By the time Dillon finally reached the high ground south of Pine Ridge Valley, an hour had already passed.
After smoking an entire cigarette, he still could not understand how the New Alliance had held out for a full hour against the assault of two thousand-man units with fewer than two hundred men.
What was even harder for him to believe was that they had not captured a single prisoner.
The New Alliance soldiers had resisted with extraordinary tenacity. Many times, their men had clearly rushed into the trenches, only to be driven back by a sudden burst of firepower like a final flash before death.
Those soldiers seemed to possess inexhaustible strength and courage. When they ran out of bullets, they fought with bayonets, rifle butts, entrenching shovels, even rocks picked up from the ground.
To kill a single New Alliance soldier, they often had to pay the price of five—or even more—casualties.
And that was while the enemy was nearly out of ammunition and supplies.
Prisoners were even more out of the question.
Those unyielding warriors always saved their last grenade for themselves, using a charge to burn through the final second of their lives—even when they could have thrown it at the enemy.
Even standing on the enemy's side, Dillon had to admit that those men were worthy opponents.
"We found a total of five hundred... I mean, two hundred and seventy bodies." Seeing the commander remain silent, the burly Bear Fang bent forward and spoke nervously.
It was not as though he had never considered exaggerating the number. In fact, that was an old tribal tradition. But Dillon had ordered every corpse dragged out and laid in the open, leaving him in an awkward position.
Dillon said nothing. He merely took out a matchbox and silently