Moon Runner 01 Under the Shadow

by Jane Toombs

  Wolf didn't think he wanted to hear this secret but Grandfather hadn't asked how he felt about it.

  "I am a Volek," Grandfather went on, "and, because you are my grandson, you are a Volek. Though the Kamchadals treated you as a beast, you are not one, nor ever will be. I am different. Inside me a beast lives, a terrible ravening monster more dangerous than any wolf or bear. I've learned how to keep him inside so you and others are safe from him but he is forever there, waiting to escape, to kill.

  "You will grow into a man and desire a woman because that is the way of the world. Though you're not a beast yourself, you can pass on my inner beast to your children. This is the dark misfortune I've given to you, Wolf--the ability to father a beast. You must never have children! Never! Promise you will heed me."

  Wolf tried to digest what he'd been told but his mind roiled in confusion. He'd been reviled by the people in his village as a beast. Grandfather had freed him and insisted he was a boy and must learn to behave like one. What was he, really?

  Grandfather gave him a little shake. "Promise me!"

  "I promise," he said, not certain exactly what he was agreeing to but wanting to please Grandfather and frightened by the knowledge that there really was a beast inside Grandfather, after all.

  In the morning Sergei spoke to Gregor, asking him to care for Wolf.

  Gregor nodded. "It happens I have no son, sir. Only daughters. I will watch over the boy as though he were my own."

  As Sergei rode off on one of Gregor's rawboned mares, he was conscious of Wolf's dark eyes watching him. He knew the boy must be terrified, left in a strange place with a strange man but there was no help for it. If all went well, he'd be back. If not, Wolf at least had a home.

  Natasha had been taken to the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. Gregor, though, said that Czar Alexander and his family were not in residence there but were visiting their estate in the Crimea. Gregor suspected the killing of Sergei's father and abduction of Natasha had been by order of Count Antoshkin, an intimate of Czar Alexander, and known to be an enemy of the Voleks.

  "It's said that some years ago your sister refused the count's suit to marry another," Gregor had added. "After her wedding to Ivan Gorski, the count vowed to exterminate the Voleks, one and all. Antoshkin knows of your return to Russia. Beware the trap he's set for you."

  With Natasha as bait, Sergei thought as he neared the city on his sway-backed horse. He'd chosen her because she reminded him of another horse, one from his missing years. Where or when, he had no clue. But he felt that somewhere, sometime, a sway-backed horse had brought him luck. At the moment he needed all the luck he could get.

  The Winter Palace would be well-guarded. He must find a way to slip inside secretly because otherwise he had no chance to rescue Natasha without being caught in the count's trap.

  On the outskirts of St. Petersburg he found the road blocked by a throng of people crowding around a wildly gesturing man in a tattered deerskin tunic decorated with ribbons and iron crosses. Tiny bells hung from his sleeves, tinkling with the man's every movement. The garment reminded Sergei of those Kamchadal shamans wore.

  "I see the future," the man shouted, his unkempt hair wild about his face. "You are all doomed. Doomed." He repeated the word one more time with relish. "Doomed!" Noting a faint blue glow about him, Sergei tensed apprehensively.

  "What do you see ahead for me, iurodivye?" a woman cried.

  An iurodivye! A fool-for-the-sake-of-Christ, a holy fool! Sergei hadn't seen an iurodivye Krista radi since he'd been a child in this very city. Rich and poor, everyone flocked to consult these traveling holy men. Despite their dirty, torn clothes and eccentric behavior they were invited everywhere, even into the finest homes.

  Sergei studied the man carefully from his vantage point on the horse, above the crowd. Suddenly the holy fool glanced up and his mad, dark eyes met Sergei's.

  "You on the horse!" he called. "What is it you hide from God and man?"

  The holy fool saw inside him!

  Conquering his impulse to turn and ride off, Sergei met the stare as calmly as he could. It was not wise to try to escape for the iurodivye, if he chose to, could send the crowd stampeding after him. Sergei could escape but he couldn't afford the undesirable attention the hue and cry would create.

  "I conceal nothing from God," Sergei countered. "What

  I hide from man is best not to know."

  The holy fool grinned, showing gaps among his teeth. "You can hide nothing from me," he crowed triumphantly.

  "Ah, but you are more than a man. Allow me my secret, if you will, Master of Fate."

  After a long moment the iurodivye nodded. "Consider it my gift to you, unfortunate one." With a flick of his fingers he dismissed Sergei and returned his attention to those surrounding him.

  Sergei sighed in relief and skirted the crowd, continuing into the city. He hadn't ridden far before his hand rose to finger a strand of the over-long hair he'd not yet cut. Neither had his beard been trimmed. He smiled.

  In the late afternoon, the two guards stationed in front of the baroque multi-turreted palace stopped a filthy bare- footed wild-haired man in his tattered, bell-bedecked tunic as he attempted to shuffle past them.

  "Holy one," the guard to the right said deferentially, "I regret that I cannot let you pass."

  "God has called me to the czar's palace," the holy fool shouted. "Do you dare to defy God?"

  The guards glanced uneasily at one another. "Honored one, don't accuse us of defying God," the right-hand guard begged. "We have orders to obey."

  "Who dares counter God's order?" The iurodivye's loud voice caused passersby to stop. A crowd began to gather, attracted, as always, by a holy fool.

  "The czar is away," the left-hand guard said placatingly.

  The holy fool's eyes flashed angrily. "I was ordered to the palace, not to the czar." He began to chant in a language that was not Russian nor French, spittle frothing at the corners of his mouth.

  "He's cursing us," the left-hand guard whispered nervously.

  "Let him in!" a man cried from the crowd.

  "Since when does the czar turn away holy men?" another voice demanded.

  "What goes on in the palace that must be kept hidden from a holy fool?" a woman asked.

  A window on the second floor of the great square palace was thrust open. "What's going on down there?" a man's voice demanded.

  Everybody except the holy fool looked up.

  "An iurodivye requests entrance, sir," the right-hand guard said.

  "Well, then, have someone escort him in, you stupid peasants." The window slammed shut.

  "I have said there is suffering here," the holy fool muttered as he stalked along a lamp-lit corridor on the palace's second floor, a guard at his side. "It is God's will I tend to the suffering."

  "Honored one," the guard said, "you have been through every room on the ground floor and those that are not private on the second. No one suffers here."

  The holy fool's amber eyes blazed. "You lie!"

  The guard's shoulders shifted uneasily.

  The holy fool stopped, glaring at him. "When you lie to me, you lie to God."

  The guard's prominent Adam's apple rose and fell as he swallowed nervously. "I dare not speak further, holy one," he whispered.

  "After God turns His face from you, do not expect me

  to help when you suffer the torments of hell."

  The guard's face blanched.

  "I feel her suffering." The holy fool spoke softly but his voice vibrated with passion. "In here." He clenched a fist over his heart.

  The guard made a strangled noise. "You do know!"

  "God knows all. I obey His orders. Where is she?"

  The guard glanced over his shoulder, indecision and fear on his face. "On the top floor," he whispered finally. "The third door to the left from the top of the stairway." He pointed along the corridor. "But you must go without me." The holy fool left the guard behind and hurried up the steps to
the third floor. The third door to the left was locked but the key had been left in the keyhole. He turned and then removed it and, carrying the key with him, entered the room, shutting the door behind him.

  Natasha lay motionless and naked among soiled, bloodstained covers on a bed shaped like a sleigh. She was sprawled on her face, her legs and arms askew like a doll flung down in anger. For a long, terrible moment, he thought he was too late, that she was dead. Then he detected a faint life force.

  He rushed to her side, aware he had no time to waste, no time to find out how badly she was injured--already he sensed someone approaching. She moaned when he wrapped a quilt around her but she didn't rouse. To leave his hands free, he eased her over one shoulder. Quickly crossing the room, he reached for the doorknob but, hefore he touched it, the knob turned.

  He stepped back barely in time to avoid being struck when the door was flung open.

  A tall, white-bearded fat man of about sixty faced him. The man held up a hand. "You will remain where you are," he ordered.

  Frozen in place by what he glimpsed on the man's palm, the holy fool said nothing at all. A red pentacle. On whose hand had he seen such a dreadful symbol before?

  "You, I am sure," the man said, "are not an iurodivye for all your wretched garb and religious prattle. You are, I have no doubt, Sergei Volek. I congratulate you on your ingenuity, little use though it proved to be. No man outwits Count Antoshkin."

  Though he realized the masquerade was over, Sergei admitted nothing. "I came for Natasha Gorski," he said. "I will leave with her."

  The count smiled and gestured toward the corridor. Sergei had already sensed men gathering there. Guards. Armed. Six of them.

  "Natasha is mine," Count Antoshkin said. "I have no intention of letting her go. My men have already enjoyed her. Before I finish with Sonya's daughter, the czar's entire army will have used her. As for you, Volek spawn--"

  A growl rumbled deep in Sergei's throat. His sister's daughter violated? Treated like a common whore?

  "I'll kill you," he howled.

  The count laughed and motioned the guards forward.

  He pointed to one man. "You. Take the girl from him. She's yours for the moment." He gestured to the rest. "Hold him so he can watch how Voleks deserve to be treated."

  Fury clouded Sergei's mind as the soldiers advanced toward him. He stepped back, his gut twisting agonizingly. He dropped Natasha on the bed. Bells tinkled wildly as he tore off the ragged tunic and snarled at the men.

  "Jesus!" a man exclaimed, his voice raw with terror.

  Free! He sprang at the first man, slashing with his fangs, rending with his talons, tasting blood, man-flesh, hearing hoarse screams, smelling the stink of fear as the others tried to run from him.

  "Stupid peasants!" a man shouted. "Use your guns!"

  His enemy! Slashing right and left, the beast forced his way through the fleeing men until he reached the enemy. His vision clouded by the red of blood-lust, he leaped for his enemy's throat, hearing the satisfying death gurgle as the man's hot blood ran into his mouth. Foul-tasting! He spat out the blood. A gun roared but he felt no bullet's sting. He whirled, sprang. The man dropped the gun and ran. He overtook and killed him. Not one of the seven escaped death.

  When no man was left to kill, he trotted back into the room and sniffed at the only live human remaining. A woman. She didn't move. He growled, hesitating, the blood-lust fading. She didn't threaten him, why kill her?

  He didn't belong inside, the forest was his home.

  Humans were not his proper prey. He must escape from this human dwelling. As he started for the door, bells tinkled under his feet, startling him, confusing him.

  Where was the moon? He needed the moon to stay free.

  He must run free! He must....

  Sergei stood in the middle of the room, dazed and naked, his feet tangled in filthy rags. No, not rags, he realized as his mind cleared. A holy fool's tunic.

  Natasha!

  She lay across the bed, rolled into a blanket.

  Two dead guards sprawled near the door, their throats torn and bloody.

  The beast! Sergei took a deep breath. Thank God the beast had spared Natasha. He must flee with her. Now!

  Not naked. Not as the holy fool. How? Sergei glanced around and nodded.

  A few moments later, dressed in a dead guard's uniform, carrying Natasha, now completely hidden inside the rolled quilt, he stepped into the corridor. Four more dead guards lay between him and the stairs. On the stairs he stepped over the maimed body of Count Antoshkin and smiled grimly. Death came to those who underestimated this particular Volek.

  He strode through the palace without being stopped and finally reached a back entrance. Once he was free of the palace, finding his way to where he'd left the mare was simple enough. He held Natasha across his thighs as he rode from St. Petersburg under an overcast night sky.

  Not until he left the city did he recall the pentacle he'd glimpsed on the count's palm. He'd first seen that symbol on Turgoff's hand, two days before the Cossack was killed. It had been Turgoff himself who'd told Sergei the name of what he'd seen, the five-pointed star within a circle. Red as blood. Red as death.

  The beast had killed both men.

  Why had they been so marked? The beast had also killed six soldiers. And at least one Kamchadal man. Sergei had seen no symbol on any of them.

  If his father was alive, he might know. Sergei sighed and shook his head. He'd come back too late to save his father. He could only pray Natasha wouldn't prove to be fatally injured by the count's depraved and diabolical revenge. And that he could somehow get the three of them-- Natasha, Wolf and himself--out of this country that murdered Voleks. Out of Russia.

  To where? He had no idea.

  Chapter 23

  A week passed before Natasha was strong enough to travel. Even then, Gregor's wife protested.

  "She doesn't yet have all her wits about her, poor girl." Arms akimbo, the stocky, graying woman glared at Sergei and Gregor. "Men are beasts, and that's the truth." Gregor glanced at Sergei and shrugged.

  Sergei nodded. "Beasts, yes, sometimes we are. But Natasha's in grave danger here and so are you for offering us your hospitality. The czar's soldiers may track us to your cottage. Each hour we stay puts us all at greater risk. We'll leave at dawn."

  Just after midnight, Sergei and Wolf were roused by Natasha's screams. Wolf rose from the blankets on the floor by the hearth and hurried to her cot. Sergei remained where he was. When the nightmares came, Natasha feared the sight of any man and wasn't reassured even by the presence of Gregor's wife. For some reason, Wolf was the only person in the cottage she trusted completely.

  After a few moments her screams subsided to weeping and, finally, murmurs, as Natasha babbled on to Wolf. When she at last fell asleep once more, Wolf returned to the hearth. "Grandfather," he whispered.

  "I'm awake," Sergei replied.

  "Gold, Cousin Natasha says. Gold buried in shed. Shed with hole in roof."

  Wild imaginings of a disturbed mind? Sergei wondered. "Cousin Natasha says her grandfather buried gold," Wolf added. "In southwest corner."

  Sergei sat up. His father had buried gold? If he had money, he could use it to pay passage on a ship for the three of them. Instead of a long journey by land, they'd quickly be free of Russia.

  Provided they could board a ship without being arrested by the czar's men. And provided there was any gold in the first place. Still, given their desperate need for money, what choice did he have but to dig in the southwest corner of the dacha's shed? Now, before it grew light.

  Sergei rose and pulled on his boots. At the door, he found Wolf at his heels. "You stay here," he ordered the boy. "Cousin Natasha may wake again."

  "Watcher wait," Wolf protested. "Watcher catch you." Sergei froze. He sensed no human presence outside the cottage. What did the boy mean? Was this watcher some Kamchadal superstition?

  "No one's outside," he said.

  "Watcher is
." Wolf insisted. "Came at sundown."

  Sergei closed his eyes, letting his extra sense roam free. Gregor and his wife, Natasha and Wolf, here in the cottage. Animals in the barn and their pens. Small wild animals of the night. No human glow near the cottage, none at all. He cast farther, with the same result. No humans. "I don't sense a watcher," he told Wolf.

  "I feel him."

  The boy had never lied to him. Sergei didn't believe he was lying now. He knew Wolf couldn't sense energy glows because he'd tried, and failed, to teach him how. In any case, there was no energy glow outside. What in hell did the boy sense?

  "Did your mother tell you tales of spirit watchers?" Sergei asked.

  "Kut."

  In the Kamchadal tales, Raven, old Kut the trickster, was master of the world. Maybe Wolf believed Kut had followed them from Kamchatka. "Is it Raven waiting for us, then?"

  "No. Man. Killer."

  The hair rose on Sergei's nape. He laid a hand on Wolf's shoulder. "How can you tell?"

  "I feel him." Wolf touched his forehead. "First little. Now strong. Dark." Sergei felt a shudder run through the boy.

  He thought of Wolf's unusual violet glow and took a deep breath. He may have uncovered the boy's talent. But, if he had, who or what waited in the dark? Never had Sergei met any human--or even a witch--he couldn't sense.

  Or had he? In the back of his mind doubt flickered. There'd been a night somewhere in those missing years, a night when someone stalked him, someone he hadn't sensed.

  Try as he might, he couldn't bring back the memory.

  He eased the door open and peered into the night. The last quarter of the moon was rising above the spruce grove on the hill, casting a pale light. Gregor's dogs, chained beside the barn, made no sound. He couldn't believe whatever it was that waited didn't have a scent. That meant the watcher wasn't close enough to alert the dogs.

  "We need the gold," he told Wolf. "If it's there. I can't risk going near the dacha during the day, when I might be seen. The digging must be done tonight."