The Empire of Reimia (3)

The unsettling return of Marey and Berwang sowed seeds of chaos and confusion among the soldiers of Major Neils' battalion: the relatively calm and uneventful period of waiting was coming to an end, and the imperial warriors gathered in Illit would soon have to engage in battle. First Lieutenant Parfynora von Flexia's company was sent to the same location as the scouts before them, with the goal of eliminating the enemy previously discovered, but by the time they arrived, no traces of anyone's presence were found. Despite this, the expedition was not without results: one of the squads managed to find, and then capture, a half-dead and frostbitten Latro, who had fallen from the slope into a snowdrift. He was taken to the infirmary, but this chain of events did not end there: an earthquake that occurred in the middle of the night forced everyone who was already asleep to wake up. The tremors lasted for a couple of minutes and occurred every five to ten minutes, each time growing stronger. Major Neils decided to evacuate the civilians, and then the equipment and military personnel, away from the city, and this turned out to be the right decision: a few hours later, as a result of the earthquakes, Illit was destroyed. Half an hour later, the fleeing were caught by Darkirian soldiers, who attacked them at the most inconvenient moment, even before the Rhemians had time to organize themselves after what had happened, as if they had known about the earthquake in advance. The enemy mercilessly pounded them with artillery, making no distinction between military personnel, the sick, and civilians. At this moment, Parfynora's company faced several tasks:
1. Eliminate or suppress the artillery fire.
2. Protect the civilians.
3. Protect the sick.
4. Assist the main forces of the battalion.
5. Break through the encirclement. For each task, one squad had to be assigned, with #1 being the most dangerous, while #2 and #3 were the safest. "Victory" will be achieved by completing task #5, and its failure means the complete annihilation of this battalion.