When the first mortar shell detonated at the distant hollow, the tremor traveled through the frozen earth and into the donkey's remains.
Walter knew the time had come.
Go...
A voice echoed deep within his mind, the final sentence of a hunter who had remained dormant far too long. Walter used his elbows to shove aside the pile of half-frozen entrails covering the opening. When he crawled out of the donkey's abdominal cavity, his thin undergarments were completely saturated with blood. In the -30°C air, the blood began to flash-freeze, sending up thick plumes of white vapor.
He no longer looked like a soldier; he looked like a crimson wraith clawing its way out of the depths of hell.
Walter gave the Soviets no time to react. He stepped onto the icy snow with bare feet. His soles went numb instantly, but he didn't care. Less than twenty meters ahead, Wolf was crouched behind a pine tree. Beside him, three Soviet sentries had their backs to the carcass, frantically pouring fire toward the hollow where Simo was positioned.
Walter raised his right hand.
Eye of Death, activate.
Vroom—!
Walter's world instantly plunged into a sepia-toned silence. The swirling snowflakes nearly froze in mid-air, and the muzzles' flashes looked like static clumps of orange-red flame. Walter leveled the Browning M1903.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The first bullet entered the back of the leftmost Soviet's head; the second tore through the neck of the man in the center; the third shattered the temple of the soldier on the right. To an outside observer, these three shots sounded like a single, overlapping crack.
Before the three bodies could even hit the ground, Walter adjusted his aim, centering the sights on Wolf, who was turning in shock.
Bang! Bang! Two rounds slammed into Wolf's abdomen, erupting in twin blossoms of red.
Wolf instinctively curled his body in agony, his face distorting in the perceived slow motion. Walter's sixth shot, originally aimed at the center of Wolf's brow, veered slightly due to the sudden convulsion. Instead of shattering the skull, the bullet tore through Wolf's cheek.
The remaining two rounds were snapped off at two other soldiers who were spinning around in terror.
Eight bullets. Less than two seconds.
When time resumed its flow, five Soviet soldiers were already cold corpses. Wolf let out a harrowing shriek as blood instantly dyed half his face. He wailed, clawing at the snow in a desperate attempt to crawl toward his remaining men.
"Someone's behind us!" The Soviet line collapsed instantly.
The visual impact was lethal. A man drenched in crimson, wreathed in steam, walking barefoot across the snow. In their eyes, he was no different from a forest demon.
"Cover the Captain! Retreat! Retreat!"
Soviet morale shattered completely. They had been held together only by Wolf's iron fist; now, with their commander maimed and an incomprehensible entity at their rear, the survival instinct overrode discipline.
"Return fire! Fire back!" The remaining soldiers began to spray lead blindly toward Walter's position.
Walter dove behind the pine tree. His magazine was empty, and though the Soviets were terrified, they still held the advantage in numbers.
"Walter! Catch!" Simo's roar exploded through the smoke.
Seeing the Soviets retreating while trying to protect Wolf, Simo and the others seized the chance to charge out of the hollow. Walter reached out a blood-stained hand, precisely catching the Mosin-Nagant M28/30 Simo had hurled to him.
Juha and Old Juhani had already lunged forward. Despite his injured left hand, Juha cradled his submachine gun in his right arm, barking every curse word he knew as he sprayed the area. Aalto followed behind, picking off retreating soldiers with his rifle.
It was a relentless pursuit.
Wolf clutched his perforated face, the through-and-through wound in his abdomen leaving a massive, dragged trail of blood in the snow with every inch he crawled. He hadn't entirely lost his fighting capacity; his rigorously trained will was screaming at him to survive.
"Take... take me with you..." Wolf growled incoherently at his men.
But the soldiers were too busy saving themselves. Bullets were harvesting lives one by one as Simo and Walter, the two blades of the squad, pincer-maneuvered from the flanks.
"Juha, Old Juhani, Aalto, keep pressure on the rest!" Simo commanded loudly. "Walter, with me. We take the prize."
The pursuit lasted roughly fifteen minutes. Of the original twenty-plus Soviets, only three remained breathing after a psychological and physical slaughter, including the impossibly resilient Wolf.
Finally, at a gap in some snow-covered jagged rocks, Wolf was cornered. His last two men had been taken down by Walter's precision fire. Wolf leaned against a rock, gasping for air. Half the skin on his face had been peeled back, revealing glimpses of white bone and gums; the cotton of his winter coat was stained a deep purple.
Seeing Simo and Walter slowly closing in, he let out a jagged, hysterical laugh. With a trembling hand, he drew his Tokarev pistol.
Bang! Bang!
Wolf fired twice. The shots went wild, hindered by blood loss and the cold, striking a tree trunk near Simo. Before Wolf could fire a third, Simo's heavy boot swept out, kicking Wolf's wrist with brutal force.
The pistol went flying into the deep snow. Simo drew his Finnish puukko knife and lunged toward Wolf's chest.
"Go to hell, you bastard!"
Yet, at the edge of death, Wolf exploded with a final surge of strength. Ignoring the agony in his gut, he recoiled and kicked out with both legs.
Thud!
The kick landed square on Simo's chest. The massive counter-force sent the lighter Simo flying backward, slamming him hard onto the snow. For a moment, Simo couldn't get up.
"Ha... ha..." Wolf grinned ghastly, reaching into his coat for his own knife.
At that moment, a blur of vivid red lunged from his flank. It was Walter. His hunting knife descended in a vicious arc, aimed straight at Wolf's distorted face.
"Agh—!"
Wolf roared, seizing Walter's knife-wrist with both hands. Their bodies became a tangle of limbs, rolling frantically across the blood-streaked snow. Walter could feel Wolf's ragged breath on his face, while the donkey blood on his skin smeared across Wolf's greatcoat.
"Simo! Finish it!" Walter snarled.
Wolf's eyes went wide, his pupils reflecting Walter's face, filthy with gore and madness. Simo finally recovered. Without a word, he charged over, gripped his knife with both hands, and knelt atop Wolf. Putting his entire body weight behind the blade, he drove it home.
Squish.
The knife sank to the hilt into Wolf's already wounded abdomen. Wolf's body jerked and went rigid. His pupils dilated instantly, and the hands that had been desperately resisting Walter's blade lost their strength.
In that heartbeat, Walter looked into Wolf's eyes.
The madness and cruelty were gone. Walter saw a reflection of terror, resentment, and a desperate obsession to live, a light that was, hauntingly, identical to the stubborn donkey he had put down earlier.
But there was no mercy in Walter's gaze.
Simo gripped the embedded knife and sliced downward with a violent pull.
Rrip—
The sound of rending flesh was dull and malicious. Simo practically unzipped half of Wolf's torso. Steaming entrails spilled out, emitting the same vapor that had come from the donkey.
Wolf's mouth hung wide, his throat making a "gurgle-gurgle" sound. Walter saw his opening. He no longer aimed for the face; instead, he lunged forward, driving the sharp tip of his hunting knife directly into Wolf's open mouth.
Wolf instinctively tried to snap his teeth shut to block the blade, but his final resistance was pathetic against Walter's strength.
"For Raivo."
Crunch!
The knife drove upward from below, skewering Wolf's hard palate. The cold steel severed soft tissue and finally emerged near the corner of Wolf's left eye, the tip glinting with a smear of red.
Wolf gave one last convulsion. His hands fell limp onto the blood-red snow. His grey eyes finally dimmed, turning dull and fixed in an expression of intertwined terror and release.
The winter wind howled.
Walter and Simo sat beside the corpse, drawing deep, ragged breaths of the cold air. Walter's hands were shaking. He looked down at himself, covered in blood, reeking of death.
Juha, Old Juhani, and Aalto arrived shortly after. They stood three meters away, watching the scene in silence. Juha spat out a mouthful of bloody phlegm; Old Juhani pulled out his pipe, his hands trembling so much he couldn't strike a match.
"Let's go," Simo said, standing up and wiping the blood from his blade. He helped the still-barefoot Walter to his feet. "We need to find somewhere to wash this filth off."
Walter cast one last look back at Wolf's body. The corpse lay solitary in the snow, soon to be buried by the storm.
The war was still going on. But tonight, there was one less wolf in the pack.
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