Published at 29th of May 2026 6:42 am

Chapter 961: The Old Wolf

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In some jungle on some God forsaken spit of land, Ernst Rohm stood alone, rifle in hand, firing off shots into the thicket. The humidity stripped the last hydration he had left in his body.

A tourniquet was tied around his leg. His body armor was peppered with bullet holes that had failed to fully penetrate through the combined aramid fiber and ceramic-composite plates beneath.

His withered and old body threatened to give out with each ragged breath he took. But there was not a look of fear or defeat on his face. Only the primal sneer of a predator who refused to let Death take him without a fight.

By his side, weaker men had fallen, their faces and names lost to time. Ghosts of prior wars that had finally met their end without remembrance.

Ernst didn’t care, he continued to engage the locals firing at him, hollering in their native and savage language. All the while he mocked them with the tongue of an unstained Prussian banner.

"Come and fight me you fucking cowards! I standalone, let’s see who becomes Death’s bitch first!"

The enemy couldn’t possibly know what the old foreign veteran was saying, but his tone was all the provocation they needed. One popped out with his old rusting bolt action rifle from behind a tree and instantly felt the ripple of projectiles tear his life from his body.

Collapsing to the floor next to a comrade who hid behind a rock, clutching his rifle to his chest and whispering silent prayers to his local god to save him from this madman who refused to accept the reaper’s embrace with grace.

Rohm ejected a magazine, his fingers failing to grasp the spare he had on his chest rig. They refused to stand still, and he could feel the numbness overtaking them.

He smacked his hand against nearby rock to force some life back into it, burning away the last of his essence to retrieve the magazine, insert it, and rack the charging handle of his rifle. Aiming down the OEG sight mounted on its rail.

Even now, as life rapidly faded from his body, his vision refused to fail, and with it the ocular illusion performed as intended. The red dot formed from fiber optic centered perfectly on the torso of another jungle rebel fifty meters out, a quick squeeze4 of the trigger sent another burst of fire downrange, taking the soul of the enemy in exchange for another mortal blow.

This time the older and larger projectile which the enemy fired broke through the ceramic plate, which, like Ernst’s aging body had long since been pushed past its limit. He felt the round tumble through his torso, a sharp and white-hot pain staggering him to his knees.

He couldn’t breathe, not because fluid was flooding his lungs, but because the impact had dispersed what little air remained in him.

He knew it was time... But this was what he wanted... This was the end and he knew it... He fell back against the rock, his vision fading as he gasped for air, looking over at his dead comrades, those who like himself would not be remembered for the role they had played in history.

He could hear it, the chatter in the woods, the locals surrounding him believing they had won... He smirked as he struggled to pull his cigarettes out of his coat pocket... He didn’t know how he managed it, but somehow, some way, the body endured long enough to light the cigarette and take a long, deep drag.

He tossed the packet away, using the last ounce of his strength to pull out a thermobaric grenade, pulling the pin and tossing it aside, he sat there with a cigarette in his mouth, and his hand gripping the spoon, smoking with a smirk on his face.

"Your move... Herr Reichsmarschall...."

The enemies closed around Ernst in his final moments, and death came for them all in the form of an unyielding and relentless blast of fury.

---

Bruno received the report of the Werwolf unit and its commander being wiped out in some irrelevant theater of war against some locals who did not possess the capacity to win a fight.

The men who died with Ernst were like him, aging veterans with no graceful exit from this life who had picked a fight they couldn’t win, against a numerically superior but tactically inferior force of rebels in some foreign soil they were invited to fight for fortune.

Bruno didn’t lament, his expression didn’t change. Ernst had chosen his end years ago, after the Second World War came to an end and his usefulness was no longer needed.

He had just been too good at fighting, even in his old age, for Death to catch up to him until now.

Even if his last stand had resulted in terrible casualties for the aggressing rebels. The rebels and their propaganda made the mistake of touting their pyrrhic victory over a single Werwolf company as a major turning point in their little war.

Ernst knew it would happen, and he knew exactly how Bruno would react. He would receive no grand state funeral, no awards for his clandestine services. Only the swift and unrelenting vengeance of a furious God.

Bruno pressed his intercom, he cleared his throat before speaking.

"Get ahold of Goring... I am in need of his services."

His secretary didn’t respond to his command, she simply did as she was told and soon enough Goring’s voice entered the other line, it wasn’t playful, or combative, but grim in an unusual and somber way.

"I heard of what happened to the Old Wolf. You have my condolences, I know the two of you were close once...."

Bruno didn’t speak, not at first, his fingers simply tapped the edge of the intercom, his jaw clenched, and his teeth grinding ever so slightly.

His hand had been forced by Ernst’s parting gift. He suppressed a heavy sigh as he hissed the word between his clenched teeth.

"You have my permission to give the man a proper sendoff."

*Click*

That was all Bruno said, nothing that could be construed as an explicit order given. But one that Goring knew all too well the meaning of.

Ernst’s time had come to an end, and with him thousands of souls would be sacrificed to accompany him to Valhalla.

The rebels, and the world had learned with them, though the German Reich had entered a state of peace and prosperity with their focus now shifted toward inward development. Its foundation had been built with blood and iron. And the Werwolf still had teeth.

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