London, England December 1812
The smell of ink and coal filled the chamber as Lord Castlereagh read the dispatch aloud, each word graver than the last.
"…the French armies retreat in chaos. Russian detachments report grave desecrations and unnatural activity among corpses. Field commanders suggest madness or mass hysteria. Local populations speak of 'the returners.'"
He lowered the page and looked up. The candlelight danced in his tired eyes.
"Mass hysteria, my foot," the Duke of Wellington muttered from across the table. "The Russian winter breaks men, aye, but not like this. We've heard similar from Prussian scouts. Whole villages emptied. Some... seen walking afterward. In flames."
A silence settled among the British High Command.
"I do not like ghost stories," Lord Sidmouth grumbled. "They breed disobedience."
"It's not a story," Castlereagh snapped. "It's a front-line report signed in blood. Gentlemen, whether we like it or not, something unnatural is clawing its way through Eastern Europe. If it reaches our shores..."
Wellington tapped a finger on the table. "We must know more. Send agents. Scholars. Priests. Hell, send grave diggers if we must."
Castlereagh nodded grimly. "And we prepare the ports. Should the French bring it west... we burn every ship that sails from the Continent."
Vienna, Austrian Empire
Archduke Charles read the letters with a trembling hand.
He had once fought Napoleon at Aspern-Essling and lived. He had watched Austria's glory burn under French sabers. But none of it compared to the horror unfolding now.
The message from Galicia was brief:
"They cannot be killed by sword or fire unless struck in the head. Our own troops began turning after death. We are burning entire towns to contain the spread."
A second message arrived that same day—from a village priest who had not slept in four nights.
"They dig themselves out of consecrated ground."
Archduke Charles stood from his desk and walked to the window. Vienna glowed faintly under the snow, the golden roofs of empire shining like a crown.
"We must consider the unthinkable," he whispered. "Alliance."
Behind him, Prince Metternich raised an eyebrow. "With France?"
"With anyone who breathes," Charles said.
Madrid, Spain
In the candlelit chambers of the Spanish Junta, General Francisco Ballesteros banged his fist on the table.
"The French are devils—now they raise devils!"
"They retreat," a minister said. "Does that not prove they cannot control this madness?"
"And when the tide turns?" Ballesteros demanded. "What happens when Napoleon finds a way to harness them? You've seen what he does with men. Imagine him with monsters."
A low murmur spread through the room.
Across Spain, villages were whispering of dead French soldiers rising from shallow graves. The guerrillas had begun fleeing south, not from French troops—but from their shadows.
Berlin, Kingdom of Prussia
King Frederick William III sat quietly as his generals argued.
"The Russians have gone mad," one declared. "They torch their own lands."
"Better scorched earth than walking corpses," another retorted.
"There is no proof!" came the voice of a skeptic. "No scholar has confirmed this plague."
A grim-faced colonel placed a bloody uniform on the table. It had belonged to a soldier buried in East Prussia.
"There was no body in the grave. Only this. And tracks in the snow... leading out."
Silence.
The king finally spoke.
"We have bled for our land. Now we bleed for our species. Ready the reserves. Dig fire trenches along the Vistula. No one crosses without inspection."
Rome, Papal States
In the Vatican crypts, Pope Pius VII stared at a report with shaking hands.
His most trusted exorcists had gone north—none had returned.
He turned to the Swiss Guard beside him.
"Summon the Inquisition archives," he whispered. "There are older enemies than Bonaparte. We may need older weapons."
Eastern Europe – The First Firelines
By the time January snow fell heavy on the lands of Poland and Hungary, the rumors were no longer rumors.
Villages were razed by their own people. Travelers spoke of ghost battalions marching silently across rivers, their frozen boots never cracking ice. Dogs refused to go near graveyards.
The Kingdom of Saxony began construction of wooden watchtowers near all burial grounds. In Kraków, the dead were dismembered before burial and burned on separate pyres. Mass prayers turned to mass executions.
Some called it madness.
Others called it survival.
Paris, France – Napoleon's Palace
Napoleon stood before a large mirror, dressed in full uniform.
Behind him, Dr. Armand Letour, former surgeon of the Imperial Guard, shivered as he unrolled a bloodied parchment.
"It breathes, sire," he whispered.
Napoleon turned.
"The specimen?"
"Yes. The corpse you captured… it does not decay. It has no pulse, yet it hungers."
"And the virus?"
Dr. Letour hesitated. "We believe it spreads through bite or blood. But something more… ancient is at work. Something we do not understand."
Napoleon's gaze grew distant. "I will understand it. The British fear it. The Austrians burn it. The Russians drown in it."
He stepped forward, eyes like steel.
"But I will wield it."