Snow-tal War: Part 1

The Cold War Heats Up
by Ross Butterly

"Do you see anything?" came the muffled whisper of my squaddie, Josh, over my shoulder.

No, I didn't. If it had been difficult to discern any movement through the endless fields of white ten minutes ago, before this latest blinding snowfall, it was nigh-impossible now... which was why I didn't see the snowball coming until it got acquainted with Josh's face.

He fell backwards with a cry of surprise and a faceful of snow. Ducking behind our impromptu wall, the two of us hugged our cover and watched a wave of snowballs fly over our heads. Josh spluttered with indignation, wiping his face down, and peeked over the wall with a sneer. "Where the bloody hell did that come from?"

"Get back to me when you can see through this blizzard," came my equally irritable retort. I kept low, scooping up a ball of my own and packing it down in my gloved hands, then tossed it blind over our low snow wall. A dull thud and shout of angered surprise told me I'd landed a hit.

"Do we run for it?" Josh asked off-hand, hurling his second retaliatory snowball. The shots of our unseen foes landed around us, occasionally thudding against our rather feeble excuse for cover.

"Can't fight what we can't bloody see," I answered, hazarding a glance over the wall. Through the veils of falling snow I glimpsed them; half a dozen swift grey figures across the field, their low voices of command and acknowledgement upon the air. With those kind of numbers against just the two of us, we were soon to be flanked and overrun.

Just the stories of what these damned Raptors did to their prisoners told me not to let that happen.

"No way we can hold this," I muttered, my grudging reluctance clear in my tone. "Pack it up and let's get out of here."

"Amen to that," Josh responded. Quickly hurling his last snowball in defeat, he grabbed his bag and turned with me; and under the cover of the thickening snowfall, we crouched low and made a run for it across the field, leaving our attackers to claim our weak defence. The Raptors had won this skirmish quite easily with an admittedly well-coordinated surprise attack under the cover of a veritable blizzard. No way we could've been ready for it, and they knew it; but when we returned to retake what was ours, it would be with numbers and force beyond their reckoning.

Year after year, we had waged these winter wars over Christmas, and year after year we had held this field without fail. I would give myself up personally before I saw it kept by the Raptors at December's end.