The sea frothed under the onslaught of an approaching storm. The wind tore at the sails of the fishing schooners; heavy waves rose to block the way. The steamship Albatross, having departed from Sicily, was heading southward toward the shores of North Africa.

  I stood at the railing when the shrill howl of the alarm suddenly pierced the air. The ship was slowing down.

  "Breakdown in the engine room!" came a shout.

  I rushed down. Heat, steam, and the damp spirit of the cramped compartment hit my face. Young stokers darted about in confusion; the assistant mechanic, a green youth, was helplessly shutting steam valves. The chief engineer was unconscious in the infirmary—he had been struck by fever back in Syracuse.

  "Condenser's clogged!" someone cried.

  I understood immediately: without the condenser, steam could not condense back into water. The boilers would be deprived of feed. If the engines stopped completely, the ship would lose headway. In a storm, that meant death: the vessel would turn broadside to the waves, and a single breaker would smash it like rotten wood.

  I stepped into the cooling pipes section where the tubes throbbed with heat.

  "I've dealt with machines like this on a merchant ship before," I said. "The tubes are clogged. We need to clean them immediately, before it's too late."

  The assistants exchanged glances, as if hearing a lifeline.

  We worked quickly: dismantling the cooling cover, pulling out a portion of the tubes choked with salt deposits. Using brushes, old pipe cleaners, even bare hands — anything we could find — we cleaned the passageways.

  The engine room came back to life.

  The engines began breathing evenly, and the ship, shuddering throughout its body, again faced the waves with its bow.

  The storm struck us half an hour later, but now the Albatross surged forward confidently, tearing through the swell.

  In the captain's cabin, the air smelled of wine and tobacco.

  The captain, a gray-haired Breton with work-hardened hands, was pouring me a glass of thick wine.

  "Mr. Chelago," he said, "if it hadn't been for you..." — he waved his hand toward the roaring sea — "we would have been finished."

  "Thank God," I smiled, "that in my youth I spent time not only on medicine, but also on ironworks."

  The captain raised an eyebrow.

  "God?" he echoed, with a touch of mockery. "And where is your God? Why don't we see Him?"

  I leaned on the table, gazing out the porthole.

  "Tell me, Captain," I began, "if the wind fills your sails, but you don't see it — does that mean the wind doesn't exist?"

  He chuckled but said nothing.

  "You see," I continued, "the world we live in doesn't hold together by blind chance. Stones fall down, not up. Waves move according to the laws of mechanics. Atoms don't connect at random, but follow strict rules.

  This structure of the world — it's like a ship: if each plank lived by itself, the vessel would have fallen apart long ago.

  Laws demand a Lawgiver. Structure demands a Builder."

  The captain snorted, but there was a flicker of thoughtfulness in his eyes.

  "Without a Master, the clock doesn't run. Without a Captain, the ship doesn't find its course," I said. "And yet you would have the whole Universe run itself?"

  Beyond the windows, the wind howled. Waves struck the hull.

  And in that light, in that roar, I felt—quietly and clearly—the breath of the One who holds the world.

  I finished my wine, thanked the captain, and stepped onto the deck.

  A fresh gust of wind hit my face.

  At the stern, near the steam winch, stood an Englishman in a flawlessly ironed tropical suit and a pith helmet. With lazy concentration, he was shooting at the sea with a brand-new experimental rifle, its steel and wood gleaming in the morning light.

  The Englishman was rehearsing for his future safari: testing the weapon before venturing into the sands of North Africa.

  Each shot cracked sharply in the morning air, striking like hammer blows deep inside my memory — and one of them plucked an invisible string.

  A wave of forgotten things surged: the roar of cannons, shattered streets, black smoke... Sedan.

  The final days of the war.

  The final days of my old world.

  In an instant, memory pulled me back—many years into the past...

  The echoes of distant gunfire seared into my mind, washing away the sea, the ship, the captain's cabin.

  And there I was again, on the streets of Sedan, amidst fire, smoke, and fear — at the very heart of a brutal battle.

  When disaster loomed, the city of Sedan filled with a strange, viscous silence and sorrow.

  From the fronts, broken units began to flow into the city—many soldiers wrapped in bloodied bandages, weaponless, with hollow eyes.

  They stumbled forward slowly, as if unable to believe they were still alive.

  Ambulance carts carried the severely wounded.

  It was the retreat of a shattered army.

  The streets reeked of blood, sweat, and old iron.

  Colonel Berthier took command of the city’s defenses.

  He set up his headquarters in the town hall and began methodically restoring order.

  Soldiers gradually came to their senses, and work began to boil.

  Berthier's decisive actions and clear commands lifted the morale of the troops; everyone threw themselves into preparing the defense.

  Civilians formed defense committees.

  Barricades sprang up overnight—crooked heaps made from paving stones, barrels, doors, and overturned carts.

  Chains and ropes were stretched across the narrow streets.

  Craftsmen converted carriages into mobile shields.

  Women prepared bandages.

  Boys ran across rooftops, delivering buckets of water in case fires broke out.

  Deep under the old city—in medieval sewers and wine cellars—sappers laid additional tunnels, so that when the bombardment started, messages could be carried, wounded evacuated, and counterattacks organized through the underground.

  Everyone prepared.

  Even those who could barely lift a musket.

  They all understood what was coming.

  This was a city that had decided to die with a sword in hand.

  At dawn, the Germans opened fire.

  The first shell crashed into a tower by the river.

  Stone and brick rained down in a heavy shower.

  More explosions followed.

  It felt as if the sky itself shattered, hurling shards onto the earth.

  The old walls trembled under the relentless pounding.

  Within an hour, the central square had become a smoking, blackened crater.

  Dust mingled with smoke, blood, and screams.

  The Germans shelled methodically.

  They corrected their fire using a tethered observation balloon.

  Warehouses.

  The town hall.

  Schools that had been turned into hospitals.

  One by one, the shells smashed them to ruin.

  And each time a building collapsed, among the rubble emerged figures—covered in grime and blood, half-dead—but still gripping their rifles.

  Then, when only piles of rubble remained where proud walls once stood, the assault began.

  First—the blare of trumpets.

  Then—the pounding of drums.

  And then the roar of thousands of voices surging forward, as if the earth itself were attacking.

  German assault troops in cuirasses and steel helmets advanced in waves, supported by the latest armored steam machines—unyielding, like a living wall of iron and flesh.

  Sedan met them head-on.

  Fighting erupted for every alley.

  Every staircase.

  Every house.

  They fought hand-to-hand.

  Face to face.

  Men threw themselves at each other like wild beasts, killing with bayonets, rifle butts—and then, when weapons broke—bare fists.

  Grenades exploded with a hiss, showering the air with shrapnel.

  Short, sharp orders, curses, and the moans of the wounded filled the streets.

  One of the armored vehicles broke into a street, clearing a path with streams of fire from its flamethrowers.

  But a detachment of legionnaires under Sergeant Novak, hidden in the basements, launched a flanking counterattack.

  Two Gatling guns, dragged up into position from an old wine cellar, caught the infantry escort in a deadly crossfire.

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Other defenders, stationed on the upper floors, hurled bottles of fire-oil onto the armored hull.

  The vehicle blazed up like a funeral pyre.

  Those who tried to flee the inferno were shot down one by one.

  But the defenders’ strength was ebbing away.

  The Germans were already at the center of the city.

  And the shelling did not cease.

  Sometimes entire buildings collapsed, burying soldiers of both armies together beneath the ruins.

  Some cried out prayers.

  Others hurled curses.

  Soldiers died standing, blocking the narrow alleys with their bodies to slow the enemy's advance.

  The Germans came on in waves.

  Each wave shattered against the defenses—then rose again.

  The French fought and died with weapons in their hands.

  Sometimes the survivors barricaded themselves inside a single house, turning it into a fortress.

  In the basements, the last handful of cartridges was distributed.

  It often seemed: one more assault—and it would all be over.

  But every time, the barricades answered with fire.

  Not for victory—only to take as many of the enemy with them as possible.

  Thus passed that final, mad night.

  And through the roar and smoke and screams, I walked toward my fate—

  toward the place where the city crumbled,

  and where the moment awaited that would forever intertwine my life with that of another.

  The city burned.

  Explosions lit up the night sky, turning the ruins into a landscape of flickering, broken silhouettes.

  Cries of soldiers, the crackle of musketry, and the hiss of ricocheting bullets filled the choking, smoky air.

  Barricades rose like reefs amid the flood of destruction, creating a labyrinth where friend and foe often clashed blindly, by sound alone.

  I ran from barricade to barricade, pulling the wounded from under collapsing walls, dragging them into cellars, bandaging shattered limbs with blood-slicked cloth.

  Gunfire raked the narrow streets.

  Every breath seared my lungs.

  My face was smeared with soot and blood, my arms ached with exhaustion, but there was no time to think—only to move, to act.

  The French soldiers fought like lions, with the desperation of those who knew death was inevitable.

  But the Germans pressed forward, unstoppable, flooding the streets, sweeping away all resistance.

  Each shell from the enemy’s howitzers toppled another building.

  Each building buried defenders alive.

  I knew: Sedan was falling.

  Another shell exploded nearby.

  A wall shattered into dust and debris.

  The blast hurled me to the ground.

  For a moment, there was nothing but the deafening ring in my ears and the sharp taste of blood in my mouth.

  When I struggled to my feet, the street was a different world: heaps of rubble, burning beams, and twisted iron.

  Smoke drifted low over the ground.

  A nearby house was ablaze, flames clawing at the sky.

  Somewhere in the chaos, a faint voice cried out.

  I stumbled toward it.

  There, half-buried beneath a fallen beam, lay a young German officer.

  His face, blackened with soot, twisted in pain and delirium.

  — Vater... — he whispered. — Ich habe meine Pflicht erfüllt...

  Father... I have fulfilled my duty...

  I froze.

  It was a German.

  The enemy.

  The fury, the rage welled up inside me like a flood.

  This soldier—this enemy—was part of the machine that had destroyed my city, killed my friends, buried my comrades under these very stones.

  My hands clenched into fists.

  I could end him here, now.

  No one would know.

  No one would blame me.

  And then...

  A whisper rose in my memory, soft but unyielding:

  "Judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful; mercy triumphs over judgment."

  "Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter."

  Who was I to judge this man?

  Who was I to play God?

  Before me lay not an enemy—but a boy, a son, created by the same Creator as myself.

  Perhaps he had no choice.

  Perhaps he, too, had dreams, regrets.

  I knew what I had to do.

  With a roar of effort, I threw aside the heavy beam, ignoring the pain that tore through my arms and shoulders.

  The young German sagged, unconscious.

  I hoisted him over my shoulders and staggered forward.

  The street heaved under my feet.

  Smoke blurred my vision.

  Somewhere ahead, I heard boots pounding on the stones.

  The whistle of a falling shell shrieked through the air.

  I threw myself over the boy, shielding him with my body.

  The explosion rocked the earth.

  When I opened my eyes, a German patrol was upon me.

  Rifles aimed at my chest.

  — H?nde hoch! — barked one of them.

  I lifted my bloodstained hands.

  The young officer stirred, raised his head weakly, and cried:

  — Nein! Er hat mich gerettet!

  No! He saved me!

  The soldiers hesitated.

  Confused, they seized me roughly and dragged me back through the smoking streets, toward the German rear lines.

  I didn’t resist.

  The fate that awaited me, I accepted.

  Later, in the filth and despair of a prison camp, I would often think back to that moment.

  I had chosen mercy over vengeance.

  And I did not regret it.

  What I did not know was that elsewhere, in the relative comfort of a command carriage, a fateful misunderstanding was taking root.

  Colonel Friedrich von Blumenkranz sat in a railway carriage, converted into a mobile command post.

  The soft green light of a shaded lamp spread across maps, dispatches, and scattered documents.

  Outside, beyond the closed windows, came the distant clatter of hooves, the barked orders of sergeants, the low rumble of victorious drums.

  A sharp knock sounded at the door.

  — Come in, — Blumenkranz said quietly.

  A Hauptmann entered, saluted smartly, and offered a folded newspaper.

  — Herr Oberst, I thought you might want to see this.

  Blumenkranz took the paper.

  His eyes scanned the columns quickly—then froze, narrowing to sharp slits.

  "...During the battles for Sedan, the son of famed Franco-Prussian War hero Colonel Friedrich von Blumenkranz, young Lieutenant Manfred von Blumenkranz, narrowly escaped death at the hands of a Frenchman. Exploiting the lieutenant's injuries, the French soldier attacked with savage intent. Thanks to the timely intervention of a German patrol, the lieutenant was saved. Witnesses speak of the Frenchman's bestial ferocity, who was captured and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp..."

  The paper trembled slightly in Blumenkranz's hand.

  A slow, cold fire ignited behind his eyes.

  — Hauptmann, — he said, his voice soft but so frigid that the officer stiffened instinctively, — recommend all members of the patrol for the Iron Cross.

  They saved my son.

  — Jawohl, Herr Oberst!

  — And... — Blumenkranz’s voice dropped lower, harsher, — find the Frenchman.

  Find out his name.

  Where he is.

  He must answer for what he has done.

  The Hauptmann saluted again and left.

  Blumenkranz remained standing, the newspaper crumpled in his fist.

  Memories flashed through his mind—his son as a boy, running across a sunlit meadow, waving a wooden sword he'd whittled himself.

  Teaching him to parry, to ride, to serve with honor.

  And now...

  Someone had dared to raise a hand against his blood.

  His jaw clenched.

  He crossed the small carriage, picked up a silver-framed photograph from the table.

  Young Manfred smiled from the picture, so full of life and hope.

  Blumenkranz spoke aloud, softly:

  — I swear to you, my son...

  He will pay.

  As long as I draw breath, I will not rest.

  He set the photograph down, smoothed his uniform, and stepped out into the night.

  Behind him, the sound of martial music echoed through the darkened streets, a grim victory hymn.

  And deep inside the seasoned soldier, something ancient stirred—a darkness he would never again be able to set aside.

  The hunt had begun.