I couldn't tear my eyes away from the grisly scene beside me. One of the elite soldiers escorting us to safety now lay crumpled in a rapidly spreading pool of his own blood and...other vitals I didn't want to scrutinize too closely.
The young man's death mask was frozen in an expression of shock and agony, mere inches from where Sienna and I huddled amid the raging battlefield. She met my gaze with naked horror reflecting in her widened pale eyes, clearly as shaken by the casualty's abrupt demise unfolding right next to us.
All around, the cacophony of pitched combat swelled into an unrelenting crescendo. Gunfire ripped back and forth in deafening strings of staccato roars that made my ears ring. Explosive concussions from underbarrel launchers or frag grenades periodically drowned out
