Kremlins Boxset

by K L Conger

  Chapter 31

  May 1568, Siberia

  Taras trudged through the woods of Siberia. In the months since Nikolai departed, he’d become accustomed to being alone most days. He went to visit his village friends more often than when Nikolai still lived with him. Even that happened only once a week, though.

  Taras rose every morning, performed the tasks necessary around his homestead for its upkeep and to sustain his life. And he hunted. Those things alone took up most of his time. When he had a free afternoon, he visited the village, or took long walks. He read from the Bible and spoke with God more than he used to, though less out of the need for religion and more out of boredom.

  Today, the hunting proved good. A small musk deer lay across his shoulders. It would feed him for a several days.

  He’d also taken up his drawing again. He’d done it enough during the years he raised Nikolai that the boy knew of the hobby, but parchment proved hard to come by out here and Taras never made it a priority.

  Taras still had no parchment. He’d seriously considered traveling to get some, but the idea never came to fruition. In the meantime, he often used flat, light-colored rocks as his canvas. He mostly used charcoal from his fires to draw, and both the charcoal and rocks were in abundance. A good stockpile of them filled the cabin. It always amazed him how quickly he went through them. Especially when he grew bored.

  A garden of rocks waited for Taras back at the cabin in Nikolai’s old bedroom. Images of Nikolai—both of them—Inga, Anne, Yehvah, Moscow, and even his parents stared out from them. Taras felt surprised at how clear their faces loomed in his memory, and how easily he’d captured them.

  Up ahead stood a familiar landmark: one of the largest trees Taras had ever seen. Its trunk stood so big around, four men could have stood equidistant from one another around it, and still not touched fingers. Taras often used the enormous trunk to get his bearings. He’d passed it on his way out this morning and passing it now meant he drew close to home.

  When he arrived, he would gut the deer, salting and storing its meat and skinning it. He’d boil broth from its bones and turn the bladder into a water skin. It would take most of the day. Tomorrow, he would look for more rocks.

  He planned to visit the village and ask the people if they knew where he could find flatter rocks. He also wanted to ask Grigory if—

  Taras rounded the enormous tree trunk. As he came around to the other side, he felt the presence an instant before he saw it. Felt hot breath and the energy of a living being.

  Then he came nose to nose with the tiger.

  The shock of the sight, so close to him, made Taras stagger. He lost his footing and nearly fell, barely catching himself in time. The deer, meanwhile, slid off his shoulders. By simply instinct, he attempted to catch it before it hit the ground. He succeeded only in grasping it by one leg, which he held up at his side while the rest of the body thumped heavily into the dirt.

  Taras froze, hand still out to one side and clutching the dead deer’s leg. The black-striped predator stared right back at him. It was the same one. He felt sure of it. Larger than a horse, it must have weighed thirty-eight stone. Taras’s eyes dropped to the cat’s rib cage and immediately found the ax mark he’d given it the day Anne died. He couldn’t see the other side of its ribs, but he felt sure the scars from Nikolai’s knife would be there as well.

  In truth, even without the scars, Taras would have known this tiger anywhere. There was the completely white circle of fur around its left eye, for one thing. It prowled Anechka valley off and on almost since Taras arrived here. No other tiger would look exactly the same.

  Those thoughts and more raced through his mind in an instant. Where had it been all these years? How did it survive? Why did it come back?

  A soft, menacing growl emanated from the tiger's throat. It started out as a low hum Taras barely registered, but quickly grew louder until the animal all but roared at him.

  Perhaps he would not go to the village tomorrow after all. Perhaps today was his last day on earth.

  The tiger drew its body back toward its hind legs, almost sitting on its haunches with its front legs stretched out straight in front of it in attack mode.

  Taras prepared to meet his maker. He felt more than saw the tiger's jaws clamp down on something and Taras then found himself sprawled on the ground. He rolled over in time to see the tiger racing away, dragging the deer, Taras’s kill, in its jaws.

  TWO DAYS LATER, TARAS stood outside his cabin, mending part of the wall the last windstorm damaged. Spring arrived only recently. Winter still clung to the air in the cold, pre-dawn mornings.

  Voices reached Taras’s ears from far off, as though carried on the wind. He turned to see his friend Grigory from the village entering the Anechka valley. Grigory raised a hand in salutation. Though Taras didn’t understand the words he'd heard on the wind, Grigory most likely called out so Taras would know he’d arrived. Twenty minutes later, Grigory, who’d once been a brave and confident youth, now with white streaks running through his hair and fine laugh lines around his eyes, approached the cabin. The two men clasped hands.

  "Welcome, my friend," Taras said. “Will you sup with me?"

  "No,” Grigory shook his head, looking serious. “My visit is not for merriment. I do not miss your company so badly yet."

  Taras chuckled.

  "No," Grigory continued gravely. "I'm afraid I come on a serious matter. The village desperately needs your help."

  The smile slid from Taras's face. He felt the seriousness of Grigory's words. "Please, come inside. Sit by the fire and you can tell me all about it."

  Ten minutes later, both men sat beside the hearth with mugs of warm tea in their hands. The tea Taras made in Siberia tasted nothing like the English tea he’d grown up on, but he found herbs with good flavor that held medicinal properties. He regularly made tea from them.

  "Your old friend, the tiger, has returned," Grigory said softly. He studied Taras's face, as though to gauge his reaction.

  Taras studied the tea in his hand. "I know."

  Grigory's eyes widened in surprise. "You already know?"

  Taras nodded. "I came face-to-face with it two days ago while hunting in the woods. It took my kill and left me alive."

  Grigory stared at Taras with his mouth hanging partially open for several seconds before remembering to close it. "Surely, my friend, you are a god. Even the demon tiger fears to kill you."

  Taras shook his head. "I am no god, Grigory. You always want to believe—"

  "And you deny it, my friend. But demon tigers leave you alive."

  Taras chuckled. He doubted he would ever get Grigory, or many of the other villagers, to believe him a human. "If you know about the tiger, you must have seen it too. Has it appeared near the village?"

  Grigory became utterly serious once more. "It's killed three of our people. The last time, plenty of game lived nearby. The elders say it no longer likes the taste of animal flesh. Only man flesh. We don't know what to do. The season has only begun. We fear it will devour the entire village before winter comes again."

  Taras nodded, thinking. Thoughts of the tiger didn’t go far from his mind since he'd seen it two days before. He’d wondered if he’d have to kill it, now it had returned. If it left him alone, perhaps not, but at any moment it could leap out and make him its next meal. No one would be the wiser, perhaps for weeks, until one of the villagers realized they hadn't seen Taras for a time and came looking.

  "Where did it attack your people?” he asked.

  Grigory gave him a confused frown. "Mostly down by the river," he said.

  "How does it strike? Does it lay in wait for them and pounce?"

  Still looking confused, Grigory leaned back with a pensive expression. "I cannot say for sure. No one saw the beast in the open before it attacked. Each time, it came out of a clear blue sky. So perhaps it does lay in wait for its prey."

  Taras nodded again. "And what time of day does it strike?"

/>   Now Grigory looked downright perturbed. He put on a long-suffering expression. "Around the time the sun goes down. The light largely remained when it attacked the first villager. Darkness had fallen almost completely with the second and third."

  Taras nodded again, absorbing the information and making plans.

  "Are you going to tell me why you need to know these things?" Grigory asked.

  "To make a plan. We can lay in wait for it down by the river at dusk. Someone will need to act as bait, which will be a dangerous job. When it attacks them, we can all jump out and kill it. It will take the blades of many warriors to bring down an animal that size. We must plan and coordinate carefully."

  Grigory's brow furrowed deeper and deeper as Taras spoke. "Forgive me, my friend. I don't understand. This sounds dangerous. Many of my people could die. Can't you simply kill it?"

  Taras smiled to himself. He knew Grigory didn’t say it to be selfish or try to sacrifice Taras. Even after all these years, he remained relatively uneducated. He still thought Taras harbored godlike powers and could simply kill the beast with a thought.

  "Grigory, I’m an old man now. I cannot hope to take down this beast on my own. It will devour me as it has your fellow villagers. I will need help."

  "It saw you in the woods and did not devour you,” Grigory objected. “It poses no danger to you."

  "I don’t know why it spared me yesterday, Grigory. Perhaps it decided to settle for the meat I already held because it hungered excessively. Now that it's fed and has more strength, it can kill what it wants. I assure you, this tiger poses a threat to me as much as to anyone else. I am merely a man, and much older and weaker than you. We must all work together to keep your village safe."

  Grigory looked unconvinced.

  "Let's put it this way, Grigory. This tiger isn’t the only one in Siberia. There are many wild predators and this may happen to the village again in the future. If it does, chances are I won't be here to help you. I want to teach your village how to kill an animal this large so you can do it again if the need arises. I will guide you and show you how, so you'll be ready for the next threat.“

  Saying these things would surely make Grigory think more than ever that Taras was a god, giving gifts to mere mortals. A gamble, to be sure, but he desperately did want to protect the villagers and didn't know how else to make them understand.

  Over the next hour he put together enough possessions to stay at the village for a few days, including every weapon he owned. As he and Grigory set out for the village, Taras wondered for the first time if perhaps the thing keeping him in Anechka had nothing to do with Inga. Perhaps it had to do with the tiger instead.

  TARAS RAISED HIS CHIN a few inches from where it rested on his forearm. The muscles in his neck creaked and groaned in protest from being in the same position so long. He sighed. Dusk had come and gone. The sky grew dark more than an hour before. It seemed the tiger would not come out tonight either.

  It always attacked much earlier than this. Taras and the village men had taken up positions by the river for three nights in a row, now. They had not seen the tiger. Taras had suspected it might take a few days for the tiger to return. After all, feasting on a human might keep it full for days before it needed to hunt again.

  Taras only found the wait strange because, as several years before with the wolves, the tiger seemed to hunt the villagers for sport. Shouldn’t it hunt whether it needed to eat or not? Perhaps he was wrong. Or perhaps the animal merely traveled to a different area for a time. They couldn’t know for sure when it would show up or exactly where.

  The crunch of leaves and grass reached Taras’s ears and he turned his head a fraction to the right. Grigory came into view, trudging slowly up and down the banks of the river. He done so for the past hour and a half. Originally, Taras planned to use himself as bait, mostly because whoever the tiger pounced on first would need to have the best defenses. Taras planned to use his musket to shoot the thing in the chest. Even at close range, the shot didn’t have much chance of bringing the tiger down. It might, however, surprise it enough to give the other men a chance to jump out and begin their attack before the animal ran or went into attack mode itself.

  Grigory insisted he be the bait. "This is my village, my friend. I’ve asked you to come and help us, so I must take the most dangerous task."

  Taras continually shook his head, not planning to let Grigory do anything of the sort. Then Grigory said something that made more sense than Taras felt comfortable with. "The villagers have much fear, my friend. They have much common sense. When they encounter a tiger, they do not try to take it on. It is a monster beyond us. Even its flesh is not to our liking. We hide until the threat passes and then hunt prey more suited to us. If you do not lead the men to jump out and attack the creature, they may not do so. They will follow you because they believe you are a god and will protect them."

  Taras considered. Perhaps Grigory would prove correct about him needing to lead the villagers. If he made himself the bait and shot the tiger in the heart, but the villagers didn’t jump out to attack it, it would still rip him to shreds.

  Of course, Taras didn't like the idea of them believing they couldn’t be harmed. He could not protect them all from this tiger’s claws. The macabre thought floated through his mind that, if one of them sustained injury or died, at least they would stop thinking of him as an omnipotent god.

  He showed Grigory how to use his musket, telling him to wait until the tiger drew extremely close. It needed to be within a few feet and Grigory needed to shoot it between the front legs.

  Grigory assured Taras he could handle the task. Yet, on this third night of lying in wait, the tiger still did not show itself.

  With a sigh, Taras put his hands flat on the ground and pushed his chest upward, deciding to call an end for the night. They would have to return tomorrow. Taras opened his mouth to call out when a low, guttural growl reached his ears. He froze.

  The growl came from somewhere up river and it sounded as if the river current carried it.

  Out in front of him, Grigory froze as well. Rather than lowering back down, Taras slowly, silently pulled himself into an upright position and placed one foot flat on the ground. From there, he could lunge quickly when the need arose. Grigory continued walking away from Taras, slowing his steps considerably.

  Good man. He kept his head, slowing down so the tiger could catch him. Grigory held no fear, unlike most of the other villagers. Minutes of tense waiting followed. The tiger did not appear.

  It wasn't that Taras didn't hear anything. Rather, he couldn't make out what he heard. Various snaps and muddy squelches might be the heavy animal drawing close, or it might be other small animals exploring the riverbank. It might even be the other men shifting their positions around him. And still, nothing.

  The night grew exceptionally quiet, then. Even the night creatures ceased their songs. A deep, wheezing, catlike snarl came from beside Taras. It startled him so much, he nearly dropped his ax.

  In the next moment, a long, lithe body jumped from the bushes three feet from where Taras squatted and pounced toward Grigory. The man whirled toward the oncoming attack and the flash of Taras’s musket lit up the night. For an instant, Taras saw the tiger clearly in all its barbaric glory. The shot must have found its mark because the entire body rippled mid-pounce. It did not crumple, but continued to sail through the air toward Grigory.

  "Now!" Taras screamed. He leapt from the brush toward where the beast landed, its front paws on Grigory's chest.

  Taras ran forward, swinging his ax as he went. He connected solidly with the animal’s hind leg. Around him, dozens of moving shapes leaped out of the foliage and fell on the tiger as well. In the moonlight, the villagers moved like shadow spirits. Taras heard the thud of their knives on the tiger’s body and felt their movement around him. Dark circles of liquid bloomed all over it. The animal roared and thrashed. Forgetting Grigory, it twisted its body and swung its snapping jaws toward the
villagers.

  Snatching one of them by the arm, it shook him, as though trying to tear his arm off. Taras launched himself up onto the animal’s back and stabbed it in the neck. The tiger let go of the village man. It twisted violently and Taras’s fingers didn’t have the strength to hold on. He sailed through the air and landed in the cold river with a splash. This part of the river proved shallow. Taras merely leapt to his feet and waded back to the bank as the battle continued.

  As Taras experienced in most battles, minutes felt like hours. Three more warriors were badly wounded. One took a bite on the arm, another to the leg. It gushed blood faster than his comrades could stem it. The third felt the tiger’s jaws on his back.

  The villagers didn’t give up. All of them were knocked down, trampled or smashed into tree trunks or the ground. They always jumped back up and returned to the fray. Despite Grigory’s words about them being afraid of tigers, they obviously knew what they needed to do. None of them ran.

  Taras caught flashes of Grigory as he fought beside them, but continually lost track of him. No way to know who’d been hurt or killed in all the chaos.

  Abruptly, the tiger shook all of them off and danced back several steps. For the first time since he attacked Grigory, none of them touched him. The tiger bled from dozens of wounds all over his body, yet still appeared surefooted.

  It turned and loped into the woods. Without hesitation, Taras ran after it. He’d hunted enough game to know what an animal looked like when it became seriously hurt. All their effort and blood and sweat didn’t bring the tiger down, but they’d injured it severely.

  Taras didn't have to follow the creature by sound or by the scant footprints it left in the dirt. A thick trail of blood showed its path clearly. Practically a beacon for Taras, shining in the moonlight. The animal would collapse at some point and Taras would finish it off. Taras, of all people, knew if they didn’t ensure the tiger’s death, it might heal and return.