uileries Palace, ParisDecember 1812
The fire in the hearth cracked, but Napoleon Bonaparte felt no warmth.
He stood alone in his war room, staring at a giant map of Europe pinned across the wall. His hands, clasped behind his back, were tight with tension. France's borders remained intact on paper—but reports from the east told another story.
Letters, all hastily written in smudged ink, lay scattered across his mahogany desk. Most were from Marshal Ney and Berthier. One was unsigned—delivered not through official courier, but by a terrified boy who had died in his sleep the night it arrived.
"...the dead do not remain buried. Entire battalions rise from the snows. They devour man and horse alike. I watched a captain shoot himself in the head, only for his corpse to rejoin the enemy an hour later..."
A cold wind whistled through the hall, though all windows were shut. Napoleon exhaled slowly.
The Russian campaign had failed. That much he had accepted. But this… this was no mere military defeat. This was war against nature itself.
A knock broke the silence.
"Enter."
Marshal Joachim Murat, flamboyant even in his exhaustion, stepped in. Behind him came Minister Fouché, the ever-watchful Minister of Police, and a man in dark clerical robes whom Napoleon did not recognize.
"Majesty," Murat said, saluting. "We have troubling news."
"Does it involve the dead walking the earth?" Napoleon said coolly. "Because unless your news includes divine salvation, I am already troubled enough."
Fouché cleared his throat. "Two days ago, a village in East Prussia—Gumbinnen—was found abandoned. No sign of French or Russian troops. Just bones. Some of them… not entirely lifeless."
Murat stepped forward. "A scouting regiment found one of our men there—an officer. He had been dead for two weeks. When they approached, he spoke."
Napoleon's brow furrowed. "Spoke?"
Fouché nodded. "He repeated the same phrase over and over in Latin: 'Et mortui ambulabunt ad imperium.' 'And the dead shall march for empire.'"
A chill slithered down Napoleon's spine.
The priest finally spoke, his voice dry and brittle. "I believe what you face is not natural. The Orthodox call it 'Zalozhniy'—the restless dead. In older tongues, they are known as revenants. But this… this is different. It is spreading too fast."
Napoleon turned. "You think I care for fairy tales, Father?"
"I think," the priest said, "you may already be in one."
That Night
Underground Catacombs, Paris
Napoleon descended into the catacombs beneath the city—not out of fear, but resolve.
Thousands of skeletons lined the walls, the bones of plagues past and wars long buried. Their hollow sockets watched him as he passed, torchlight casting flickering shadows.
He was not alone. The priest and Fouché followed. At a certain bend in the corridor, Fouché gestured.
"Three nights ago, there were no disturbances. Now?"
He pointed.
Several of the skeletal walls had been broken—arms and skulls removed. A pile of crushed bones lay in the center of the floor… as if something had tried to claw its way out.
The priest murmured a prayer.
Napoleon stared at the bones.
"Burn them," he said at last. "Seal the tunnels. Flood them if you must."
"Flood Paris?" Fouché asked in disbelief.
Napoleon turned to him. "If it stops this infection from crawling beneath our streets like rot beneath skin, I will flood Paris. I will burn Versailles. I will salt the earth to keep France alive."
The torch crackled.
Then something moved.
Just beyond the priest—no more than a whisper of shadow. A faint groan. The clack of a footstep on bone.
The torch dipped.
Out of the dark came a figure—cloaked in a tattered French uniform, its face twisted and gray. One eye dangled from its socket, and its tongue had been bitten in half. Yet it smiled.
The priest shouted, raising his cross.
The revenant lunged.
Napoleon drew his saber and ran it through.
It didn't die.
Fouché fired his pistol into its skull. Only then did it crumple.
Silence returned to the catacombs.
The emperor breathed heavily.
"Your Majesty," the priest whispered, trembling. "This is no plague. This is war against death itself."
Napoleon stared down at the twitching corpse.
"Then death," he growled, "has chosen the wrong enemy."