by Sean Ellis
"I don't understand!" Kerns shouted, his tone more insistent. "And we're running out of time."
"The horse. If we can get onto it, and cut the sleigh loose—"
He nodded, brightening at the suggestion. "Yes. It will be much easier to control the horse. And we'll be able to outrun them."
"You climb out. I'll steer until we're ready."
"No," he protested. "You should go first."
"Not a chance. You're still pretty beat up. It will be easier for me to make the jump at the last second. Go!"
Kerns handed over the reins and leaned forward onto the rigging. At that instant, Irene felt the forward shift of the decline and the subsequent increase in speed. The sleigh began pushing against the horse, causing the animal to behave skittishly. She pulled back on the straps, forcing its head up, but failed to slow their inevitable race toward the edge.
Kerns reached the hindquarters of the massive draft horse without losing his tentative grip. From there it was a simple thing to pull himself onto its broad back. Knotting his fingers in its mane, he dragged himself forward until he was leaning against its neck. The bony fingers of his right hand were white from the intensity of his grip on the coarse mop of horsehair. He cautiously leaned sideways, reaching out with his left to free the animal from its harness.
The yoke was held only by a simple pin and came away in an instant, but the harness strap was more cumbersome. The farmer who had rigged the team had knotted the leather to prevent it from slipping. Subsequently, melting snow had caused the leather to swell and stiffen, and Kerns' cold fingers seemed unable to loosen it. He cursed aloud for not having a knife in his pocket to cut it with. From as early as he could remember, he had always carried a folding knife, and had used its blade for every conceivable purpose, but his captors had taken his knife, and now in his moment of greatest need he was without it. Gritting his teeth, he attacked the knot until the leather yielded and the strap came free. Only the grip of his two hands held the horse in thrall to the sleigh. Fearful that his fingers might slip at any moment, he shouted for his daughter to join him.
His success buoyed Irene’s spirits. This was actually going to work. She knotted the reins together, bunched them into a ball, and tossed them out to her father who awkwardly pinned the bundle between his torso and the horse's neck.
Kerns could feel the harness strap sliding through his fingers. "Jump now, Irina! Quickly!"
Irene eased forward and reached out for the horse, but was suddenly pulled back. Confused, she turned and found herself staring into a pair of blue eyes. A young soldier, a mere boy, had managed to board the sleigh and had wrapped his arms around her torso, pinning her arms to her body. She felt the shift of his weight as he attempted to launch them both away from the doomed vehicle.
She heard her father cry out frantically, a single word: "No!" The strap slipped from Peter Kerns' old, cold fingers and the rigging tackle, no longer connected to anything, fell into the snow.
Irene's stomach dropped. Her mind could not keep up with what was happening, but she was aware that the sleigh had become airborne and the she and the young soldier were still its passengers. Her captor let go in a survival reflex, and both of them clawed at the air, knowing that it was already too late.
* * *
Nearly two thousand cubic yards of snow and ice had been displaced by the avalanche. The movement had scraped away a layer of accumulation to a depth of nearly six feet, revealing a glistening ice pack that remembered none of the crimson stains left by Kismet's counterattack. It was as if the slide had erased the violence done upon the mountain. In the chaos below, where shifting snow had all but filled the ravine, there was no indication that any living thing had survived. The snow had broken away in great fractures, piled up in thick sheets, like the walls of a collapsed house of cards, and buried everything. It was inconceivable that any man, even having survived the impact of the avalanche, would be able to free himself from the crushing snow.
Remarkably however, mere minutes after the turmoil had ceased, restoring quiet to the mountainside, something began to move beneath the frozen covering. Massive pieces of ice rose and slid away near the edge of the ravine, as something larger fought its way to the surface. Snorts and grunts of exertion heralded the rebirth of a survivor from the dark, icy womb. A regal head broke through the frozen scree, followed by a pair of equine forelegs.
The draft horse, with power that dwarfed the reserves of the strongest man, and hooves capable of digging into the hardest ice, wrestled itself free from a prison of cold nearly a fathom deep. Had the covering been any greater, perhaps even the animal's prodigious strength would have been insufficient to save it, and therefore, though the horse could not comprehend such things, it owed its survival, more than anything, to simple luck. After a few more minutes of thrashing and pulling, the great beast slipped free of the ice and stood on all fours upon the surface.
Yet it remained anchored to the snow; the long reins attached to its bridle were still buried deep in the avalanche. Planting its hooves firmly, the animal struggled against the final impediment to its freedom. The muscular legs, capable of drawing a heavy plow or pulling large trees from the forest, strained and pulsated with each backward step, and once more the ice yielded to its might.
It was not the leather straps that prevented the animal from getting loose, but rather something larger; the motionless figure of a man. With a final heave the horse pulled the body from the grip of the snow and was free at last. The man remained prone upon the surface of the snow. The beast tried to move away from him, but succeeded only in dragging the man along behind. Its reins were wrapped around his waist and tied in a hasty knot. The animal relented, choosing instead to satisfy its instinctive curiosity. Lowering its head, it began prodding at the man, exhaling hot steam onto an ice-encrusted face.
From the depths of a great darkness, like the frozen grave from which he had been liberated, Nick Kismet struggled to the surface of consciousness. He could not feel any of his extremities, nor could he make sense out of the lights and sounds flooding into his brain. The breath of the horse, a strange sour vapor, evoked nothing, even when he was able to bring into focus the bestial muzzle, with its gaping nostrils and liquid eyes.
His cognitive abilities gradually returned, commencing with a sense of grim satisfaction. He had survived. Slowly, his memories began to fall into a logical chain, allowing him to reconstruct everything leading up to the slide. At the same time, he began to regain the use of his body. The first message his nerves sent him was brief and to the point: cold! Snow had penetrated his clothing and was leeching away his body heat. It was a wonder that hypothermia and frostbite had not already claimed him. He knew that he had to get moving right away if he wanted to live.
Concentrating on a single effort, he swung his hand up and grasped the horse's bridle. Immediately the animal pulled away, but Kismet kept his grip. The result was that he was lifted erect. He quickly flung his arms around the animal's neck, clinging to it because he couldn't trust his legs to hold him up. His recovery culminated when he hauled his cold, tired body onto the back of the draft animal, and gathered its reins into his hands.
Although the horse was damp from melted snow, its warmth penetrated Kismet, stirring him to do what he knew must be done. Irene and her father were still out there, still fleeing from Grimes and the commandos. He had to go to find them.
At his urging, the horse scaled the remaining few steps onto the newly uncovered ice field. It then negotiated the slippery ascent, roughly thirty feet of hard ice, and plowed into the deeper snow above the fracture line.
At some point in the ascent, Kismet became aware of the rifle, clogged with snow, but still containing half a magazine of ammunition, dangling from a web strap slung over his shoulder. His kukri was also still with him, shoved into the sheath at his belt.
He had a vague memory of the preparations he had taken, just before diving onto the loose reins of the horse. As the great sheets of ic
e had begun to tumble down, he had spied the horse, already attempting to dance its way over the crashing wave of snow. Inspired, he had lashed himself to the beast in the final moments before it was overwhelmed. Nevertheless, those few seconds where the draft animal had evaded the slide had placed both it and Kismet, near the surface, making possible their eventual liberation.
He ceased reflecting on the past, and focused on the immediate situation. He brushed the snow from the assault weapon, checking its barrel and internal mechanisms, and popped out the magazine. Ice crystals that had accumulated around the 7.62-millimeter cartridges and a sheen of verglas now laminated the inner working of the assault rifle. When the hot metal had been immersed in snow, melted ice had seeped into every cavity and then frozen again. There was a good chance the gun would misfire or even blow up in his face if he attempted to use it.
He contemplated throwing it away, but decided it might still have value as, if nothing else, an instrument for intimidation. Besides, escaping from the mountain wouldn't necessarily mean the end of his battle with Grimes. In fact, with the information he expected to get from Peter Kerns, a future confrontation with his nemesis and the soldiers the portly traitor commanded was almost a certainty. Twenty rounds from the AK might not count for much, but it was a difference he could ill-afford to dismiss.
Once above the line of the fracture, Kismet easily distinguished the pattern of hoof prints and ski trails that had brought them all to that fateful last stand. From there he needed only to backtrack. He urged the horse to a trot then coaxed it to a full gallop across the snowfield.
As his body grew warmer, he began receiving urgent messages from every quarter thereof. He envisioned himself now as a living mass of bruises, and the pounding motion of the horse's gait did nothing to assuage his discomfort. Just as quickly, he realized that his mount had been buried in the slide as well, and was likely in just as much pain. Without being conscious of it, he reached out and stroked the mane of his savior.
It took only a short time for Kismet to reach the place where he had separated from his friends, and what he saw hit like a physical blow. The signs were all too easy to read. The sleigh pulled by the remaining horse had gone off in the path of the vehicles that had ascended earlier in the night. Four deep ruts, interspersed with numerous small holes, followed the same path. Kismet quickly surmised that at least two pairs of skiers had pursued the sleigh. Because they had traveled in only two columns, it was conceivable that many more soldiers had gone after the sleigh. Kismet turned his mount and charged off after them.
A few hundred yards down the road, he spied evidence of the Kerns' countermeasures against their pursuers. A large depression in the snow showed that one of the commandos had crashed after striking a piece of debris. Apparently, the soldier had picked himself up and rejoined the pursuit.
He caught up to the straggler a few minutes later. The young skier was huffing through the flats, making too much noise to hear the muffled thumping of hoof-beats in the snow. Kismet pulled alongside him, and as the soldier became aware of his presence and looked up at him, Kismet planted his boot in the man's face. For a second time, the unlucky ski trooper went tumbling, this time to lie in a senseless heap. Kismet pulled back on the reins, causing the massive animal to rear up. When its hooves came down, they smashed one of the soldier's skis, snapping it in two.
Only moments later Kismet caught a glimpse of the sleigh, and the three soldiers chasing it. The trail led out onto the face of the mountain, gradually descending at first, but an ominous hairpin turn lay directly ahead. Kicking the horse's sides with his heels, he charged after them. As he neared the rearmost skier, he saw Peter Kerns climbing out onto the draft animal, and knew what they were attempting. A desperate measure, he reflected, but possibly their only chance at evading the commandos and surviving the switchback in the path ahead. Swinging the rifle by the barrel, he clouted the skier in the back of the head with the rifle butt and hurried onward.
As he pulled within striking distance of the second soldier, Kismet saw the leader of the pack make a courageous attempt to thwart the Kerns' escape. With an all out effort, the commando caught the back end of the sleigh and pulled himself aboard unnoticed by Irene. He kicked his skis off, and leaped forward to wrap his arms around the young woman.
Swinging the rifle like a club, Kismet downed another skier and charged after the doomed sleigh.
At that instant, Peter Kerns lost his hold on the harness. The rig slipped down, burrowing into the snow like a vaulting pole, and the entire sleigh jack-knifed, catapulting into the air and flipping over in a deadly arc. The bench seat struck the horse's hindquarters, knocking it and Kerns to the ground. Irene and her captor separated in mid-air and flew out ahead of the sleigh, which in turn hit the snow behind them and bounced up and over the edge of the trail. Irene and the soldier rolled uncontrollably toward the precipice, and then vanished from sight. Kismet reached the edge in an instant that seemed to stretch out into an eternity, a sickening certainty forming in his throat.
Miraculously, the falling soldier had found a tenuous handhold; the ice shelf was solid enough—for the moment at least—to bear his weight. His gloved fingers dug in with almost superhuman determination. As he depended from the precipice, Kismet saw another shape directly below him.
With equal tenacity, Irene clung to the soldier's boot. Kismet felt weak-kneed with relief. Peter Kerns was at his side a moment later, hesitant to look over, knowing that his daughter was surely dead three hundred feet below.
Though Irene's grip was unbreakable, Kismet knew that the soldier's hold on the ice might fail at any moment. He drew his kukri and sliced off a long section of leather from the reins of his horse, then looped the stiff line around his fist and knelt at the edge to lower it down. Kerns saw what he was attempting, and moved to secure Kismet's legs, allowing him to extend his reach out over the precipice.
The soldier chattered in German, begging for Kismet to simply pull them both to safety, but he ignored the young man. Irene's safety was the priority; saving the commando would depend upon how charitable he was feeling afterward.
"Irene. Grab it."
She looked up, into his eyes, and was magically transformed. Her fear vanished, melted by the revealed glow of his appearance. Kismet had survived, against all odds, and charged in like the prince in a fairy tale to rescue her from the jaws of the dragon. Without hesitation she released one of her clinging hands and grasped the strap. Wrapping the leather around her palm, she hugged it to her breast, and then grabbed hold with the other hand. As she swung away from the soldier's feet, Kismet began pulling on the line, reeling her in. With Kerns' help, Irene was drawn to safety in a matter of seconds.
Almost as an afterthought, Kismet reached down and grabbed the soldier by the back of his collar. "What the hell," he muttered through clenched teeth, pulling the man to safety. "I'm feeling generous."
Irene appeared in front of him and wrapped her arms around him. He grimaced involuntarily as her embrace aggravated bruises on his torso too numerous to count, but it was only when the soldier was lying face down in the snow, hands behind his head, that Kismet relaxed and allowed himself a contented sigh of relief.
PART THREE:
INTO THE BLACK
ELEVEN
Kismet contemplated the burning match in his fingers for a moment then waved it in the air until its flame was extinguished. Although there were yet a few hours of daylight remaining, the mildewed confines of Anatoly Grishakov's cellar saw none of it, forcing Kismet to once more make use of the old kerosene lamp with the missing chimney.
The lamp was actually the second flame he had lit; the first was in the dusty hearth, where a fire now crackled, warming the exhausted pair, father and daughter, that were stretched out before it on a bed of blankets.
Their journey down the mountain had taken several more hours, and the path they followed had brought them to the coastline a couple miles north of the city. None of them had really slept
in over twenty-four hours, and exhaustion was beginning to take a toll, especially on the Kerns. Practically sleepwalking, Irene and her father had allowed Kismet to tuck them in front of the fireplace in Irene‘s room. Kismet too had fought a battle with heavy eyelids and muscle aches for much of the descent, but as they neared the city, his mind came fully awake. His fatigue evaporated as he began to contemplate the next step in the quest for the Fleece.
He already had a notion of where he would find it; it would fall to Kerns to supply the details that would make searching unnecessary. He spread one of Kerns' old survey maps out on the tabletop, and studied it in the flickering glow of the lamp. The paper had gotten damp during the course of their adventure on the mountain, but it was intact and the ink markings had not blurred.
His forefinger moved lightly across the paper, first settling on the site of the mountain camp where Harcourt was conducting his futile search. He then followed the line identifying the old riverbed that cut a meandering path down to the sea, a couple miles north of the inlet. There were no further markings along that line, but Kismet didn't need any. The map showed him where to find the Fleece, as effectively as if Kerns had engraved it with the traditional "X" to mark the spot.
He checked his watch; dusk would soon arrive. He knew he should force himself to get some sleep, but his mind would not turn off. His new knowledge had created an entirely different set of problems; getting to the Fleece would require specialized skills that he did not have. Moreover, the equipment he would have to use was antiquated and there was no guarantee that it would work. He would literally be staking his life on its reliability.
Because he could not sleep, he chose instead to search for something to eat or drink. Anatoly and his wife were nowhere to be found, but in their pantry, he found a supply of coffee, and set about brewing a pot. As he savored the first cup, he became conscious of the darkening sky. It would soon be time for his rendezvous with Lyse. Before that, he needed to ask the old man a few questions; tough inquiries of which Irene might disapprove. He decided not to awaken her as he knelt down and shook the engineer.