Len Gilbert - The Furred Reich

“This was my fault. I’m sorry about this, Knittel. Something was speaking to me, but I’m not sure how. I won’t make that mistake again.”

“It’s fine, sir…”

Just as he patted Knittel on the back, more zapping sounds went off, as if some invisible electrical current was running through the land. This time he saw Koechlin, then Roettlinger. Then Paul Guhl appeared.

“Is this—Is this Valhalla?” Guhl shouted. Seeing old friends made Jochen beam.

“Guhl! No, I don’t think this is Valhalla.” He chuckled. “We might actually be alive…”

“Alive? So it’s the five of us again? Just like in Austria.”

“I don’t know. Where were you last? I was at Dachau.”

“At home, Stuttgart.” Guhl replied.

A loud series of hums went off like a biblical hoard of locusts through the distant forests. The five of them stared at the woods’ edge and saw nothing, but the stillness was only there for a moment. Gray-uniformed men began emerging from the treeline. He recognized each individual face. There was Paul Zwigart, Hennecke, Felps the Volksdeutsche from Romania, Arndt Fischer, Motzheim, Hans Siptrott, Neve.

His black officer trench coat swayed in the winter wind as he looked on to watch dozens of men emerge from the trees and make a trail through the knee-high snow. All of the men had placards around their necks. Then it made sense to him: The defendants were here, too. In one collective motion, the 71 of them tore off their placards and threw them into the ground.

Without even a word, each of them formed a semicircle around Peiper. There had to be some 80 of them in total.

“Everyone…” Jochen raised his voice. They were already silent.

“I don’t need to tell you what the situation is. The war is supposed to be over, but the enemy has decided to continue their personal war against us. The Americans use whatever false pretext to circumvent convention. It’s on us to make them regret that.”

“As far as what’s going on east of the Oder, god only knows. But I know one thing, and that is I know what we are and what it is we must do. Our lives. They’re forfeit. There’s nowhere for us to run and we’re not going to be able to disappear quietly into civilian life. Not at least until every last one of these occupiers are dead. I’ll tell you what our fate is: We start killing them when they’re not looking. And we don’t stop until they are gone.”

He paced around, looking at each of the men in the front row. He saw the Alsatian, Marcel Boltz, straggle in to the crowd.

“Comrades, there are other cells operating here in the Fatherland. One of them was so kind as to break us out of Dachau. However, as far as we do things, it is only us. If you don’t want to be a part of this endeavor, that’s fine. You may leave now and I won’t trouble you further. But if you stay, you are the resistance.”

The silence continued. Not a single one of them left. For them, the war was back on.

“Shhhh! What’s all the noise outside?!”

The sleeping snow leopardess rubbed her eyes and stood upright to look beyond her thicket. Someone in the nearby glade was talking about some very weird things. Tail swishing about, she clutched to a tree trunk and stared out into the snow.

“H-humans?”

Humans! Almost a hundred of them! In gray uniforms, some in black too. She stared out into the crowd and saw a man in the center of them wearing a long black coat. He was tall and had a thin face. She saw his steely eyes from all the way in the trees. He looked like an angry, angry man!

The snow leopard suddenly felt stricken with fear. Why so many humans? How did they get here and why were they angry?

“T-t-they might hurt me! I need to hide!”

She cried to herself and scampered off into the dark.

The day’s preparations were complete and now the forest raid could begin. Werner Poetschke once again had a reason to live. A handful of wolven fleers bolstered the numbers of their week-old pack. Some of them came from the forest village that was the target of tonight’s raid.

While none of the wolves protested Dietrich’s plan, Poetschke could tell that the young wolves were frightened of seeing the Raiders in battle again. As for himself, Poetschke had never seen a ‘Grimeskin’ before, but it didn’t even matter. He’d long accepted that he’d die at some point. Maybe that day would come when he was old. Maybe it would come in the raid tonight.

The ten of them fanned silently through the forest until the wolves came upon a break in the trees where moonlight poured in. Before them was a collection of straw huts circled around one great hall. Poetschke mounted the propellant tanks on his back, and charged up the pressure of his flame thrower.

Dietrich tapped his shoulder and Poetschke made a fist. Dietrich looked back and nodded, then Poetschke stalked to the other side of the village. The homes looked like mushrooms made of straw, with grains bunched up at the top in the center.

From the snowy ground he stalked forward. Yes. He neared the furthest hut in a corner of the hamlet, yet he still had the cover of the evergreens. Adrenaline coursed through his body and he shook in anticipation. Just a few more seconds…

His tension was interrupted by a blood-curdling scream from the other side of the village. Poetschke knew that scream. He heard it too many times in Hungary.

“Come on you little pieces of shit. Just a little, little longer now…”

He crawled closer. “Almost there you—” he muttered something under his breath.

The screams became rhythmic, and his hands shook beneath the flame thrower, but now it was time.

A click of the trigger heralded the vengeful fire that erupted onto that helpless straw shelter.

“Sieg-Fucking-Heil! Die!”

The flames engulfed the straw shelter in seconds, but Poetschke’s yell echoed far louder than the fire’s hot crackle. Two ‘Grimeskins’ came running out of the hut. Poetschke casually tossed out a stick grenade, blowing both monsters to bits.

“RAAAAID!”

From the other side of town four giant orcish creatures came out of the great hall; the one where rape was underway. One of them muttered something incomprehensible and the other threw a hand-sized ax in Poetschke’s direction, but the human was already flat on the ground. The monsters separated to surround the burning hut. Poetschke started crawling backwards, not fast enough, but not daring to run and give his location away.

The Grimeskins got uncomfortably close to him when another crack rang out from the opposite treeline. One of the monsters dropped. Then another. It was Dietrich. In the confusion, Poetschke got up and dashed for the protection of the evergreens with two monsters following right behind. He’d succeeded in his assignment of drawing and distracting the monsters, now he only needed to stay alive.

The rattling of Master Sepp’s cannon ended the breathy screams nearby. That was Kasha’s signal. He and five other wolves came snarling from the darkness and descended upon the lone Grimeskin guarding the hall where the debauchery was taking place. Their spears cut into the monster before it could swing its blade in return, and it fell like a dead animal.

Master Sepp ran behind them with Valvela and Sabrae by his side. He smashed the glass of the window with his hand cannon, then fired a shot that ricocheted. Kasha and the others followed up and knelt outside the open doorway.

“Go! Go!” He ordered the five wolves into the Grimeskin’s hall.

The five of them filed past the door and disappeared while Sepp blasted his long hand cannon into the hall. Sepp looked angrily to Kasha, and motioned for him to follow behind the others.