Last Citadel wwi-3

by David L. Robbins

  Filip and Katya dismounted. Katya felt as though the point of the knife inside the bread were held to her own innards. Filip was intent and silent. They tied the horses to the porch railing. Katya stroked Lana before moving away, to compose herself.

  The guard climbed the steps. Filip went second, Katya, with the loaf tucked under her arm, came last. She walked across the threshold and began the count. One. The reek that assaulted her inside was unmistakably human.

  The room was bare, stripped down to the wood floors and plaster walls. A single chair, stiff-backed and old, stood in the center. Katya knew the chair in an instant for what it was, like this house, it was an innocent thing become wicked. Two, she thought.

  Leonid lay curled in the far right corner.

  Katya heard herself gasp. She flicked her eyes to the guard, but Filip covered the sound with conversation and the guard made no reaction to her. Three.

  She reined herself in tight, she knew she would dash across the room to him if she did not. Four. Leonid did not open his eyes, he lay motionless with his wrists between his knees. She approached him, holding the bread out now like a gift, to keep both her hands full so she would not cradle him. She knelt beside him. She set the loaf on the floor. Nine. Leonid’s face was bruised and swollen, dark and straining the skin, the brutal fruit of his interrogations. Had Nikolai stood here asking the questions in Russian while this was done? She glanced back to Filip and saw him staring down at Leonid, wondering the same. The guard asked Filip a question. Even in a foreign tongue Katya could tell Filip’s reply was terse. Eighteen.

  She stroked Leonid’s hair, to gentle him awake. His hair was matted, filthy. His ear was crusted brown from blood, probably a burst eardrum. His body stank with the biting tart of urine. Katya pressed her hand harder to his forehead. His eyelids flickered. Twenty-seven.

  She did not say his name, the guard would catch that. She murmured, ‘Lie still. It’s me, we’re here for you. Pretend to be unconscious. Can you walk?’

  Leonid’s head bobbed one tremor under her hand.

  ‘Be ready,’ she said.

  Thirty-five.

  Katya’s heart beat like an engine when she took up the bread and rose from the floor. She turned to Filip and the guard. The soldier smiled at her. She resisted any urge to determine anything about this German, his age, skin tone, his own smells of cigarette and summer wool. She returned his smile and looked only at his hands on his machine pistol. She counted Forty. Filip faded behind the guard.

  She walked forward. The chair in the middle of the room stood in her path to the guard. She envisioned Leonid in it, tied to it. She held out the loaf, hiding the opened end behind her palm.

  ‘Would you like a piece of bread?’

  Forty-five.

  The guard slung both his elbows over his machine pistol hanging across his waist. He nodded at the bread, yes, he would like some. And you shall have it, thought Katya.

  Fifty-two.

  She tore away a portion of the bread, keeping the opened end facing her breast. The guard reached for the offered chunk. The black metal haft of the knife was there, ready for her fingers. She dug her hand into the crust, as though to pull for the soldier another hunk. Filip slipped closer behind him. She did not look into the guard’s face as the man brought the bread up to his mouth.

  Sixty.

  She closed her hand around the knife’s haft, buried in the cool spongy bread. She took a step toward the guard, to have her momentum driving forward. She let her mind flee for one beat to Leonid in the corner behind her, to the purple of his lips and sockets, his stench, mentally touching him like she had touched the horse outside, for calm and power. The gray of a German uniform was one stride away, crumbs tumbled down the buttons. The knife was held tight in her hand. She kept her eyes fixed to the guard’s chest, to the spot above the dangling gun, beneath the crumbs, at the heart.

  Katya plunged the dagger deep above a pocket on the tunic. The German’s hands tried to rise but Filip pinned his arms at the elbows. The haft of the knife shook with the violence of the guard’s reaction, the man’s throat was plugged by a swallow of bread, he choked out a cry, the knife handle jerked loose from her grip. She was shocked by this because she thought she’d held it with all her might, believed she’d stabbed the blade into the man’s working heart as hard as she could, but the German still stood, wrestling in Filip’s old grasp, he did not go down, the knife stuck in his chest, not dead. He made another strangled cry, bucking in Filip’s arms, twisting back and forth, left and right. Filip strained to hold him. Katya followed the handle with seeking and urgent hands, to catch it and draw it out to shove it in again, to cut the man’s throat if she had to, but Filip could not hold him still and the haft evaded her, she struggled at the guard’s chest to grab the knife and could not.

  The guard coughed out the gob of bread, the wad hit Katya. He screamed. One of his hands broke from Filip’s clench. He fumbled to lift the machine pistol. The knife handle, slick with blood, slipped through her fingers again. Where was Josef? Where were the others?

  Panic jettisoned into her blood. Filip lost his grasp, the guard reeled back a step from her, knocking over the chair. Filip tried again to control the frenzied guard but was thrown off. The soldier had both hands on his gun now. The knife protruded from his chest like the key to a mad wind-up doll.

  The soldier twisted away from her, badly out of balance but keeping his feet. He juggled the barrel of the gun to raise it at Filip. The old man jumped sideways and the quick burst from the machine pistol hit him in the hip. Filip went down yelling. Staggering, the guard turned his head for Katya. He licked blood off his lips. The machine pistol wavered to find her.

  She would not die motionless. She hurled herself at the guard.

  A strong hand snared her from behind. She was stopped and flung aside.

  Leonid flashed past her, another mad doll, this one broken and filthy but infuriated. He was on the guard in a single long step, shoving the machine pistol down with one hand. He grabbed the haft of the knife with his other fist and plucked the blade from the guard’s chest with a strength born out of fury, then hacked it into the German two, three, four more times, in and out, dicing the man’s heart until the guard’s knees were on the floor, and again Leonid drove in the knife.

  Leonid breathed hard. He left the dagger in the guard and stood, teetering, emptied of rage and strength. Katya caught him before he sank beside the corpse. There were only seconds left until the rest of the German garrison hurried to this little blue house on the edge of the village to investigate the gunshots.

  The door burst open.

  Josef filled the opening. His pistol was leveled. The old partisan stepped into the bare room. His mitts were bloody. He took in the dead German with one glance, saw the rips in the soldier’s chest and the spreading pool beneath him, and raised an eyebrow at Katya. Without a word, he moved to Filip on the floor. He gathered the old man to his feet.

  ‘Can you ride, old man?’

  Filip made no reply. Supported by Josef, he scowled and tested his wounded hip with a few struggling steps.

  Katya led Leonid toward the open door. The clatter of saddles and horseshoes swirled in the street outside. He hesitated in Katya’s grasp.

  ‘Leonya, we’ve got to hurry’

  ‘The rest of the garrison is coming,’ Josef added with urgency. ‘We have to get out now.’

  ‘No,’ Leonid said, resisting Katya’s tugs. He twisted in her arms, pointing behind him into the house, at a closed door. ‘A woman. In that room. Another… prisoner.’

  Josef left Filip. The starosta hobbled standing alone, favoring his right side. His trousers were torn below the belt where the bullet caught him. Josef sprang to the closed door.

  ‘Get them outside,’ he ordered Katya. ‘The horses are there.’

  In that instant, gunfire spat from the rear of the building. The shots were answered by others, farther away, burps of bullets from German weapons. Ivan
’s voice drilled through the walls and the rifle reports, ‘Dammit, Witch, get out of the house!’

  Ivan was holding off the approaching German troops. Daniel must be outside with the horses and the German prisoner and Nikolai. Josef crashed into the back room. Katya impelled Leonid forward.

  Daniel appeared on the porch, his pistol raised. In that moment, Josef emerged from the room with a woman clinging to his arm. She was starved and frail, her skirt and blouse stained; she’d been a beautiful girl before the abuse she suffered in this house. Now she was a dirty wraith.

  The gun battle at the rear of the house surged. Ivan shouted again to Katya, firing his carbine.

  In the bright doorway, Daniel did not lower his pistol. He looked across the room, past the corpse on the floor and the spilled chair and blood at the girl wavering on Josef’s arm. She said something, too weak for Katya to hear over the gunshots outside.

  Daniel aimed the pistol at Josef.

  ‘Let her go,’ he said.

  Josef stepped forward, drawing the feeble girl close. Filip gimped backward from Daniel’s raised gun until he stood beside Josef and the girl.

  ‘This is your wife,’ Josef said.

  Daniel answered, ‘We’re taking two horses. Let her go.’

  Katya tensed. Outside the horses nickered, frightened by the gunfire coming quicker and closer. Leonid swayed on her arm, bewildered. The girl looked at Daniel with frenzied eyes, confused. Why was her husband aiming a gun at the people who’d come with him to rescue her and the poor Soviet pilot?

  She got her answer when Katya spoke.

  ‘You’re the spy in the cell,’ she said.

  ‘Shut up, Witch.’

  The girl’s face twitched. She tried to move to her husband but Josef would not release her. Daniel took a step closer, sighting down his pistol at Josef’s head.

  ‘Let us go, Josef. Please.’

  Katya thought of all the dead betrayed for this man’s wife. Their deaths choked the room, partisans and Witches. Leonid, nearly beaten to death. And herself, almost killed beside the tracks when Daniel told Ivan to blow the charge. She had no weapon, the knife was plunged in the German.

  ‘Please, Josef,’ Daniel said again, cocking his head, and Katya knew these would be his last words before shooting.

  Filip hobbled, the only motion in the room. He slipped himself sideways in front of the girl.

  ‘You asked me if I can ride,’ he said over his shoulder to Josef, staring at the little mouth of Daniel’s gun.

  ‘No,’ the starosta said.

  With that, Filip dragged himself in front of Josef. Behind him the old partisan flashed his pistol up. The girl screamed and Daniel fired. Josef’s gun roared, and for an exploding moment the two fired at each other across the barren room. Then Daniel crashed down, his chest dotted with three punctures. Filip fell next.

  The gunfight outside the house broke off. Heavy steps pounded onto the porch. Big Ivan bolted into the room, his rifle ready. He stood dumb at what he found.

  The girl had thrown up her hands in terror, still screaming. Josef let her loose. He knelt beside Filip. The elder croaked something with lifted head and fists balled in Josef’s coat. The girl stifled. Katya heard the starosta mutter, she caught only his brother’s name. Filip released Josef. The old man sighed and sagged to the floor.

  Josef did not pause. He leaped and came to Katya to take Leonid from her, hurrying the pilot out the door, past thunderstruck Ivan. Katya followed. The girl was left behind, rigid in her horror pose, staring without believing at Daniel, the dead traitor, her hero.

  Katya shoved Ivan out the door. Leonid was already in a saddle. Josef moved fast to get onto his own horse. Ivan lumbered to his mount. Katya stared across the wide steppe, at the two dust clouds roiling behind the hiwi Nikolai and the escaping prisoner Breit, galloping away.

  Katya flew into her saddle. Down the street a rifle snapped, a bullet whizzed past. All the riders kicked their horses and bolted. Katya saw how Leonid rode, not well and barely steady. Ivan stayed close beside him. The four riders lit out into the fields, the thud of rifles bit beneath their hoofbeats. The hiwi and the German absconded in different directions, both away from Kazatskoe. Nikolai scurried back to his home village. Breit ran anywhere, away from the partisans, away from the village where the guards, his countrymen, were shooting at everything on horseback.

  The guards fired after the partisans for seconds but hit none of them through the dust billows rising behind the horses. Katya kept her eyes on fading Nikolai and, farther to the north, Breit, doing his best to stay in the saddle.

  She pulled alongside Josef.

  ‘Give me my pistol!’ she shouted.

  Josef glanced past his bouncing shoulder at the receding village, at Filip. He reached into his waistband and took out her gun. He handed it over across the bounding neck of his own horse.

  ‘Go get the prisoner!’

  Katya cut her eyes to Nikolai, then to Breit. She could catch either of them easily.

  Josef shouted again, reading her expression.

  ‘We have orders, Witch! The German!’

  ‘No!’

  Old dark Josef took one more look over his shoulder, to the little house where the brave starosta clutched him and spoke his last wish. He’d heard Filip’s last bloody whisper, the traitorous twin Nikolai’s name, and what else?

  Katya turned to wheel her horse away Nikolai and Breit grew more distant by the second.

  Josef looked out to Nikolai. There was no more time to choose between vendetta and his orders.

  ‘Go!’ Josef shouted. ‘I’ll deal with fucking Plokhoi. Go!’

  ‘Take care of Leonid! I’ll catch you!’

  With that, Katya yanked Lana’s head around. The horse responded like a dzhigitka mount, digging in her hooves and whirling quick and nimble. Katya clamped tight with her thighs and struck a furious pace straight at Nikolai. She tucked herself low over Lana’s lathering neck, clicking and urging the horse, ‘Tick, tick, hiya!’ absorbing the pumping and pounding of the animal, swelling with it to do the murder that grew closer with every reach of Lana’s long strides.

  Katya snared one last glimpse of the prisoner Breit off to her right. The man was a terrible rider, he bounced like he was on a camel. She could have run circles around him. But as clumsy a horseman as the German was, he’d put enough distance between him and Katya speeding the other direction to disappear over a low rise in the steppe, and he was gone.

  I hope you are a spy, Katya thought, matching her hips and arms to the rhythm of her sprinting horse. I hope you are and you go to Berlin and you help us. Or I hope your horse steps in a hole and you break your neck. Go, Colonel Breit. Count your blessings.

  Katya laid her eyes to the hiwi and galloped.

  Nikolai saw her coming. He did his best to outrace her but he stood no chance with a Cossack in the coming saddle. Katya closed the distance and there was nothing the hiwi could do.

  Filip is clan, Katya thought. He took me to Leonid, then he died to save us.

  He is clan. This was his wish.

  Nikolai, as though hearing her thoughts broadcast over the steppe, reined in his horse. The last hundred meters of grassland rushed beneath her. The pistol in her hand weighed nothing, it was the weight of the life she rode up to, the traitor. Nikolai lifted his hands, surrendering.

  ‘Witch,’ he pleaded.

  Katya gave him no chance to say more. She stopped two meters away and raised the gun. She aimed it into his forehead, into the hawk-nosed face that was Filip’s. This angered her more, that Nikolai should have such a hero’s face. This hiwi would not profane that face any longer, and he would not take it with him to Hell. She pulled the trigger.

  She circled the fallen body. She looked down, there was no question he was dead. She stuck the warm pistol in her waist and took the reins of Nikolai’s emptied horse, the partisans always needed extra mounts.

  She sped off, eager to catch up to Leonid. Nikolai’s
horse loped beside her. She bent low over Lana’s mane and let the blowing strands graze her cheeks. The reins felt good in her hands.

  She’d killed a man today, a traitor, and attacked another, a German, trying to kill him, too. She spurred the horses away from the twin and the soldier, leaving their corpses well behind. She rode hard for several kilometers until she saw Josef, Ivan, and Leonid in the distance. They’d slowed. None of the enemy garrison from the village pursued them, the German war vehicles could not travel as fast over the roadless Russian steppe as horsemen. Leonid was too beaten to be taken anywhere but back to the partisan cell to rest and heal. Josef would tell Colonel Bad the prisoner Breit had been killed in the action, the German had tried to escape and paid for it. But she had come through. She’d saved Leonid. The spy in their cell, bastard Daniel, was exposed and handed the bill for his treachery, in front of his wife. Filip was old, and he died a memorable way, strong and selfless. A tear cooled in the wind against her cheek. Katya wanted to whoop out loud, a cry for Vera, for Filip.

  Instead, she pulled the bandanna out of her hair and threw it away. She tugged the reins of Nikolai’s mount to bring the horse closer alongside Lana. When the two horses were shoulder to shoulder, she pulled her boots from her stirrups, coiled her knees, and leaped to stand, one foot each on the two rocking saddles.

  Like this Katya rode past Ivan, Josef, and Leonid. She rode with her bloody arms widespread into the vast and open day.

  DEATH RIDE

  The armored clashes around Prokhorovka have attained almost legendary status as the greatest armored combat of World War II, and perhaps the greatest of all time.

  David M. Glantz and Jonathan M. House

  The Battle of Kursk

  The 5th Guards Tank Army delivered a frontal attack against crack German panzer divisions which, without an essential superiority in forces, could at best result in driving the enemy back. Since the Germans in turn were also assembling forces and were preparing to continue their ongoing offensive, a large tank battle was in prospect, which indeed, broke out during the day on 12 July.