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As you lumber towards the trees, another shot echoes across the mountains. Almost immediately you feel something sharp, like a hot razor, cut across your thigh: lose 3 ENDURANCE points.
The pain makes you flinch, but you dare not stop for fear of being picked off by the sniper. You reach the trees and throw yourself down behind a thick pine, breathless with the sheer exertion of your ordeal. As you lie there, nursing your wounded leg and fighting to control the nausea that rises in waves, Marine Knott crawls to your side and tugs at your sleeve.
‘We stand a better chance if we can get deeper into the forest,’ he says, his voice betraying the fear that is gnawing at his insides like a voracious rat. You blink your approval and struggle to follow him as he crawls across the tinder-dry bed of pine needles and sickly brown vegetation that covers the tall trees’ roots.