It ended not with a roar, but with a hush. The morning of the capitulation came gray and silent, snow falling so lightly it seemed ashamed to touch the earth. There were no speeches, no trumpet blasts, no final charge. Only men with hollow eyes, their breath shallow and ragged, staring at the ground as if it could somehow swallow them whole.
Word passed through the trenches like a ghost: Paulus has surrendered.
The words did not rouse anger or disbelief. They did not stir even the faintest ripple of resistance. The Sixth Army, once a blade thrust into the heart of Russia, simply sagged like a body finally giving way to its wounds.
Christian stood among them, shoulders hunched, watching rifles laid in the snow. Soldiers stacked their last cartridges like offerings, as if the Soviets were priests come to collect a tithe. Some wept, but softly, as though even their grief had grown cold.
Paulus's name was whispered with equal parts reverence and disgust. He had capitulated, they said, bowed his head to Stalin, accepted captivity for ninety thousand starving souls. Others said he had betrayed them. Others said he had saved them from annihilation.
Christian felt none of it. No betrayal. No relief. Not even anger. Only numbness, as though the marrow of his bones had frozen.
It was over.
Not the war, not the madness, but this; this crucible, this furnace of Stalingrad. Over, and he remained alive, alive in a world of corpses.
By midday, the Soviets came in waves, boots crunching on snow, shouts echoing like drums. Red banners snapped in the wind, their color a wound against the gray sky.
They swarmed over the ruins like ants over carrion, rifles fixed and bayonets glinting.
German soldiers were herded into lines, their bodies bent, hands raised or shoved behind heads. Some staggered willingly, others collapsed into the snow and did not rise.
Christian watched them order generals and privates alike, a flood of gray uniforms swallowed by the tide of red.
A soldier beside him whispered, "They'll march us to Siberia. No one comes back." His voice was not afraid, only tired.
Another spat blood into the snow and muttered, "Better than starving here."
Christian said nothing. His hand brushed against the ring beneath his shirt, Kristina's ring, the last pulse of warmth he carried. He could not let himself be swept into that tide. He could not vanish into camps and chains.
He turned, quietly, slipping into the ruins before the Soviets closed the net around his unit.
The city was already dead, but now it burned. Fires licked from gutted buildings, black smoke smeared against the falling snow. The air stank of cordite and decay, of flesh too long frozen.
Christian moved like a shadow, ducking beneath collapsed beams, stepping over shattered glass, his breath shallow. Behind him, voices shouted in Russian, rifles cracked, boots thundered.
He slid into an alley, heart pounding, and found the entrance: a rusted grate, half-buried in ice. With fingers raw and bleeding, he tore it open and dropped into the dark. The sewers swallowed him.
The stench struck like a blow; rot, excrement, stagnant water. Rats skittered along the walls, their eyes catching the faint light.
He crouched low, boots splashing in the foul water, and began to crawl. Above, the Soviets swarmed through the city, their victory cries muffled by the earth. Down here, it was silence and dripping, the occasional echo of rushing water like whispers in a cathedral of filth.
He crawled through tunnels slick with slime, his breath fogging, his hands numbing against the stones. At times, he thought he heard voices; German, Russian, Kristina's but when he turned, there was only darkness. His body trembled, but he pressed on.
At one bend, he found a corpse. A German officer, uniform stiff with frost, half-submerged in black water. His eyes were open, lips parted as if to speak. Christian forced himself past, his shoulder brushing the dead man's arm.
For a moment he envied him.
Hours passed, or minutes. Time dissolved in the dark. He lost sense of direction, of purpose, of anything but the need to move, to keep crawling, to keep alive.
At last he emerged through another grate, pulling himself into the ruins of a cellar. Snow drifted through a hole in the ceiling. Outside, the Soviets' shouts echoed faintly, muffled by the storm.
He collapsed against the wall, chest heaving, hands filthy, face streaked with soot. Smoke drifted down from above. Blood stained the snow outside, crimson splashed across white like brushstrokes of madness.
And silence pressed in, heavy, suffocating, absolute. The Sixth Army was gone.
He remained.
A single wolf wandering the graveyard of an army, chained still by a ring, by memories, by promises he could not keep. He closed his eyes, the silence roaring in his ears, and whispered one word into the cold air:
"Kristina." It vanished like breath and then there was only the snow.