Dathan Herulus describes a Tamarian counterattack on Dead Hand Ridge.

    I'd learned to tell the distance from a rocket impact to my position by counting the elapsed time between the infernal scream of its launch and the low thunder that rumbled beneath my tired and swollen feet. This time I'd forgotten to count and I could feel the strange solace of warmth sweep across my face--the caress of death seeming sweet to me as I longed for its final, cold comfort. Something struck me on the cheek, and thinking I'd been hit by a scrap of hot enamel, I wiped my windburned face with a numb finger and found a lump of burning flesh instead.

    It belonged to someone else.

    Shouts and the sound of random firing reached my ears from our left flank. Two more explosions followed, each one closer and more terrifying, and after these came the rapid-fire hiss of many, small rocket motors igniting.

    The shadowy forms of running men appeared in the wind-driven snow, expressions of panic painted across their faces--the lines of dread blending with a myriad of cracks, broken blood vessels and flesh chapped raw by the cold. When the enemy rockets impacted, they riddled many bodies with scrap from behind, and those men unlucky enough not to die quickly fell to the snow-swept, rocky soil and waited in agony for their lives to end.

    Others, who were not hit, fled blindly onward, some of them dropping muskets, munitions and powder in order to flee faster. The shock of seeing my own men in retreat filled me with a kind of panic I'd not known since I'd first taken command in Shirak. Curses flowed from my lips with an eloquence that bordered on the poetic, and with the help of Sergeant Hanibal's threats, roughly twenty of my remaining troops rallied to defend our position.

    This time, however, we never got the chance to fire a single musket round. The enemy infantry, rather than attacking us, wheeled eastward and slammed into a reserve unit protecting a cache of cannon powder. Several minutes later, after an exchange of ordnance that sounded extremely intense, a spectacular eruption of fire and billowing smoke announced a Tamarian success.

    I should have ordered a supporting attack and pinned the enemy against our bigger guns, but truthfully, my feet were so badly bloated I could barely walk and many of my men were in even worse condition. After eight days of heavy fighting, we were exhausted, interminably cold and exceedingly hungry.

    I'd not seen Sergeant Vitus in two days. Desertions were rapidly outnumbering battlefield losses, but I couldn't imagine how anyone was able to survive the unholy cold or escape from the long arm of starvation. I figured that those who managed to avoid our patrol pickets and subsequent firing squads would quickly succumb to the ravages of winter, or become prey for roaming deathwolves.

    Legate Braegan promised me that blankets were on the way, but I didn't believe him. As the morning tally of deaths from exposure climbed, the only thing I could do to help my troops was to divide clothing from the dead among the living. This grim task took on a morbid sense of expectation for those who survived until daybreak. Sometimes the men quarreled over who would get what, and I'd broken up at least three fights in as many days. Our desperate condition dulled all civilized polish, until the macabre ritual of dividing a dead man’s possessions became disproportionally important in maintaining morale.

    From a distance of twelve hundred yards, the fortress at Dead Hand Ridge peered over its desolate peak with menacing angularity. I'd never seen a thing as ugly, and in my time as an officer, could not recall a defense more fanatical. No fortress had ever more demanding of blood than this one.

The Weak Link