I AM Kaelor Thane: The God Of War

Through the Enemies Scope

Thanes POV

After Lysander was shot, the world narrowed to a single, hot point of sound and motion. He slumped to the dusty ground, blood spreading like a dark stain across the uniform I had given him. For a second I could not breathe. This was the moment I had trained against, the thing I had sworn would never happen while I lived—but it did. Sahil Riyas had been waiting. He had laid an ambush and camouflaged his men. He had chosen his angle and pulled his trigger with cold, practiced hands.

Take cover!I barked. My voice cut the silence like a blade. The remaining fifteen soldiers scattered, diving behind rocks, cracked walls, anything that offered shelter. I saw faces go pale, then harden. Soldiers who had stood like statues with me in hundreds of operations now moved like hunted animals. That was fine—fight like animals if you must, but survive.

Return fire!I ordered, scanning the rubble for movement. The warzone was a painting of ruins—burnt cars, collapsed roofs, and empty windows like dark teeth. Dust hung in the air, kicked up by running boots. Somewhere, a childs toy was half buried under a slab, a silent accusation.

General—snipers on the ridge!Tarun shouted, voice tense. He pointed. I turned my head and saw a black dot above the skyline, almost invisible against the grey. Sahil had taken the high ground.

Cannot get a clear shot!Taylor yelled, already setting up his rifle. Hes got cover. Two clicks north-east!

Watch the alley!Wales warned. Theyre flanking from the south!

Bullets began to hammer the ground around us like a savage storm. I dove behind a half-collapsed wall with three men. The impact of rounds against stone threw up powder and pebbles. I tasted metal and dust. Lysanders blood soaked into the earth at my boots.

Medic!someone screamed. But there was little a medic could do with a chest wound and no time. I crawled over to Lysander, cradled his head. His eyes fluttered like a birds. He tried to speak, but only a wet sound came forth. I wanted to yank him to safety, to carry him back to the SUVs, to hold him while we bled this hole out of him. But orders, the fight, the snipers—everything demanded I act.

Move him!I snapped, handing him to two men. They hoisted him and dragged him behind a concrete slab. I saw the life leave Lysander as they laid him down. The medic felt for a pulse that thinned and then stopped. He closed Lysanders eyes gently, as if that small human courtesy could slow the chaos.

No!I roared. The word tore from me. No! Bring him back!

Hes gone, General,the medic said quietly. His voice was steady; no one wanted to give me false hope.

Silence knifed me. The men around me breathed like machines, sharp and shallow. Lysanders body lay like a broken thing among the rocks. I had failed him. The old anger, the old hurt that had made me hard, flared into a red furnace of grief and fury. I poured that hatred into the name: Sahil Riyas.

This ends now Sahil,I said, low and cold. I felt the others waiting for the command that would either save us or destroy more people. Pinpoint the shooter. I want eyes on Sahil. I want him found.

Lysanders tracker lay in his pocket—his lifes work. I fumbled it out, fingers slick with blood and grit, and slapped it onto my palm. The device blinked, giving a wavering signal. He had been trying to track Sahil until his last breath. The machine showed a bearing: the ridge, the black dot. Sahil was not just a name anymore. He was the man who had taken something I'll never get back.

They took two more!someone cried, voice raw. I watched as two bodies slid off a ledge where theyd been caught mid-run—Tarun and Wales. Their uniforms were already dark with blood. One of them had his face turned toward me, eyes wide and stunned. The others hand twitched uselessly on the dust. I had given them a life of purpose; I had sent them into this. Now they were gone, and I was the one who had ordered them forward.

Hold your fire!I yelled through the din. Do not give them positions. Use the rocks. Move in small teams. Take a silent approach. We will flank the ridge.My mind moved faster than the chaos allowed—coordination, angles, recoil, trajectories. We were soldiers; we fought and we died and we did not let fear decide the battle.

We formed into three squads. I led the first, crawling low, every of my movements calculated and slow .The others followed, breathing shallow, hands steady on cold metal. We used the ruins like teeth.

 Bullets screamed over our heads. We lost two more men to a volley from a blind corner. Each loss punched the air out of me. I screamed like an animal then, not to warn, but because the sound needed release.

We closed in on the ridge. The slope was steep and littered with the detritus of a city at war—shards of glass, broken bottles, a child's book with half its pages gone. I checked my sight and saw a flash by the high window—Sahils men moving in the light. We counted heartbeats, then exploded into action.

Suppressing fire!I barked.

Rifles barked back. Smoke crawled and wrapped around our ankles. One of Sahils men tried to run—but a round met him in the thigh and he fell, howling. We pushed forward, each of my steps with power and authority. I saw Sahil then, clearer than before: part of his men I thought , crouched behind a cement block, a sniper rifle resting against his shoulder. He had a scarf wrapped around his face and a hat pulled low. His eyes, dark and cold, met mine across the distance.

For a moment time froze. The world reduced to him and me. I could see the way his finger flexed on the trigger. I could see the small mechanical movements a marksman gives away. He was precise, experienced—the kind of man who had practiced killing in the mirror.

Thane!someone shouted. Hes the shooter!

I raised my rifle without thinking—old habit, pure reflex—and fired. The shot cracked. The bullet whined, cutting the space between us, but Sahil was faster. He rolled, used the block as shield, and returned fire with a calmness that made my teeth ache. His second shot rang true.

Pain exploded in my left shoulder white-hot brand. The world lurched. I grunted and stumbled, fingers numbed. Blood warmed my sleeve. I swallowed and kept my sight on Sahil. He was standing now, pulling the bolt on his rifle, reloading as if this moment were nothing more than practice.

You bastard!I shouted, voice hoarse. I fired again, then again, but each shot was wild—my strength leaking away with every drop of red spreading across my chest. Men fell and scrambled around me. Someone grabbed my arm, tried to steady me. I pushed them off.

Dont pull me back! Ill take him!I spat.

Sahils laugh was thin. It felt obscene. Thane,he called out, once. You always were dramatic.

The insult crawled into me, but I had no breath for hate. My sight narrowed; sounds dimmed. I had to move—close the distance or die. I chose movement. I rose, forcing legs that wanted to fold to do my will. The world tilted like a boat in a storm. My second shot had grazed his shoulder; I saw blood bloom on his sleeve. He stumbled, but recovered quickly, like a snake shedding skin.

You wont live to see justice,I breathed. I took a step, then another, and raised my rifle as if to end it here.

Sahils face had been exposed now, the scarf shifted. He had a boys face—too young for the carnage he sowed. The resemblance hit me like another blow. Something in me broke and then tightened—it was grief that fed into fury.

He smiled in that split second, a terrible, small smile. Then he fired.

The shot hit me in the torso. Fire lanced through my ribs. The world exploded into white noise and came apart. My knees gave. Pain carved a canyon across my vision. I fell, and the ground rushed up to meet me like cold, hungry teeth. My last clear thought before the world dissolved into dark was the look on Sahils face—calm, tender—as if he had done me a favor.

I felt hands beneath me then—someone pulling—but the edges of everything were blurred. Blood salted my mouth. I could not tell if I had shouted or if it was only the wind. I tasted dust and iron and something old—regret, maybe, or the memory of my family burning.

General!a voice screamed in t

he distance, far away, like a bell through fog.

And then I collapsed….