"Urgent news from the front."
The words cut through Salacgrīva's town square like a blade drawn across bone.
Oskar stopped chewing on his food.
Around him, the machinery of conquest was already beginning to move. A ballot box had been placed near the town hall steps. The names of candidates were being gathered. Red Turban clerks stood ready with paper, ink, and registration lists. Townspeople murmured in nervous clusters, still unsure whether they were witnessing liberation, occupation, miracle, madness, or all four at once.
A moment earlier, Oskar had been watching them prepare to taste democracy. Now his eyes moved to Captain Carter.
He did not ask the question aloud. He only raised one pale eyebrow.
Carter understood.
The captain stood at the foot of the steps in black armor streaked with mud and rainwater, backpack radio still strapped to his back, one hand holding a small field notebook in which he had written the message as it came through. He glanced once at the watching crowd, then at the armed Red Turbans and Eternal Guards around the square.
For a heartbeat, his expression asked what his mouth did not.
Here, Your Highness? Before all of them?
Oskar gave the smallest motion with his hand, indicating for him to read already.
Thus Carter stepped closer, cleared his throat, and opened the notebook.
"From Black Legion Central Command, Warsaw," he began. "Report issued under the authority of Deputy Commander Generalfeldmarschall Paul von Hindenburg and Chief of Staff General Erich Ludendorff, for the eyes and judgment of His Highness, Crown Prince Oskar of Prussia and Germany, Lord Commander of the Black Legion, Protector of the Northern Baltic Kingdom, and chosen bearer of the New Dawn."
Oskar's face did not change, but something in his eyes sharpened.
Carter continued.
"Your Highness, by the grace of God and beneath the light of the New Dawn, the tide of Russia has been broken."
The town square grew quieter. Even those who understood only pieces of German or Russian seemed to sense that this was going to be no normal military report.
Carter read on, voice growing steadier as he fell into the rhythm of the written words.
"The enemy came like a flood from the east: a sea of men, horses, guns, wagons, refugees, conscripts, peasants, and slaves of the Tsar, all thrown forward by commanders who cared nothing for the souls they spent. They came in darkness, in rain, through field, marsh, forest, road, and ruin. They came with icons raised and officers screaming, with bayonets before them and fear behind them."
Oskar slowly lowered the chicken bone in his hand.
Carter did not stop.
"But the Legion stood. The forts stood. The redoubts stood. Your Highness's layered checkerboard defense performed as ordained. Our strongpoints held like powerful pillars of marble before the storm. Minefields tore open the enemy's first waves. Wire caught them. Mortars broke them. Machine guns harvested them. The roads became rivers of flesh, and the ditches were filled with the bodies of those who tried to cross them."
A few Red Turbans in the square bowed their heads as if hearing scripture.
Oskar stared.
Carter turned a page.
"The enemy believed mass could overcome law. He believed numbers could drown discipline. He believed flesh could fill the teeth of German steel until the steel grew dull. Yet by sacrifice, obedience, and faith, the Legion bent but did not break. The Black Legion yielded ground where it had been commanded to yield, held where it had been commanded to hold, and killed where God and Your Highness had placed weapons in its hands."
Oskar's jaw tightened.
Carter's voice grew solemn.
"The lands around Lublin, Białystok, and Kovno have paid the price of this holy defense. What had once been villages, roads, churches, fields, barns, orchards, and railway towns now lies shattered beneath the weight of war. Towers stand like bones above heaps of brick. Fields of wheat have become ash, mud, and blood. Forests have burned. Horses rot in harness. Men lie in pieces too many to name, and where carts once passed, only flies, smoke, dogs, crows, and the smell of death remain."
The townspeople listened in growing unease. Many did not know the names of the towns that had been mentioned, but the tone needed no map.
"The men already call these lands, The Dead Zone," Carter read. "A belt of ruin between the armies. A place where the soil is blackened, the water fouled, and the air made unclean by the dead. It is feared disease will soon spread there unless the enemy burns or buries what remains of his own fallen. Yet given the state of the Russian rear, it is doubtful they possess either the discipline or means to cleanse what their own commanders have created."
Oskar lifted one hand.
"Enough."
Carter stopped instantly. For a moment, the whole square seemed to stop with him. The townspeople held their breath. The Red Turbans stood frozen. Even the clerks by the ballot box looked up from their papers.
Oskar stared down at Carter from the town hall steps, his expression unreadable.
Then, in a low voice, he asked, "Did Hindenburg and Ludendorff actually write this?"
Carter hesitated.
"Yes, Your Highness. The report bears both authorizations."
Oskar stared at him for a long second, then looked away.
He could hardly believe it, Hindenburg and Ludendorff. Those two hard, practical, iron-headed soldiers had signed a battle report that sounded like a sermon preached over a field of corpses. Or at least they had allowed it to be sent under their names. He had known the Church of the New Dawn was popular in his army. Of course he had known. Men prayed before battle. Men kissed medals. Men shouted his name as if it were a shield, but this was a bit much.
Oskar's mouth pressed into a thin line as he sighed, and said, "Captain, skip the holy thunder. And just tell me what happened. Numbers, losses, situation. Nothing else."
Carter blinked once, then hurriedly turned several pages.
"Yes, Your Highness. Of course."
He found the proper section, swallowed, and began again in a more direct voice, though even then the language of the report did not fully lose its strange devotion.
"Central Command reports that the first and second defensive belts were lost as planned or overrun after resistance. The third belt bent heavily across several sectors, especially at Lublin, Białystok, and Kovno, but it did not break. The Legion fought until ammunition was exhausted, and withdrew in order. The checkerboard defense functioned as Your Highness intended, and nothing was left to the enemy when the Legion withdrew."
Oskar leaned forward slightly, as he asked, "And what are the losses."
Carter looked down at the notebook, as he answered, "With a heavy heart, Central Command reports approximately thirty-six thousand casualties among regular Black Legion infantry formations."
The words struck Oskar like a hammer to the chest.
Carter continued before silence could swallow the square.
"Roughly ten thousand confirmed dead. The remainder are wounded, missing, or not yet fully accounted for. Central Command believes very few, if any, were taken prisoner. It is judged that those listed as missing either died in collapsed positions, withdrew wounded through secondary routes, or remain unidentified among the dead. The report states that no true Legionary would willingly surrender himself to the enemy, and that every strongpoint which fell did so only after buying its end with Russian blood."
Oskar didn't know what to say, ten thousand of his men were dead.
Thirty-six thousand casualties, the numbers did not feel real. It was too large for one man's grief and too small for history. Enough to empty towns, ruin families, fill trains with wounded, and still appear in a report as a single line.
His men, his precious Legion, it had just sustained it's heaviest losses of the war thus far.
Carter turned another page.
"Additional casualties were suffered by the First and Second Armored Divisions during operations against the Russian Tenth Army, especially around Šiauliai and the wooded settlements nearby. The fighting became close, confused, and brutal. Russian infantry used grenade bundles, satchel charges, and close assaults to damage our tanks where the terrain restricted movement. Thirty tanks are destroyed or damaged beyond field repair. Roughly sixty more are damaged but recoverable."
Oskar's eyes narrowed as he asked, "And what of the Russian Tenth Army?"
"Broken, Your Highness," Carter said, "but not erased. Its remnants have scattered into forests, roads, villages, and small fighting groups. Rommel, Seeckt, and Manstein continue to hunt them, but resistance remains."
Carter glanced down again.
"In addition, Police formations were also committed as rapid reserve forces. Approximately twenty thousand of them entered the fighting to plug gaps, secure roads, cover retreats, and hold threatened sectors. Current losses are estimated at roughly two thousand casualties, a portion dead, most wounded. The SEK special police, two thousand strong, suffered lighter overall losses, though several individual squads were destroyed or badly mauled. Central Command reports their performance was excellent, and that for every one of ours lost, many more of the enemy were taken in return."
The square was quiet now.
The townspeople did not understand every word, but they understood numbers. They understood dead. They understood the way men's faces changed when news from the front was read aloud.
Oskar's fingers tightened around the bone in his hand as he asked, "What of the enemy?"
Carter's eyes lowered again. "Central Command gives a minimum estimate of six hundred thousand Russian casualties across the offensive."
A sound passed through the square, as the ones whom heard it recoiled in horror. "Six hundred thousand." Even those who could not grasp the full meaning of such a number understood that it belonged to the realm of plague, famine, and the wrath of God.
"Most are believed dead," Carter continued, more carefully now. "Those wounded and left within the Dead Zone are unlikely to survive in great number. The Russians did not halt their advance to recover them. Their officers appear to have driven men forward through minefields, wire, ditches, and artillery fire in masses, especially in the southern sectors. Peasants, refugees, militia, impressed laborers, animals, and regular troops were all thrown into the advance. In several places, the enemy cleared mines with bodies and livestock. They crossed wire over the dead. They filled ditches with flesh. Their losses were monstrous, but their mass carved paths through our defenses all the same."
Oskar looked down at the wet cobblestones, for a moment Salacgrīva vanished, and he saw the fields of the dead.
A land without harvest. A land of craters filled with black water, of broken rifles, shattered wagons, dead horses, dead men, and boys crawling through mud with torn hands, crying for mothers who would never hear them. Above them, the torn banner of the Tsar hung crooked in the smoke, and beneath it the wounded stretched out their arms for mercy.
But no mercy came, only crows, flies, and the pale sun rising over six hundred thousand souls left to rot beneath heaven.
Six hundred thousand, and that was only an estimate.
"What of the refugees?" he asked quietly.
Carter turned another page.
"Central Command reports that the female refugees within our occupied zones were, for the most part, successfully withdrawn or secured. Approximately four million are believed to remain under German protection or within controlled areas. Losses among them during the Russian advance were limited, though some were overtaken after refusing evacuation or choosing to flee eastward."
Oskar's face remained still.
Carter continued.
"As for the refugees on the Russian side, previous estimates placed the number near eight million. Central Command now believes that number has likely fallen to seven million or perhaps six million due to starvation, disease, exposure, conscription, scattering, and the use of displaced men in the recent assault. Roads and railways behind the Russian line are reported clogged with wagons, wounded, livestock, abandoned carts, supply columns, and masses of civilians. The enemy rear is in extreme disorder."
The bone in Oskar's hand cracked.
No one seemed to notice except Carter.
Oskar had exiled men east. He had torn the old population structure apart because he had believed it necessary. Harsh, yes, but cleaner than endless insurgency. Better than having every village filled with men waiting to stab his soldiers in the dark. Better, he had told himself, for women and children to remain under his law while men who refused that law went to Russia and chose their own fate.
But Russia had most definitely failed to provide for the mass of them. So Russia had instead used them, and where it had not used them, it had abandoned them.
Even after all this time millions were still trapped on roads, hungry, and just waiting for winter, disease, bandits, or death to claim them. Most probably knew not where to go, so they waited near the border to return home, but that day would not come any time soon for them.
Oskar's stomach turned, though his face showed nothing.
Carter continued quickly, perhaps sensing the growing storm within Oskar.
"Central Command further requests that Your Highness show mercy toward our Austro-Hungarian allies regarding their inaction. Hindenburg and Ludendorff state that they did not request a general Austro-Hungarian advance because the expected opening never came. The Russian Southwestern Front did not strip its armies away as hoped. Its line remained largely static, with only artillery duels and local skirmishing. Because the enemy armies opposite Austria-Hungary remained in place, our allies were not given the clean opportunity for a drive toward Kiev."
Oskar nodded slowly, "So they held because there was no opening."
"Yes, Your Highness. Central Command believes the refugee crisis has caused major disruptions in the Russian rail network preventing rapid army transfers. The roads and rail lines are too clogged for the kind of movement expected. Hindenburg and Ludendorff judged that ordering Austria-Hungary forward without your approval would risk exposing them without sufficient gain."
Oskar nodded slowly, for that was correct. Annoyingly correct.
Carter continued. "Central believes Russia is badly weakened and cannot mount another offensive of this scale in the immediate future. The Dead Zone is poisoned by bodies, wreckage, disease, and lack of supply. Russian forward forces there are expected to thin out or withdraw unless they can burn or bury the dead quickly, which Central considers unlikely. Central believes a counterattack could reclaim much of the lost ground if launched soon, especially if Your Highness personally directs it."
Oskar's gaze lifted.
"If I direct it," he said quietly. "Perhaps."
Carter did not answer. He did not need to. Oskar could already see the map in his mind: Lublin, Białystok, Kovno, the broken belt of ruined land between the armies, the burned villages, the fouled rivers, the Black Legion bloodied but still standing, and the Russian armies mauled, starving, and disordered.
A counterattack might work. It might win back the land. It might even look glorious. It might also burn out the last strength of his army before winter.
Carter turned another page.
"There are further requests, Your Highness."
Oskar exhaled through his nose.
"Of course there are."
"Prince Heinrich reports continued operations in the Baltic islands. The fleet and Imperial Marine forces are making progress on Ösel, Dagö, and Moon, but resistance from coastal batteries, local detachments, and loyalist elements has slowed the landings. Prince Heinrich requests clarification regarding policy. He has not been formally informed of the creation of the Northern Baltic Kingdom and asks whether the islands are to be annexed directly into Germany, placed under naval administration, or transferred to this new kingdom. He further requests instructions on how the local population is to be treated."
Oskar almost laughed.
Not because it was funny, but because it was so perfectly, painfully ridiculous.
Of course Heinrich was confused.
Until now, German eastern policy had been simple in its brutality. If territory was taken for Germany, the male population was to be driven east, while the women and girls were allowed to stay under German protection. It was harsh, ugly, and clean enough for soldiers and administrators to understand.
But the Northern Baltic Kingdom was different.
That was the part Heinrich could not know, because Oskar had hardly explained it to anyone before creating it. Here the men were not all to be driven out by default. They were to be offered a choice: swear loyalty, accept the new order, serve, and eventually earn citizenship—or refuse and leave, or resist and die. It was still brutal, yes, but it was also more flexible, more useful, and far more attractive to those who wanted a place in the future rather than a road into exile.
The problem was that Oskar had created this distinction in his own head, then on the streets of Riga, then in the villages north of the Dvina, all while half the German command structure was still operating under earlier assumptions.
He had crowned Rennenkampf in Riga, split policy by river, armed Red Turbans, founded a protectorate kingdom, raised dragon banners, and started remaking villages beneath a new law—and apparently his uncle was now conquering islands in the Baltic without knowing what country he was conquering them for.
Wonderful.
Oskar rubbed his brow once.
This was the sort of thing Karl usually prevented. Oskar had ideas. He always had ideas: huge, dangerous, half-formed things thrown forward like artillery shells. Usually Karl, the engineers, the lawyers, the clerks, and the officers took those ideas, hammered them into shape, removed the parts that would explode too early, and turned them into something usable.
But Karl was not here.
Here, Oskar was improvising a nation in the mud while fighting a war on two fronts.
No wonder everyone was confused.
"Anything else?" Oskar asked.
Carter hesitated.
Oskar saw it at once. His eyes narrowed.
"Captain."
Carter straightened. "Yes, Your Highness. There is also news from the capital."
Oskar already knew before Carter said it. Some part of him knew.
"Read."
Carter obeyed.
"Berlin reports that the western offensive has failed to take Paris. German forces reached the approaches and certain outer districts, but Moltke has ordered withdrawal from the Marne. The armies are falling back and establishing defensive lines behind the Aisne. The Schlieffen operation has failed to achieve decisive victory. The Western Front is entering positional stalemate, as Your Highness warned it might."
The words landed one after another.
Paris reached, but not taken. The Marne abandoned. The Aisne line forming.
Stalemate.
Oskar looked past Carter, past the town square, past the red dragon banners, past the wet roofs and the grey sea beyond them. For a moment, he saw only the future: trenches, wire, mud, shells, gas, and tens of millions of men swallowed by a war that refused to end.
The thing he had tried to outrun had caught them anyway.
Carter's voice softened slightly.
"His Majesty Emperor Wilhelm requests Your Highness return to Berlin as soon as possible for an emergency council regarding the next phase of the war: west, east, sea, colonies, industry, and overall command. His Majesty also requests clarification of Your Highness's actions in the Baltics, especially the proclamation of the Northern Baltic Kingdom, the status of King Rennenkampf, and the authority under which these measures have been taken."
There it was.
Oskar closed his eyes. Of course Wilhelm wanted clarification. His son had gone east, conquered Riga, crowned a Russian general, divided territory by river, begun founding a protectorate kingdom, armed local fanatics, reorganized villages, and started speaking as if divine mandate were a form of paperwork.
From Berlin, it must look half brilliant and half insane. Perhaps it was.
Oskar rubbed his eyes with two fingers, suddenly feeling every sleepless hour, every speech, every death, every mile, and every decision waiting to bite him.
Warsaw needed him. Prince Heinrich needed him. Berlin demanded him. Rennenkampf required legitimacy. The Red Turban Legion needed direction. The Black Legion needed rest, ammunition, repairs, and orders. The Baltic islands were still undecided. The Western Front had failed. France lived. Britain remained at war. Russia bled but did not break.
And Saint Petersburg still waited to the north like a door he might open, if only the world would stop burning behind him for one single day.
He lowered his hand. For once, he did not speak immediately.
The square waited. Captain Carter waited. The Red Turbans waited. The clerks by the ballot box waited. Even Shadowmane lifted his head from the butcher's bones and watched him with one dark, intelligent eye.
Oskar stared toward the northern road, jaw clenched.
"What," he muttered under his breath, "am I supposed to do now?"