Re: Blood and Iron

Chapter 634: Fathers and Sons

The soft hum of distant music echoed from the grand ballroom below, muffled by thick glass and velvet drapes.

On the stone balcony high above the illuminated Olympiastadion, the night air was crisp and cool, tinged with the scent of blooming summer flowers.

The lights of Berlin stretched like a sea of stars, flickering with pride, an empire aglow in the warmth of its own triumph.

Bruno stood still, wineglass in hand, silhouetted against the grandeur he had helped build.

Beside him, Erwin, no longer the eager boy who used to chase fencing instructors with a wooden sabre, but a man hardened by industry, responsibility, and now, a father’s worry.

Erwin swirled the dark wine in his glass, his voice low.

“You know… sometimes I wish I hadn’t quit the academy. That you hadn’t let me. My son… he’ll be fighting in the next war. Wasn’t that the point of my not serving? So we could prevent the need for such a thing?”

Bruno took a long sip, letting the silence hang.

“Your son made his choice,” he finally said calmly. “I tried to dissuade him. But he felt the call of duty. He paid for those medals on his chest with blood in Spain. And he lived to tell the tale. That is more than many can say.”

Erwin frowned, the glass trembling slightly in his hand. He turned to his father.

“Then put him behind a desk, Father. Give him a special spot, let him handle logistics or intelligence. Something safe. Something that keeps him alive.”

Bruno’s gaze hardened. His voice didn’t rise, but there was iron in it.

“I understand how you feel, Erwin. Truly, I do.”

“How so?” Erwin pushed, not disrespectfully, but raw. “You never had to fear me coming home from the war. You never had to fear losing a son.”

Bruno’s jaw tensed. His response came cold and heavy, like a drawn blade.

“I have had to fear losing ten thousand sons, Erwin. And I have lost many more than that. Each man who served beneath my command, from the very beginning, was like a son to me. And I have watched more of them die than I can bear to remember.”

He turned to face Erwin directly now, eyes sharp as steel.

“Believe me when I say this, I understand that fear better than anyone alive. But I will not tarnish their memory by giving preferential treatment to my blood. They weren’t afforded that luxury. And so, neither shall Erich be.”

Erwin said nothing, only stared into the distance as the bells of the Olympiastadion began to chime softly, announcing the end of the third gala hour.

Bruno’s voice softened just a touch.

“We all have our duty. Yours is here, building the future. Industry. Infrastructure. Prosperity. Mine and Erich’s… is out there, keeping the wolves at bay.”

Another moment passed between them, quiet and solemn. Then Erwin nodded slowly.

“Just… don’t let him die, Father…”

Bruno turned his eyes back to the skyline.

“I’ll do what I can. But I’ve long since stopped making promises to ghosts.”

—

Down below, music and laughter filled the decorated Olympic village pavilion.

Officers from across the Reich and its allies mingled with foreign dignitaries, Olympic champions, and the cream of Europe’s elite youth.

The mood was jubilant, golden with pride and wine. The banners of the Reich swayed lightly in the warm breeze under torchlight and elegant electric lanterns.

Amid them stood Erich von Zehntner, Oberleutnant, surrounded by young officers and veterans alike.

Tall, sharply dressed in his parade uniform, he lifted a foaming beer stein to his lips as another toast was made to the Spanish campaign.

The golden cross on his chest glinted, earned not by favor, but by fire. His uniform collar bore fresh insignia, a promotion to Oberleutnant.

No one questioned it. Not after what he’d done in Spain.

He laughed easily, confidently, the spitting image of Bruno in his youth, down to the barely faded mensur dueling scar that curved from his cheekbone toward his jaw.

A gift from the same academy Bruno had once trained in, and a badge of honor among the elite.

Erich’s eyes glanced upward to the balcony where his father and grandfather stood.

He raised his stein in salute, a silent, knowing nod to both of them, before turning back to the conversation as his friends burst into laughter again.

Back on the balcony, Erwin watched the exchange with both pride and quiet despair.

Bruno broke the silence, his voice softer now, but no less resolute.

“Even if I asked Erich to take a desk,” he said, “he would refuse. He would not abandon his men to fight without him. That is not the kind of man he is.”

Bruno’s gaze lingered on the flickering celebration below.

“That is the kind of man you raised, Erwin.”

A long pause stretched between them, rich with unspoken truths and generational weight.

Erwin’s reply came with a breath that shook slightly.

“Then may God have mercy on him… if the world does not.”

Bruno’s smirk curled like a dagger sliding from its sheath.

“You should be praying for God’s mercy on whoever manages to kill the boy,” he said, tone flat as iron. “For my wrath is nearly as great as his… and far more easily triggered.”

The words hung there, heavy and real, an echo of ancient kings and pagan war gods, of fathers who buried sons and razed kingdoms in retaliation.

Erwin turned to look at him, half-chilled, half-reassured. Bruno didn’t blink.

The flicker of fireworks lit his eyes, but the fire inside them was older, primordial, seething, eternal.

By no exaggeration were his words. Since the dawn of the Great War twenty years prior, Bruno had been stockpiling weapons of mass destruction for two purposes.

One was as a last resort, to bring the world to ruin with the Reich should the glory of its banners ever be sullied.

And the second was as retaliation for any nation that dared to touch that which was most precious to him in this life.

His family…