by Chris Paton
“I know,” Ivan said and let go. “Humour me?
“Da,” said Lena and stood on tiptoe to kiss him on both cheeks.
“You can tell me more about this Russian man when we are finished with Bryullov,” Ivan said over his shoulder as he walked over to his men.
“I promise,” she said.
Stepan was quiet as he admired the ease with which the Cossacks prepared their weapons and horses. The mood was high as they joked, but Stepan caught the serious undertone when an experienced Cossack checked the straps of a young man's horse, or when a female rider secured her musket in its saddle holster and then tested how quickly she could draw it, repositioning her saddlebags when she discovered a hindrance. My men were never this disciplined, he mused, and yet we considered the Cossacks to be drunken fools. Perhaps that is why we never truly beat them?
“Come, Kapitan. Let us find you a horse,” said Lena. She led Stepan between the men to a clearing in the trees where Bryullov's horse was tethered to a tree beside Lena's mare. The horse snorted at their approach only to settle as the mare rubbed her head against its neck. The black sock markings on the horse's forelegs contrasted sharply with its chestnut flanks. Stepan approached the horse and smoothed his hands over its nose and whispered words from the song he used to sing for Nikolas when he was small. The horse flicked its brown eyes from Stepan to Lena and back again. It lifted its left foreleg and tamped the ground with its hoof. Stepan smoothed his hands down the horse's neck, rubbing his palm up and down until the horse stopped fidgeting. Stepan continued to whisper and pat the horse as he checked the saddle and found his long rifle secure in a holster on the right side of the horse. The horse's ears twitched and Stepan reached up to stroke them.
“You will need a name,” he said. He thought for a moment and then walked around to the horse's head. “Bystro, is what I will call you.”
“Quick? Da, it is a good name,” said Lena as she climbed into the saddle of her mare. “It will bring you luck.”
“Yes,” said Stepan as he mounted. “I believe it will.”
He turned in the saddle to look at Lena. Two huge flintlock pistols were holstered either side of the saddle pommel, a short rifle poked out of a holster on the right, and a sword hung from the opposite side. Lena flexed her arm and tightened the bandage. She nodded to Stepan that she was ready.
“Are you in pain?” he asked and pointed at her arm.
“I can fight, Kapitan,” she said.
“I don't doubt that. But does your arm hurt?”
“Listen, Kapitan,” Lena said and leaned forwards to stroke the side of her mare's head. “Your job is to shoot Russians. My job is to keep you alive while you shoot Russians. Nothing else matters. I can do my job. Can you do yours?”
“Yes,” Stepan said.
“Good. Then we can go.” Lena urged her mare forwards with a gentle kick of her heels. She walked the grey mare past Stepan. “And yes,” she said when she was ahead of him. “It hurts.”
Stepan smiled and flicked the reins for Bystro to follow her. He could hear the three small patrols as they splashed across the river. Ivan's main force of twenty Cossacks and horses, waited for the patrols to clear the river before they crossed to the other side. Ivan stopped to wave to Stepan and Lena.
“Good hunting,” he said as he let his hand drop to the reins and led his men up the opposite bank and onto the plain.
“Are you ready to shoot some Russians, Kapitan?”
“I am ready to make things right,” Stepan said. And if that means shooting Russians, he thought, then I guess I am ready to do that too.
The river reached as high as Bystro's belly, and the heels of Stepan's boots. He urged the horse through the river and up the bank behind Lena. The dust of Ivan's Cossacks billowed into a cloud and Stepan called Lena to a halt as he surveyed the plain. He pointed at a low knoll to the southeast of the river. Several miles away, it was a good position from which to spot Bryullov’s men, and, depending upon where the Cossacks engaged the company of Russians, it was within the range of Stepan's long rifle. He said as much to Lena and she nodded.
“Da. It is good enough. Maybe we will find something better when we get to it?”
“We might. As for now,” Stepan said and smoothed his hand along Bystro’s neck. “Let's ride.”
Lena grinned and whistled her mare into an explosive start. Before Stepan could react, Bystro leaped after the grey mare and chased her into the dust cloud in the wake of the Cossacks. The first rumble of the Russian's mammoth walkers trembled through the dry earth of the Great Southern Plain, and Stepan Skuratov prepared himself for the first steps in his mission to free the city of his birth, and to find his son.
Chapter 11
The Hindu Kush
Afghanistan
July, 1851
For as long as Hari could remember, djinn had been a part of his life. His mother had told him djinn tales at night before he went to sleep, the sound of the River Indus rushing past the village. The villagers had blamed djinn for failing crops and goats gone missing. On his first hunting forays in the mountains above the village, the men had shown him djinn scratchings on the rocks and talked of djinn battles in neighbouring lands. The men thanked the gods there were no living djinn in India – there were enough devils to deal with, but the light in their eyes around the campfire when they talked of djinn convinced Hari that every one of them wished for just one chance to see one for themselves. Hari did too. And now I have two of them, he thought and craned his neck upwards as he slipped his hand inside his shirt and ran his fingers around the tattoo on his chest.
Smith, the head of the Indian Bureau of Cartography, had been the only one of Hari's English masters to condone the tattoo and to understand its meaning.
“You are alone out there in the wilds, Hari,” he had said all those years ago when Hari had begun his training as a pundit for the East Indian Company. “I think it prudent that a man consider all eventualities, and,” he had whispered, “it mystifies the British and distances you from them. That makes you even more valuable to me, Hari.”
It was on his first mission inside Afghanistan that Hari had been marked with the anti-djinn tattoo. An old woman had painted the azure blue spiral on his chest with the end of a short stick, flattened and bashed into a brush. The woman's sons had gripped Hari by the arms as their mother daubed the caustic paint upon his chest. Hari could still remember the smell of burning flesh and powerful magic, but it had been years later, when the mark had fully healed, when he discovered the key to unlocking the djinnlight. The mark became more than just a defensive charm when Hari realised it was a weapon he could wield. The first wild djinni that had attacked Hari on a narrow goat tracks in the Himalayans, had created such a fire upon his chest that Hari had tried to smother the mark with his hands only to draw a small ball of djinnlight into his palm. He had thrown it away in terror, only to find the djinni was even more terrified of it. A month later, in the old woman's hut, Hari had asked if every man and woman so marked could wield the djinnlight?
“No,” she had said and cast a disappointed glance at her sons. “Only the few.”
She had said no more, and died the following winter, leaving Hari to discover the powers and limitations of djinnlight by himself, in the mountains, in secret.
So much of my life has been secret, in the shadows, he mused as he drew a ball of djinnlight into the palm of his left hand. He turned to look at Najma and nodded for her to prepare herself as the djinn above them shrieked towards the village locked in a deadly embrace.
Najma loaded the Lightning Jezail and ran to the ruined building to her left. She stumbled as the djinn slammed into the packed earth of the village square, picked herself up and ran through the cloud of dust. Hari drew his kukri with his right hand and pointed the tip to the top of the building when Najma waved to say she was ready. He lowered the blade and circled the djinn as they wrestled in the dust, exchanging clawed punches as they hissed at each other.
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br /> “Why do you fight me?” said the djinni. “Are we not brothers of the pit?”
Jamie, his skin flickering between hues of blue and the fiery flames of orange, pierced his opponent's chest with the claws of his right hand. “I thought we were brothers, kin perhaps, but my master says otherwise.”
“Your master?” the djinni laughed as it gripped Jamie's hand by the wrist and wrenched the claws free of his chest. “That puny man in the dust? Why do you shackle yourself to him when you could be free?”
“He saved my life,” Jamie said and whirled within the dust of battle to grip the djinni from behind. He turned the djinni's great body towards Hari. “And he pulled me from the pit.”
Hari cast the djinnlight at the djinni's chest at the same time as Najma fired from her position on the building. The bullet crackled with static and punched into the side of the djinni's head as Hari's djinnlight pummelled the air from its lungs. The djinni reeled and Jamie pressed its body into the dirt, holding it as it withered into the skinny frame of a wizened old man. Jamie relaxed and returned to his natural form.
“Well done, British,” said Hari as he pressed a ball of unspent djinnlight into the tattoo on his chest.
“I am hungry now,” said Jamie. “And I really need some clothes. And so does he.” He kneeled to check on the old man at his feet. The copper-infused bullet from Najma's Jezail fizzed in the dirt until the energy was extinguished and it spun in a slow circle. Jamie picked it up. “It didn't penetrate the djinni's skin?”
“No,” said Hari. “When you are in djinn form, your flesh is charged and the bullet cannot get through. But, the energy in a charged bullet disorientates the djinn, and upsets the natural charge in the djinn's body.”
“It confuses us?”
“Truly, it does.”
The father of the young female djinni approached them. He carried clothes for Jamie and the old man stirring on the ground. Jamie dressed in a patched and dirty dhoti and then helped the man to his feet.
“My name is Tahir,” he said and waited as Jamie dressed.
“How did these men...” Jamie said.
“And my daughter,” said Tahir.
“Yes. How did they come to be in the pit?”
Hari buttoned his shirt and nodded to Najma as she approached, her Jezail slung over her shoulder. They stood quietly as the man cleared his throat and helped the old man into his dhoti.
“This is a poor village,” he said. “We had trouble with bandits in the mountains. They took our crops, our goats and, sometimes, our women. We decided to protect ourselves, and Aarif,” he nodded at the old man, “suggested we dig a djinn pit. He also volunteered to climb into it.”
“That was several years ago,” said Aarif.
“My daughter joined him, together with Lemar. They were in love. They believed it was the right thing to do for the village. I couldn't stop them. But neither could we control them.”
“We had no experience of digging a pit,” said Aarif. “We thought it was the same as digging a well. That was our first mistake. Our second was thinking we understood how djinn came to be. We starved ourselves, thinking that suffering was the key.”
“The crying was unbearable,” Tahir. “I heard my daughter beg for food every night.”
“And then the bandits came,” said Aarif.
“And they laughed at us. Their leader sent one of his men back to their camp, and he returned with a most evil man – one skilled in the djinn arts.”
Hari studied the old man as he shuddered at the memory. The man's blistered nails and the scars on his face and chest suggested a struggle between djinn trapped in the bottom of a deep, dark pit.
“The bandits cursed us with djinn beyond our control,” said Tahir.
“It would have been better if we had died in that pit.”
“Yes,” Tahir said. He turned to look at his daughter as she held hands with her lover by the side of the pit.
“And now?” said Jamie.
“Now we return,” said Aarif. “Look at the buildings, the ruins of our village. The bandits did not do this. We did. The first and last time we were free, before today.”
“How did the villagers get you back into the pit?” said Hari.
“With the promise of food. We were so weak, we ran out of energy, but not before we had destroyed much of the village. We crawled back into the pit of our own free will. Hungry and broken. Cursed.”
“I know all about the curse,” said Jamie.
“Yes, but you at least have known control. To be wild without restraint, and to feel remorse at what one has done,” said Tahir. “That is the true curse of the djinn – to hurt those one loves.”
“I can teach you control,” Hari said.
“Perhaps. But we really have no need for djinn any longer. The bandits left us alone after the djinn destroyed our village. Suddenly, we had nothing to offer, we were too poor to be robbed. The humiliation...” he said.
“Come, Tahir,” said Aarif. “Walk with me to the pit and say goodbye to your daughter.”
Tahir took a step and stopped. “Thank you for your help. Thank you for letting me see my daughter once more. She,” he said and wiped a tear from his cheek. “Is as beautiful as the day she first crawled into the pit. And so will she remain, long after I have gone. That, I suppose, is my legacy – to have an immortal daughter.” The men held hands as they walked towards the pit. Jamie started to follow but Hari caught his arm.
“No, British,” he said and shook his head.
“But they can be free,” said Jamie. “I am free. My body is the vessel, as is theirs.”
“But without control, the vessel will break, again and again, as it did today.”
“You can teach them.”
“They do not want my help,” said Hari and he turned to watch the man hug his daughter. The villagers pressed food into the hands of the djinn, kissed them and hugged them, and then cried as they lowered a rope ladder into the pit and waited as the djinn climbed down and out of sight. A new lid was pushed to the pit on the bed of a weathered cart. The villagers slid it into place and began piling stones on top of it as Tahir walked back towards Hari, Jamie and Najma.
“We have some food,” he said. “Will you eat with us?”
“Yes,” Hari said as Jamie clenched his fists and turned to walk away. Najma hurried after him. “We would be honoured to eat with you.”
“Your friend, the Englishman, I don't think he will be honoured.”
“He is a passionate young man.”
“He is djinn.”
“Truly,” said Hari.
“He thinks I should learn to control the djinn, and my daughter.”
“Yes.”
“But you can see, can you not, we are so few. The village is poor. It is all but dead.”
“Yes,” said Hari and glanced at the villagers piling stones on the lid of the pit. Their clothes were patched like the dhoti Jamie wore. Their hands scarred and their backs bent from tilling poor earth.
“We are too poor to be robbed. We have no need of djinn.”
Hari shook his head at the irony of it all. He pressed his hand upon the man's chest and looked him in the eye.
“Let me teach you the way of djinn. They have great strength, it need not be used for fighting.” He took the man's hand. “The soil is hard. Let them do the work for you. They can dig irrigation ditches. You can grow a healthy crop. You can see your daughter. You don't need the djinn to fight.”
“I don't know,” Tahir said and wiped his eyes at the sound of the last rock being placed on top of the lid.
“Think about it. Talk to your people. When Jamie and I are finished with our business in the east, we can return, and teach you.” Hari nodded to where Jamie and Najma stood talking. “If I can teach him to control his passion, I can teach you to control theirs.”
Tahir looked at Jamie and sighed. “Perhaps.”
“Think about it,” said Hari. “And now, perhaps we can eat.”
“Yes, of course. I will see to it.”
Hari watched as Tahir walked to the pit and talked to the villagers. The dust at their feet was scarred with battle and loss. The men and women, the few remaining, wept as their children huddled in a small group and waited.
“Luise,” Hari whispered. “Truly, it would break your heart to see this. Perhaps, we can return when we are finished in Arkhangelsk? Yes,” he said, louder. “That is what we will do.” Hari sheathed the kukri and called to Jamie and Najma. “Come, friends. We must eat.”
“Has he changed his mind? Will he be taught?” said Jamie as Hari joined them.
“He has agreed to think about it, and I have pledged to myself to help him. Does that satisfy you, British?”
“For the moment, perhaps.” Jamie glanced towards the villagers as they started a fire by the side of a building across the square.
“I am hungry,” said Najma.
“Yes,” said Hari. “And you, British, need your strength.”
“Why?”
“Why?” said Hari and laughed. “Because tonight we fly.”
Chapter 12
The Tanfana
The German Confederation
July, 1851
Hannah slumped into the chair opposite Luise in the passenger car of The Tanfana. She reached for the coffee pot and an empty cup. She poured herself a cup as she observed her travelling companion. Luise, for her part, played dumb and waited for Hannah to speak first. The German had her priorities and the Admiral had warned her to be careful. Wallendorf's love for his daughter could only extend so far, and, once she was gone, Luise doubted the German Confederation would continue to sponsor a military expedition beyond its borders without good reason. The leather seat creaked as Hannah leaned back and sipped her coffee. Luise smiled and waited.
The scenery disappeared with the failing light and the women were joined for a moment in the otherwise empty car by a lamplighter. The young boy trimmed the wicks and lit them with a tapered match. He was, Luise realised, about the same age as Emilia. Too young to be considered an adult, and too old not to be put to work. Clearly, this boy's talents were not as developed as Emilia's and Luise smiled at the thought of her supervising the engineers cleaning and servicing her emissary. The lamplighter whispered past them and moved into the adjoining car. Hannah put down her cup and broke the silence as the lamps flickered with the boy's passing.