and generally acted more elite than the rest of his command currently being ventilated by the two-forty’s traversing fire cutting across their front ranks. The light from the falling IR flare made the monsters suddenly, horribly, startlingly clear to everyone as the machine guns tore them to shreds right there in the middle of the river.

  Then as the flare fell over that first lot, we began to see really just how many orcs there were out there. There were hundreds, if not a thousand, coming straight at Bravo to our left. My mind didn’t want to accept a number like that. How could so many have moved swiftly and silently, en masse, right up on the elite fighting troops known as US Army Rangers?

  That’s pro. It requires a certain amount of cunning.

  That burst from the two-forty should have stopped their advance right there. Stopped ’em cold, in fact. Hajis in the third world who got caught like that out in the open would have scattered and ran. But. Big full-stop BUT here. These guys didn’t. All of a sudden, the rest of the swarming, snarling, bellowing pack of orcs forward of the main horde, which we didn’t quite see yet, surged at us, ululating horrible tribal war cries and waving their blackened scimitars as they came on.

  Horns. Tribal battle horns rang out, I kid you not. UROOOO UROOO UROOOOOOOOOOOooooooooo.

  That’s what it sounded like. I won’t lie. It was like the realest surreal thing that’s ever happened to me. Ever.

  All that didn’t stop anyone in First Platoon from continuing to unload into the face of an oncoming flood of nightmares straight out of a nightmare’s nightmare rushing right at them. These are Rangers, after all. The opportunity to inflict hyper violence upon a determined enemy was not one any of these men would pass up. Ever. The machine gunners timed their individual bursts and “talked” their guns along the platoon’s defensive line, answering the enemy’s battle horn calls with their own staccato of unrelenting fire to teach our attackers the error of their ways. Fanged teeth gnashed while claws still holding cruel black-steel swords were shot away. Outgoing rounds slammed into tattered leather armor and faded gray cloaks, dropping foul bodies into the waters of the slow-moving river or blowing open misshapen skulls in sudden bloody sprays. By the time the IR pop burned out in the sky we could see more orcs entering the water from the far side of the river. Slinking out of the wetlands in the thin silver moonlight. Pushing through the silhouettes of the reeds along the far bank like predators coming out for the late-night hunt.

  “Rico!” bellowed Second Squad’s Alpha Team Leader. “Shift fire to support Third Squad’s holes! Make ’em talk!”

  Specialist Rico, with the help of his assistant gunner, lifted the entire machine gun, tripod, and ammo bag, then settled it down reoriented on their new target.

  “Gun Two up,” Rico called back while landing the machine gun’s sighting laser into the flank of the orc element that was attempting to mass directly in front of Third Squad’s holes.

  “Engage!” was the sergeant’s only response.

  Before the word had fully left the NCO’s lips, Rico was pouring cyclic fire into the group pushing through the water towards Third Squad’s position.

  That should do it, I thought stupidly. Now the orcs were being hit by intersecting fire creating not only more death, but more confusion for the enemy as they tried to figure out which position was shooting at them.

  Spears launched at short range volleyed into Third Squad’s pits, but it was hard to see if anyone got hit. No one screamed, at least.

  A short burst from Specialist Rico, followed by a ka-thunk sound, signaled to all of us in the hole that Gun Two had just malfunctioned.

  “Gun Two down!” erupted like a bitter indictment out of Rico’s Copenhagen-filled lip.

  “Weak!” called out Tanner, who was already engaging with his MK18 carbine. Single fire. Good marksmanship. At the same moment Rico began to clear the malfunction, Sergeant Kurtz grabbed his M320 grenade launcher and began to fire into the mass of orcs now surging forward on Bravo.

  Specialist Brumm, the SAW gunner supporting our position, came up and called out to Sergeant Kurtz, “Switching to on!” Then he unloaded with the devastating squad automatic weapon in short, staccato bursts as he kept the barrel down and made sure the damage was as brutal as it sounded to my ears.

  I actually felt sorry for the orcs at that moment. Second and Third Squads were slaughtering them as they tried to cross the river. It was like, and this is a stupid thought I had in the middle of it all, but I think a lot, so excuse me, it was like the orcs didn’t realize they’d just stepped into a writhing pit full of deadly vipers and now they were getting taught a fatal lesson by the best in the business. To a Ranger assault platoon… what can I say? The ultimate truth is that they are the physical manifestation of the First Horse of the Apocalypse as far as the enemy should be concerned. Sure, there may be some resistance, but those efforts will ultimately prove futile.

  In hindsight, now that I’ve been afforded the time to think about it—I’m sure everyone else who survived thinks about it too—in that moment we should have been concerned. They were getting slaughtered. So why didn’t they break?

  Brumm, crouching behind the berm at our rear for a better angle, continued dumping fire into the dark mass of orcs off to the left in front of Third. Rounds tore through the monsters and created sudden silver plumes in the river currents.

  That was when Third Squad’s gunner, Corporal Brocker went black on ammo. That is to say, he used it all up and had nothing left with which to dissuade the orcs from continuing their onslaught. They were being overrun.

  The orcs were now halfway across the dark river and pushing for the bank where our first line of defense along the eastern side of the island was set up. An M240 Bravo fires roughly six hundred rounds per minute from hundred-round belts that can be linked belt to belt. Basically, you’ve got two thousand rounds. More than enough for a few seconds of combat
against insurgents in brush-fire conflicts.

  Except in those first few seconds we didn’t realize this horde attack was something more than that. It was something ancient. Something dating as far back as Marathon and on through history. Gettysburg. World War I. Everywhere men had been fated to die in droves and bleed out in anonymity.

  There were easily six hundred orcs in the water now. Probably more. Hard to say in the darkness and chaos of the sudden firefight. More still came out of the shadowy woods on the far side of the river.

  We had no mines in place yet.

  Space had been limited on the last flight out of Dodge. The Forge was supposed to pick up the slack once we were on the ground, wherever that happened to be. We’d only been here in the valley, wherever here was, for a little under three days.

  Granted, these were Rangers who’d fought in the Middle East, Venezuela, and a couple of hot spots in Latin America in recent years. But no one, and I guarantee you now as I write this, no one in that early morning, halfway to dawn darkness, had ever faced a mass wave attack similar to something straight out of the Chosin Reservoir during the First Korean War. That’s what we were facing .

  Except it was orcs instead of humans. On that we all agreed.

  It was Tanner who’d first said it during the ops briefing after the initial recon drone footage came in. Of course it was Tanner. For a Ranger, he was actually pretty funny. And friendly.

  Ever the low man on the totem in the detachment, the perpetually-serving-extra-duty PFC Kennedy counted Tanner as his only friend. Or at least the only Ranger who would talk to him. It was actually Kennedy who first said they were “probably orcs.” But it was Tanner who relayed that to the rest of us.

  So, orcs it was.

  “Get to work, Talker!” bellowed Sergeant Kurtz as the fight dialed up to desperate. Bellowing at me in the middle of the onslaught.

  He meant for me to join the fight. Which wasn’t why I was there. At least not until that moment.

  It’s true. I did have a rifle with me. And I had Ranger gear. Back at Fifty-One I’d been issued the RLCS kit. But a tricked-out MK18 and Ranger gear don’t make one a Ranger, as I’d told myself on more than one occasion. Yes, I’d done an abbreviated RASP just to get ready for this mission. Ranger Assessment and Selection Program. But the truth is, I’m just a linguist.