The ash had barely stopped falling when Major Bruno von Hohenzollern began the descent.
The Hyblaean peaks behind him glowed faintly in the dying light, their crags lit orange by the thermobaric pillars still rising across northern Sicily.
Ahead, the valleys filled with smoke, shattered earth, and smouldering embers from the hellfire that had descended upon Sicily just moments before.
His boots crunched over loose stone and brittle shrubs. Behind him, his 120 men moved in practiced silence, light, fluid, and deadly.
The Gebirgsjäger did not march; they flowed, scaling slopes and drifting from cover to cover with a grace that belied their rifles and rocket launchers.
"Eyes sharp," Bruno murmured into the hand mic clipped to his shoulder. "Stragglers will be desperate. Cornered animals bite hardest."
A dozen quiet affirmations clicked back over the wire.
