Another year had ground by in blood and fire. It was now deep into 1915, and the western front had become a butcher's ledger that barely moved. If the lines shifted at all, it was by a few miserable metres bought with the lives of thousands—trenches filled with rotting corpses, mud so thick it swallowed men whole, and artillery that turned the earth into a moonscape of craters and bone. The Bulgarians were locked in a savage scrap with the Greeks down south, while Germano-Hungry suddenly found itself fighting the Italians, who had thrown in their lot with the Allies and opened a new front in the Alps. The war had grown teeth in every direction, and none of them were pulling back.
I, Hans Muller, was now deep in Ukraine with what remained of my mage company. Lena Schmitt had never left my side. If anything, she had grown bolder—dangerously so—with every week that passed. She no longer called me "Captain" when we were alone; it was always "Hans," soft and warm, her hand brushing my arm a little too long when she handed me reports, her eyes lingering on mine during briefings. On the train east she had sat so close her thigh pressed against mine the entire journey, whispering that she would follow me "anywhere, even into hell itself." In the field tents at night her voice would drop lower, almost husky, as she leaned in to "discuss tactics," her breath warm against my ear. I told myself it was just the heat of war playing tricks, but her smiles had become something hungrier, something that made the long nights feel both comforting and dangerously intimate.
We were scouting west of Kyiv, five of us gliding high on our ethereal machines, the wind whipping our cloaks like battle flags. Below us the Russian lines sprawled like a grey stain across the snow-dusted fields, three full battalions at least, crawling forward under cover of their own crude tanks. I raised my crystal lens and felt my stomach tighten.
"Three battalions," I muttered into the speaking tube, voice tight. "And they've brought their own abominations. Those Russian tanks—boxy iron sheds on tracks, belching smoke like dying dragons. Ugly, but they'll do damage if we let them."
"Form up," I ordered coldly. "Bombardment pattern. Tracking rounds only. We hit the tanks first—then break their formation. Make it hurt."
Our rifles sang in unison. Enchanted bullets streaked downward like vengeful spirits, curving impossibly through the air. The first Russian tank took three hits square in the engine compartment; it erupted in a roaring fireball that sent twisted metal plating spinning through the air like shrapnel. The crew inside didn't die clean—one man was blown straight through a hatch, his body tumbling end-over-end before slamming into the snow in a broken heap of charred limbs and exposed bone. Two more tanks shuddered and stopped dead, tracks blown apart in sprays of sparks and shredded steel; their hatches flew open and screaming crewmen spilled out only to be hunted down by our follow-up shots—bullets tracking them relentlessly across the snow until they exploded inside flesh, chests bursting open in red mist, limbs torn away in wet chunks.
The Russian infantry formation shattered like glass under a hammer. Hundreds died in seconds—men running in blind panic as our enchanted rounds curved after them, punching through backs and detonating inside, bodies erupting in fountains of blood and shredded meat that painted the white snow crimson. Screams rose all the way to our altitude—raw, animal howls of agony as soldiers clutched at spilling intestines or tried to hold their own faces together after a round took half their skull. The snow turned red for hundreds of metres in every direction, the air thick with the coppery reek of slaughter even from our height.
Then the sky itself turned hostile.
The Russians had learned fast and cruel. All along their lines, heavy machine guns were tilted skyward, firing in long, sweeping arcs—thousands of rounds stitching the air in a deadly steel curtain. It was the first true anti-air barrage I had ever seen, and it was merciless. One of my mages took a burst straight through the chest; his construct flickered and bled raw aether as he plummeted screaming toward the earth, body twisting like a broken doll until he slammed into the frozen ground far below in a spray of blood and shattered bone. Another took a round through the leg—blood spraying in a bright red mist as he fought to stay aloft, screaming in pain while his machine sputtered and dipped dangerously.
"Break! Retreat!" I roared over the wind. "Back to friendly lines—now!"
We wheeled hard and fled, machines banking sharply through the tracer-filled sky. Lena stayed glued to my left wing the entire desperate flight, her construct dancing through the storm of lead like it was a game she was winning. "I've got you, Hans," she called over the roar, voice almost playful even as bullets cracked past us inches away. "I always will. No one touches you while I'm here."
We landed hard at the forward railhead in occupied Poland, boots crunching on frozen gravel outside the half-ruined manor house that now served as field headquarters. The colonel was waiting, maps spread across a table still stained with old blood and cigarette ash.
"New orders, Muller. The Italians are pushing hard through the Alps—Germano-Hungry needs every mage company they can get. You're on the next train south immediately."
I wiped sweat and gun-oil from my face, chest still heaving. "I lost two men today, sir. Good men. I need replacements. My company is down to eighteen effectives."
He didn't even look up from the map. "You'll get them in Germano-Hungry. Fresh academy graduates are already waiting at the staging depot near Vienna—hand-picked and eager. Now move. The train leaves in twenty minutes."
We boarded the long troop train within the hour—my remaining mages crammed into the cars, Lena right beside me in the officers' carriage as always. The wheels began to turn, and the flat Ukrainian plains slowly gave way to rolling hills, then thick pine forests, then the first jagged teeth of the Carpathian Mountains rising like broken blades against the sky.
Snow-capped peaks loomed on both sides of the tracks now, the air growing colder and sharper with every kilometre, wind howling through the passes like the ghosts of dead soldiers. Lena leaned against the window, shoulder pressed warmly against mine, watching the white slopes slide past in the fading light. Her hand found mine on the seat between us, fingers tracing light circles on my palm.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" she murmured, voice low and intimate, almost purring. "All this wild, cold beauty… just for us to fight over. But as long as I'm with you, Hans, I don't mind the mountains, the cold, or the Italians waiting to die." She squeezed my hand gently, her breath warm against my ear. "I'll follow you straight into those peaks if you ask me to. Anywhere. Always."
I stared out at the rising Alps, the train rattling southward toward a new front, a new slaughter. Lena's warmth beside me felt both comforting and dangerously alive in the gathering cold.
The war had found a new place to bleed.
And we were heading straight into it.