Walter Ilves lay flat in a rocky crevice, his fingers so frozen he had nearly lost all sensation. This grueling seesaw battle had claimed many Soviet lives, but his own side had paid a heavy price in blood.
Thump—thump—
"Scatter! Mortars!" Simo's shout echoed through the jagged rock piles.
Wolf was no longer in a hurry to hurl his infantry upward. He had realized that in the face of two Finnish marksmen with such godlike precision, sending men on a frontal charge was mere suicide. He crouched in a snow pit beneath the slope, his eyes fixed like a predator's on the chaotic boulders above.
"Fire every shell we have left," Wolf ordered the mortar crew beside him. "Don't just aim for the men, aim for the big rocks!"
In the flat forest, a mortar shell landing in deep powder would have much of its lethality absorbed by the snow. But in these crags, the explosion turned the stones themselves into jagged shrapnel, multiplying the devastation.
BOOM!
A shell detonated beside the rock pile to Walter's left. The boulder didn't shield him; instead, under the violent blast, it shattered into a thousand fragments. Razor-sharp stone shards whistled through the air like a flurry of flying knives.
Walter felt a searing flash of pain across his left cheek. A stone splinter had grazed his face, opening a deep, jagged gash. He reached up to wipe it; his hand came away slick with thick, warm blood.
He wasn't the only one suffering. The partisans, who had previously found safety behind the rocks, now found those very stones turning into lethal instruments of death. One partisan was struck in the back by a large slab of flying stone; losing his balance, he tumbled from a crevice. Before he even hit the ground, the Soviets below riddled him with lead.
"Walter! Move!" Simo scrambled through the rocks, a large tear ripped into his fur cap.
This tactic completely neutralized their advantage. Shell after shell rained down, sending stone splinters screaming across Bone-Crusher Ridge while black smoke and grit choked the air.
Standing below, Wolf watched the slope shrouded in smoke and crimson, a cold sneer twisting his lips. He glanced back. He had set out with over fifty men; now, barely twenty remained standing. Those two rifles had been too precise, systematically "calling the roll" on his most capable soldiers. If he reported these losses to headquarters, he'd face a grim fate. Since he had already spent so many lives, he had to crush these rats once and for all.
"Radioman! Get over here!" Wolf barked, snapping his head toward the soldier cowering behind a tree with the radio set.
The operator scrambled over, his hands shaking as he tuned the frequency.
"Get me the nearest Battalion HQ!" Wolf snatched the handset, his eyes wild with a murderous hunger. "Tell the Battalion Commander and the Commissar that I've located the main partisan core at coordinates 32-41! Tell them to get here now! I want this slope sealed tight!"
Static hissed from the radio. The operator listened intently for a moment before looking up to report, "Captain, Battalion HQ has replied. They are mobilizing troops, but the snow is too deep and the roads are poor. The earliest they can arrive is two hours."
"Two hours..." Wolf gritted his teeth, muttering the words as he looked up at the ridge. "Fine. Tell them I'm waiting. Even if they have to crawl, they better be here in two hours!"
Wolf slammed the handset down and watched his remaining men trying to scale the heights, a spark of madness in his eyes. He raised his pistol and fired a shot into the air. "Fire every last shell! Don't stop! I want them ground into meat between those stones!"
…
What followed was the longest and most silent wait on Bone-Crusher Ridge.
Wolf became unnervingly patient. He no longer ordered infantry assaults, choosing instead to lob two mortar shells every few minutes. This rhythmic bombardment acted like a heavy sledgehammer, shattering a few more rocks each time, letting the whistling stone shards grate against the nerves of those on the summit.
Walter lay behind a stone ridge, feeling as though time had solidified. He didn't know what Wolf was thinking down there, nor did he know the radio had summoned fresh reinforcements. He only knew that with every explosion, the high-pitched shriek of stone cutting the air eroded the last of the men's resolve.
"Simo, what is he waiting for?" Walter's voice was as thin as a breeze.
"Waiting for us to freeze, or for us to go mad," Simo replied, his gaze still fixed below. His captured submachine gun was nearly out of ammunition, yet he remained motionless, guarding the flank.
The partisans huddled deep in the crevices, their faces as pale as the dead. They believed this was just another grueling standoff; they didn't realize Death's scythe was already gleaming on the horizon.
Thump—thump—
Two more dull mortar reports broke the suffocating deadlock. This time, the frequency of fire suddenly accelerated. Wolf had evidently reached his designated time and was clearing out his remaining ordinance.
"Keep your heads down! Stay low!" Lieutenant Raivo's voice rang out among the rocks.
However, a young partisan finally snapped under the relentless vibrations and the agony of waiting for the end. His mind broke completely. He stood up, trying to bolt toward a massive boulder in the rear that looked more solid.
"Get back here, you fool!" Raivo's eyes bulged. Ignoring the shards flying overhead, he lunged from his cover, trying to haul the exposed recruit back to safety.
In that instant, a mortar shell shrieked through the air, tracing a cold arc before plunging directly in front of Raivo.
BOOM—!
It wasn't the light sound of stone being sliced; it was an explosion that shattered the soul. Fire erupted before Walter's eyes as a massive shockwave of smoke and debris threw Raivo three meters into the air.
"Lieutenant!"
By the time Walter rushed through the smoke and dragged Raivo into a hollow crevice, he saw the full horror of the injury. Both of Raivo's legs had been shredded by the point-blank blast. His left leg was torn away at the calf, held on only by a few twisted tendons. Below the right knee was a ruin of mangled flesh, with jagged white bone fragments piercing through scorched trousers into the biting wind.
In the minus thirty-degree cold, the gushing blood released thick plumes of white vapor before freezing into dark crimson crystals upon the rocks.
"Dammit... looks like... I'm really 'bone-crushed' now..." Raivo ground his teeth so hard they might have shattered. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead, only to instantly flash-freeze into frost on his eyebrows.
"Look! What is that?" A partisan, having no time for grief, pointed toward the distance in terror.
Walter looked up, following the man's gesture. At the edge of the vast white forest, several bright headlights pierced the twilight. Five or six Soviet trucks were chugging forward through the snow, belching thick black smoke. As the trucks lurched to a halt, dozens of khaki figures leapt from the beds, a brownish-tan ring rapidly closing in on Bone-Crusher Ridge.
"Wolf's reinforcements are here."
The hearts of everyone present plummeted to absolute zero. On the ridge, besides Walter and Simo, only Raivo and five battered partisans remained. Against dozens of Soviets, they were already at the end of their ammunition and strength; now, dozens of fresh troops had joined the fray.
"I'm finished. I can't move," Raivo said, glancing at the dark swarm of figures below. He pushed away Walter's hand as the younger man tried to staunch the bleeding. His voice was weak, yet carried an unshakable power. "Take my brothers, and the ones back at the hunter's cabin... and get the hell out of this forest!"
Simo remained silent. This man, usually as cold as ice, had hands that trembled slightly as he gripped his weapon. He looked into Raivo's eyes, already beginning to glaze over from blood loss yet still glaring with defiance, and uttered a single, heavy word, "Understood."
Gunsmoke and stone dust swirled in the freezing wind like a thick grey shroud, wrapping tightly around Bone-Crusher Ridge. Walter reached for the ammo pouches at his waist; his fingertips met only a heart-chilling emptiness. Aside from the final rounds in his chamber, he was completely dry.
Everyone knew the truth. Previously, when their ammunition was plentiful and their strength intact, they hadn't been able to force a breakthrough against Wolf's blockade. Now, out of ammo, battered, and facing a swarm of Soviet reinforcements, the word "breakout" sounded more like a collective suicide.
There were no secret paths, no crevices left to hide in. The only way down was across the white stone slopes illuminated by the pale snowlight, and every exit was already lined with Soviet muzzles.
Walter reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled half-pack of cigarettes, taking out two. He lit the first, inhaling deeply, feeling the acrid sting explode in his dry throat, bringing a searing sense of reality. Then, he lit the second and pressed it into Raivo's blood-stained palm.
Two tiny embers flickered violently in the gale, dimming and brightening. Raivo paused, looking at the smoking remnant in his hand, before his lips curled into a grin that was both savage and free.
The two men locked eyes amidst the drifting smoke. No words were needed, only the heavy, silent plumes of smoke rolling between their faces.
The breakout was a gamble with zero chance of success. Yet, they would charge through the shells and across the exposed stone slopes, forcing a sliver of life under the sights of a hundred rifles.
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