Chapter 128: Dispropaganda

“What rumor?” Jeon Woochi asked.

Su Yao smiled. “We tell his followers their beloved commissar isn’t who he claims. We say Lev Davidovich Bronstein died in Mexico. The thing leading them is an impostor.”

The crow rustled its feathers. “They will demand proof and ask for the real thing’s identity.”

“We give them one.” Su Yao held up a finger. “We say he is Koschei the Deathless. A disciple of the dragon-king Zirnitra. He hid his death to cheat hell itself and uses their revolution as a shell game to protect his hidden soul. His only cause is his own immortality.”

Silence filled the fissure.

Sitri’s eyes widened. “That is… diabolical. It fits the facts of his immortality and explains his ancient sorceries. This angle paints him as a selfish tsar in revolutionary clothing. It would seed doubt in every order he gives.”

“Precisely.” Su Yao lowered her hand. “We just need the question to exist. Is our leader a true comrade, or a deathless wizard using us as human shields? Once that question lives in their minds, his mantle cracks. His godhood becomes suspect.”

The crow cackled. “I adore this. It’s petty, personal, and perfectly aimed at his credibility. How do we spread it?”

“We have a master of random bullshit,” Su Yao said, glancing at Jeon Woochi. “And we have a network of desperate prisoners who just escaped his Gulag. They will carry stories like lice through the trenches.”

Jeon Woochi rubbed his chin. “The Czechoslovak legionnaires might be receptive. They already fight alongside demons. A rumor of darker magic would sound plausible to them. The Japanese forces respect occult power, but distrust deception.”

“Then we start there.” Su Yao turned toward the path leading up. “We find the survivors of the jailbreak and offer them a better story. One that sets their god up for a fall.”

“And then?” Jeon Woochi asked, arms crossed.

Su Yao smiled. “We escort the escaped prisoners to the Czechoslovak and Japanese lines, offering them safe passage. They will talk and share stories of the jailbreak, of us, of the strange things they saw. We plant our rumor among them as a grateful whisper.”

The crow bobbed its head. “The Japanese-Czech forces keep Bolshevik prisoners. They interrogate them for intelligence. We can influence that process.”

“Exactly,” Su Yao said. “We make sure the captured Bolsheviks hear the rumor from their captors and let them think they have discovered a secret. Then we arrange for a few to escape. They will carry that secret back to their comrades. The commissar’s own soldiers will spread the doubt for us.”

“A meme inserted into the host,” Sitri said. “It replicates through their communication channels. It evolves with each retelling. By the time it reaches his inner circle, it will have the weight of trench gossip and the shape of truth.”

“It’s a good plan that uses their structures against them,” the crow admitted. “The plan requires minimal force and aligns with your random bullshit methodology.”

Jeon Woochi uncrossed his arms. A grin spread across his face. “So we become propagandists. We weaponize a fairy tale.”

“The story we give them will be a better one,” Su Yao said. She pushed off from the wall. “Now we find those escaped prisoners before the commissar’s patrols do. Let’s move.”

They found the escapees in a narrow gully two miles from the Gulag. The group numbered around thirty. Huddled together for warmth and defense, they were a patchwork of torn uniforms.

Czechoslovak legions in faded khaki sat beside Imperial Japanese soldiers. A handful of men in the distinct garb of the White Army whispered with others who still wore tattered Red Army coats.

The crow lifted a wing from Jeon Woochi’s arm. “Understanding now bridges the silence,” Malphas’ voice echoed in their minds. A murmur ran through the prisoners as a Japanese soldier spoke and a Czech legionnaire heard his own language.

A man in a torn Red Army tunic spat on the ground. “My brother died at Tsaritsyn. I found his body. He wore the other uniform.” His companion, a White officer with a frostbitten ear, stared at his own hands. “We shot at our cousins. For what?”

Nearby, a young Japanese private hugged his knees. “The cherry blossoms will be blooming in Kyoto. My mother will be looking at the empty seat at the table.”

A Czech sergeant sharpened a stick with a piece of broken stone. “I just want to taste real beer again and hear my language in a street that isn’t on fire. The festival of Termina is coming to Prehevil, and I’m stuck here.”

Su Yao watched them. Loss is a universal language. The spell just lets them hear it.

A Japanese sergeant with a bandaged head squinted through the gloom. He scrambled to his feet and offered a precise bow. “Captain Tenkuji! You survived the bombardment!”

Every Japanese soldier in the group stood and bowed. The other prisoners stared.

“Major Magatsu betrayed us,” the sergeant said. “He gave our position to the Bolsheviks. We found him later. A snake was eating him alive. It had no business being that large.”

Jeon Woochi returned a curt nod. “At ease, Sergeant Takeru. We have brought allies. And information.”

Japanese soldiers listened, and the other prisoners leaned closer.

Su Yao stepped forward. “The commissar isn’t what he seems. He is Koschei the Deathless. A disciple of the dragon Zirnitra who hides his soul to cheat death itself. He uses your war to hide his secret. His only cause is his own immortality.”

Sergeant Takeru’s jaw clenched. “A wizard. Using the revolutionary army as his shield.”

A former Red Army soldier looked up. “So we are just more bodies for his magic. More souls for his collection.”

The rumor spread through the gully without another word from Su Yao. Everyone began whispering it to each other, fitting it into the gaps of their own suffering.

It’s working, the crow’s voice hummed in Su Yao’s. Now we give it wings.

A gaunt man in the remains of a Red Army commander’s coat with white hair shoved his way forward. “So I was right.”

The whispers in the gully stopped. All eyes turned to him.

“I knew it,” he said. “I served with Lev Davidovich and helped him organize the Red Army from nothing. I was at his side at Sviyazhsk. That man out there…” He jabbed a finger toward the distant front lines. “is different from the one I followed.”

Sergeant Takeru eyed him. “Who are you?”

“Colonel Alexei Rachmaninoff. Formerly of His Imperial Majesty’s General Staff. Then of the Revolutionary Military Council.” He straightened his spine. “I saw the real Trotsky break the Whites at Kazan. I heard him speak for fourteen hours to rally collapsing troops. The thing wearing his face now gives different speeches. His cadence is wrong.”

Su Yao studied him. “And you told someone your suspicions.”

“Yes, the political commissar.” Rachmaninoff laughed. “He said the strain of war had broken my mind. They called me a nostalgic, a traitor clinging to Tsarist mysticism and decided I was insane. So they threw me in the Gulag instead of a grave. It was more humane.” He spat the last word.

The former White officer with the frostbitten ear stared at him. “Rachmaninoff. I heard your name. You commanded the 3rd Red Cavalry at Peregonovka. You were brilliant.”

“And you, Colonel Vasha, were a stubborn bastard who almost held the bridge.” Rachmaninoff nodded. “Now we shiver in the same hell, both betrayed by the same impostor.”

The shared recognition rippled through the prisoners. A proven commander was calling the commissar a fraud.

Jeon Woochi stepped closer. “What else did you notice, Colonel?”

“His handwriting,” Rachmaninoff said. “The real Trotsky wrote in a sloping script. Pages and pages without pause. This one’s orders are perfectly vertical. Each letter is a calculated stroke. It’s the hand of a clerk, or a monk copying scripture.”

The journey back to the forward trenches took three hours. They moved at night, using the cover of a bitter, sulfurous fog that clung to the ground. Colonel Rachmaninoff walked beside Jeon Woochi, his steps firm despite his ragged appearance. He pointed out safe paths through the shell-craters.

“That ridge is mined,” he muttered. “The impostor loves German patterns. He lays them in predictable sequences.”

Sergeant Takeru guided the Japanese prisoners while the Czech sergeant, a man named Kovář, led his countrymen. The group moved with a quiet discipline.

They reached the Czech listening post first. A sentry welcomed them in a hissed Czech phrase. Kovář stepped into the faint light of a shaded lantern. “It’s Kovář. We have escaped with Captain Tenkuji and… intelligence.”

The sentry’s eyes widened. He waved them into a communication trench that smelled of damp earth and stale tobacco. Word passed down the line in whispers. Soon, a Japanese lieutenant and a Czech captain arrived.

Su Yao let Rachmaninoff speak first.

He stood before the officers. “I’m Colonel Alexei Rachmaninoff. I helped build the Red Army you fight. The being commanding it now is an ancient creature named Koschei. He has stolen Trotsky’s face and legend. I have seen the proof in his handwriting and tactics. He is a deathless wizard who uses your war to hide his soul.”

The Czech captain frowned. “A fairy tale.”

“Is it?” Rachmaninoff’s asked. “Why does he never die? Why does he know curses that predate Moscow itself?”

A Japanese lieutenant removed his cap. He ran a hand through his short hair. “His artillery barrows always strike our weak points. He predicts our relief rotations. It’s as if he has a map of our minds.”

“He is a seer reading from a fixed future,” Sergeant Takeru added. “He plays war like a chess game where only he can see the board.”

The rumor began to solidify. It moved from the officers down to the enlisted men shivering in the trench and passed from the Czech line to the Japanese positions through shared sentry points.

“He hides his death in a needle, in an egg, in a duck.”

“He wants our souls, not our surrender.”

Su Yao stood beside Jeon Woochi in the shadows of a supply dugout. “It’s spreading faster than I expected.”

The crow perched on a ration crate. “You gave them an explanation for their fear. That is a powerful gift. Now they have a name for the thing that keeps killing them: Koschei. It’s easier to hate a story than a ghost.”

Sitri stepped into the flickering lamplight of the command dugout. Her eyes moved over the wounded men lying on makeshift cots.

Two soldiers carrying crates of bandages passed behind her, both of them demons wearing Czech coats and helmets. The moment they saw her, they stopped dead in their tracks. One dropped his crate. The other sank to one knee before he could stop himself.

“Princess Sitri… You have returned.”

A dozen nearby heads turned. The Czech captain’s eyes narrowed as the word princess hung in the air. Around them, the human vestiges exchanged glances.

Sitri inclined her head. “Stand. We are at war.”

“I can mend their injuries,” she said. “The process is efficient and leaves no scar.”

The Czech captain eyed her. He spat a wad of tobacco into the mud. “A noble, is it? Your kind stayed in your crystal palaces while we bled in the mud. Only when the Bolshevik cannon reached your gates did you finally step outside. Why should we trust a lady who never dirtied her boots until now?”

A Japanese medic looked up from bandaging a leg wound. His hands were covered in blood. “I have worked with the local peasants on the field. They heal as they can, with no pride or pretense. But nobles…”

He hesitated, eyes narrowing. “Nobles are different. They offer miracles with one hand and debts with the other. How do we know your touch won’t cost more than the wounds themselves?”

“You require a demonstration. I understand.” Sitri turned her gaze toward the rear of the trench, where two Bolshevik prisoners sat under guard. “Bring me one of the captives. A volunteer would be preferable, but a conscript will suffice.”

The guards exchanged glances. They dragged forward a young vestige in a tattered Red Army shirt. A deep bayonet gash crossed his thigh, seeping blackish fluid. His face was pale.

“He is your test subject,” the Czech captain said, crossing his arms. “Fix him. If your magic harms him, or tries to twist him, we will shoot you both.”

Sitri knelt in the mud, placing her hands just above the prisoner’s wound. Golden light emanated from her palms.

The prisoner flinched. “What are you doing?”

“Be still,” she murmured.

The gash drank the light. From within, torn flesh writhed and drew itself whole. Black seepage burned away into drifting motes of gold and smooth skin sealed over the muscle. It was finished in less than thirty seconds.

The prisoner stared at his leg and flexed it. He pressed a trembling hand against the skin where the wound had been. “It feels… numb. Cold.”

The Japanese medic pushed forward. He examined the leg and prodded the new skin. “The tissue is perfect. It remains cool to the touch.” He looked up at Sitri. “How?”

“I restored the concept of whole flesh to that location.” She wiped her hands on a clean cloth offered by an orderly. “The body remembers how to be intact. I simply reminded it.”

The Czech captain chewed his lip, watching the healed prisoner touching his leg over and over.

“Your turn,” the captain said, gesturing to his own wounded men. “Start with the one who is bleeding out. Let us see if your reminder works on a friend as well as a foe.”

Sitri nodded. She moved from cot to cot. Her golden light washed over a shattered knee and a septic bullet wound. Each injury vanished under her touch, leaving unblemished skin and functional limbs. The soldiers watched in silence. A Japanese corporal wept as he bent his mended fingers.

During the treatment of the third soldier, a commotion rose at the rear of the trench. The healed Bolshevik prisoner saw his chance. He shoved past the distracted guard and scrambled up the parapet, vanishing into the sulfurous fog shrouding no-man’s land.

“Prisoner escaping!” a Czech sentry yelled, raising his rifle.

Jeon Woochi placed a hand on the rifle barrel, lowering it. “Let him go. He will tell his comrades about the impostor commissar. Let the rumors travel and eat at the edges of his command.”

The Czech captain nodded. He spat another wad of tobacco. “So we use their own man as a courier. Clever.”

In the fog, the escaped prisoner ran. His leg moved with a strength he had forgotten. He needed to reach the Bolshevik lines and tell them what he had heard.

Back in the trench, Sitri finished with the last wounded soldier. She stood, her dress now stained with mud and blood that belonged to someone else. “Your men will recover fully. They will never forget how to be whole again.”

The Japanese medic bowed. “Thank you.”

Su Yao approached, the crow perched on her shoulder. “The seed is planted. Now we wait for it to grow in the dark.”

Standing in the trench, she watched the relieved soldiers test their healed limbs. A murmur of rumors moved through the ranks. The escaped prisoner had vanished into the fog without a single shot fired. She leaned against the trench wall, the damp earth soaking into her sleeve.

Her eyes scanned the fog. This is wrong.

A successful operation always had a cost. This had none. It felt like a play where everyone remembered their lines, and she was the only one who hadn’t read the final act.

The crow tilted its head on her shoulder. “The plan proceeds.”

“That’s what worries me.” Su Yao pushed off the wall, her senses stretching out. Nothing felt out of place.

The best possible outcome was that Colonel Rachmaninoff was mistaken. The commissar was the real Trotsky, a brilliant mortal revolutionary trapped in a hellish reflection of his own struggle.

That outcome was manageable. Even a demon-empowered genius could be outplayed or outlasted.

The alternative was the story they had planted. If the commissar was Koschei the Deathless, they were fighting a being who learned from every death and turned defeat into a tutorial. A Dark Souls protagonist.

Koschei would adapt and grind. He would hide his soul in more Byzantine ways until killing him required a quest spanning nested realities and multiple sequels.

The worst outcome was the unknown. If he was neither Trotsky nor Koschei, he was something else. An unknown variable could be less dangerous than a deathless wizard. It could also be something they had never encountered before.

She rubbed her temples. We think we are spreading a disinformation campaign. But what if we are accidentally reciting his true name?

“Your anxiety is logical.” The crow crackled. “We have aimed a weapon without knowing what it’s loaded with.”