Chapter 55: Ice Fog

At dawn, Walter stood by the bunker door, watching the dejected fledglings trail behind Simo into the vast, boundless expanse of the snowy plains.

Simo carried his Mosin-Nagant and did not look back; he simply raised a heavy, gloved hand in a wave. Walter withdrew his gaze, feeling his headache finally subside.

"Vatanen, Ojala, Lindholm."

Walter turned back into the bunker, his voice echoing in the hollow wooden room. "Grab the Molotov cocktails and check your weapons. From now on, we're going to find trouble for the Russians."

The three veterans exchanged looks. Though they continued to grumble about not having fully digested the Soviet airdrop supplies yet, their movements were startlingly efficient. Vatanen expertly pressed rounds into his submachine gun magazine, while Ojala slid his dagger repeatedly over a whetstone.

"Squad Leader, we've finished off that black bread we scavenged," Vatanen said, slinging his gun over his back. His tone was flat but carried a sharp edge of ruthlessness. "I heard the Russian headquarters still has tins of luncheon meat. I think we should go get them back."

Veterans never feared a fight; they were simply accustomed to calculating the payout before risking their necks.

For the next three days, the group carried out harassment operations with significant success, until a sudden change arrived on the fourth day. The temperature in the Lemetti forest plummeted to a desperate figure.

-42°C.

The pine resin on the bunker walls cracked from the extreme cold, making sharp pop-pop sounds. When the temperature broke the -42°C red line, a natural phenomenon more eerie than a blizzard appeared over the snowfields: Ice Fog.

This wasn't water vapor, but fine moisture in the air desublimating directly into countless tiny ice crystals. They suspended themselves densely in the atmosphere like a heavy, cold lead curtain, forcibly dragging the world into chaos.

Visibility dropped to its absolute limit. Ten meters away, the towering pines were mere blurry grey shadows; five meters away, a person was only a rough silhouette, as if wandering through white paste.

Walter reached out his hand; as his fingers brushed through the air, he could actually feel a slight resistance—the friction of countless particles between his fingers. His eyelashes were coated in fine white frost, and every breath felt like swallowing tiny steel needles.

"Squad Leader, this mist is trouble," Vatanen whispered into Walter's ear. His voice was kept extremely low; his eyes showed no retreat, only the caution of a veteran. "In this visibility, firing a shot is just giving the enemy your coordinates. If we bump into a patrol, it'll be face-to-face melee. Whoever is slow dies."

Ojala and Lindholm crowded around. They tightened their white camouflage smocks, their hands gripping daggers that had been wrapped in cloth strips for better grip.

"Long-range shooting is completely useless. A marksman like Simo is blind in this mist. But for us, it's the best cover." Walter touched the dagger at his waist, his gaze sweeping over the three veterans. "The Russians are surely huddled in their shelters for warmth; they think no one would dare move in this weather. What we're going to do isn't trade shots with them, it's quietly taking them out, one by one."

"Tell us how to do it, Squad Leader," Lindholm said, licking his parched lips. "My blade hasn't seen the blood of a commissioned officer yet."

"Stay close and step in my footprints. No one cycles a bolt unless I give the order."

Following Walter's command, the four men became a string of pale ghosts, vanishing silently into the thick ice fog.

…

The group gradually approached the Soviet encirclement, advancing slowly. The Soviet shelters lay just ahead. They carefully bypassed the outer works, moving forward about fifty meters.

Though Walter had not activated his Eye of Death, his perception was pushed to the limit.

"Stop." He suddenly raised his hand.

Less than three meters ahead, a very thin wire stretched across the snow, hung with several rusted tin cans. This was the simplest and most effective alarm system of the Soviet Army. With just a moment's distraction, a toe catching that wire would set those cans clattering, instantly drawing a storm of frantic bullets.

Walter stepped lightly over the wire and signaled those behind him. The veterans' performance justified Walter's trust. Vatanen not only avoided the wire but used a thin twig to prop it up, preventing an accidental trigger.

Next, they bypassed a well-disguised pit. It was an anti-infantry trap dug by the Soviets, the bottom lined with sharpened stakes. If one fell in, at -40°C, the wounded wouldn't even have a chance to scream.

"These Russians have wised up," Vatanen hissed, breaking into a cold sweat as he carefully navigated around the trap, cursing under his breath.

As they pushed deeper, the air began to smell of a mixture of rotting frozen meat, low-grade diesel, and tobacco. The Soviet troops were directly ahead.

A few minutes later, a greyish mound appeared at the edge of Walter's vision. It was a Soviet conical tent, with wisps of blue smoke rising from the top, appearing extremely conspicuous in the ice fog.

"...Lieutenant Leonid, do you really think Moscow will keep sending planes? Our horses are eaten, and we've boiled our belts twice over!" a rough, raspy voice roared.

"Shut up, Sergeant Sergey! Instead of worrying about planes, you should worry about your men outside who are nearly frozen to death!" another voice replied, sounding more exhausted and cold. "Those are HQ's orders: hold and wait for relief, then look for a chance to break out."

Through a tear in the edge of the tent, Walter saw clearly. A bearded Lieutenant was brooding over a map, while two Sergeants huddled by the stove, holding steaming aluminum mess tins.

Walter signaled behind him. Vatanen and Ojala quickly flanked the tent. He suddenly threw open the tent flap and lunged inside!

Sergeant Sergey had just looked up, his bloodshot eyes not even having time to narrow, when Walter's left hand clamped onto his throat like an iron vise. The dagger in Walter's right hand drove precisely under the jaw, piercing straight into the brain.

The medulla was severed. The burly NCO couldn't even manage a signal for help before he went limp. Simultaneously, Vatanen burst in from the flank. His thick arm locked around the neck of the other Sergeant, who was just reaching for a pistol, while his dagger efficiently stabbed the man's chest three times.

The Lieutenant frantically tried to fumble for his sidearm, but Walter kicked him over with a side-kick. Before the man could scream, the dagger in Walter's hand had already sliced through his windpipe.

Blood sprayed onto the hot stove, letting out a heart-shuddering sizzle.

The fight lasted less than five seconds. Not a single shot was fired. Dead silence returned to the tent, save for the faint crackling of the small stove. The three Soviet soldiers lay sprawled in pools of blood, the steam rising from their wounds quickly turning into frost in the cold draft.

"Squad Leader, only half a bag of black bread. Paupers," Ojala spat, but he still efficiently stuffed the bread into his tunic.

Walter picked up a Soviet grenade from the ground, his eyes cold. He pulled the igniter pin but didn't release the lever fully, setting a crude booby trap with one of the corpses.

"Since they didn't leave any luncheon meat, we'll leave a gift."

Walter lifted the flap and stepped back into the ice fog. "Come on. Next one."