Hours bled away beneath a grey, unfeeling sky. Cigarette smoke curled through the still air like ghostly tendrils, mingling with the scent of cold iron, scorched powder, and distant fire.

“Five minutes, men,” the Pirate murmured, glancing down at his battered watch. His exhale trembled, barely perceptible, but Erik caught it — the breath of a man preparing to die.

“I just want to say…” The Pirate hesitated, voice rough. “I appreciate you all. Even if no one else does. You made this cursed unit bearable.”

There were chuckles — dry, nervous things — and a few crooked smiles.

“Take a moment. Remember the ones who didn’t make it this far. This… this might be our first and last moment of silence.”

He swallowed, the motion thick in his throat. His eye shimmered, just once.

“For the ones who gave everything chasing a better life. For the Legion of Greed. FOR THE WHITE LEGION!”

“FOR THE LEGION!” came the thunderous reply — then, silence again.

Only the distant rumble of artillery and the dying screams from Viljar answered back.

The Pirate blew his whistle.

The White Legion surged forward, hooves pounding over the untouched snow, a cavalry of ghosts galloping toward the fortress city. With every stride, the gunfire grew louder — sharper — the music of slaughter greeting them like an overture.

Erik stayed behind. Rifle slung across his chest, eyes sharp, tracking the ramparts.

As the vanguard neared Viljar’s south gate, the first bullets sang — cutting men and horses from the charge like wheat beneath a scythe. Screams rose, harsh and abrupt. Chaos bloomed.

The Legion scattered into the outskirts, ducking behind sheds, fences, and ruined homes, anything that could break the hail of lead. Erik dismounted by a crumbling house at the edge of the road into Viljar. He flinched as fresh gunfire split the air and snatched comrades from their saddles.

From his saddlebag, he retrieved a thick winter poncho and draped it over himself. Then he dropped prone, the cold earth biting through fabric and skin alike. His breath fogged the scope as he adjusted it. He zeroed in on the wall — found a figure. Not a man. Just a shape.

That’s what he had to tell himself.

He pulled the trigger.

And again.

And again.

And again.

Each shot was a whisper of death, another ghost birthed into the storm.

The Legion inched forward, inch by bloody inch, toward the south gate. The gunfire thinned, but the path was paved with bodies. Erik’s teeth clenched. Both sides claimed freedom, but here, freedom was a bayonet, a grenade, a final scream caught in red snow.

He moved with the others now, silent among the wreckage — stepping over limbs, frozen blood, twisted metal. Man and beast lay still together, stripped of names and meaning. He tried not to look. His stomach turned anyway.

Still, he kept going. The Empire’s promises whispered in his ears like sirens: tax breaks, clean coin, a Northerner’s reward for loyalty.

He despised how much he wanted it.

These were brothers. Sons. Fathers.

Erik had killed them all — not for duty, not for glory, but for comfort. Every pull of the trigger that made his life simpler had unraveled someone else’s. The guilt gnawed at his mind like rats in the dark. But he buried it. He had come too far to turn back.

Or so he told himself.

He reloaded with the ease of repetition, each movement dull with routine. Cold fingers worked the bolt. He crouched in a broken home, resting the rifle against the splintered windowsill, sighting down the line. One breath. One pull. One more notch carved into the stock.

Then the house shuddered — dust spilled from the ceiling like ash from a funeral pyre.

Another explosion — closer.

He ducked instinctively. His pulse surged. Artillery? No — too sharp. Too focused. Traps. Dynamite hidden beneath the snow.

The house next door disappeared in an eruption of flame and wood and bone. The blast kissed his face with searing heat.

He ran.

There was no time to recover the rifle — it vanished behind him, swallowed by fire and snow.

Only survival mattered now.

He had killed too many, sacrificed too much, to die here.

He sprinted for his horse.

But he was too late.

The building she was tied to exploded. Flame engulfed it, shrapnel tearing the air. The shockwave struck him like a battering ram, flinging him backward. He hit the snow hard — the cold broke his fall, but it couldn't shield him from what followed.

Something wet and heavy slammed into him. Another piece landed nearby with a thud. Blood — warm and bitter — splashed across his face.

His mare was gone.

He didn’t scream. Didn’t move.

Just laid there, ears ringing, eyes wide, the sky above him spinning in slow, merciless silence.