by Jane Toombs
Free! Hurt. Water. Swim. Hard to move legs, cloth binds them. Rip off. Dark. Need moon. Hurt, hurt, hurt. Danger. Man splashing nearby. Kill? Too weak. Swim away. He doesn't follow. Can't swim? Swim or drown. He drowns. Not me. Swim, not die. Never die. Live!
Weaker. Hurt. No shore, only water. Need moon. Can't swim any longer. Can't stay free.
Water poured from his mouth as he vomited, gasping for air. He lay on his stomach, naked, over a barrel, felt hands pummeling his back, forcing more water from him, his insides seemed filled with water.
When at last there was no more to be coughed up or vomited, the pummeling ceased. He was jerked upright, a man on each side. Sailors.
"All right now?" one asked.
"Yes." His voice was hoarse, he staggered with weakness.
"Got a nasty lump on your head, a knife slash over your ribs and you damn near drowned. What happened?"
For a moment his mind was blank and then a torrent of memory flooded in full of horrors he tried to shove from his head. He must say something but he had to pick and choose, difficult in his dazed state.
"I need to sit down," he said.
A sailor ran up with a blanket. The man to his right-- the first mate judging by his uniform--wrapped it around him and eased him to the deck. He slumped against the bulkhead, hugging the blanket to him.
"I had gold," he said slowly. "My shipmates jumped me. Four of them. Robbed me, stripped me, beat me and tossed me over the rail to drown."
"Not off this ship."
"No, not a Russian ship. American. I signed on in the Islands."
"You got a name?"
"Sergei," he said. "Sergei Volek."
"We're the Black Eagle, out of Vladivostok, bound for home," the first mate said. "We're weighing anchor at dawn. If you want to be set ashore, tell me now."
Sergei shuddered, more from the images roiling in his mind that from what was said to him. Go ashore? He feared what was in his head but he feared the unknown land ashore even more. He stared at the early night sky, noting the sliver of moon near the horizon. Setting. He'd be safe for a time.
"I need a berth," he said at last.
"We're short three seamen, we could use you. I'll ask the captain if he'll take you on. Where are you from?"
"St. Petersburg." It wasn't a lie, he'd been born there.
The mate nodded. "How old?"
"Nineteen."
The mate frowned. "Had a hard life, have you? You look at least ten years older." He turned to a sailor. "Volek needs a drink. Draw him a ration of vodka while I talk to Captain Gregorski. And slap a bandage on that knife slash." Sergei swallowed the vodka thankfully, feeling his insides glow in response. His head had all but stopped aching but his side still hurt. It puzzled him that the wound over his ribs was still open. He usually healed much faster.
The mate returned as the bandage was being wrapped around him. "The captain agreed we need another man, Volek. Not superstitious, are you? You'll be inheriting a dead man's clothes."
Sergei glanced at the blanket wrapped around his nakedness and shrugged. "Beggars can't afford to be superstitious," he answered. "Thanks for the offer."
A few minutes later, the blanket still around him, he crawled into his appointed hammock and closed his eyes, exhausted.
A face formed behind his closed lids. His own face, down to the last detail, yet not his face. He bit his lip to keep from weeping as the memories he'd kept at bay exploded into his mind like an artillery shell, breaking his heart all over again...
Chapter 20
Sergei Volek came to in pitch darkness, his heart hammering. He'd had the dream again, the nightmare of bloody death. He sat up, naked, shivering in the chill, and pulled on his reindeer hide trousers. He reached over to touch Vladimir. His twin's pallet was empty.
"Vlad?" he called softly.
The exit ladder from their underground yurt leading up through the smokehole creaked.
"Vlad?" he called, louder.
"No need to shout." Vladimir's voice.
Sergei heard him jump off the ladder onto the ground. A moment later red glowed as his twin blew on a smoldering coal to restart their fire in the pit below the ladder.
"I expected to be back before--" Vlad began. He broke off to look searchingly at Sergei, then glanced at the reindeer hide covering the woman's exit tunnel before turning back to face his brother.
"Are you all right?" Vlad demanded.
"I just woke up. Why wouldn't I be all right? Where were you?"
Vlad, crouching in front of the firepit, didn't answer. "I had a bad dream," he said after a moment, "so I climbed the ladder to go out and get some air."
A tiny flame licked at the kindling, caught and grew. Vladimir added more fuel. Sergei watched him, not believing a word his twin had said.
Shadows began to dance along the dirt walls of their yurt as the fire flared brighter. Vlad stood up, lean and rangy as a wolf. Sergei stared at him in confusion. This had happened before--two months ago. He'd roused from the same bloody nightmare to find himself alone. Vlad had crept in, then lied to him about where he'd been. Cold dread trickled along Sergei's spine.
What was wrong?
"You're sure you're all right?" Vlad repeated.
Sergei nodded.
"Gray Seal's been prowling around outside our yurt again," Vlad said.
Gray Seal, the Kamchadal tribe's shaman, had been unhappy ever since the two of them came to live in the native village after their guardian, the Cossack Peter Turgoff, died. Twins, Gray Seal claimed, were bad luck and attracted evil spirits.
The Kamchadals had befriended the boys from the day they arrived from St. Petersburg, teaching the green as grass eleven-year-olds how to survive in Kamchatka. For six years Sergei and Vlad had hunted with the boys and men, gone fishing with them in the bats hollowed from poplar logs, and been made welcome in their underground dwellings.
Gray Seal had never been friendly but he'd never spoken against them until they settled into this yurt after Turgoff was killed by a wolf in March. That March night two months ago was the first time Sergei had roused from a nightmare to find Vlad gone.
"What was it you dreamed tonight?" he asked Vlad.
His twin came to sit on the pallet next to him. "Like before. Running on all fours. Rending and tearing living flesh. The taste of blood. And--and enjoying it."
Sergei swallowed, imagining the salty taste of blood in his mouth. "I dreamed the same. Again. When I woke you weren't here."
Vlad stared at him, then nodded to himself. "Serg, it's time to tell you the truth about why I was gone tonight.
Past time. You'll have trouble believing me but I swear it's true. Will you listen?" Vlad gazed into his eyes. "Something's wrong," Sergei whispered. "I knew it was." Vlad nodded.
The soft brush of hide boots against dirt startled both of them into leaping to their feet. A hand pushed aside the reindeer skin covering the woman's tunnel and a slim figure appeared in the opening.
"Deer Woman!" Sergei crossed to her.
She put her finger to her lips, shot a furtive glance at Vlad, then flung herself into Sergei's arms. He held her close. She was Gray Seal's daughter, the prettiest young woman in the Kamchadal tribe, and he was flattered she'd chosen him for her lover. Surprisingly, though he and Vlad were identical, she never confused them.
Deer Woman pulled away to look at him again, her black eyes, set slightly aslant in her round face, glazed with fear. Taking his arm, she led him to the wall of the yurt as far away from Vlad as possible. There she pulled his head down but instead of kissing him she whispered into his ear. "I was outside and saw your brother go down the smokehole ladder. My father saw him, too. Even now he harangues the men to come after you both. To kill you." Sergei looked toward Vlad, who'd turned his back to them.
"Why?" he asked her.
"Moss Belly lies dead, with his throat torn," she whispered. "Like the Russian who was your guardian. You must come with me through the woman's tunnel. Qu
ickly. Let Gray Seal find only the guilty one here."
"Guilty? He can't think that Vlad...!"
Deer Woman covered his lips with her hand. "Don't
speak of it. We must hurry."
He shook his head, resisting her pull toward the tunnel. "Vlad comes with us."
"No!" Terror widened her eyes and shrilled her voice. "Gray Seal is wrong. Vlad never killed a man. He wouldn't, not like that." Sergei spoke low, urgently. "He and I are as one person. I'd know."
She clamped her lips stubbornly together.
"Where I go, he goes," Sergei repeated, turning away from her and motioning to his brother. "Vlad, Gray Seal means to kill us. We've got to slip through the woman's exit and make a run for it."
As Vlad hastily pulled on his boots, Sergei crammed their hoard of gold coins into a wide leather belt he buckled around his waist next to his skin before donning his reindeer jacket with the sable-trimmed hood.
Deer Woman, standing by the tunnel, shifted from one foot to the other. "Hurry," she urged.
She crept ahead of them through the tunnel, never used by a Kamchadal man lest he be defiled. Sergei came next, though Vlad usually led, for Sable Woman wouldn't let his twin near her. They eased into the frosty May night where the north wind clutched at them with icy fingers. Clouds covered the stars and the moon.
"The Alchovnik," Deer Woman said into Sergei's ear. "Hide there, it's your only chance to escape to Petropavlovsk."
There was no place of safety other than the port city where they might catch an outbound ship.
"Will you come with me?" he asked.
"With you, yes. With both of you, no."
But she left the village with them, hurrying along beside Sergei until they reached the wilderness of alder brush that grew so densely it was all but impenetrable--the Alchovnik.
"There's a bear trail here," she told Sergei. She raised herself to touch her lips to his. Before he could hold her close, she backed away from him and fled toward the village, disappearing into the darkness.
Sergei started to call after her, then shook his head. She was too afraid of Vlad to listen to any pleas. And she'd be safer in the village than with them.
Vlad crouched and entered the opening made in the tangle of alders by the Kamchatka bears, the only paths through the Alchovnik. Sergei plunged after him, grateful when the bite of the wind eased. For some reason he felt unusually tired and the cold cut to the bone.
In the blackness they crept along slowly, feeling their way, their fur mitts catching on the sharp alder twigs. Sergei looked back, seeing nothing but the dark.
"Do you think Gray Seal can convince the men to follow us?" he asked.
"We're all right if they don't set the dogs on our trail. But at best we won't make Petropavlovsk before late tomorrow."
They groped on and on in the darkness until Sergei's legs trembled with fatigue. He couldn't ever recall feeling so exhausted. By the time Vlad stopped to rest, Sergei slumped against his brother, too tired to speak.
Morning lightened the bear tunnel to a gray gloom before they went on. Overhead the sky was hidden by matted alders that also pressed in at them from both sides. They were forced to trot along at a crouch since the pathway was barely wide and high enough to accommodate a full grown bear traveling on all fours.
"Let's hope there's a ship waiting when we reach Petropavlovsk," Sergei said. "That's if we ever find our way through this tangle."
"Cheer up, Serg." Vlad glanced back at him as he
spoke, his face no more than a blur of white in the gloom. Sergei had no need to see Vlad's face. It was identical to his--high cheek-boned with golden eyes and a curly black beard. Quite different from the Kamchadal men with their broad flat faces, slanted eyes and scanty facial hair.
"I'll cheer up when we're aboard an outbound ship," Sergei said.
"Maybe I should call on old Kut to have one ready and waiting for us at the wharf in Petropavlovsk."
Sergei snorted. Kut was Raven, the Kamchadal version of their creator. It was wise to beware of any gift from that old trickster.
"You'd do better praying to God," he said.
"I've already tried that." Vlad's voice lost its lightness. "I'm afraid God's abandoned us like father did." In the six years they'd been here, neither of the twins had discovered a reason for their exile to cold and gloomy Kamchatka. Did what happened last night have anything to do with father's decision to send them here? Sergei wondered.
At the same time he realized he didn't want to know exactly what had happened, not if it involved Vlad, the person dearest to him in all the world. He'd die for Vlad.
Not once had Vlad asked him why Gray Seal had decided to kill them, although Sergei was certain his twin hadn't overheard Deer Woman's whispers. Was it because he already knew?
As if in answer, Vlad increased his speed. Sergei hurried to catch up, the heaviness of the gold coins in his waist belt matching the heaviness of his heart.
The gold had come from their father--all that was left of home, gold coins and a few hazy memories of their parents and their sister in St. Petersburg.
Sounds were muffled in the wild tangle surrounding them but Sergei knew if dogs were tracking them he'd hear them howl. The Kamchadals were excellent hunters even without their dogs, though. He looked over his shoulder to check their back trail and found no sign of pursuit but the trail twisted and turned so crazily it was impossible to see farther than a few yards.
Vlad shouted an alarm. Quickly Sergei turned, but too late to stop from slamming into his twin. Vladimir sprawled headlong. Sergei stumbled sideways, the sharp alder twigs stabbing at his shoulder.
In the gloom ahead, a Kamchatka bear snorted, swinging its head from side to side to pick up their scent.
Before Vlad could scramble to his feet, the bear charged. Sergei yanked his knife from its belt scabbard, leaped free of the clinging brush and flung himself into the bear's path, shouting in defiance.
The bear was huge, all but filling the tunnel. Sergei knew the overhanging alders would keep it from rising onto its hind legs but it could as easily kill them on all fours. The bear opened a yellow-fanged mouth, roaring a challenge. Its rank odor filled his nostrils.
He had one chance. A native trick. Sergei turned the knife, a small Kamchadal dagger, point upwards. He tried to step aside as he rammed the knife into the bear's open mouth. Sharp teeth raked his forearm as he thrust the dagger point as hard as he could into the roof of the bear's mouth and left it there.
The bear's shoulder hit Sergei, knocking him flat. He rolled away. Sprang to his feet. Vlad, knife in hand, stood beside him.
The bear howled in pain, rearing up, head crunching into the alder branches. Blood dripped from its muzzle, mouth held open by the dagger in its throat. It was a male, brown fur grizzled with age.
Vlad jerked his head, pointing forward. Sergei hesitated. Shouldn't they try to finish off the animal?
Vlad grabbed his arm, pulling him along. The bear groaned and pawed at its mouth, paying no heed to them as they dodged past. Sergei knew the bear was doomed. Eventually the dagger point would penetrate its brain and kill the animal, but he wished it was already dead and out of agony.
"He'll last long enough to scare off any pursuers,"
Vlad said when they'd put several twists of the trail between themselves and the bear. He grinned at Sergei. "You spiked him as neatly as any Kamchadal."
Maybe so, but he'd lost his knife and now was unarmed. Sergei tried to tell himself it didn't matter, that no one was in pursuit, that there'd be a ship waiting when they reached the town. His arm throbbed where the bear's teeth had penetrated the reindeer hide sleeve and he clenched his jaw against the pain as he ran behind Vlad. Just as well the bear's teeth got him instead of Vlad--he healed faster.
If the Kamchadals overtook them they'd be forced to fight. Sergei pictured old Gray Seal in his shaman's bear headdress exhorting the men to track them down, the evil spirits in the form of humans. Kill them
and throw the severed pieces of their bodies to the scavengers.
"You saved my neck," Vlad said. "That damned bear
meant to turn me into dogmeat."
"You'd have done the same for me."
Vlad's smile faded. "Always. No matter what. Remember that, Serg."
"We're running because Moss Belly was murdered last night," Sergei said, hoping to rid himself of his dark suspicions about his brother.
"I know."
"His throat was torn out. Like Turgoff's in March." "Yes."
A question hovered on Sergei's lips. Did you do it, Vlad? He couldn't ask it. What difference would it make if he knew for sure? Vlad was his twin, his other. No matter what, just as Vlad had said.
"Moss Belly was Deer Woman's suitor," Vlad commented. "She didn't want him."
"No, she preferred you. Moss Belly meant to kill you." Sergei thought this highly likely, the man had been glowering at him for weeks. Is that why Vlad--? No, he refused to think about it.
They ran on in silence. Rested. Ran again. The tunnel grew gloomier and Sergei knew it must be getting on for evening.
"Do you think we're lost in here?" he asked.
"No, the brush is thinning," Vlad called over his shoulder.
Moments later, Sergei stood with his brother in the open on the side of a hill above Petropavlovsk. Dusk shadowed circular Avacha Bay and, beyond, the cold sweep of Bering Sea lay past its narrow mouth. Lights flickered from ships anchored in the harbor and glowed from windows of the houses ashore.
To their left loomed the three volcanoes. Kamchatka Peak belched smoke and flame above the snow covering its cone. The ground trembled.
"The mountain spirits are loose tonight," Vlad said.
"It ought to make the Kamchadals forget about us."
"Maybe." Sergei glanced at the sky. Cloud-covered, as usual. "Let's not take any chances, just the same."