Just as he was quietly reiterating the key points of the mission to several Platoon Leaders, a squad of strangely dressed soldiers silently arrived at the assembly area where his unit was gathered.
There were around twenty of them. They wore the dark work uniforms common to engineers, but their equipment was highly unusual.
They carried no conventional weapons. Instead, working in pairs or groups of four, they bore long, tightly bundled objects on their shoulders and in their hands, wrapped securely in oilcloth and rope.
Those things looked immensely heavy and astonishingly long—perhaps two or three meters—with diameters not much smaller than a man's thigh. When carefully set down, they struck the ground with dull thuds.
Roderick examined them curiously. They looked like... enormously enlarged extra-long spears? Or perhaps components of some specially made battering ram? But there seemed to be no use for a battering ram here.
An engineer officer-looking man jogged over and spoke quietly with Roderick's superior for a few moments, then gestured toward Roderick. The order came down: Roderick's company had an additional mission tonight—to cover and assist this special engineer squad in reaching a designated location and protect them while they carried out some task.
"What the hell are they up to?" Roderick muttered inwardly, but immediately ordered his men to prepare.
A sharp, brief whistle, like the cry of a night owl, sounded behind the earthen wall—this was the signal to move out.
"Move!" Roderick said in a low voice, sweeping his hand forward. Nearly two hundred elite soldiers under his command flowed like a stream through the dark night, silently vaulting over the earthen wall and vanishing into the black wilderness ahead. The twenty engineers carried their "extra-long spears" and followed close behind under the soldiers' protection.
The wilderness at night was