Dust drifted out through the doorway.
Only a few paces down the hall, eight guards held their ground in two lines, four in front and four behind, bayonets fixed, rifle stocks tight against their shoulders. Behind them stood Kallionen, blood still on his face, shouting for more men to form up in the northwestern circular tower room at their rear. The corridor had become a bottleneck of stone, smoke, and nerves. Every man in it knew that whatever came through that doorway would come straight at them.
Then they heard it.
Heavy metallic footfalls.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Each step thudded through the stone floor like a hammer blow.
For a heartbeat, the men saw nothing but dust and shadow. Then, through the drifting smoke, two cold blue eyes appeared, level and emotionless, looking straight at them from inside a skull-faced helm. A black armored boot came through the haze. Then the full figure followed, huge and broad in the doorway, black steel dusted white by shattered masonry. In his hands was that monstrous sword, nearly as wide as a man's torso, its point striking the floor with a hard clang before scraping forward over the stone as he brought it up like a moving shield and began to charge.
Kallionen peered over the shoulders of the front rank and bellowed, "Well, what are you waiting for? Shoot him! Shoot him now, you idiots!"
The men flinched as one, then roared and fired.
The corridor exploded with muzzle flashes.
Every shot hit.
Rounds slammed into Oskar's raised sword and hammered into his armor, throwing sparks from black steel, scraping the blade, denting plates, but not stopping him. He kept coming. The sword ground over the stone with a savage metallic scream.
"Reload! Reload!" someone shouted.
Hands shook. Bolts snapped back. Cartridges were rammed home in panic. The front rank barely got their rifles up in time before the second volley cracked out. Again the bullets struck true. Again they bounced, sparking from the sword, glancing from the armor, biting only enough to chip, scrape, and enrage.
Oskar closed the distance anyway.
He was almost on them.
That was when one of the front-rank guards broke.
Not backward.
Forward.
With a scream of pure terror and fury, he surged to his feet and lunged bayonet-first, charging down the last few steps as the others fumbled with their bolts.
He made it three strides.
Oskar lifted the great sword to his right. The upper edge smashed against the arched ceiling, showering stone dust and chips over both men, and then he brought it down.
Not the edge.
The flat.
Nearly a hundred kilograms of steel crashed into the charging guard before the bayonet could touch him. The blow folded the man into the floor. Bone snapped. The rifle splintered in his hands. The sword smashed down with him and struck the stone hard enough to jar dust from the walls.
Then Oskar was among them.
The line broke at once.
Men who had held under the first rush of terror lost all discipline the moment he entered their formation. Some tried to ram bayonets into the joints of his armor. Some tried to club him with rifle stocks. Some simply screamed and threw themselves at him in blind fury.
It made no difference.
Oskar moved through them like a black iron beast.
An armored fist smashed into one guard's face and sent teeth, bone, and blood spraying across the corridor wall. The sword swung back the other way, not slicing but smashing, and a man's upper body burst open under the impact before being hurled into the side of the hall. Another guard tried to thrust upward with his bayonet; Oskar struck him across the jaw with the pommel and turned his head almost all the way around.
The corridor filled with chaos.
The sword crashed into walls, tore chunks from stone, and came back red. Bodies slammed into each other. Men fell underfoot. One was seized and thrown so hard that he flew past Kallionen and smashed into the doorway leading into the northwestern tower room. He hit the frame shoulder-first, bounced off it, and crashed into the forming second line inside, knocking two more men to the ground with him.
Kallionen recoiled just in time to avoid the body.
Seeing the first line collapse, he turned and ran into the circular tower room, retreating behind the new rank of soldiers who were only just getting themselves into position. He pointed back toward the corridor, voice breaking with fury and fear.
"Fire!" he roared. "Fire! Fire!"
And then the second line opened fire.
The circular tower room erupted with muzzle flashes. Bullets tore into the dust and smoke still rolling through the doorway. Men shouted over one another. Some screamed in rage, others in fear, and others because they had already been hit by ricochets and flying splinters as rounds smashed into stone, wood, and armor alike.
For a second, all Kallionen could see was smoke, sparks, and bodies jerking in the confusion.
Then something black came spinning out of the haze.
Oskar's sword.
It flew not like a weapon thrown in desperation, but like a slab of iron hurled by a siege engine. The gore-slick blade spun once in the candlelight and slammed into the kneeling guard at the center of the front line. The impact split him almost in half and drove the blade straight on through the standing man behind him. Both bodies jerked violently, pinned together for a heartbeat by sheer force before collapsing in a wet ruin. Blood sprayed across the floor, the wall, and the faces of the men beside them.
The line wavered.
Two more soldiers stumbled over the falling bodies. One slipped in blood and crashed to the floor. Another tripped backward into the men behind him just as Oskar came through the doorway.
He did not enter like a man.
He came through like a battering ram.
Black armor smashed through the drifting smoke and slammed into the room with the force of a charging bull. Guns went off at point-blank range. One rifle discharged into a comrade's shoulder. Another fired so close to Oskar's cuirass that sparks sprayed back into the shooter's face.
Then Oskar went low.
He planted one hand, twisted, and swept a leg around in a full brutal arc.
The kick took the entire front rank at the knees.
There was a crackling chorus of snapped bones and torn joints. Men were lifted off their feet as if the floor itself had struck them. They went airborne in one broken wave, rifles spinning free, bodies folding unnaturally before crashing back down in a heap of shattered legs, torn trousers, and animal screams.
Oskar rose with them still falling.
One soldier tried to crawl away.
Oskar kicked him in the midsection.
The blow sent him flying across the room like a wet rag. He struck the wall hard enough to burst something inside him, then slid down leaving a dark smear and did not move again.
Another man, still on his back, raised his rifle across his chest as if it might save him.
Oskar stepped on his head.
Bone and brain burst outward beneath the armored boot. The man's body convulsed once and went limp.
A third guard managed to stand.
He had just enough time to bring his bayonet up before Oskar's straight kick hit him square in the chest, like the impact of a speeding motorcar. The soldier flew backward and struck the stone wall with a sound like green wood breaking. He folded there and slid down, coughing blood.
Another lunged from the side with a desperate cry, driving his bayonet toward the gaps beneath Oskar's arm.
Oskar caught him by the throat before the blade could bite deep.
Then he used him.
He swung the man in a wide arc, one-handed, like a flail made of flesh and uniform. The screaming body smashed into two other soldiers and knocked them off their feet. Oskar swung him back the other way, breaking another man's nose and jaw in a spray of red, then hurled him upward.
The soldier struck the ceiling with a sickening crunch, bounced once, and came apart on the way down. Flesh, bone, and blood rained across the room.
Kallionen threw himself aside as fragments struck the floor around him.
A shard of bone clipped his sleeve. Blood splashed across his cheek. He barely felt it.
The room had become a butcher's shed.
Furniture was shattered. Rifles lay broken under boots and bodies. Men crawled, screamed, or twitched on the floor while Oskar stood at the center of it all, black armor white with dust and red with blood, breathing like some great beast from a northern forest.
Kallionen's gaze dropped.
A rifle lay at his feet.
He snatched it up, rammed a round into the chamber with shaking hands, and backed away, boots slipping on blood and splintered wood. His breath came raggedly. His scarred eye twitched so hard he could barely see straight, but he forced the sight onto the center of that skull-faced helm.
Oskar had just bent to retrieve his sword.
Kallionen fired.
The shot cracked through the ruined room.
The bullet struck the side of Oskar's helmet and glanced off in a burst of sparks, ricocheting into the ceiling. The Iron Prince's head jerked slightly with the impact.
Then he turned.
The room fell silent.
Not truly silent—men were still moaning on the floor, fire still crackled in the wreckage, dust still hissed softly from broken stone—but silent enough that Kallionen could hear his own breathing.
Oskar picked up his sword.
The great blade came free from the floor slick with blood, and he turned fully toward Kallionen.
For the first time since the tower battle began, Kallionen's soldier's composure broke.
He stepped backward.
Once.
Twice.
His back hit the wall.
There was nowhere left to go.
Oskar came at him.
Not fast at first.
Just one long step, then another, black sword lifting high over one shoulder. The blade looked impossibly large inside the ruined circular room, a slab of iron raised for slaughter.
Kallionen stared up at it.
He had no room to dodge, no time to reload, no second weapon, no clever answer. His legs gave way before his courage did, and he dropped onto his backside against the wall just as Oskar brought the sword down.
The strike hit the wall instead of his skull.
Stone exploded.
The blade punched into the old masonry beside Kallionen's head and carved downward, stopping only a hand's breadth from his face. Dust blasted into his eyes. Chips of stone tore across his cheek.
For one frozen instant, both men stared.
Oskar's eyes widened inside the skull helm.
So did Kallionen's.
The rifle was still in his hands.
Instinct moved him.
With a raw yell, he thrust upward from the floor, driving the bayonet forward with all the strength he had left. The point shot toward the narrow gap between helmet and gorget.
It struck.
Steel met flesh.
The blade punched into Oskar's neck.
Not deep. Not enough. A few centimeters at most.
But it went in.
Oskar's body locked for a fraction of a second. Blood welled dark at the wound. Yet somehow the bayonet stopped there, held back by sheer resistance—by iron plating, by dense muscle, by the monstrous thickness of the man's neck itself.
Kallionen felt it.
Felt the weapon sink and then halt as if he had stabbed into some living oak root wrapped in steel.
Oskar looked down at the blade in him.
Then rage consumed his face.
He seized the rifle barrel in one gauntleted hand and shoved it aside. Kallionen lost his grip. The weapon flew from his hands.
Oskar roared.
The sound filled the chamber like a wounded animal and a furnace blast in one.
Then he lunged.
He slammed into Kallionen chest-first.
The impact drove the colonel backward into the old tower wall with enough force to make the stone groan. For years the masonry had stood with cracks hidden beneath plaster, its maintenance neglected, its strength trusted because it had always been there.
Now it failed.
The wall burst outward.
Stone, mortar, dust, and both men exploded through it into open air.
They fell several meters into the inner courtyard below.
Kallionen had time only for one strangled cry before Oskar's weight came down on him.
They hit the ground hard enough to shake the courtyard.
Kallionen vanished beneath armor, stone, and sheer mass. Blood burst from him in a wet eruption as ribs, spine, and organs were crushed together in an instant. The broken wall above rained down after them, adding stone to the ruin of his body.
A second later came the clang of falling metal.
The great sword, jarred loose from the wall above, spun down and struck the courtyard stones beside them.
Then stillness.
Dust rolled outward across the grass and broken paving. Chunks of masonry settled. Somewhere above, men shouted in panic at the gaping hole torn through the tower wall.
In the middle of the debris lay Oskar.
He was on his side at first, half-buried in broken stone, black armor dented and smeared with blood. The wound in his neck bled freely, dark and thick down across the gorget and breastplate. His chest rose and fell hard. For a moment he did not move.
Then one gauntleted hand pressed into the grass.
Slowly, amid dust and rubble and the crushed remains of Colonel Arvid Mikhailovich Kallionen beneath him, Oskar began to rise.