The crying did not stop.
It rolled through the square in waves—ragged, high, human, unbearable. Won knelt in the blood and held the dead as if warmth might sohow be forced back into them by grief alone. Old n trembled where they stood, too proud to fall, too broken to speak. Children clung to skirts and sleeves and stared with wide, stunned eyes at bodies that only monts ago had still been part of the world.
And all of it—every sob, every curse half-swallowed, every hateful stare, every silent accusation—was pointed at him.
Oskar felt it.
He felt it all.
The rage. The grief. The fear. The confusion. The devotion of his own n standing hard at the edges of the square. The weight of hundreds of thousands of human emotions colliding in one place and crashing inward upon him like a storm front.
It would have crushed a lesser man.
For one brief mont, beneath the skull-helm, his jaw tightened. His teeth ground together. A pulse flickered once in his temple. His brows twitched in sharp irritation. Not at the grief itself—he had expected grief—but at the stupidity of it, the confusion of it, the sheer obstinate refusal of these people to understand what was happening even after he had made it clear.
Or thought he had.
He sat tall upon Shadowmane, black and imnse against the dying light, and let the noise strike him one last ti.
Then he roared over it.
"What is this?"
The words slamd across the square, drowning the rest.
"What is this!?"
The crying faltered. The sound did not vanish, but it bent around his voice.
"So many of you deciding not to follow my rules—my simple rules!"
His eyes burned out from the darkness of the helm, sweeping over the crowd before him.
"All that I desired of you was n before and won behind . Is that so difficult to understand? What are you?"
His voice turned harder.
"A nation of dullards? A nation of imbeciles? Of stubborn fools?"
Nobody answered.
Nobody dared.
They only stared at him through tears and hatred and panic.
"Yes," he said, looking over them with contempt sharpened by disappointnt, "that is what I see before now. Stubborn fools. Stubborn fools looking at with hateful eyes. Hateful eyes full of grief. Full of tears. Full of those sa weak little questions—why? Why this? Why that?"
He leaned forward slightly in the saddle, and the steel of his armor groaned faintly.
"Well?"
The word cracked like a whip.
"Do you wish to know why?"
His gaze swept over the crowd again, slower now, more deliberate.
"Do you need to repeat myself once more? Have I not, through my many speeches, through my many actions throughout these years, through what I have told the world again and again, made myself clear?"
A pause.
The square seed to hold its breath.
Then Oskar gave a small, humorless shake of the head.
"No."
His voice lowered—not softer, but colder.
"Clearly not."
He straightened in the saddle.
"Well then. Since you lack understanding—since you lack even the most basic comprehension of what is happening here—let refresh your mories."
The afternoon light burned behind him, the palace at his back, the Vistula before him, and the divided crowd stretched around him like a living wound cut open through the heart of Warsaw.
"First of all," he said, "I am quite certain I made myself clear before this war began that this is not, in truth, a war."
He let the sentence settle.
"This is a special military operation."
The phrase sounded absurd to many of those listening, but under his voice it ceased to sound absurd at all.
"It is an operation which I, with my friend Franz Ferdinand, and with the nations of Germany and Austria-Hungary, have undertaken against the vile, heinous terrorist cells of the Black Hand, the so-called Young Bosnia, and the swarm of similar parasites festering around them—groups secretly supported by the Serbian governnt and hidden within its lands, protected beneath its banners, shielded by its soldiers."
His eyes narrowed.
"We made ourselves clear. We asked—politely, more politely than they deserved—that Serbia permit our forces to enter their territory and root out these diseased elents. We asked them to let civilized nations do what they themselves clearly had failed to do."
His lip curled faintly.
"And the Serbian governnt, that corrupt, power hungry, governnt of evil, dared to deny our request."
Another pause.
"And in doing so, it admitted its guilt."
The words landed with terrible simplicity.
"It admitted its complicity in the attack carried out against and my friend in Sarajevo—the attack that left streets full of shattered bodies, little children dead, pregnant won dead, innocents dead, families ruined, hos broken, limbs torn away, lives ended or deford forever beneath the work of cowards and vermin."
His voice did not waver.
"It was because of this that we announced our special military operation against Serbia. It was because of this that Serbia was nad what it truly is: a terror state. And a terror state holds no rights in the eyes of civilization."
That stirred them. Not loudly. But visibly. Tension passed through the mass like a tightening wire.
Oskar saw it and pressed harder.
"Yes. Hear well. A state of terror holds no rights. And all who fight for it, support it, shelter it, feed it, or excuse it make themselves accomplices in its cris."
Then his gaze moved through the Poles and across the mass of them, to the few old Russian war veterans with uniforms gone ragged, to the old imperial habits still lurking in posture and expression.
"And it is regrettable," he said, though the word carried little tenderness, "but it was your Tsar—your Emperor Nicholas—who chose to attack Germany. He chose to stand with terror. He chose to side with those whose thods are bombs in streets and blood in marketplaces."
His voice rose again.
"And in doing so, he forfeited the Russian Empire's right to be regarded as a civilized nation in the eyes of Germany and Austria-Hungary!"
There it was.
The thing beneath everything else.
The doctrine.
The justification.
The law he ant to impose upon flesh.
"And it is because of this," Oskar said, every syllable now precise, "that I have proclaid this occupied land my land. It is because of this that I have proclaid the palace my house. And it is because of this that I have proclaid all of you my guests."
This ti the word struck differently.
Not as a bizarre taphor.
But as a sentence.
He let it hang.
Then, at last, he raised both gauntleted hands to the sides of his helt.
That motion alone changed the square.
Even the crying began to quiet—not fully, not all at once, but enough.
People looked up.
Those who had only seen him in newspapers and illustrated weeklies stared harder now, suddenly aware that the skull-faced iron apparition on the black horse was about to beco sothing else. Sothing more human—or perhaps worse than human.
The seals released with a dull tallic click.
Slowly, he lifted the helm free.
First ca the hard, clean line of his jaw.
Then the mouth—too perfectly cut, too controlled, too severe.
Then the cheeks, pale and smooth and unmarred.
Then the straight nose.
Then the brows.
And then, fully revealed beneath the falling light of late afternoon, those cold blue eyes.
Not rely blue.
Icy.
Clear in a way that did not belong to mud, war, and eastern smoke.
His hair followed: short, light blond, touched here and there by faint pale threads that caught the sun almost white, almost silver, as if platinum had been drawn through gold by a patient hand.
The effect on the crowd was imdiate.
Silence deepened.
For most of them, this was the first ti they had ever truly seen him. Not in photographs. Not in illustrated magazines. Not in the exaggerated heroic nonsense of newspapers that turned princes into poster images and myths into politics.
They had assud the pictures lied.
That no man looked like that.
That the cara had been kind. That artists had flattered him. That rumor had embroidered him into absurdity.
But the truth before them was stranger.
And worse.
He was younger than they expected.
Far younger.
Not soft with youth—but sharpened by it. Twenty-six, and yet there was sothing almost offensively young in his face, as if war or ti had not aged him as it did for other n, but refined him. He did not possess the thick, weathered masculinity of old generals or scarred cavalry lords. His beauty was too exact for that. Too clean. Too dangerous. Masculine, yes—but in the way of so princely predator, a pretty-faced creature made unsettling by the coldness behind the perfection.
He looked unreal.
Not rely handso.
Impossible.
And because of that, inhuman.
Even those who hated him felt it.
They looked upon him and saw not simply a conqueror, but so new and terrible thing—sothing from another century, or another world entirely, wearing the face of youth as if mocking ordinary n.
Oskar lowered the helm to his lap.
The black, skin-tight under-layer still frad the thick column of his neck beneath the open edges of the armor, emphasizing the strange contradiction of him: youth and steel, beauty and brutality, almost decadent perfection fused with the machinery of terror.
His gaze moved over them all again.
The n before him.
The won behind him.
The dead among the living.
The confusion still hanging in the air.
And then he sighed.
Not deeply.
Not theatrically.
A brief sound of irritation.
"Now," he said, "since you so clearly lack understanding…"
He lifted his chin slightly.
"Let tell you the second rule of our ga."
Again that word.
Ga.
It provoked a visible shiver in the crowd.
"In my house," he said, and his voice took on the hard cadence of law, "in this land which is now Germany's, we have a simple rule."
His eyes swept across the masses.
"All those who carry not German blood within them, who hold no German citizenship in their records, in their hands, who do not speak German, who do not follow its religions, its culture, or respect its laws—these are guests."
He did not speak quickly.
He wanted each word to settle.
"Outsiders are guests. Those who have not lived under German authority for at least 10 years, who have not been evaluated, tested, and proven in their loyalty to the state—these are guests."
His hand tightened on the helt resting in his lap.
"And as I have already told you—you are guests."
A beat.
"Guests on my land."
Another.
"And as guests, you will do as I say…"
Now his blue eyes hardened further.
"…or you will die."
He leaned forward slightly, enough for the last of the sun to strike his face and throw the coldness of his features into sharper relief.
"This is not sothing I tell you out of whim. Not out of caprice. Not out of so fantasy born this afternoon."
His voice flattened into legal certainty.
"It is law."
He let that word fall like iron.
"On the first day of January, in the year 1907, the Imperial Citizenship and Security Act was brought into force by my father."
This ti there were faces in the crowd that did rember. Older n. Clerks. Priests. A few won. Those who had read of it from afar and never believed it would one day co for them.
Oskar saw that recognition and pressed on.
"Under that law, all of you are guests."
His gaze did not leave them.
"You remain here," Oskar said, his voice steady and cold, "only for as long as I permit you to remain upon my land."
His gaze did not turn upon the won.
He did not even glance behind him to where they stood.
He did not acknowledge them at all.
Instead, his eyes moved slowly across the n before him.
Not idly.
Not by chance.
Deliberately.
asured.
And as he looked upon them, sothing in his face seed to harden further, as though whatever cold restraint had still remained within him was now being stripped away layer by layer.
"And now that I truly look at you…" he continued, his voice lowering, gaining a sharper and more personal edge, "the whole lot of you… you n…"
He let the words hang.
A pause followed.
Long enough for them to feel it.
Long enough for the n standing before him to understand that they had beco the true object of his attention.
"I see it."
His eyes narrowed.
"I see it clearly in your eyes."
He leaned forward slightly in the saddle, one hand resting on the helm in his lap, the other upon the reins, his gaze moving over them with slow and rciless precision.
"Pure, disgusting contempt. Utter hatred. Wild, unrestrained defiance."
His stare passed over one face after another like a blade being drawn slowly across exposed skin.
"Defiance directed at … and at my brave soldiers."
He gave the faintest gesture with one hand toward the black lines of the Legion hemming the crowd in on every side.
"Those clenched fists. Those stiff backs. The way you stand before as though you an to strike the mont my back is turned."
His voice dropped lower still.
"It tells everything I need to know."
Then, with blunt and almost casual finality, he said,
"And, I do not like it. Not one bit."
A small ripple moved through the n at once.
Not movent exactly.
Tension.
A subtle tightening of shoulders, a flicker in the eyes, jaws setting hard as they saw Oskar's expression shift into sothing perilously close to anger.
Then Oskar straightened in the saddle again, the dying light catching on the black planes of his armor, his face now fully visible above the dark skin-tight collar beneath the plate.
"And so—"
His voice rose once more, carrying easily over the mass.
"As any true master of a house would do when faced with clearly hostile guests… guests with possible ill intent toward his family, toward his people, I have made a decision."
A breath.
"As my third rule in this ga…"
His face hardened completely.
Whatever humanity so had thought they saw in the youth of his features was gone now, buried beneath sothing colder, sothing harder, sothing that looked less like a prince and more like judgnt made flesh.
"The whole lot of you…"
He pointed.
Directly.
"You n."
A pause.
Cold.
Absolute.
"…are not welco on this land."
The reaction was imdiate.
A sharp intake of breath rippled through the n as though one body had inhaled all at once.
Then ca the voices—low, shocked, disbelieving, rising in sudden confusion.
A few stepped forward instinctively, only to stop themselves almost imdiately not daring to get into striking distance of Oskar.
But one man did not stop.
An older man, broad-shouldered despite the wear of years, standing before Oskar at the front of the mass of n, stepped forward through sheer outrage, his face red with disbelief and fury as he roared:
"How dare you do this!"
He had barely taken another step before Shadowmane moved.
There was no warning.
No command.
Only violence.
The great black beast lunged with terrifying speed, his massive head snapping forward, jaws opening wide enough to engulf the man's head almost whole. The crowd did not even have ti to scream before his teeth closed.
The man scread then.
A horrible, cut-short sound.
Then ca the crack as Shadowmane lifted him half off the ground with the force of the bite alone, the body twitching wildly as blood burst down over beard, collar, and coat. Then the horse gave one savage shake of his head, as though the man were no heavier than a rag in a dog's mouth, and flung the broken body high into the packed mass of n.
It crashed into them in a spray of blood and dead weight.
People scread.
So ducked.
So fell.
Others stumbled backward over the body as it hit the stones and rolled, broken and wrong and unmistakably dead.
For one heartbeat the crowd nearly broke.
The n lurched.
The won cried out.
Several people turned as though to run despite everything.
Oskar clicked his tongue once, sharply, in open annoyance.
"Damn fool!"
His voice cracked over the panic like a whip.
"One does not simply walk before Shadowmane with such utter disrespect and live to see another day!"
The terror deepened imdiately.
The tension in the crowd snapped so hard it felt as though the whole mass might finally explode into blind flight.
But before it could—
Oskar raised his hand.
And sohow that alone was enough to drag control back over them.
"Do not be frightened."
His tone shifted—only slightly, but enough.
The mass shuddered and then held.
"Do not look upon ," he said, sweeping his gaze over them once more, "as though I have said sothing unreasonable."
His eyes passed from face to face, over shock, horror, revulsion, and that helpless disbelief which still hung over the square like smoke after gunfire.
"I have not. And believe when I say this—I hold no particular hatred toward any of you, nor toward your people."
The words sounded almost impossible in the air after what had just happened.
For a mont, the crowd did not know what to do with them.
"In fact…" Oskar continued, his voice steady, deep, and iron-hard, "I respect you."
That caught them off guard.
Faces lifted.
Eyes narrowed.
Even the crying thinned, if only a little.
Oskar kept his gaze on the n before him.
"I look upon the banner of Poland—the White Eagle—and I know what it ans. I know the old tale of Lech, who saw the white eagle above its nest and took it as a sign. I know of Gniezno, of the nest from which your first greatness was said to rise, and of Poznań, of those early strongholds from which your first rulers laid the stones of your state."
Now they listened.
Not because they trusted him.
But because this was not what they had expected to hear from his mouth.
"I know that your history does not begin yesterday, nor with the Russian boot on your throat, nor with the partitions that carved your kingdom apart. I know that the known history of your state reaches back to Mieszko, to baptism, to the year 966—to the mont your people entered fully into the Christian world of Europe and began writing their na into its mory."
Sothing shifted among the sea of humanity.
Not warmth.
Not trust.
But attention sharpened by recognition.
"I know what has been taken from you," he said. "I know what has been broken, stolen, denied, partitioned, crushed, renad, occupied, and ruled by others. I know what your forefathers lost. I know what your mothers buried. I know what your priests preached in whispers when open speech beca dangerous. I know what your children were taught not in courts, not in official books, but at tables, in songs, in prayers, and in grief."
His gaze moved slowly across the n.
"And I know your saints as well."
That, too, made them listen.
"I know of Bishop Stanislaus—the man struck down by his own king, yet not erased by death. In your mory, he did not simply fall. He endured. He returned to the world of the living as judgnt. As warning. As your image of defiance."
A pause.
"And I see that sa defiance before now."
His cold blue eyes moved slowly across the n.
"More clearly than any book could have shown . More clearly than any report, any map, any history ever could."
His voice remained cold.
"I see a people who refused to disappear."
Sothing stirred in the crowd.
"I see a people who refused to forget."
Backs straightened.
Not many.
But enough.
"I see n who carry their nation not in borders, but in blood. In mory. In the old certainty that what was taken from you has not ceased to be yours."
Now the silence changed.
It was no longer rely fearful.
It had beco watchful.
Dangerous.
"And that," Oskar said, his voice sharpening like steel drawn from its sheath, "is precisely why I do not trust you."
The words struck harder than before.
"That is why you must go."
He let them feel it.
Why the won stood behind him.
Why the n stood before him.
Why the line had been drawn as it had.
"I did not place you before by chance," he said. "I placed you there because I would not have you at my back."
The words fell like a sentence.
"I will not march east while n such as you stand behind my armies, behind my railways, behind my wounded, behind my sleeping camps, behind the spine of all that feeds and carries my war."
His gaze hardened.
"You are too proud. Too stubborn. Too full of mory. Too full of Poland."
A pause.
"And n such as you, if left behind , would beco a knife."
Not loud.
Not dramatic.
Certain.
"A knife in the back of my soldiers. A knife in the back of Germany. A knife waiting only for darkness, distance, and opportunity."
He leaned forward slightly in the saddle.
"I know what sort of n stand before . I know that you would endure. I know that you would wait. I know that you would strike."
Then he straightened again.
"And so I will keep you where I can see you."
His voice rose, not in passion, but in absolute authority.
"Before . Before my armies. To the east—where I may face you, and not be forced to wonder what waits behind my back."
Now there was no pride left in the silence.
Only understanding.
Cold and terrible.
"That is why the won stand behind ."
"That is why the n stand before ."
"And that is why you must go."
A beat.
"However—"
He raised one hand, silencing the outrage before it could fully rise, before the people found enough courage to turn disbelief into noise.
"And before you raise your voices again…"
The crowd stilled.
"…hear ."
He looked at them—truly looked at them.
At the faces twisted by grief, outrage, and disbelief. At the n staring back with clenched jaws. At the won already imagining husbands, sons, fathers, and brothers pushed away from them.
"I understand the thoughts moving through your heads at this mont," he said. "Trust —I do."
"You look upon with eyes full of injustice, as if to say: this is not fair. How can you do this? What have we done to deserve it? We did not choose this war."
His voice remained deep, firm, and strangely asured.
"And you are right to think such things."
That landed upon them harder than kindness would have.
"You did not begin this."
"You are not the enemy I first ca here to destroy."
"You are not personally responsible for the road that brought my armies into this city."
Silence followed.
Heavy.
Uncertain.
Then his tone hardened again.
"But I do not have the ti…"
His eyes narrowed.
"…to separate each of you one by one."
"To test each oath."
"To weigh each heart."
"To decide which of you is harmless, and which of you is rely patient."
"I do not have the luxury of gambling the lives of my soldiers, the safety of my roads, the security of my rear, upon your individual intentions."
A breath.
"So instead…"
He straightened fully, like a judge about to deliver not rely a sentence, but an order ant to outlive the mont.
"In this ga of house…"
"I give you not judgnt without path."
The square listened.
"For I believe in choice."
His voice deepened.
"Even limited choice is still choice. Even under law, a man may be given a road before him and left to decide whether he will walk it."
That word mattered.
"So hear now: this is not the end."
A ripple passed through the crowd.
"If you wish, one day, to set foot upon this land again…"
His gaze swept over the n.
"You may."
That changed the silence.
Not into hope.
Not yet.
But into attention sharpened by possibility.
"Not now," he said at once, crushing any warmth before it could take shape. "Not while Germany is at war. Not while my armies march. Not while my rear must be secure. Peace is not what Russia declares for itself. Peace is not what your Tsar or your newspapers na it. Peace is when Germany stands at peace. And until Germany stands at peace, I will not take in extra n into this house."
His words rolled over them with the force of iron.
"But after the war…"
"After Germany stands secure…"
"After I have the ti to govern what has been taken…"
"Then you may co."
"You may present yourselves at my borders."
"You may be examined."
"You may be judged."
"And perhaps…"
A pause.
"…you will be allowed to return."
He let that hang before them.
Not rcy or kindness, but a challenge.
"So think of this, if you must, as a test."
"A challenge."
"A asure laid upon you."
"To see who among you still stands after war."
"To see who still has the will to return."
"To see who desires not rely to crawl back onto land once lost, but to return with the will to submit to law, to order, to discipline, and to prove loyalty."
His voice grew heavier.
"This land, under Germany, will not remain what it has been."
"It will be remade."
"Safer."
"Stronger."
"More orderly."
"More prosperous than what you have known beneath Russian rule."
The words painted sothing dangerous then.
Sothing almost tempting.
"A land worth returning to."
"But to earn that return…"
His eyes locked onto them.
"You must prove yourselves."
"To ."
"To Germany."
"And you will prove yourselves…"
A pause.
"…through obedience."
"By leaving."
"By going east."
"To the empire whose citizenship you still carry."
"You will go."
"You will endure."
"You will survive."
"And when the war is over…"
"Then you may return."
"Then you may stand before again."
"And then I shall see whether you are worthy to be received again as guests—whether you co not rely as Poles, or Jews, or Russians, or whatever else you call yourselves, but with the will to beco loyal subjects of the great German Empire."
He let the silence sit for only a mont before continuing.
"And do not mistake . I understand what I am saying to you."
His gaze passed over the front ranks of n, then beyond them, to the wider mass.
"I know what waits upon the eastern roads."
"Cold."
"Hunger."
"Disease."
"Distance."
"Uncertainty."
"I know that many of you have little money."
"I know many of you have no wagons, no horses, no proper stores of food, no houses waiting for you, no certainty of work, and no certainty that the lands farther east will welco you kindly."
His expression did not soften.
"I know that for so of you, what lies ahead will be hardship."
A pause.
"Severe hardship."
The crowd listened now with a terrible stillness.
And then, for the first ti, Oskar's gaze shifted behind him.
Toward the won.
Toward the mothers clutching children, the daughters pressed against them, the widows, the wives, the girls who did not yet understand what shape their lives were about to take.
His voice remained hard, but it changed—if only slightly.
"As for the won…"
That struck them like a second command before he had even finished speaking.
"The won may remain."
A tremor passed through the crowd.
"They may stay here, upon this land, under German rule, and live here in certainty rather than in the chaos of the road."
"Not as citizens."
"Not with the rights of Germans."
"But as guests."
His eyes swept over them coldly.
"And as guests, they may live."
"They may dwell."
"They may keep to their own devices."
"I will not chain them."
"I will not force them to labour."
"I will not seize the won of this city and make them do what they do not wish to do rely because war has placed them beneath my authority."
The words landed heavily, not as kindness, but as law.
"They are my guests."
"And so long as they behave themselves, they will be left alone."
A beat.
"However…"
That single word darkened everything again.
"If they choose to go east with the n…"
"If they choose to abandon the certainty of German-held land for the uncertainty beyond it…"
"Then the sa rule applies to them as well."
"They will go."
"They will not simply wander back when fear, hunger, or regret begins to bite at their heels."
"They will not return easily."
"Perhaps not for years."
"Perhaps never."
His gaze hardened.
"And perhaps they will die there."
No one moved.
No one even seed to breathe.
"Of hunger."
"Of cold."
"Of disease."
"Of injury."
"Of the thousand petty miseries and cruelties that wait upon rootless people cast upon a long road in a ti of war."
He let that sink into them.
Then he looked once more over the n before him.
"But surely…"
His tone turned almost thoughtful, and that made it worse.
"…surely the brave n before , the proud n before , the strong n before , if they work together, if they endure together, can survive such a road."
A faint pause.
"I would imagine so."
His gaze sharpened.
"However, if you take the won with you…"
"If you take your wives, your daughters, your mothers, your sisters…"
"If you add to your number more mouths to feed, more bodies to shelter, more weakness to slow you, more lives to carry upon your backs…"
"Then I cannot say how your chances will fare."
That one landed like a knife.
He did not need to explain further. They understood him.
The choice had been made into a burden.
A division not rely of law—
but of survival.
"Here, in the west, in the lands held by Germany," Oskar said, "there will be order."
"There will be food where food can be given."
"There will be peace where peace can be maintained."
"There will be protection beneath German rule."
He turned his head slightly, enough that both n and won could feel the weight of his gaze passing over them.
"So decide."
"n and won both."
"Decide what road you choose."
"Decide whether you trust the east more than you fear it."
"Decide whether you trust your own strength enough to drag others into exile beside you."
"Decide whether love, duty, pride, fear, or hunger shall rule you."
His voice lowered.
"But choose with clear minds."
"Because once chosen…"
"It will not be easily undone."
Silence.
Total.
Then Oskar shifted.
And the silence changed with him.
"Now…"
His voice sharpened once more.
"If any man here finds this unfair…"
"If any man here believes this burden too great…"
"If any man here still imagines himself wronged enough to challenge my right to decide the fate of this land…"
His eyes burned.
"Then I give you another choice."
That changed everything.
The square tightened at once, as though the mass itself had drawn breath and forgotten how to release it.
"I give you one chance."
With deliberate calm, Oskar lifted the skull-helm from his lap and set it upon the pointed poml of his saddle, as casually as another man might set down a hat. Then he swung himself down from Shadowmane.
The impact of his boots against the stone rang out like a hamr striking an anvil.
He stepped forward.
Away from the horse.
Away from the saddle.
Alone.
Or as close to alone as such a being could ever appear while a beast like Shadowmane stood behind him.
"Co face ."
The word was quiet.
Deadly.
"Co and let us see whom god favours here."
A ripple of disbelief moved through the n before him.
It was not rely the challenge that stunned them.
It was him.
Without the helm, without the skull-mask to make him monstrous, he was sohow worse. The black armor still turned him into sothing beyond ordinary human scale, its thick plates swallowing light, its red cape hanging behind him like spilled blood, its black under-suit visible at the joints and throat like a second skin drawn tight across unnatural strength. His sword remained across his back, broad enough to split n apart in groups, long enough that it seed less a weapon than an executioner's beam of sharpened iron. Even standing still, he looked capable of cutting through ranks of n in a single sweep. And behind him Shadowmane stood armored, massive, snorting once through flared nostrils, every line of the beast promising slaughter.
Together they did not look like sothing a crowd could resist.
They looked like the end of resistance.
"As many of you as wish," Oskar said. "Co one by one, or co all at once. I do not care."
His arms spread slightly, not in welco but in contemptuous invitation.
"Co and fight . Let strength decide who has the right to rule this land and to decide the fate of its people."
The words were so outrageous that for a mont they almost sounded like mockery.
Because everyone there could see the truth of it at once.
To face him, it was suicide.
No matter how many ca at him, he was too large, too strong, too heavily armored. His sword alone could cut n down by the row. His gauntlets looked as though they could cave in skulls with a single blow by the sheer weight of them. And if he mounted Shadowmane again, if man and beast charged together into that pressed sea of bodies, it felt possible—horribly possible—that they might butcher the whole mass if they truly chose to.
The n felt it.
That was the worst part.
They felt they had been wronged. They felt humiliated, condemned, cast out before their wives, mothers, daughters, sisters, before the won standing behind Oskar in frightened silence. They wanted to hate him. They did hate him. They wanted to step forward and spit at him, curse him, throw themselves upon him and prove, if only for one mont, that they were still n.
But when Oskar's eyes swept over them, one by one, they recoiled.
Not visibly, not all of them. But inwardly.
His gaze moved through the front ranks like cold fire, and where it settled, jaws tightened, fists clenched harder, shoulders stiffened—and then held. Every man felt, in the privacy of his own bones, the sa terrible truth:
To step forward was to die.
And so none moved.
Behind him the won were quieter still. The ones clutching children or their sister's sleeves or each other did not speak. They stayed where they had been placed, fearful of his wrath, fearful of the horse, fearful of the rifles, fearful of what else this black giant and his Black Legion might yet decide. Even their grief bent around him now.
Oskar saw all of it.
He saw the rage in the n and the paralysis chained to it.
He saw their hatred.
He saw their fear.
And he knew at once what it ant.
So he began to walk.
Not far at first.
A few slow steps before the mass of n, his boots ringing against the stone, his cape dragging behind him in a dark whisper. But there was nothing idle in the motion. He moved like sothing caged within too small a space. A judge inspecting the condemned. A king reviewing prisoners. A lion pacing before prey that refused either to flee or fight.
His jaw was tight.
Too tight.
Because beneath the cold perfection of his face, beneath the black armor and the terrible authority he had wrapped around himself like a second skin, sothing in him was still straining.
Still waiting.
Still hoping.
For what, exactly, he could not have said.
For one man to co forward.
For one act of courage great enough to interrupt the machine he had built around himself.
For one voice, perhaps, strong enough to tell him no.
For a sign.
For God.
For sothing.
Anything.
So final interruption before he crossed fully into what he was becoming.
But the square gave him nothing.
Only silence.
Only staring faces.
Only fear.
His eyes moved over them again. Hundreds nearest him. Thousands beyond. A sea of n, and not one yet willing to step into the open.
"Well?" he said at last.
No one answered.
He took another few steps. Slower now. The pacing less like ceremony and more like irritation forced into order.
"Well?" he repeated.
Still nothing.
His mouth shifted, not quite into a smile.
"Is there no one?"
The question carried across the square and ca back empty.
He turned his head slightly, pale hair catching the dying light, blue eyes cold and bright beneath drawn brows.
"No one at all?"
His voice rose—not into a shout, but into sothing heavier. Harder. A sound that seed to strike the front ranks rather than rely reach them.
"No one who will co and stand before ?"
He stopped.
Looked at them.
Really looked.
At the packed mass of them. At their clenched jaws. Their stiff shoulders. Their lowered eyes. Their hatred, so real and yet so carefully chained.
And sothing in him snapped, if only a little.
"Look at you," he said.
The words ca sharper now.
"Look at the number of you."
He turned slowly, one arm moving out toward the endless ranks of n spread before him.
"So many."
His gaze returned to them.
"And only one of ."
A pause.
"One."
His voice deepened.
"One man standing here before you all."
He spread his arms slightly, not in welco but in disbelief sharpened into accusation.
"And still you do not co."
The words struck harder now because there was anger in them—not wild anger, but the bitter, restrained anger of a man disgusted by the shape of his own necessity.
"Will you simply accept whatever leaves my mouth as truth?"
"As law?"
"As fate?"
"Is this what you have decided?"
He took a step closer.
His armor groaned softly.
"Will no one among you test ?"
"Will no one among you stand before and say: enough?"
His eyes burned.
"You glare at as if you hate . You stand there with your backs stiff and your fists clenched as if each one of you would gladly drive a knife between my ribs the first mont my back was turned."
His gaze sharpened further.
"And yet not one of you has the courage to co at now."
The words hit harder than gunfire.
"To co before ."
"To face face to face."
He looked over them with open contempt, but beneath it there was sothing else. Sothing rawer. Sothing almost desperate in its disappointnt.
"Like n of honor."
"Like n of pride."
"Like n who believe their own anger."
That was what broke them.
Not physically.
Inside.
Because they knew he had nad the truth they most wanted hidden. That they were furious enough to hate him, to curse him, perhaps even to kill him from behind in darkness, in chaos, in number—but not one of them wished to step into the open and die in a gesture so naked, so hopeless, so final.
Sha moved through the front ranks like poison.
Eyes lowered.
Fists loosened.
So looked away.
Others stood straighter, as if posture alone could save them from the humiliation of being seen through so completely.
Oskar let the silence deepen.
For one long mont he said nothing.
And inwardly, against all reason, he waited still.
Co on, then.
Soone.
Show .
Show I am wrong.
Show there is another way through this.
But the square remained frozen.
Then the crowd shifted.
Not everywhere.
Only in one place.
A disturbance moved through the sea of n, small at first, no more than a tremor as bodies turned and parted with confused curses and startled breaths. Heads lifted. Faces angled inward. The line wavered, opening just enough for sothing—or soone—to pass through.
Oskar stopped moving.
His irritation vanished at once.
The square felt it.
The people nearest him felt it before they even understood why: the sudden stillness of the giant, the sharpness of his attention, the way his entire presence seed to narrow toward a single point in the crowd.
And then they saw it too.
The sea of n began to open.
Slowly at first.
Then more clearly.
Parting around one lone figure coming forward through the press as though drawn by a force stronger than fear.
And then he ca.
Not a giant.
Not a soldier.
A youth.
Short beside the n around him, let alone beside Oskar, but hard in the lean way of soone built by work instead of war. His clothes were poor—patched, worn, common. A worker's clothes. A craftsman's. His shoulders and forearms carried the shape of labor. Carpenter's hands. Carpenter's stance. The body of a man who knew tools, wood, weight, long hours, and little comfort.
But there was nothing bent in him.
Nothing hesitant.
He pushed through the crowd with a force that ca not from size, but from certainty.
His face was young.
Dark-haired.
Sharp-featured.
Severe with the kind of resolve that belongs only to soone who has already decided the price and accepted it. Around his neck, half-hidden beneath his shirt, a chain caught the light for a mont as he moved, and with it a small Star of David.
Oskar saw it.
And understood at once.
A Jew.
Not rely that.
Sothing else.
Sothing deeper.
The boy ca on, and as he did, his hand disappeared into his coat.
Several n flinched.
A few won gasped.
Even so of the Black Legion at the edges of the square tensed—
then paused when Oskar gave no order.
The youth stopped only when he had broken fully from the front ranks and stepped into the open stone clearing before Oskar.
A few ters.
No more.
Close enough now that the difference between them beca almost absurd.
Before him stood Oskar—towering, armored, imnse, all black iron and red cloth and cold princely violence.
Before Oskar stood this one young man—short, poor, mortal, breathing hard but standing straight.
And then the youth opened his coat.
Not to reveal a pistol.
Not a knife.
A sling.
An actual sling, worn and plain, looped around his fingers like sothing dragged up out of another age.
A murmur went through the square.
Then he shrugged the coat from his shoulders and let it fall.
Beneath it, tied close under his arm and along his side, was a leather pouch swollen with stones.
For the first ti in several minutes, sothing like genuine surprise crossed Oskar's face.
Not much.
Just enough.
His eyes narrowed.
Then widened slightly.
And then, despite himself, the corner of his mouth twitched.
A sling.
Of all things.
Of all possible weapons.
A sling.
The youth saw the reaction and mistook it for mockery. Good. Let him. Hatred strengthened him more than fear ever would.
When he spoke, he did so not in Polish, not in Russian, but in clear German.
"I know what you are," he said.
His voice was young, but it did not tremble.
"And I know what your laws are."
That caught more than Oskar's attention. It caught the square's.
The youth took one more step forward.
"You already forced and my family from our ho once."
A beat.
"From Germany."
The words landed like dropped iron.
Oskar's expression changed.
Only slightly.
But enough.
He looked at the young man again, more carefully this ti. The face. The accent. The German. The star at his throat. The sling in his hand.
And he understood.
One of the expelled.
One of those pushed east when the law had first begun to tighten around the Reich.
One of those who had fled and made a life sowhere else.
And now history, or fate, or his own hand, had co to uproot him again.
The young man's eyes burned.
"You drove us from one ho."
He lifted the sling slightly.
"I will not let you drive from another."
His voice rose, not into a shout, but into sothing that carried with startling clarity over the silence of the square.
"I will not run again."
"I will not begin again."
"I will not let you turn every place I build into a road."
He planted his feet.
Hard.
Certain.
And in that mont he seed taller than he was.
Not in body.
In will.
"This is where I make my stand."
His gaze locked onto Oskar's.
"I will face you alone, you monster."
Silence followed.
Deep.
Total.
Even the crying at the back of the square had died.
For one long mont Oskar said nothing.
He stood there, looking at the youth before him, at the sling hanging loose in one hand, at the stones and the dropped coat, at the raw and terrible simplicity of the challenge.
Then his eyes flicked once to the sling again.
And this ti the smirk ca properly.
Small.
Crooked.
Almost disbelieving.
"Interesting," he murmured.
Then louder:
"Well then."
His gaze settled fully on the boy.
"Let us see what you are capable of."
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