difficult to digest.
A number of dead had succumbed to more familiar injuries, ones the ravens had seen time and again. Their bodies were perforated with holes both large and small, some that still contained metal. Bodies like these were strewn across the continent: the detritus of war.
But the best meat came from that handful of men who had died without apparent injury. These were the men who had traveled through places the ravens could never visit, whose souls and sanity had been lost in transit. Perfect, unblemished, lifeless bodies.
The ravens waited until the holes had been filled, until the men with shovels and spades left the valiant dead to their peace. Then, as one, they descended.
They picked at mounds of freshly turned soil while their cousins to the east, upon the Continent, did much the same in the field behind a ruined farmhouse.
Many years had passed since new burials had drawn the ravens to this farm. There had been a time when it was littered with tiny graves, each no larger than a sack of grain. But new burials had come less and less frequently, until they ceased altogether.
Thus with great interest did the ravens watch as bodies were pulled from the wreckage. Several had died in the farmhouse, but only one evoked tears and anguish. The ravens recognized this bald little man; his experiments had fed them well in bygone years.
His body did not join the others in the cold, hard earth. The mourners cremated him upon a hellish pyre that crumbled his bones to ash. Winter wind sent his remains aloft, beyond where the ravens circled, and farther still.
To the east, to the far edge of the Continent, where his ashes mingled with snow and fell in large gray flakes upon the armies converging there. Erstwhile partners in invasion now assessed each other warily, like lonely revelers eyeing each other across an empty dance floor. They watched for feints and missteps, waiting for new music, for a new dance to begin.
The ravens of Eastern Europe had watched this impasse take shape. Now they waited hungrily for the spring thaw that would rouse these forces into motion.
But the farmhouse and the events there had become a pivot, the fulcrum upon which politics and aggression hinged: twin levers that could move whole armies in new directions. Winter hadn't yet diminished when the would- be aggressors lost their appetite for eastern conquests. Instead, they reevaluated. Consolidated.
The would-be defenders watched. And waited.
Spring came fitfully. The changing seasons were punctuated with savage, unnatural cold snaps.
Ravens everywhere huddled in their nests, to ride out the ice.
twelve
The supply truck toppled over, accompanied by the groan of creaking axles and the smashing of unsecured crates. Mud fountained up where the truck crashed in the ditch. The swath of cotton duck stretched over the cargo bed created a spray of slush when it hit the earth.
“God damn you, idiot.” Hauptsturmfuhrer Spalcke, Buhler's replacement, yanked on Kammler's leash with both fists, hard enough to make the big man stumble. “You stupid, shit-eating retard! I despise you.”
“T-t-t-” Kammler looked back and forth between the truck, now sprawled alongside the winding road to Stuttgart, and Spalcke. He moved awkwardly. A round from a British sidearm had shattered his clavicle in December. Ostensibly it had healed—the doctors said he no longer needed to wear the sling—but Klaus suspected poor Kammler would suffer an aching collarbone for the rest of his life. Especially when the weather fluctuated so wildly; the stumps of Klaus's fingers ached.
“S-s-s-s ...” Kammler's face turned red.
“S-s-s-stupid,” said Spalcke. He savaged Kammler's leash again. “S-s-s-pathetic.”
Kammler's wide confused eyes flicked back and forth. His face was turning purple.
Klaus stepped in. “You're hurting him,” he said. “He doesn't understand.”
“Of course he doesn't understand! He's a worthless turd of a human being.”
“You're making it worse. Give me the leash,” Klaus said. His tone turned the suggestion into a de facto order, though the hauptsturmfuhrer technically outranked him.
Spalcke wheeled on Klaus, still enraged. “Have you forgotten your place?”
Klaus let his overcoat fall open, so that Spalcke could see clearly the wire plugged into his battery harness.
“No. You have.”
The two men faced each other for a long moment. Spalcke looked away. He dropped the leash and stomped back to the second supply truck.
He passed Reinhardt, who watched the proceedings from a stand of cherry trees a little farther up the road. The previous day's storm had glazed the white blossoms with ice, freezing trees in midbloom. The ice on the boughs above Reinhardt melted, dripping water that flashed into steam when it fell on him. Behind him sparkled the terraced vineyards of the Rems Valley.
Klaus loosened the choke collar squeezing Kammler's throat. Quietly, so that Spalcke and Reinhardt couldn't hear, he asked, “Are you hurt?”
Kammler rocked back and forth. He looked at Klaus. Normal coloration returned to his face. “B-buh-b-b —”
“He's gone, Kammler. You need to understand that.” Klaus kept his grip on the leash, but didn't pull on it. “Now. Can you help me move that truck?”
The mud in the ditch was exceptionally thick. All across central Europe, winter and spring were engaged in a battle of their own, vying for supremacy. The seasons were not turning so much as brawling. Just as soon as the earth thawed and new buds sprouted on the trees, an ice storm or blizzard would come howling out of nowhere. But then the temperature shot up thirty degrees, the landscape erupted with new greenery, and the cycle began anew.
But the weather wasn't the worst thing about this trip.
After several tries, murmuring a constant stream of monosyllabic encouragements into Kammler's ear, Klaus eventually managed to get the truck out of the ditch, turned upright, and set back on the road. It wasn't so difficult, with a bit of patience. That much was obvious to Klaus, who had watched Buhler and Kammler for years. He wondered how Spalcke had been chosen for the job.
“Good job, Kammler,” said Klaus. “Well done.”
He unbuckled the collar around Kammler's throat and checked the gauge on his battery harness. It was depleted. Klaus cursed to himself. It could have been dangerous, even deadly, had Kammler's battery died while he was levitating the truck. Lazy Spalcke wasn't keeping a close eye on his ward's battery. Klaus called to one of the regular troops in their entourage, an SS-Oberschutze who had trained as a rifleman with the LSSAH prior to his assignment at the REGP. The private jogged over, saluting.
“Tend to his battery,” said Klaus, motioning at Kammler with a nod of his head. “And see that he's fed.”
He left the rest of the troops assessing damage to the fallen truck. They climbed onto the cargo bed, tying down the crates, and under the carriage, checking for damage to the axles and drive train.
Klaus squelched across the road to join Reinhardt. A low sun cast long shadows down the valley; he had to shade his eyes to see the Aryan salamander.
“We're behind schedule,” he said. “The demonstrations will have to wait for tomorrow.” He tried to keep the relief out of his voice as he said it.
Reinhardt snorted. “I shouldn't worry if I were you. Surely your sister would have
