The retreat to Konin had left us shattered, but the Empire's advance gave us no time to lick our wounds. Reports flooded in like poison gas: they'd retaken the northern lands in a blitz of steel and sorcery, their divisions surging southward with terrifying momentum. Kaliningrad was firmly back under their boot, and now they aimed to encircle us, trapping our battered forces in a noose of fire and iron. My battalion, a ragged shadow of its former strength, hunkered down in the town. We fortified it feverishly—digging trenches along the outskirts, deep furrows clawed into the earth with shovels and bare hands, walls braced with splintered beams from collapsed houses and sandbags stuffed with whatever dirt we could scrape. In the narrow streets, we erected barricades from overturned wagons, heaps of rubble, and coils of barbed wire that tore at our flesh as we hauled them into place. Machine-gun nests sprouted in shattered storefronts and upper windows of gutted buildings, belts of ammunition draped like serpents ready to strike. I worked through the night, blisters bursting on my palms, blood mixing with mud as I hammered stakes and strung wire. Commander Nowak, his eyes sunken and wild, inspected the lines with a lantern, his voice hoarse from shouting: "Deeper trenches! More wire! We hold Konin, or the Empire swallows us whole. The Front's reinforcements are coming—buy every minute with blood if you must!"
Dawn broke gray and merciless, the air heavy with the stench of unburied dead from yesterday's rout. We crouched in those muddy graves, rifles cradled, bayonets glinting dully. The waiting was torture—men fidgeting, whispering fears or forcing grim jokes to mask the dread. Piotr, the young Warsaw lad beside me in the trench, kept reloading his rifle obsessively, his fingers trembling. "Think the mages will come first?" he muttered, voice cracking. I shrugged, my own gut churning. The distant boom of artillery echoed like a heartbeat, growing louder, closer. Flies buzzed over the corpses scattered in the fields ahead, a preview of what awaited. I thought of Justyna again, her soft hands, our quiet life—would she ever know if I fell here?
A shout from the forward observer shattered the tension: "Movement on the horizon! Approaching the fields!" We all strained to see, peering over the parapet through the lingering mist. At first, it was just shapes—dozens, then hundreds, resolving into people. Civilians. Our own Poles, displaced souls trudging toward us with weary steps, backs bowed under bundles of belongings: sacks of clothes, pots clanging, children wailing in arms, elders hobbling with canes. Refugees fleeing the Empire's wrath, their path cutting straight across the open killing ground, obstructing our entire field of fire. They formed a human barrier, a slow-moving wall of desperation that blinded us to what lay beyond.
Nowak swept the scene with his binoculars, his face twisting in fury and frustration. "Civilians... damn it all. If we shoot, we're butchers—massacring our own kin. The papers would crucify us, morale would shatter." Murmurs rippled down the line: "Let 'em through?" "Can't—they're blocking everything." We waited, hearts pounding, as the crowd drew nearer. Their cries carried on the wind—pleas for water, for safety, mothers shushing terrified infants. The smell hit us: unwashed bodies, fear-sweat, the faint rot of despair. But something gnawed at me—shadows flickering at the rear of the throng. Uniforms? Gray forms blending in.
Then clarity struck like a bayonet. "Empire troops!" Nowak roared. "Behind them—using the refugees as shields! Fire! Open fire now!"
Hesitation gripped us like ice—how could we mow down innocents?—but the machine guns erupted with a mechanical snarl, belts whipping through chambers in a hail of lead. Bullets tore into the crowd without mercy, ripping through flesh and fabric in a storm of carnage. Bodies jerked and spun— a woman exploded in a fountain of blood as rounds punched through her chest, her child tumbling from her arms in a spray of crimson; an old man's head burst like a melon under hammer blows, gray matter splattering those behind; children screamed as limbs were shredded, tiny bodies crumpling into the mud amid geysers of gore. Intestines uncoiled from gut-shot victims, steaming in the cool air; blood arced high, painting the ground in slick pools that turned the field into a slaughterhouse mire. Empire soldiers caught in the barrage fared no better: one trooper's arm was sheared off at the shoulder, bone protruding jagged as he howled; another's face dissolved in a red pulp, teeth scattering like dice. Screams blended into a hellish chorus—agony, terror, pleas cut short by fresh volleys. The air reeked of hot copper, voided bowels, and charred meat from stray incendiary rounds.
But it was too late. The Empire's vanguard had exploited the chaos, closing the distance under the dying shield. They swarmed the trenches like rats, leaping over the lip with bayonets thrusting. Hand-to-hand descended into primal savagery. A German dropped into our section, rifle barking—I dodged, firing back, my bullet tearing through his throat in a gush of arterial blood that sprayed my face hot and sticky. He gurgled, clawing at the ruin as crimson bubbled. Piotr grappled with another, knife plunging into the man's eye with a wet pop, vitreous fluid leaking as the soldier thrashed, brains scrambling. I stabbed wildly at a charging foe, blade sinking deep into his belly; he retched, vomiting blood and bile over my hands as I twisted, feeling organs give way. Entrails spilled out in slippery loops, coiling around my boots like snakes. Another clubbed me with his rifle butt—stars exploded in my vision—but I countered, smashing his knee with my stock, bone crunching like kindling. He screamed, collapsing, only for Piotr to finish him with a bayonet to the chest, ribs cracking under the force, blood frothing from punctured lungs.
The trench became a charnel pit: men wrestling in the muck, throats slashed with arterial sprays painting the walls red; faces caved in by boots or butts, teeth shattering, jaws unhinging; disembowelments leaving victims writhing, holding in their guts as they begged for death. Blood pooled ankle-deep, mixed with urine and feces from the dying. I fought like a beast, lungs burning, every breath tasting of death.
"Fall back! To the second line!" Nowak's voice cut through the melee. I hauled Piotr—his shoulder a mangled mess of shredded flesh and exposed bone—out of the trench, scrambling over bodies that squelched underfoot. We retreated into Konin's streets, dodging through barricades to the inner defenses: more trenches and nests amid the rubble. Artillery thundered then, shells whistling in from both sides. Explosions cratered the town— a round detonated nearby, vaporizing a squad in a blast of fire and limbs: arms and legs hurled like shrapnel, torsos ripped open to expose ribcages and spilling organs, heads rolling decapitated across the cobblestones. The ground shook, dust and gore raining down.
The Empire marched in undeterred, boots pounding over the debris, rifles cracking. We fired sporadically from cover— I dropped one, his chest blooming red as he folded—but they overwhelmed us, positions falling one by one. Outflanked, ammunition low, the air thick with the screams of the maimed. "Surrender!" Nowak finally croaked, raising a filthy rag as a white flag. We emerged from hiding, hands high, weapons tossed aside—a pitiful remnant, covered in blood and filth.
They herded us roughly, rifles prodding. One of our men—driven mad by the horror—feigned compliance, then lunged for a fallen pistol. The Germans cut him down in a fusillade: bullets riddled his body, punching holes that spurted blood, his torso jerking like a puppet as flesh tore, bones splintering, collapsing in a heap of twitching meat.
Vengeance burned in their eyes. "No mercy for resistors," the officer snarled in accented Polish. They lined us against a pockmarked wall, stained already with old blood. Executions commenced: single shots to the head, each crack echoing as skulls exploded in sprays of brain and bone— one man's eye burst outward, gray matter oozing; another's jaw shattered, teeth flying as he slumped gurgling. Bodies piled, limbs twitching in death throes, the wall slick with viscera. I waited, numb, the stench overwhelming.
But fate intervened for a few. "These ones—strong backs for labor camps," the officer grunted, pulling me and a handful aside. Piotr wasn't among them; his executioner's bullet had found him earlier. Bound and prodded, we were marched away as prisoners of war, the pyres of Konin lighting the sky behind us. The war's maw had spared us—for now.