"Where will you take us?" Basil asked.
"All over. This is a big land. We have many villages," Claude said. "You might even get a chance to join the Den Army."
"But there are Russian Army posts in many of the villages," Nik said. "If we are seen things could get very bad."
"That's true," Slayer-of-Men said. "We must go now. How many wish to join us?"
Even Nik raised his hand.
"Why did we dump the bodies in the river?" Grisha asked.
Heron said, "They'll never be found. The Russians will think we ate them."
A smile creased Grisha's face.
"Everybody carry as many weapons as you can," Slayer-of-Men ordered. "Don't overdo it, we have many miles to go."
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10
Construction Camp 4
Those without weapons carried bundles of clothing and other Russian supplies. In addition to a rifle, Grisha claimed a small, sharp knife with a curved blade. The camp lay completely stripped of useful material.
Barrels of petrol provided incendiary preparation for each structure. Finally Slayer-of-Men whistled. The Den and their new recruits followed him into the forest.
Paul stayed in the camp to finish preparing the welcome for the Russian relief forces.
As he followed the man in front of him, Grisha ate steadily from his small bag of "squirrel food" given to him by the small, pretty woman called Cora. The squirrel food consisted of dried berries, small bits of dried fish, a variety of seeds, and clumps of congealed grease. It was the best meal he'd eaten since his arrest. He compared it to the iron rations given the Troika Guard in the old days and graded the squirrel food superior.
Paul caught up with them and they kept as fast a pace as the exhausted ex-prisoners could sustain. At one point the distant pulse of a helicopter put them on nervous alert, but the craft receded to the southeast. After nearly two hours on the trail they heard the distant crack of explosives.
"They pulled the trigger," Paul said. Everyone stopped to listen. Suddenly a quick, staccato rip of explosives coalesced into a gigantic roar, silencing the birds around them.
"My God," somebody said.
"Did you use all of your stuff?" Slayer-of-Men asked.
"Why not?" Paul shrugged "We're going home, aren't we?"
"What, exactly, did you do?" Nik asked.
"I placed petrol bombs in every building, used a Kalashnikov in the middle of the square as a trigger. When they picked it up, everything went off at once."
The column stood quietly, each one imagining the destruction.
"You've just pissed on their boots," Nik Rezanov said.
"Maybe scared them, too," Grisha said, smiling.
"I don't understand this pissed business," Andreivich said in a querulous tone.
"If you piss on somebody's boots, you have given them great insult," Nik said. "Unless they have no honor they will do their utmost to kill you."
"Actually, I'm worried," Paul said. "I didn't think they'd get anyone into the camp before tomorrow."
"Let's go," Slayer-of-Men said. "We have a long trip ahead of us."
Just before dark the column reached a cache of food and equipment. Each former prisoner collected a backpack, sleeping bag, rubberized ground cloth, small ax, and a sheath knife. Grisha felt fully equipped, but bordered on total exhaustion from carrying the heavy load of two Kalashnikovs since morning. In addition to observing his rescuers, he had spent the day dropping back into the mind-set of a major in the Troika Guard.
He dispassionately assessed the soldiers around him.
The largest and most fearsome of all the Indians, Malagni, built a small fire. The muscular man radiated energy. His long hair clouded around his head as he effortlessly performed one task after another, never resting, never asking for assistance.
Grisha decided the man had at least five years of paramilitary service behind him and no doubt improved the morale of the other soldiers by his mere presence. Malagni didn't trust any of the newcomers. He watched them carefully, but not openly.
He had yet to speak to any of the former prisoners.
With the help of Heron and Lynx, the two women, Cora and Wing, quickly made a stew using meat from a moose hindquarter they had previously covered with moss, wrapped in a shelter half, and tied high in a tree.
Any one of them would have done well in the Troika Guard.
Cora's quiet appearance hid a reservoir of strength that she applied to the task at hand. Her small stature and limitless energy produced an appeal not apparent if a man only looked at her surface. Far from unattractive, her inner glow enhanced the promise she carried like a badge.
Wing strutted, proud of her well-developed body, carrying herself with an authority backed up by a willingness to kill in an instant. The knife scar down her left cheek didn't mar her beauty—rather it heightened the observer's appreciation for her finely chiseled features. When she grinned, which was often, the scar writhed and bent double.
Grisha felt an instant attraction to her and quashed it quickly. He wasn't twenty anymore and his recent experience with women kept him at a remove. Still assessing recent events, he no longer trusted himself, let alone women.
The position of the others in the column didn't allow close scrutiny. Grisha spent most of the day perversely wondering what it would take to interest a woman like Wing. He ate constantly, glad his diarrhea had eased.
The moose stew registered somewhere between ambrosia and soporific. Grisha snored in his sleeping bag within minutes after eating his fill.
An insistent hand shook him out of sleep. When his eyes popped open, he thought for a long moment that he was still in the cossack camp. The sleeping bag brought him back to reality. The morning air felt good and smelled of fall.
Everyone else was up and moving about. He quickly pulled on his boots and packed his gear, bothered that he hadn't heard the general movement without being awakened. Cora came down the line handing out small bags.
"Here's your breakfast," she said as she passed.
More squirrel food. He grinned in the weak morning light when he realized he had confidence in these people and finally felt safe from those owned by the Russian government.
Lynx suddenly hurried into camp and murmured to Slayer-of-Men. The older man moved to the middle of the group and spoke in an urgent low voice.
"We're being followed. Lynx picked up a party of cossacks and promyshlenniks about a kilometer behind us."
Grisha felt alarm stab through him. Promyshlenniks seemed to be half man and half forest beast. Adventure tales about them had been in vogue in Mother Russia for decades.
Although skilled forest hunters and trappers, they would also kill their mother for a ruble. More often than not, they were the collectors of the Czar's share of half a man's yearly production.
"We have to split up now, they can't follow everybody," Slayer-of-Men said.
Samis, the woodsman, grinned at the Den .
"Why not just shoot these people rather than leave them to those animals?"
"We won't leave you. We're just going to separate into smaller groups."
After a quick consultation, the Den strike team broke into pairs and hurried over to the released captives. Wing and Claude came up to Grisha. "You and the soldier are going with us, now," Wing said.
Nik looked troubled. "Would it be possible for me to go
with—"
"Either get in front of me or be rear guard," Wing snapped.
"By all means, lead."
Grisha had no idea which direction they took. He glanced back once at the camp, but the forest had already swallowed the others. He could hear Nik behind him, muttering under his breath.
He wondered how many were following them. Didn't matter, he decided, they would deal with the problem when they had to.
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11
On the Tanana River Trail
Muscular Boris Crepov earned the name "Bear" from fellow promyshlenniks, who more closely resembled the ursine race than their own. Shaggy headed, his beard spanning from mid torso nearly to his black, distrustful eyes, he moved quickly through the forest despite his almost two-meter, wide-shouldered bulk. Following the Den trail wouldn't have proved challenging to a St. Petersburg courtier.
The thought made him grin.
They don't know we're behind them. They think we were all killed in their hellish maskirovka. They have no idea that we were patiently waiting for the word, or how quickly we moved out.
The mixed force of cossacks, promyshlenniks, and Imperial Army rangers had been chosen for speed and woodcraft. At the last minute the general in charge of the mission had ordered the tank and regular infantry to accompany the ranger force. "Insurance," he said.
Insured to slow them down! Crepov thought contemptuously.
The cossacks had wanted to charge into the construction site. Bear Crepov knew better. He'd already been at two such sites in the past. There would be nobody there and the Indians always left a maskirovka—deception.
When he asked those he guided for a volunteer, six cossacks and two army rangers stepped forward, growling. He chose the biggest cossack and instructed him to look in every building, to carefully examine the whole area for fool traps. Through his binoculars he saw the man snatch up the Kalashnikov in the middle of the square and wave triumphantly before he and all the buildings around him were blown to fiery pieces.
That slowed both the cossacks and rangers down and they no longer questioned Bear as the obvious expert-in-place.
"Now you see what they are capable of," he told them in his rumbling voice. "The Den Separatist Movement are not your normal fish-stinking Indians—not only can they kill, they like it as much as we do."
The tourist camp burned to the ground. Crepov didn't care about that. There were plenty more convicts at Tetlin Redoubt and villages full of lazy Indians to be inducted into service for the Czar if needed.
Only twilight stopped their pursuit. Crepov knew they were close but he didn't want to stumble over them in the dark.
Just before the sky bled to gray, his belly clock woke him at the final edge of blackness. He kicked his six men out of their blankets and gave them a few minutes to prepare their departure. Then he went over to where the six cossacks snored and farted. He prodded the foot of their sergeant, Tulubev.
"There is game to be hunted, my friend."
The cossack sergeant reared up from his blanket with a knife in his hand.
"Don't ever touch me without first asking permission. I heard you coming and recognized your lumbering tread, otherwise you would now be holding your guts in your hands."
"When you are done boasting, wake up your junior scouts here and see if you can find us." Crepov bared his teeth in a wolf's leer and turned back to his men.
Tulubev barked at his men and scrambled to secure his gear.
At least, Crepov reflected, he didn't have to deal with the forty army troopers and two tanks left behind at the burned construction site. Somebody had to clean up that mess, and he didn't want those children in uniform out here alerting the quarry. The rangers had reluctantly stayed at the camp to protect the relief troops in the unlikely event the DSM would return.
A breeze moved through trees now darkly silhouetted by the slowly lightening sky. He smelled someone out there who hadn't come down the trail with him, and they were close. Stepping next to his closest friend and best tracker, he bent over and whispered in his ear, "Company ahead on the trail. I'll go left."
Wolverine White wordlessly rolled into the brush and faded like mist. Crepov stepped into the trees and moved swiftly forward. The black spruce, birch, and willow grew far enough apart to allow a man to make good time if he knew how.
A flicker of movement, dark on dark, caught his eye. He froze, stared off to the side, slightly away from the location. Another ripple of shadow over shadow.
Crepov gazed intently now, easily smelling the man, wondering if he was alone. A slow deliberate step revealed the clear definition of an arm braced against a tree. The spy peered around the trunk, allowing only his head to show if someone in the Russian camp should glance up.
Bear unsheathed Claw, his razor-edged skinning knife, and crept forward, silent as death.
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12
On the Tanana River Trail
Grisha plodded along mechanically, senses alert, closely followed by Nik Rezanov, who had ceased muttering to himself some time ago. Two meters ahead of Grisha, Wing moved steadily, effortlessly, almost gliding through the brush. He again wondered how many followed.
Grisha hated promyshlenniks almost as much as he hated cossacks. Ruthless opportunists who totally lacked discipline, they would wipe out a game population rather than use forethought and harvest animals with conservation in mind. Two islands near Akku no longer held the otherwise plentiful Sitka blacktail deer because of promyshlennik butchery.
As far as the hunters were concerned, the animals existed as a gift from God and Czar. Their proprietary manner in small communities often caused those of a different mind to move on to greener pastures. Grisha had never chartered his boat to any party containing promyshlenniks.
They also did the Czar's dirty work along with the cossacks. Half of every man's earnings belonged to the Czar. The promyshlenniks proved themselves foully adept at finding hidden potatoes, moose hides, and dried fish—not to mention money.
The year after his father's death, four promyshlenniks had come to his mother's door, demanding the Czar's share of her earnings. She told them she was a widow with nothing to spare. They threw young Grisha out into the snow and spent the afternoon extracting what they wished from her while he beat his hands bloody trying to open the cabin door.
No more loathsome creature inhabited the subcontinent of Alaska. They prided themselves on being the worst. Grisha felt sick with loathing and apprehension, knowing that human weasels followed his party.
He pulled his attention back to the problem at hand. The sun came up over his right shoulder. They were moving west? But then did the sun really come up in the east this late in the year? Alaska's interior was as alien to him as the Republic of California.
Wing held up her hand, stopped, and cocked her head to the side.
"Listen," she said.
Grateful for the stop, Grisha tried to listen. All he could hear was his heart beating. Leaning against a tree, he opened his mouth wide to baffle the pounding pulse. Still he heard nothing.
Wing shook her head. "It's gone now. I thought I heard a scream."
"You did," Claude said from behind the panting Nik. "I think it was the last sound that person will ever make."
Grisha shuddered, glad he missed the whole thing.
"How many are following us?" Nik asked.
"Lynx said a dozen at least," Wing answered. "Alex was to get a better count and then catch up."
"Maybe they got Alex," Claude said in a low voice.
"That's the conclusion I reached about a minute ago," she snapped. Wing turned away from them. "Let's go."
Grisha stifled a curse and hurried after the fast moving woman. Nik followed and Grisha heard him ask Claude if Alex was related to Wing.
"Actually he was my cousin," Claude said in a low voice. "But he was her lover."
Nik cursed in Russian. "She must be in great pain," he said while trying to see her around Grisha. "And she just keeps going. What a woman."
Grisha glanced back at Nik. "Do you want to change places?" he asked in a joking tone.
"Yes!"
Before Grisha could respond, Nik darted around him and closed on Wing.
Grisha shrugged and wished his feet would stop hurting. As his still-wasted body ached into the rhythm of the
pace, he forced his mind to range beyond the physical just as he had during his imprisonment. Movement became automatic. He concentrated on the country they traveled through.
Small tributaries fed into the Tanana, and every tributary rushed from the heart of a small valley. Some they crossed on fallen trees, others they waded through up to their chests.
Growing up on the Inside Passage of the Alexandr Archipelago, Grisha's idea of natural beauty differed somewhat from this. He loved the lush rain forest, the thirty-meter trees, the impressive fjords of Southeast Alaska, and the North Pacific Ocean.
The Tanana mocked him, hinting of the ocean to which it eventually traveled, which now sparkled forever out of his reach.
Valari Kominskiya entered his thoughts. Why had she thrown him to the Czar's wolves? They could have talked their way out of Karpov's death.
Had she set him up? No way of knowing. But there was no obvious reason for that. She must have just panicked. Her panic had cost him his old life, or what was left of it. He was surprised at how much he missed his boat.
At the top of a ridge the trail forked in a wide clearing. Wing signaled a halt and waved them up to her.
"Behold." She pointed. "The Great One."
A range of majestic snow-capped mountains lay unguessable kilometers in front of them. At the center of the range reigned a gleaming monarch reaching into the bright blue sky half again higher than any neighbor. Grisha and Nik stared dumbstruck.
"Claude," Wing said. "Watch the trail behind us."
"My God!" Nik said. "I've seen this from St. Nicholas Redoubt, but I had no idea it was this big!"
"That's bigger than Mt. St. Elias," Grisha said. "Even from here I can tell that. What did you call it?"
"Denali, the Great One." She stared proudly for a long moment. "That is the holy place of the Den . You might say this the heart of why we fight the Czar and kill his cossacks—this is the only ikon in our church."
"But you don't kill his soldiers," Nik said. "Why?"
Her eyes flicked over both of them before settling on the soldier again.
Russian Amerika (ARC) Page 7