The plains near Sainte-Menehould were flat, bitter, and forgotten.
Once, this had been farmland — a checkerboard of wheat fields and cattle pens. Now, only the bones of barns remained. Splintered wood jutted from the earth like broken ribs, and the ground was so pockmarked with shell craters that it resembled a lunar surface.
In the middle of that gray nowhere, Mandragore waited.
Painted ash-black and gunmetal blue, the machine seemed to absorb the light around it. Unlike its predecessors, it had no fixed silhouette — the body curved like a scythe, and when idle, its ribs folded tight over the central cannon as though the machine were sleeping in armor.
But it was not sleeping.
It was listening.
Inside the narrow cockpit, Emil adjusted the oscillator dials and scanned the terrain via the rear periscope. The cold made the metal creak. Frost had gathered on the cables above his head, and every breath he exhaled hung in the air like a wraith.
He didn't mind.
This was his cathedral now.
The resonance chamber hummed softly behind him, its pulsed frequency like the breath of a giant. Everything had been re-tuned. The new burst cannon didn't fire in projectiles — it spoke in pressure, cracking concrete and minds alike.
On the forward panel was a single phrase carved into the brass:
"Le Jugement est proche."
Judgment is near.
Emil didn't remember carving it.
But he left it there.
A low crackle came over the private line.
"Target has entered the valley," Rousseau reported from an outpost 900 meters away.
"Single convoy?"
"Correct. One armored railcar, two half-tracks. Reinforced with outriders. We believe the cargo is experimental — possibly fragments of the Stimme der Tiefe rig."
Emil adjusted the firing arc.
"How many are expendable?"
"Ministry says all."
Emil said nothing for a long time.
Then: "Understood."
The convoy moved like an iron centipede through the shattered terrain, oblivious to the monster buried in the dark.
It was an old trick now — one Emil had perfected during the Brèche trials. Bury the machine beneath camouflage netting and ash. Cut the heat signature with auxiliary coolants. Mute the engine with muffled idle loops.
By the time the enemy saw the silhouette, they had already lost.
As the railcar crested the edge of the shallow ridge, Mandragore's central cannon unfurled with a sharp clank, its ribs rotating outward like wings. The dorsal hinge clicked into place, and the twin capacitor arms arched back, ready to strike.
One of the outriders spotted it.
Too late.
Emil whispered, "Let judgment begin."
The first blast tore a vacuum in the air.
It made no boom — just a snap, like air being ripped apart.
The shockwave surged outward in a cone of invisible violence, cracking the lead half-track in half. The vehicle split along its wheelbase and folded in on itself. Men flew like dolls. Dust and gravel formed a ring around the point of impact.
The second vehicle swerved — tried to retreat.
The Mandragore's rig rotated 30 degrees mid-fire, locking onto the retreat vector.
The second pulse landed clean.
This time, it hit the ground behind the target.
The sonic detonation lifted the half-track off the ground and slammed it forward like a hammer, crushing it beneath its own chassis. The sound didn't even reach the soldiers for three full seconds.
By then, most of them were already dead.
The railcar didn't stop.
It surged ahead.
Inside, a terrified German lieutenant yelled into a crackling field phone.
"It's here — it's him—"
The next blast hit the engine compartment.
The car crumpled.
The phone line went silent.
From a mile away, Rousseau watched through binoculars, stunned.
He activated the private channel.
"God in Heaven... is that what it feels like to be helpless?"
Emil's voice came back, calm.
"No. That's what it feels like to be heard."
When the smoke cleared, Emil stepped out of the cockpit for the first time in twelve hours.
The battlefield was eerily silent. The trees swayed gently in the cold wind. Not a single round had been fired in return.
He walked to the edge of the crater where the railcar had been.
Among the twisted wreckage, he found it — a reinforced steel crate. Still locked, half-melted. He pried it open with a crowbar and stared at the contents:
Blueprints.
Dozens of them. Some damaged. Some intact.
All marked with the same phrase:
"S.D.T. – Tertiary Platform – Nachtwind."
Night Wind.
A third prototype.
He felt his heart tighten.
"They're not retreating," he whispered. "They're multiplying."
Back in Verdun, Amélie Moreau read Emil's field report in silence.
Then she reached for a red wax seal and marked the envelope: HAUTE PRIORITÉ.
She turned to Lavalle.
"Rainer's moving faster than we thought."
Lavalle frowned. "What does Laurant want this time? More machines? More metal? Men?"
Amélie looked at him evenly.
"No. He wants silence."
Lavalle blinked. "Pardon?"
"He's asking for secrecy. No press, no propaganda. He wants everything he builds from now on kept off the record. No photos. No dispatches."
The minister folded his hands.
"He's trying to disappear."
She nodded.
"And that's what scares me most."
Far to the east, in the shadow of the Vosges, Wilhelm Rainer sat inside a mountain vault with two engineers, a dry board, and a simple drawing.
A curved chassis. No wheels.
Air-fed lifts.
And a core chamber surrounded by concentric resonance rings.
He tapped the paper.
"This," he said, "is Nachtwind."
The younger engineer leaned forward. "Does it float?"
Rainer smiled thinly.
"No. It glides."
He stared through the thick glass at the frozen valley beyond.
"Let Laurant make his saints of steel. I will give the Fatherland its angel of annihilation."