Eastern Alsace – March 1813
The earth groaned.
Beneath pale moonlight, a hundred shovels scraped through frostbitten soil. Graves were torn open not by desperate looters or grieving families—but by French engineers under orders none dared question. The fallen of past battles were exhumed in silence, stacked in carts like lumber.
Watching from a hill above, Napoleon Bonaparte stood motionless, wrapped in a greatcoat too thin for the wind.
"Fifty battalions by the week's end," said Letour, standing beside him with ink-stained hands and a trembling jaw. "Six thousand already processed."
Napoleon didn't blink. "And their minds?"
"Minimal recovery. Basic coordination. Obedience... yes. Memory… no."
"Good."
The wind howled through the trees, carrying with it the smell of death and scorched linen. Below, surgeons and alchemists—French, Swiss, even Persian—worked by candlelight, stitching together corpses, replacing shattered limbs with iron rods, inscribing strange glyphs into bone.
They were not men anymore. They were tools.
Napoleon turned away from the view and entered the large operations tent. At its center stood a figure bound in golden chains—a corpse dressed in tattered Russian colors. It had no eyes, only dark sockets that oozed a greenish vapor. It didn't breathe, but it watched.
"This was one of the commanders from Minsk," Letour said. "It retained… more than the others. It tried to speak."
Napoleon stepped closer, examining the creature's stitched lips. "Speak."
The dead thing hissed. Then, in garbled French:"The frost… walks…"
Napoleon tilted his head. "Then we shall burn it."
With a motion, he signaled the guards. The corpse was dragged away.
He turned to Letour. "We don't fight a horde. We fight a will."
Letour nodded slowly. "And what of your will, sire? How far will you go?"
Napoleon smiled faintly. "To the gates of hell, if it means they remain closed behind me."
Bayonne – French-British Coordinated Garrison
Marshal Ney watched in silence as the first regiment of the Armée de la Réclamation marched past.
The soldiers did not chant. They did not sing. Their armor was patched together from scavenged cuirasses, chainmail, and bones. Every fourth soldier carried a banner of black cloth—inscribed not with an eagle, but with a burning skull.
Behind them, French officers with flamethrowers and lightning lances—experimental gifts from Letour's mad laboratory—marched grimly, ready to incinerate any who strayed from command.
A British observer muttered, "Dear God…"
Ney did not turn. "God has left the battlefield, Major. Now we deal in monsters."
Vienna – Alliance War Council
Lucien Bonaparte unfurled the latest sketch: an undead French column, flanked by living guards, storming an infected village in eastern Bavaria.
"They call it a reclamation force," he said.
General Schwarzenberg looked appalled. "It's necromancy."
"It's war."
Barclay de Tolly slammed a fist on the table. "This is exactly what brought this hell upon us! Playing with death like it's a toy! And now he uses it as a weapon?"
Von Hesse replied coldly, "Better our weapon than theirs."
Lucien tapped the map. "The undead swarm has overrun the Bohemian highlands. Dresden is burning. Do you want your soldiers buried and eaten, or standing and fighting?"
A silence followed.
Then the Pope's envoy, pale and tired, spoke quietly: "Even the Vatican cannot hold the Alps forever. If the Emperor can command the dead, then let him command them."
Lucien smiled grimly.
Somewhere in the Black Forest
Captain Zoya Petrova pressed her rifle to the ground, eyes fixed on the distant movement.
"Hold," she whispered.
Lucien crouched beside her. "Friend or foe?"
"Neither."
From the tree line emerged two figures—one dragging the other. Both wore Austrian uniforms. The one standing stumbled, half-mad with frostbite.
When he reached them, he dropped to his knees. "Help… please…"
Zoya moved forward, inspecting the wounded man he dragged. Her eyes widened.
"Not wounded."
The man's eyes snapped open—glowing faintly blue.
Zoya fired twice. The body twitched, then stilled.
Lucien exhaled. "How many more like him?"
The Austrian trembled. "They come in silence… through fog… like ghosts."
Lucien looked to the sky. Snow was falling again—but the flakes were blackened with ash.
Alsace – Camp of the Reclamation Army
Napoleon stood before ten thousand troops—living and dead.
Torches flickered across the assembly field. Thunder rolled in the distance.
"My brothers," he said, voice carrying across the still air, "we face not an army, but a plague—a sickness that consumes the soul."
He gestured behind him. "These… revenants… are not desecration. They are defiance. Proof that even in death, France fights."
The human soldiers shouted, unsure whether from pride or fear.
Napoleon raised his hand.
"Tomorrow we march. Not to conquer, but to reclaim. The cities they have taken, the lands they have fouled, the future they would steal."
He turned slowly, eyes blazing.
"From Paris to Vienna, from the Rhine to the Volga, we will march."
The undead behind him began to move—step by step, in perfect rhythm.
"Vive l'Empire," he whispered.
And behind him, a thousand voices groaned in unison.