by K L Conger
A cloud of thick, black smoke obscured the walls from view. It didn’t bother the men around him. They charged forward as soon as they got their horses under control. Taras followed them, spurring Jasper into a full-speed gallop, and praying they weren’t all running toward an intact stone wall.
Two hundred strides from the wall, the gaping hole where the tower came into view. Only rubble remained, strewn about both inside and out like garbage. The Russian army streamed through the divide, climbing and leaping over the rubble like it was the most natural thing in the world.
The cavalry had a more difficult time getting through, as the horses fought to keep their footing. Taras fell into line with them.
Russian soldiers poured into the city. The unprepared Tatars fell back, fleeing toward the acropolis, where the Khan and royal family were hiding in the palace.
Taras fought ferociously, swinging his sword with constant motion, first on one side of his horse, then the other. He had to or risk losing a leg. The onslaught of Tatars didn’t lessen as he moved into the city, and he killed several dozen men before reaching the palace gates where he knew the Khan would be.
The Russian army invaded people’s homes, now, so the Tatars fought like lions to protect what was theirs. Taras took several wounds to his arms, legs, and face.
Knowing that only capturing the Khan would end the war, Ivan's soldiers slammed against the palace gates as one. Taras could see rocks being used as battering rams up ahead. It took several minutes, but with a resounding boom, the gates burst inward and the Russians poured into the courtyard.
The fighting grew more frantic between the gates and the palace walls. Taras dismounted to help. He ran three men through and took a severe gash to the right side of his jaw, which dripped blood. Before long they took the courtyard, but the palace doors were still barred.
Two-dozen men brought a tree trunk the size of Jasper’s round flanks into the courtyard. They got a running start and slammed it into the massive wooden doors of the palace. It would only be a matter of time before the doors gave way under that amount of force.
Taras jogged back to the gates, looking out at the city beyond. The fighting grew fiercer by the minute. Everywhere he looked, men clashed with swords, axes, knives, guns, even hands.
A soldier running by with his arms loaded caught Taras’s attention.
“You there, solider!”
The man stopped.
“What is the situation on the west side of the city?”
“The Tatars are retreating, my lord. Many are scrambling over the walls, trying to find refuge in the forest beyond the Kazanka River.”
“Are they succeeding?”
“No, my lord. Many are making it over the walls, but Prince Kurbsky’s army is directly north of that. They aren’t making it to the river, much less the forest.”
The boom of the log against the palace doors sounded over and over, a jarring drumbeat. Taras nodded, then glanced down at what the man held in his arms. Several bags filled with something that clanged like metal. Taras couldn’t see their contents clearly, but it sparkled in the sun.
“What are you doing?”
“Booty, sir,” the man said proudly. “I’m taking it back to my camp. Have to secure my own future, if you know what I mean.”
Taras stared at the man. He was going back to camp to take booty? The fighting hadn't even ended yet.
“Drop that load, soldier. Now. Get back to your post.”
Just then the solid thunk of the tree trunk resulted in an ear-splitting crack. Taras turned. The thick oak of the palace door splintered. Another few blows and they would be in.
Taras turned back to the soldier. The other man ran toward the eastern gates, trailing bronze coins as he went. Taras sighed, shaking his head. He didn’t have the authority to put a stop to it.
The palace door cracked again, moaning as it crumpled inward. The men holding the tree abandoned it, climbing over it and the remnants of the wooden door to get into the palace. Taras followed.
People packed the palace. The people of Kazan must have known it would be the last defended place, and ran there for shelter once the walls were breached. The hallways, antechambers, and rooms—even the kitchens—were filled with people who'd grabbed what possessions they could and camped out on the palace floor, praying the castle would remain a sanctuary. Their prayers had gone unanswered.
Kazan’s soldiers would protect the castle, where their Khan hid, with their lives, but they didn’t stand a chance against the sheer numbers of Russian soldiers pouring through the ruined gates. Several lines of men cut down up ahead of him were cut down.
Then the plundering began.
The army moved through the castle like a swarm of black locusts, leaving death and devastation in their wake. The soldiers slaughtered everyone in their path. Peasants and merchants clad in threadbare rags, starving and deprived of water, sat on their knees begging for mercy. They were cut down. Most of them lived for several minutes before expiring, the sight of their own blood the last thing they would ever see.
Taras couldn’t understand why those who surrendered were being killed. He was powerless to stop it. The army flooded through the rooms of the palace like a serpentine demon, moving as one entity. Taras was pulled along by the waves of the capricious mob. He could not go forward or back, only with. He could not get ahead of the army to stop their murder, and even if he could, he would probably be trampled. By the time he reached the victims, the light had already left their eyes.
Taras fought his way to one side of the horde, near the wall, and when they passed another room, he lunged in. Dozens of others followed him, but at least he’d escaped the pull of the mob. The room looked like some sort of dining hall, twenty feet wide and twice as long, with an oblong wooden table down near the opposite end.
Taras stood panting, hand on his chest. He became aware of the sound of a woman crying out. She was screaming, but with the sounds of the army thundering through the castle, it sounded faint. He turned toward the table to see a handful of soldiers standing around another soldier who held a woman by the waist. By her garb, she was a servant here in the khan’s palace.
Perhaps even a maid.
Taras covered the distance between himself and the men in seconds. He made no attempt to hide his passage. His boots clicked loudly on the wooden floor with each step, and his armaments jingled as he walked. The man trying to force the woman’s knees apart still gaped in surprise when Taras bore down upon him.
Flexing his fingers wide, Taras slammed the heel of his hand into the man’s nose. It shattered soundly beneath the blow. The man stumbled backward, clutching his face. Blood gushed out from between his fingers, leaving red trails on the front of his armor and dotting the floor with crimson raindrops. He fell against the table, then slid to the ground. Taras grabbed the woman’s wrist and yanked her around behind him, putting himself between her and the men.
“You will not do this!” Taras’s voice thundered in the huge chamber. “These people are not soldiers or politicians. They go where the wind blows them. They are trying to surrender. They must be treated with respect.” The men in the group, apart from the one still nursing a flattened nose, stared at Taras with wide eyes. They exchanged looks, as though unsure how to react.
Then something happened—a strange noise from behind.
Ice hardened his veins and closed in around his heart. Feeling the life drain out of someone a man is trying to save is the loneliest thing he can feel. Taras felt it, not with his senses or his heart, but with his soul—with that quiet tether to the unseen world all men feel on the outskirts of their consciousness. Taras knew, even before he turned toward the sickening, sluicing sound, that she was dead.
He turned in time to see tip of a blood-slicked blade wrenched back from between her breasts. The woman crumbled to the ground at Taras’s feet.
Behind her stood Sergei.
He resembled like a demon from Celtic legend. Covered head to t
oe and fingertip to fingertip, with blood, it dried on him in layers, some dark and chipping, some wet and gleaming in the faint light. His hair was slicked back with it.
Taras felt horror as he stared, open-mouthed at the demon who had murdered the woman, inches from Taras’s sword. Blood smudged the fronts of his teeth.
Sergei sneered at him, his voice slippery and obsequious. He bent from the waist and flung out his arm in a mocking bow. “Prince Taras is right. It is beneath us to mingle our blood with these heathens who do not recognize the true god of the universe.” He straightened and smiled broadly. “Kill them all.”
Taras glared at Sergei, trying to control his breathing. He’d known since Inga first approached him that Sergei was not a good man. The supposition had been supported time and again during the last year and half by simple observation of Sergei at court. Taras still hadn’t understood the extent of ghoulish inhumanity truly housed in the other man. Until now.
Sergei raised an eyebrow at Taras before spinning on his toe and walking toward the door. The other men behind Taras chuckled appreciatively at Sergei’s “suggestion” and lumbered out through a side door. Taras was so absorbed in his shock that he didn’t register it, and by the time he turned around they'd already gone.
Taras took in the empty corner, Sergei’s retreating back, and the lifeless woman on the floor. Her blood fanned out around her in a widening whirlpool. A tendril of blood reached out and touched Taras’s boots. When it made contact, the blood flooded forward, filling the intervening space. Taras stepped back, but too late. His boots were already stained a brooding red. Once blood stained leather, it never washed out. Taras crouched down beside her and put his hand out to rest on her shoulder. He came within inches, but did not touch her, unsure what curses touching the murdered could bring.
Still crouching, he spun away from her on his toe and vomited. Then he straightened, wiping his mouth on the back of his arm, and stalked toward the door the demon had gone through.
“SERGEI!”
Chapter 38
WHEN HE GOT INTO THE hall, Sergei had disappeared. Taras needed air. Badly. He took the course he thought would most quickly lead him outside. It took a while—easily half an hour—before he saw the sky.
Once outside, he wandered, helping his fellow Russians where he could. A great deal of fighting still filled the streets, but at least this was man fighting man, soldier fighting solider, not women, children and servants being cut down senselessly.
Someone slammed into him from behind, nearly knocking him over. He kept his balance, though barely, and turned to cross swords with the man who'd run into him. He recognized the soldier as being under Nikolai's command, but couldn't recall his name. Taras crooked his elbow out, so his sword’s weight fell to the left, sliding harmlessly off the other man’s weapon.
“My apologies, Sir.”
“No need. In this chaos, collision can hardly be avoided. Where are you going in such a hurry?”
“I’ve just received word, sir. Lord Nikolai needs help on the western wall.”
Taras turned back at the palace, considering. He did not want to go back inside. He could hardly spend his time loitering out here, either. At least helping Nikolai would give him a specific task.
“I’ll go with you.”
It took forty-five minutes to reach the western wall. Normally, the journey would not have been so long, but hundreds of Tatar soldiers still filled the city. Taras and the soldier fought their way through the streets.
They instinctively stayed back to back, covering one another. Taras asked about the trouble at the western wall. The Russian soldier didn’t know. Nikolai sent a courier, calling for aid from anyone who could come, but he knew no more.
When they reached the western wall, Taras understood the trouble. The soldier he’d talked to earlier said the Tatars were scrambling over Kurbsky’s walls, but the army was taking them down. That was to the north. Outside this portion of the western wall were the steep cliffs the Russian army fastidiously avoided during the siege.
The Tatars attempted to scale the wall here and run along it until they got to the north side. It proved easier to run along the top of the kremlin than through the streets of the city, which were filled with ax-wielding Russians. Hundreds of Tatars rushed the wall, trying to get on top of it and then head north.
Nikolai and a small group of men held them off. They stood on top of the wall, hacking with swords and shooting arrows down at the hordes of men trying to climb up.
The Russian army had entered from the eastern side of the city and pushed the Tatars before them. It would be another few minutes before the rest of the army reached the western wall and could subdue those trying to go over it. The Tatars were desperate to escape now because it would only get harder the longer they waited.
The soldier Taras arrived with ran forward, hacking and swiping at those near the back of the crowd. Taras joined him. He couldn’t reach Nikolai through so many people, but if they got a few of the Tatars to turn around and fight them, there would be fewer to overwhelm Nikolai and his small cadre.
A man fighting atop the wall was pushed so violently, he lost his balance and fell over the outside of the wall. The jagged, rocky cliffs below would smash a body to pieces. That fall would be utterly unforgiving.
For what felt like hours, Taras threw his body back and forth in a battle dance with the Tatars. They kept coming at him, one after another. He was a good soldier, but the Tatars were skilled and more desperate than he. At least twenty-five times he felt the scales of war and destiny trying to balance. The struggle grew vicious, and he never knew who would win, until his opponent fell. Then, a new opponent surfaced, and it began again.
Whenever he could, Taras glanced up at the wall, afraid Nikolai would be thrown over or fall to a Tatar blade before Taras could get to him. Each time he looked, Nikolai wore more blood on his face, arms, or armor, but he still stood, fighting with the ferocity of a wounded animal.
Slowly, more Russians trickled toward that side of the city. They joined Taras and the other soldier and a few others who'd arrived in answer to Nikolai’s call. More Tatars turned to the threat at their backs. Once the trickle began, it increased quickly, and more Russians soon poured in.
In another ten minutes, the situation at the western wall was under control.
The Tatars were rounded up into groups, to be taken prisoner. The Russians ran some through if they would not behave, or bludgeoned them until they did. Those climbing the walls were pulled down or pushed off. Many landed on swords or their own city’s defenses. Others died when their falling countrymen crushed them.
Taras strode toward the wall. He wanted to check on Nikolai. He climbed up on barrels and crates stacked by the would-be escapees. Once he neared the top, the Russian soldiers offered their hands to help him. Two young soldiers pulled him up. He sat rather than standing.
The wall was six feet wide, and Nikolai sat several feet away, his large forearms resting on his knees. Though he'd not been fighting for several minutes now, his chest still heaved, and a lot of blood spattered his armor.
“You all right?” Taras shouted.
Nikolai nodded but swallowed before answering. “Yes.” A white, sticky film covered his lips. He licked them several times.
Taras would have offered him water if he had any. He continued to peer at his friend, unconvinced of Nikolai’s condition. When Nikolai noticed Taras studying at him, he spread his hands.
“I’m as surprised as you are.”
The two men chuckled together, mostly with relief.
Taras got to his feet, surveying the carnage below him in the city. He turned a full circle, examining the carnage outside the walls as well. When he came back around, Nikolai stood beside him.
“Thank you for coming,” Nikolai said.
“Of course.”
Nikolai took a deep breath. “How are things in the palace on the acropolis?”
Taras hesitated, not sure what
to say. “It’s probably been taken by now.”
Nikolai arched an eyebrow, as though sensing something Taras wasn’t saying. Taras ignored him. Young soldiers stood within ear shot, and he didn’t want to go into the brutality that accompanied the “taking” of the palace right now.
A cold, refreshing wind blew from the east, hitting them full in the face. It blew Taras’s hair back, which stuck to his neck and scalp, and cooled his flushed skin. The soldiers on the wall climbed down into the city. In a few minutes, only Taras and Nikolai remained. Taras wanted to stay up here with the wind and the quiet.
“Now, my lord. GO!”
Taras whirled toward the cry. Two Tatar men jumped out of munitions barrels sitting on top of the wall and made a run for it. One of them wore expensive clothing; the other was obviously his servant. Nikolai and Taras lunged for them.
Nikolai reached the servant first, who stood in their way, trying to bar them so his master could scramble down the other side of the wall. Nikolai knocked him over the head with the hilt of his sword. The man’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he slumped to the ground.
Taras reached the rich man in two strides, long before he made it to the other side of the wall. He grabbed the rich man’s wrist and swung him around so they came face to face. Taras’s arm automatically went up, bracing for a blow should the other man swing around with a sword, but the man was unarmed. Taras grabbed his other wrist, keeping him from fleeing.
Then he stopped.
Taras knew this man. He’d met him before. The Khan of Kasimov, the man Taras rode beside on his way into Moscow. The same man whose life Taras inadvertently saved when he slew the wolf. Taras had no idea what this man was doing here. Many of the khanates in this region had alliances, so he supposed it made sense. This man had terribly bad luck by being present in Kazan when the Russian army laid siege to it.
The recognition threw Taras, and he stared in shock. The Khan of Kasimov pressed his advantage. He yanked his wrist from Taras’s grasp, pulled a tiny dagger from his belt and slammed it down through the top of Taras’s hand. Taras cried out in pain.