A group of figures lay prone in snow deep enough to reach past their knees.
Their skin was purplish red, like cooked shrimp, and wisps of white vapor actually rose from their bodies in the bitter cold!
These "people" were gathered around the frozen carcasses of several plow oxen.
They lay directly on the iron-hard carcasses, tearing at ice-crusted raw meat with their teeth.
Crack.
One of them bit too hard and broke two front teeth, but he did not react. He kept chewing the raw beef, blood and broken teeth mingling in his mouth, while a beastlike growl rumbled in his throat.
Alex felt his stomach churn.
These were the "Ascended."
The legion Hector was so proud of.
[All units, attention.]
Alex worked through the battle plan in his mind, then issued his orders.
[Enemy numbers: two hundred thirty by the collapsed stable on the left; four hundred sixty beside the bonfire in the square; plus those buried in the snow, playing dead...]
Alex paused, his gaze sweeping over the snow-covered mounds.
[About a thousand.]
[A full thousand-man regiment. Brothers, looks like we're fighting twenty to one.]
[A thousand?] Berick's voice came over the channel, with no telling whether he was frightened or excited. [Those are some pretty steep odds, Captain.]
Alex ignored his quip and continued.
[Hans, attack head-on. Draw their attention.]
[Vance, cut off their retreat.]
[Berick, get the throwing team ready.]
[Everyone else, charge with me.]
Fifty knights tapped their horses' flanks at once. The Iserama warhorses beneath them snorted scalding white vapor, the pads on their hooves silently crushing the snow as they accelerated.
Inside the village.
An Ascended gnawing on an ox leg suddenly stopped.
His bloodshot, clouded eyes shifted, as though he had heard an unfamiliar sound amid the wind and snow.
Boom!