Faceless, metallic beasts, with masks drawn low over the eyes. The sorts of foes that you were half-convinced did not even contain a real man inside the armour, but rather some skeletal creature, some product of Pandora that ought not to have been.
The Sergeants were shouting, then the Captains were shouting along with them, making the micro-adjustments they needed to, in order to tighten their lines, and conform to the terrain as best they could, so they might repel the men in front of them.
Some of those soldiers had the unfortunate position of standing on the parts of the hill where grass gave way to steeper rock. Their footing was the worst of it, for the snow that had melted there, and the ice that had formed, so deceptively covered by a thin layer of white powder. They had to quickly dig out and recognize those little natural landmines, lest they cost them the strength of their defence, once they received the charge.
