The Silent Soldier

Previously

…It was not a smile of amusement, but of grim satisfaction. "We will need all the help we can get, Sergeant Riley. The serpent is strong, and its coils are tightening." He gestured to the fire, to the rough shelter. "For now, you rest. Tomorrow, we will talk of how to make the serpent bleed." Riley nodded, a weary but determined resolve settling in his chest. The long walk through the wilderness had ended, not in the safety of allied lines, but in the heart of a different kind of war. And for the first time since the ambush, Sergeant Simon Riley felt a flicker of something akin to hope. The fight for his existence had just taken a new, and far more meaningful, turn.