On the way back from the checkpoint, everyone's steps were noticeably lighter.
Lieutenant Raivo's partisans moved like a line of industrious ants, heavy loot strapped to their backs. Hundreds of gleaming 7.62mm rifle rounds rattled softly in wooden crates, creating a rhythmic, metallic melody; heavy submachine guns hung slung across shoulders; and a dozen grenades tugged weightily at belts.
What everyone coveted most, however, were several pairs of thick wool gloves and knee-high leather boots. In the minus thirty-degree forest, such items were the currency of survival. The victory acted as a shot of adrenaline, momentarily masking the exhaustion of their long trek.
By the time the snow-covered silhouette of the hunter's cabin appeared in their sight, the sky had turned completely dark.
"Old Juhani! Open up! Walter, Simo, and the boys are back!" Juha bellowed from his spot by the stove inside.
Old Juhani hauled open the heavy wooden door. When he saw the supplies the group had brought back, his wrinkled face creased into a smile like a blooming autumn chrysanthemum.
That night, Raivo's men boiled a large pot of thick millet porridge, into which they luxuriously emptied an entire tin of luncheon meat. Walter Ilves leaned against a corner, watching the flickering flames in the stove. His eyelids felt as heavy as lead.
"Walter, eat something before you sleep," Simo said, handing him a steaming bowl of porridge.
Walter took it mechanically, forced down a few mouthfuls, and felt a pleasant warmth spread through his stomach. Moments later, his consciousness plunged into a bottomless abyss.
He slept a deathly sleep. His dreams were no longer of gunfire, but of a terrifyingly silent birch forest, where Wolf's grey eyes flashed momentarily between the shadows of the trees.
The next morning, Walter was jolted awake by a low murmur of voices. Sunlight filtered through the crude window, yet it brought no warmth. He sat up, rubbing his throbbing temples, to find Simo already fully geared up, methodically checking his submachine gun.
Lieutenant Raivo stood by the stove, the usual boisterous grin gone from his face. He checked his pocket watch repeatedly, his expression dark enough to drip ink.
"What's wrong?" Walter asked, his voice raspy.
"Tuomas and Mikko," Simo turned, his voice kept low. "They went out early for scouting and patrol. By all rights, they should have been back for the shift change ninety minutes ago. Raivo sent men to meet them, but they found no one."
Walter's heart sank. In these woods, being late often meant a permanent absence.
"Those two are veterans; there's no way they got lost in these woods," Raivo finally spoke, grabbing his Suomi submachine gun from the wall. "Walter, Simo, I need you to come with me to find them."
The group didn't waste words. They donned their camouflage, shouldered their weapons, and stepped into the vast, white expanse of the dense thicket.
…
A clearing in the forest, two kilometers away.
Pale sunlight illuminated the flat ground surrounded by pines. It was so quiet that even the sound of the wind had vanished.
"There... right there," a partisan pointed forward, his voice trembling.
Walter stopped in his tracks. His pupils contracted sharply, and he froze where he stood.
In the center of the clearing, two figures in white camouflage sat side-by-side. They had been deliberately posed back-to-back, their arms twisted together with thin iron wire, forcing them into a macabre embrace.
It was Tuomas and Mikko.
Tuomas's face was no longer recognizable as human, covered in a crisscross of deep, bone-exposing knife wounds. Most abhorrent of all, his empty eye sockets had been stuffed with two brass 7.62mm rifle cartridges, the tips pointing outward like a pair of bizarre, metallic eyes staring down the path of the onlookers.
Mikko, behind him, fared no better. A section of his skull had collapsed, smashed inward as if by a heavy hammer. Brain matter and frozen gore were matted together, and his shredded camouflage suit was soaked a deep purple with blood.
"Animals... those absolute animals!" Raivo's eyes turned blood-red instantly, the corners nearly splitting with rage.
This went beyond the bounds of war; this was pure, malicious provocation. This arrangement, this desecration of the fallen, was a herald announcing the arrival of one man: Wolf. He was like a twisted artist, using Finnish corpses to decorate his stage.
"Don't go near them!" Simo suddenly barked.
But it was too late. Two young partisans, seeing their close comrades dead in such a wretched state, had already lost their reason to fury. They roared and lunged forward, reaching out to untwist the wire and separate the bodies.
"No! Get down!" Walter's Eye of Death triggered instinctively.
In his vision, time slowed. He saw clearly as one of the men pulled forcefully on Tuomas's shoulder, causing a tripwire buried beneath the snow to snap taut. The other end of the wire was connected to two stick grenades hidden under Tuomas.
Ping!
The faint, mechanical snap of the igniters being pulled.
"Run—!" Walter shrieked, reaching out to grab Raivo, who was closest to him.
BOOM—!
A massive pillar of fire erupted between the two corpses, smoke and flame surging into the sky. The intense shockwave kicked up the surrounding snow, creating a blinding white screen. Walter felt a roar in his ears like a crashing tide.
When the smoke cleared, the spot where the men had stood was now a scorched pit. One of the partisans who had rushed forward had been blown in half, his vitals spilled across the black-red snow, silenced forever. Another lay rolling in the blood-stained slush, screaming in agony, his body riddled with shrapnel and fragments of bone from the corpses.
As for the two original bodies, the explosion had turned their already broken remains into a spray of flesh and blood that now hung from the branches of the surrounding pines.
Wolf had not only killed them; he had exploited the Finns' compassion to obliterate the last of their remains, reaping new lives in the process.
———————
Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over here ——— pa-tre-on.c-om/AlexandrusTL [remove the hyphen for normal access]