Purgatory's Shore (Artillerymen # 1)

by Taylor Anderson

“Good God!” cried Coryon Burton, standing in his stirrups to see more clearly even before his horse came to a stop. His outburst drew their attention back to the center of the field, where the three reserve enemy regiments had been advancing very slowly in spite of the galling barrages still coming from land and sea. The retreating forces, chivvied and wrangled into something like the formations they’d begun the day with, had seemed almost hesitant, marching slower as they approached their countrymen. The sight subconsciously stirred an odd sense of foreboding in Lewis, as well as a dreadful memory from his childhood: A scraggly stray dog started hanging around the house, and his father only fed it once that Lewis knew of (he’d done it after that), but the old man named it and it became utterly devoted to him. Unfortunately, rough play or mere instinct caused it to injure one of the old man’s beloved guinea fowl, and he savagely beat the animal with a limb. When the yelping, terrified dog retreated, he called it back. To Lewis’s dismay, it returned, head down, tail between its legs, uncertain and afraid but still devoted. His father proceeded to beat it to death. He’d never admired his father—he’d had his share of senselessly brutal beatings too—but the sickness and horror of that particular act stuck with him more than almost anything else from his childhood. The hideous abuse of trust perhaps most of all. Now he saw it again on an unimaginable scale, out on the battlefie...