The battle was not yet won, but Kassian could see victory reflected in the faces of his fellow soldiers. They had pushed into German territory, and after a series of skirmishes hard-fought, were now poised to strike at its core: Berlin.

The soldiers turned wolves’ eyes toward the heart of the city, gazes feverish, rabid.

Long years had passed, and so many comrades had fallen. So much had been lost. It was as if Russia herself had been diminished, somehow ruined by war.

Now, in Berlin, Russians grew vengeful, and as harsh as the tundra. The men pissed on buildings and dead bodies alike, and laughed as they came upon wounded German soldiers, sneering before shooting them in the head.

As a sniper, it was his job to crouch for hours, sometimes days, in some hidden position, lying in wait for the opportunity to kill presented itself.

Sniping was, necessarily, a dispassionate task. So far removed from the kill, Kassian hardly took pleasure in it, not did he particularly feel the need to gloat over dead bodies, the way others did.

It was mostly just a job to him, save for the one concession to his ego: he marked neat notches in his rifle for every kill he made, starting from the first. He still could remember the way the man’s head had blossomed and exploded, as if it were merely a balloon full of blood.

Not all of them he remembered in such detail, but they were marked on his rifle nonetheless: one hundred and fifty perfect little nicks.

It was not a large total, compared to other snipers, but he’d spent part of the war on his back in the hospital, recovering from the wounds he’d taken in Stalingrad. Out of the action, he’d missed out on opportunities to up his kill count; Dusya had nearly twice his number, and liked to tease him about it.

He hadn’t minded the teasing so much, coming from her.

Fraternization between male and female soldiers was strictly frowned upon, but they were snipers. It was different for them, and though she served with Nina Lobkovskaya’s all-female sniper unit, they had found the opportunity to become friends, in between weapon drills and long-range recon.

Dusya laughed readily, and her eyes were as bright as the sky on a clear day. She had strong features and a wide jaw, almost masculine, but from time to time he found himself staring, regardless.

He’d met up with her again in Berlin, and they’d exchanged a few stories over meals at the makeshift canteen. She had teased him again like before, but there was something about her that seemed less vibrant.

Like Russia, she was exhausted by war.

That morning, the call had come out that the last pockets of resistance were crumbling, and they were ordered to follow the infantry toward the heart of the city, to strike the final blow.

Kassian stepped through the rubble-strewn streets warily. Unlike his fellows, his eyes were cast upward, searching out likely sniper-perches among the ruined windows and rooftops.

The men around him were hungrier, angrier. They took potshots at fleeing civilians, grabbed the German women who tried to flee into alleys.

Kassian stopped short, startled, as a his fellow soldiers ripped open the women’s dresses and tore at their mouths with savage kisses, then raped them against the walls or on the ground.

His hand tightened on the stock of his rifle as he watched them, but part of him went numb. Once or twice he opened his mouth to say something, though the protest died on his lips. It was happening all around him, and other, similar, screams echoed from streets more distant.

He vomited on the street quietly, alone.

“Kasya!”

Someone was gripping his arm and hauling him to his feet, but it took several moments to realize it was Dusya. Her face was streaked by dust and tears.

“Dear God, Kasya, do something.” She shook his arm so hard it hurt. “You’re a man, tell them to stop! Those women don’t deserve this.”

“I can’t,” he said, and his voice sounded like a stranger’s. “There’s nothing I can do.”

In war, he thought, one could barely call it rape. It was more akin to air raids and bombing than any kind of single combat. It was not surgical vengeance doled out one bullet at a time, but indiscriminate bloodlust, barbaric. He could no more stop them than he could turn away a snowstorm in winter.

“Stop them!” Dusya fairly shouted, then slapped him hard, across his face.

Dusya was a strong woman; he rocked back on his heels and stumbled, but kept his feet.

“Stop them!” she shouted again, raising her hand once more.

This time, he caught her arm. “No,” he said. “I can’t.”

She cursed him, trying to pull away, but he held onto her, even as she struggled, kicking his legs.

“Khren morzhoviy! You bastard!” she screamed. He winced as she struck him, and he grunted in pain, taking it for several seconds until he finally pulled her against him and held on tight.

She screamed against his shoulder, but then, abruptly, her struggles turned to shudders, and she wept in his arms. He had never seen her cry before, never saw her in weakness. It made his chest cramp to feel her pain like this, even after she quieted. After some time, he raised one tentative hand to stroke her pale, soft hair.

Dusya felt warm against him, solid. Real in a way he had never felt. She seemed to fit against him as if they had done this a thousand times, but in truth, he had never held anyone so close.

Slowly, and with the infinite care one afforded a small child, he placed a single kiss on the top of her head. She sighed against him, and burrowed closer, pressing her face to his neck.

Her lips felt warm, but the feel of her breath against his skin made him shiver.

Dusya went still, her shaking suddenly quelled, and he loosened his grip, uncertain now.

She looked up.

Her gaze was sapped of color, and her cheeks were sallow. Her face was a stranger’s, with an expression he had never seen.

“Kasya,” she whispered.

Slowly, he nodded, watching her.

“Next time, join them, if that’s what you want.”

Stricken, he let her go as if stung. “No! Dusya, I—”

She slapped him once more, harder this time. “Don’t touch me. Don’t talk to me. Ever, again.”

He could only watch as she walked away.

That night, he got quietly drunk, hoping it would drown out the voices of the other men as they told stories of the women they’d raped around the encampment, their voices jovial, as if talking of battles. Screams seemed to echo in the night, though he wasn’t quite sure if they were real, or only in his head.

He left, stumbling away through the streets, forgetting his earlier concerns about snipers perched on rooftops, uncaring how inviting of a target he must have made.

After a while, he stopped to piss against a wall, but froze as he heard it, a woman’s soft whimpered cries.

Kassian staggered into the nearby alley, where a young Red Army soldier had a German girl pressed up against the wall, thrusting into her rhythmically, shuddering as he finished, just then.

The soldier pulled away from the girl, laughing softly as he turned and saw Kassian standing there. “Your turn, comrade,” he said with a grin. “She’s a fresh one, too. I caught her hiding in that building. I was the first; you can be the second.”

Sniper rifles were not meant for close range combat, but in a pinch, they would do. As the shot echoed in his ears and the body dropped to the ground, he gestured at the girl.

“Go,” he said.

He didn’t know if she understood Russian, but she took his meaning regardless. Gasping, the girl scrambled up, and ran away into the night.

When the soldiers from the encampment rushed up, guns in hand, Kassian turned to them with only a spare shake of his head.

“A sniper got him,” he told them.

They searched the nearby buildings, but never found the culprit.

That night Kassian cut the last mark into his rifle, one hundred and fifty one.