The city of Riga lay in near-total darkness in the early hours of the 9th of September, due to fear.
Since the beginning of the war, since the first Black Legion aircraft had crossed over the Russian border, men had learned a simple lesson: light invited death. A lamp burning in a window, a lantern carried across a courtyard, a fire left too bright beside a trench—each of them could become a signal to the engines above. In the darkness of night, a city's lights were like bait set out for hunting birds.
And so Riga had gone dark.
Its streets lay mostly black beneath the pale wash of moonlight. Rooflines showed only as jagged silhouettes against the clouded sky. The towers and church spires stood like old bones above the sleeping city, while the river beyond them moved in silence, broad and black and steady, reflecting the broken gleam of the moon where the clouds allowed it.
Here and there, a few lights still lived.
A guarded lamp inside some command office too important to be left blind. A shaded lantern near a railway yard. The brief red glow of a cigarette cupped between trembling hands by a man too exhausted or too frightened to care.
But most of Riga slept in darkness, or tried to.
South of the Western Dvina river, beyond the city proper, the Russian defensive lines lay sunk into fields, tree belts, farm tracks, and black earth. They were not clean trenches, not like something drawn by an engineer with a ruler and confidence, but desperate works hammered into the land after weeks of retreat. Ditches had been deepened. Cellars reinforced. Farm walls broken down and rebuilt into firing positions. Wire had been dragged through mud. Guns had been hidden beneath branches and sodden cloth. Shallow dugouts huddled beneath the roots of trees.
The men inside them waited in the dark.
Some were regular soldiers of the Russian army, still wearing uniforms that had once meant something. Others were simply a part of the local militia, new recruits, local men, or exhausted remnants of broken formations. Displaced people's given rifles because there were never enough trained men anymore. Their clothing had little unity now—greatcoats, village coats, patched trousers, boots that did not match, caps pulled low, scarves wrapped around necks and faces against the wet cold.
They slept where they could.
Curled beneath blankets. Leaning against rifle stocks. Sitting upright in the mud with their heads bowed, mouths open, breathing heavily in the exhausted way of men who no longer expected comfort from the world. Others coughed in the dark, soft and wet and persistent. Some whispered prayers. Some sharpened bayonets with slow, nervous strokes. Others stared into the blackness between their line and the German one, waiting for movement they hoped not to see.
Nothing had happened for weeks.
Not truly.
There had been patrols, shots in the dark, distant shelling, aircraft passing high overhead when the weather allowed it, but no great assault. No black-armored monsters breaking through the trees. No tanks grinding across the fields. The German advance had slowed, then settled.
And because men were men, and because fear could not burn at full strength forever, some of the Russians had begun to believe the pause might last.
But the land remembered what had happened before.
Between the lines, the fields still held the signs of retreat.
Broken wheels, smashed limbers, abandoned crates, torn packs half-buried in mud, splintered rifle stocks, rusting pieces of metal. Artillery pieces left where horses had died trying to drag them free. The rains had washed away some things and revealed others. Boots protruded from ditches. A hand lay caught in grass where the rest of the body had vanished beneath soil and water. Uniform cloth fluttered from thorn bushes like dead flags.
And there were bodies still.
Some whole enough to be recognized as men. Others reduced by shellfire, rain, animals, and time into pieces that no longer belonged to names. The retreat had been made through mud and rain and panic, and not all those who fell had been collected.
This so called, no-man's-land had become a place for animals again.
Owls moved soundlessly over it. Foxes slipped through the wet grass. Rabbits froze beneath hedges, ears twitching, then vanished into holes when distant movement disturbed them. Deer stepped briefly into moonlight, ghost-pale and delicate, before melting back into the tree line.
And wolves came.
They moved lower than shadows, lean and patient, drawn by the smell of flesh. Their eyes caught the moon in brief glints as they nosed at the dead, tugging loose what the earth had not yet claimed. They growled over carcasses that had once been men of the Russian empire, now reduced to meat beneath the indifferent sky.
The Russians in the trenches heard them sometimes.
The soft snarling. The tearing of flesh. The sudden yelp when one beast fought another over some piece of the dead.
No one went out to stop them.
But unknown to the Russians, the land was not fully empty of human life.
In the middle distances, where the darkness lay thickest and the moonlight broke unevenly across ditch, hedge, and field, small shapes moved without sound.
Black Legion sniper teams crawled through no-man's-land in ghillie cloth and mud-dark camouflage, their bodies pressed so low to the earth that even the wolves would have seemed taller. They moved through ditches, long grass, hedgerows, and the shadowed edges of ruined farm tracks. They did not speak unless they had to. They did not waste movement. Their rifles were wrapped, their faces darkened, their optics shaded, their bodies made part of the land they crossed.
Elsewhere, motorcycle scouts had dismounted far behind the dead ground and pushed their machines by hand, wheels turning slowly through mud, engines silent. The riders wore dark gear under ragged coverings of grass and cloth, using the night not as cover alone, but as a weapon.
They had not come to begin the battle, but to prepare it.
A Russian officer who stepped too far from a dugout to smoke died before he heard the shot. The cigarette fell from his fingers and lay glowing in the mud until a panicked private dragged him back by the boots.
A sentry who stood upright too long against a pale section of trench board was struck through the throat and vanished backward into darkness.
A man who wandered toward a bush line to relieve himself gave a short, wet gasp and folded into the grass. His comrades heard the sound, called his name once, then twice, then stopped calling when a second shot snapped against the parapet beside them.
Sometimes the Germans fired.
Mostly they watched.
Coordinates passed softly through radios strapped against backs and hidden beneath camouflage cloth. Distances were measured. Gun pits marked. Telegraph lines traced. Dugouts counted. Searchlight housings noted. Artillery positions identified where wheel ruts, smoke stains, or careless movement betrayed them.
A church tower south of the river. A command post near the rail line. A cluster of field guns beneath canvas beside a ruined barn. A machine-gun nest covering the eastern road. A reserve trench hidden in the orchard.
One by one, the night gave up its secrets.
The Russians felt it before they understood it.
A silent tension moved through the forward trenches. Voices dropped. Heads lowered. Cigarettes were pinched out. Officers whispered for quiet and doubled the watch. But there was nothing to shoot at, no line to answer, no shape to blame.
There was only darkness, only the sounds of night, that eerie silence.
Then the sky broke it.
At first it was not quite sound, but pressure—a low weight passing through the clouds. Men lifted their heads. Somewhere a dog began barking, then stopped. Along the river, a sentry looked up and held his breath.
The pressure deepened.
Engines were heard.
Not the sharp wasp-buzz of scouts. Not the quick snarl of fighters. This was heavier, slower, broader—a layered growl rolling over the fields, the river, and the black roofs of Riga.
Then the clouds shifted.
Moonlight caught them.
Ten large shapes moved in from the west, their wings black against the pale cloud edges, their bodies appearing and vanishing as the broken sky swallowed them.
H-2 bombers.
To those below, they were shadows.
To those inside, they were iron coffins full of noise.
The lead bomber shook constantly beneath the labor of its engines. Metal vibrated. Canvas trembled. The cold came through every seam, carrying with it the stink of oil, fuel, leather, sweat, and machine heat. The interior offered little comfort and less space, and in the narrow troop compartment, men sat packed beneath the dull red glow of shielded lamps.
At the center of it, bent forward uncomfortably on a small metal seat never meant for a man of his size, sat Oskar.
He wore the black armor.
Not the lighter gear of the men around him. Not the reduced equipment chosen for a safer descent. The full black armor. Black plates locked over the immense frame of him, the surfaces dull beneath the cabin light, swallowing what little glow touched them. The red cape had been bound tight for the jump. The great sword rested secured along him, too large for the aircraft, too large for sense. The grenade launcher was fixed along his forearm. All of it, along with the impossible weight of the man himself added to the madness.
His skull-faced helmet rested in his hands, while across his front was the parachute pack.
On an ordinary man it would have looked large, reassuring. A heavy promise that gravity could be negotiated with.
On Oskar, it looked absurd.
Like someone had strapped a schoolboy's satchel to an iron idol and asked the heavens to be reasonable.
Captain Carter sat opposite him, and while he did not doubt Oskar, not anymore.
He had followed the prince too long, seen too much, survived too many impossible orders and impossible victories to indulge in the luxury of ordinary disbelief. Oskar could break brick walls with his hands, shrug off wounds that should have crippled lesser men, and stand at the center of artillery-shattered streets like something the war itself had failed to kill.
Carter did not doubt the man. He doubted the parachute.
That was the truth of it.
Loyalty did not kill worry. If anything, it sharpened it into something harder to ignore. To question Oskar openly was not something Carter did lightly anymore, especially not in front of the Third Company, but every time his eyes moved to that pack, to the straps, to the lines, to the impossible armored mass they were meant to bear, his jaw tightened beneath his mask.
Across the compartment, the men of the Third Company of the Eternal Guard waited in near silence.
They were elite soldiers, and more than that, Oskar's own. Their armor was heavy enough to matter but light enough to survive a landing. Their faces were covered, eyes hidden behind dark goggles, bodies wrapped in gear designed for night, impact, and close violence. Rifles rested between knees. Grenades were checked by touch. Knives sat where hands could find them in the dark.
One man tightened the straps on a backpack radio, then tapped the operator's shoulder twice.
Another checked a flare pistol.
The medic opened and closed his kit, confirming the contents for the third time.
A machine-gunner lifted his weapon slightly and gave a silent thumbs-up to the grenadier beside him, who tapped his grenade launcher in response and gave a nod.
The sniper seated across from them patted his rifle along the wrapped barrel, the gesture so fond and casual that the grenadier gave a low chuckle.
A few of the others answered with quiet amusement, the kind men allowed themselves before stepping into death.
Carter although just kept looking at the parachute.
Oskar noticed.
The skull helmet rested across his armored knees as he turned his head slightly, pale hair catching the weak red light. Beneath the calm, there was amusement in his expression. Almost warmth.
"Have some faith, Captain," Oskar said, his voice carrying easily even through the roar of engines. "God, or whatever force has been watching over me this far, has kept me alive through worse than this. I doubt it plans to abandon me over Riga."
Carter's eyes lifted.
For a moment, he said nothing.
Then he leaned forward slightly, voice raised enough to carry but controlled enough that no man could mistake it for panic.
"Your Highness, I do not mean to question you."
Oskar's smile widened a fraction.
Carter continued anyway.
"But are you certain about the drop?"
A few heads turned.
Not quickly. Not dramatically. But enough.
Because they had all thought it.
None doubted Oskar.
They simply had very little faith in the parachute attached to him.
Carter forced himself onward.
"With the armor, the sword, your launcher, the ammunition, and your natural weight, you are far beyond any normal load. If the canopy fails, if the lines snap, if you come in too fast—"
He stopped.
The rest did not need saying.
Oskar looked down at the helmet in his hands.
For a heartbeat, the only sound was the engines and the steady vibration of the aircraft around them.
Then he looked back at Carter.
"This is not the end," he said. "Only another step toward a better world."
The words were calm, almost gentle.
But they carried the strange weight his men had come to know—the certainty that made absurd things sound not merely possible, but already decided.
"Have faith, my man," Oskar said. "All will be well."
Carter held his gaze, then inclined his head.
"Yes, Your Highness."
From the cockpit, the pilot's voice crackled back through the speaking tube and headset line.
"One minute to drop."
The cabin changed.
No shout was needed.
The Third Company rose into motion.
Buckles clicked. Static lines and emergency releases were checked. Weapons were drawn tight against bodies. Men touched shoulders, straps, packs, pouches, confirming one another with small, efficient gestures.
When Oskar stood, the aircraft seemed smaller the moment he rose.
He lifted the skull-faced helmet and placed it over his head. The clasps locked one by one with dull metallic clicks, sealing the man inside the iron face. When he turned, the hollow sockets of the skull seemed to burn faintly with the icy blue of his eyes.
For a moment, every man in the bomber looked upon the thing the Russians would soon see, not a man or a prince, but judgment in dark iron, dropped from the sky.
Oskar's voice came deeper through the helmet.
"Remember your mission."
The men stilled.
"I will land first and hit the castle hard. I am the sword and the shield. You are not here to protect me from danger. You are here to support the blow."
He looked down the line.
"You secure my back. You prevent me from being surrounded. You take the positions that matter. If you land badly, survive. If you land far from the castle, move toward the river. If you cannot reach the bridge, take whatever position is nearest and make it useful."
His gaze passed from man to man.
"A telegraph office. A crossroads. A police station. A church tower. A roofline overlooking the approach. A rail signal box. Anything that matters."
A pause.
"Hold it until our army arrives."
No one spoke, because no one needed to.
The pilot's voice came again, louder now, nearly swallowed by the engines.
"Thirty seconds!"
Oskar turned toward the center of the aircraft.
"Once we hit the ground, Riga must not understand what is happening until it is already too late. We move fast, strike hard, and show no hesitation. Anyone not of our own who holds a weapon is to be killed immediately. No prisoners. No delays."
He reached for the overhead grip as the bomber lurched in a patch of rough air.
"Riga Castle is the heart. The bridge is the throat. Communications are the nerves. Cut them all."
The men answered at last.
Fists struck chests in near-perfect unison.
The sound was dull beneath the roar of engines.
Then the pilot shouted, "Doors opening!"
Metal groaned.
The bomb bay doors split apart beneath them.
Cold night slammed upward into the aircraft like a living thing.
Straps snapped in the wind. Cloth thrashed. The engine roar became enormous, suddenly joined by the howl of open air rushing past the belly of the bomber. The red lamp flickered. Moonlight poured up through the opening in broken silver.
Far below, Riga opened beneath them.
The Western Dvina river lay black and wide, cutting through the darkness like a wound. The city clustered around it in roofs, towers, streets, and shadow. The pale mass of Riga Castle showed beside the river, old stone faintly visible under the moon. Near it, the bridge lay across the water like a blade.
A few tiny lights moved there.
The city did not know what was coming, not yet.
Oskar stepped toward the opening.
Wind pulled at his cape bindings and hissed across the armor. For one heartbeat, he stood on the edge with the night beneath him, skull face angled toward the city below.
"All right," he said. "This is it."
He glanced back once.
"Follow me."
Carter struck his fist to his chest.
The rest of the Third Company did the same.
Then Oskar jumped.
For an instant, the lead bomber seemed to exhale him into the dark.
The black armored figure dropped away beneath the aircraft, red cape bindings snapping, limbs tight, sword and armor gleaming once in moonlight before the night swallowed him.
Then Carter followed.
Then the others.
One by one, dark shapes fell from the bellies of the ten bombers, vanishing into the cold air above Riga.
And far below them, Riga Castle lay silent beside the river, utterly unaware of what was about to fall upon it.