by Smith, Dan
And then something else. A more regular disturbance in the forest. A shuffling and crashing that came to me as if in a dream. But I had been too long in the forest to dismiss anything and sleep was immediately brushed aside. My eyes were open in an instant, my mind was alert to my surroundings, and straight away I looked to Kashtan. If there was any danger out there, she would have heard it long before me; she would be showing the signs. What I saw confirmed that the noise had not been in my imagination.
Kashtan had stopped grazing and raised her head, turning her ears, waiting for the sound to come once again.
Together we listened.
The wind picked up, blustering in the trees, but that was not what had woken me. I had heard something more substantial, something more—
Then it came again. The sound of movement in the undergrowth. Something close.
‘Wake up.’ I shook Anna. ‘Wake up.’ I was loath to steal her from her sleep. At least there she would rest. Awake she would only remember her papa.
‘What?’ Her voice was loud and sleepy when she spoke.
‘Sh.’ I put a hand over her mouth and leaned away from her, shaking my head. I pointed out into the woods, then used my teeth to pull off one glove. I spat it aside and put a finger to my lips.
Her eyes widened and she stared at the place where I had pointed. Right now there was nothing to see but the frost-covered trunks and the tangle of brambles and deadwood.
‘Have they come for us?’ she whispered when I took my hand away from her mouth.
‘I don’t know.’ I reached for the revolver in my pocket. ‘Stay right here. Don’t go anywhere.’ As I said it, I had a fleeting memory of the last time I had spoken almost exactly the same words to her, when she had still been with her father and I had gone to the train.
‘Don’t leave me,’ she said, panic in her eyes. ‘Please.’
‘I won’t leave you. I promise.’
I had been sitting for some time and my muscles and joints were stiff as I got to my feet. I ignored the pain in them and raised the revolver towards the source of the sound, but it was quiet now.
I glanced back at Kashtan, wondering if we had time to ride away before whatever it was reached us, but then the noise came again, not more than a few metres away.
‘Stay down,’ I told Anna, as I moved in front of her, protecting her from whatever was coming.
‘Is it them?’ she asked, but I could only shake my head. I had no idea who it was. I had told Anna the men from the train wouldn’t follow us on foot, but perhaps they had. If one of the carriages had been transporting horses, they might have ridden after us. Or maybe it was something else. Maybe the seven riders had caught up with us.
But then Anna said something that made a chill run through me.
‘Is it him?’ she asked. ‘Is it Koschei?’
I shivered but kept my arms steady. I tried to still my breathing and not picture the whirling, terrifying figure of the gaunt rider crashing from the forest, sword raised, eyes blazing. I set my resolve as hard as cold iron and stood with one foot in front of the other, revolver extended, finger touching the trigger. Whatever was out there, I would kill it. Whether it was the men from the train or the seven riders, or Koschei himself, I didn’t care. I was protecting two of us now, and whatever came out of those trees would have to be prepared to fight hard because I intended to shoot until I had no more bullets, and then I would draw my knife and do whatever was necessary to defend Anna and myself.
Above all, I would not let her see my fear.
I steadied the revolver, aiming it at head height, and thumbed back the hammer as the sound drew nearer. Movement in the undergrowth.
Coming closer.
Not the heavy sound of horses.
I pushed my shoulders forward, braced for the recoil.
Perhaps a single man.
I focused, slowed my breathing and prepared to react.
It was just a few paces away now, but something felt wrong. The pattern of movement was unusual.
I let nothing break my concentration. There was just me and my enemy.
And then the dark shape broke from the undergrowth.
In that instant, it was nothing more than a black blur, confused against the background of the messy brushwood and brambles. It was a shadow, movement in my peripheral vision. It was much smaller than I had anticipated, low to the ground, and my aim altered without thinking. I bent my knees, my arms moving at the shoulders, dropping the aim of the weapon, and as my finger tightened on the trigger, I realised what I was seeing.
The dog had found us.
He padded towards me, tail wagging, tongue lolling, but I gave him little more than a glance. I returned my aim to the forest and waited to see what might follow him out of the trees.
With the arrival of the dog, many unanswerable questions began to form in my mind, the most important of which was whether or not the seven riders were behind him.
‘Go to Kashtan,’ I said to Anna.
I didn’t turn to watch her, but backed away from the wall of undergrowth, listening.
The dog whined as if to remind me he was there, but I ignored him, remaining intent on what was in front of me.
‘Are they coming?’ Anna asked.
‘Just go to Kashtan,’ I told her. ‘Now.’
I heard her moving behind me and risked a glance at her, seeing her do as I had asked, before I returned my attention to the forest in front of me. I kept the revolver aimed as I shuffled backwards, careful not to fall. The dog followed me, tongue lolling as if it were a game, and when he came close, I pushed him away with my foot.
‘Get away. Get lost.’
But each time he just regained his footing and came again. Always following.
‘What’s the matter with you? Don’t you know when you’re not wanted? Go on. Go away.’
I waved my free hand at him, kicked at him, but still he followed.
When I reached the place by the stream where Anna and Kashtan were waiting, I pocketed the revolver and took Anna under the arms to lift her up. Once she was settled, I took the revolver from my pocket once more and pointed it at the dog’s head. I admired his resolve and he had done well to follow us, but he was a risk. No matter what we did to hide our tracks, he had a good nose, he’d proved that. He would find us no matter what action we took to cover our progress.
‘What are you doing?’ Anna asked.
‘Don’t look,’ I told her.
‘You can’t.’
‘There are people following me, Anna. The dog could lead them right to us if he hasn’t already.’
‘But you can’t just shoot him.’
‘I’m sorry, Anna. I know it’s—’
‘But you can’t. And where are they?’ she said. ‘If he’s led them to us, then where are they?’
I shook my head. ‘Maybe he didn’t, but he could.’
‘They passed him – you said so yourself. Before we came into the forest. So maybe . . . maybe they got lost and he didn’t. Maybe he went past them. Maybe they’re still lost. Or maybe they’re at the train. Or . . .’
‘That’s too many “maybes”, Anna.’ Even so, I had thought the same thing myself. They might still be far behind us.
‘You can’t.’ She swung her leg over Kashtan’s back and held on to the saddle to lower herself to the ground. ‘Please.’ She came to stand beside me, looking up into my face. ‘And they might hear. They might be close and they’ll hear.’
I looked at her, the way she watched me with such intensity. Her eyes were pleading with me as hard as her words and I wondered why she felt the need to save this dog. At the farm, I had not seen her show him any affection. Neither she nor Lev even threw him a scrap of food. I believed it was me the dog had followed, not them, and yet she was the one begging for his life.
‘If they’re close, they’ll hear all right, but they won’t know where it’s coming from. No, I have to do this.’
The dog sat on his haunches watchi
ng with interest, as if he had no idea what we were discussing. He didn’t know how close to death he was. All I had to do was squeeze the trigger.
Anna moved in front of me now, crouching by the dog’s side and putting her arms around him. He leaned into her, more because she was pulling him than because he wanted to, and Anna pressed her face into the fur that bunched at the side of his neck.
‘Get away from him.’
‘Please don’t kill him.’
And then I realised this was all she had left of her father. A dog that had not even belonged to him. I had never seen Lev scratch the dog’s ear, and he hadn’t even given him a name, but in Anna’s mind he was her only remaining link to her father. Everything she and Lev owned had been on the horse that we had left behind. There was nothing else but this dog.
I lowered the revolver.
‘Thank you,’ Anna said. ‘Thank you.’
‘He’ll have to keep up with us.’ I put the weapon away. ‘We’re not going slow for this dog.’ I pointed at him. ‘And he’s not eating our food.’
When I went back to Kashtan, the dog broke away from Anna and trotted towards me, oblivious to her having just saved his life.
22
We were still in the forest at nightfall. We left the place where the dog found us, covering our tracks as much as we could, and moved on. We alternated between riding and walking, giving Kashtan a break from time to time, and the dog kept up with us.
For Anna, the dog was a reminder of her father and their time at the farm, a place where they were safe for a while. For me, he was a reminder of what followed in our wake. Anna’s reasoning had been good – it was possible that the men following us had been confused by our trail and become lost while the dog had passed them by, but I was still concerned he might have led the riders to us. They might be hanging back, waiting for a better time to make their attack. If it were me, I might wait until we were out in the open, or I might come in the night when my quarry was asleep. Or perhaps I would split my men, try to get some of them ahead so that we could attack from multiple sides.
With those thoughts in my mind, we went on. Even as the darkness filled the forest, we went on. There was almost no light, the cloud too thick to allow the moon to provide for us, and still the mist endured, but we went on and on, because every hour I was not with my wife and children was an hour in which they might be branded with that red star.
When Anna was too tired to put one foot in front of the other, I lifted her onto Kashtan’s back and walked alongside her, but there came a time when I, too, was exhausted, so I finally decided to stop.
It was too dangerous to light a fire, so Anna and I sat close together, wedged between the protruding roots of a giant maple. I kept the revolver close to hand and pulled the blankets over us for added heat, while Kashtan stood by and the dog came to curl beside me. I was thankful for his warmth and his vigilance – between them, he and Kashtan were excellent guards – and when he put his chin on my knee, I was glad Anna had stopped me from shooting him.
I didn’t sleep much. Not much more than snatches. Every sound in the forest had me peering into the darkness. Every time the dog twitched and looked up, I did the same. When I did close my eyes, I had an agonising vision of Marianna and Misha and Pavel, backing away from a branding iron in the shape of a five-pointed star. Or of my brother’s face, sullied with a dusting of soil. Or of Lev lying by the tree, thrown from his horse.
On one occasion, the dog growled, an ugly sound deep in his throat, and I sat up straight, gripping the revolver, widening my eyes, trying to see into the misty gloom, but the night was silent except for the creak of a bough or the rattle of a falling twig. Something small scurried in the darkness, a quick scampering of tiny feet, and the dog growled again, so I put my hand on his head and rubbed his soft fur.
‘Good boy,’ I whispered, ‘but it’s just a rabbit or something. Nothing more than that.’
Anna stirred beside me. ‘Are you awake?’
‘Yes.’
She said nothing for a while and then, ‘What’s going to happen to me?’
‘I’ll keep you safe.’
‘But . . . later.’
‘I’ll keep you safe,’ I said again. ‘For as long as you want.’
‘I wish Papa was here.’
‘So do I.’ I had liked Lev, he was warm and kind-spirited. He and I would have become good friends in a time when friends were a rarity.
‘Thank you for saving the dog,’ she said.
‘We should give him a name.’
‘Like what?’
‘I’m no good at thinking of things like that.’ Marianna would have chosen a good name. Perhaps a character from one of her skazkas. ‘We had a cat when I was a boy. Well, it was my brother’s really. Vaska.’
‘It was called Vaska?’ Anna turned to look up at me and I put my arm around her.
‘Mm-hmm. He was beautiful. Black as soot and so quiet you’d step on him before you realised he was there. He knew how to catch a mouse too. Mama used to hate him leaving those things on the step and she used to shout at Alek – that’s my brother – so that you could hear her from the other end of the village. Papa said he was so ashamed when he heard her yelling that he’d have to leave the village and never come back.’ I smiled to myself.
‘Where’s your brother now?’
‘Gone,’ I said, disappointed not to dwell longer on the memory.
‘And the cat?’
‘Who knows. He went missing a long time ago, but I always thought he’d be fine. He knew how to survive – he was half wild anyway. Mama said he probably moved in with some witch out there in the forest.’ I looked down at Anna when I said it, hoping I hadn’t scared her.
‘Is Vaska a good name for a dog?’
‘I don’t know. Probably not. I don’t know any good names for a dog. Anyway, maybe he already has one.’
‘He can’t tell us what it is, though,’ she said.
‘Maybe we should just call him Dog. It’s easy to remember.’
Anna didn’t comment, so we sat without speaking, all three of us pressed together between the roots of the tree. The breeze picked up, swaying the branches overhead, creaking the primeval boughs and moaning as it vibrated the brushwood. Kashtan nickered and snorted, and the dog lifted his head to listen, a short whine escaping him as he pushed harder against me. None of us wanted to be so far from comfort.
The wind swept the clouds from the sky, revealing a half-moon and allowing its light to flood into the forest. It filtered through the twisted fingers above us, and I looked down at Anna beside me, her face small and pale, moonlight glittering in her eyes.
‘You think you can walk some more?’ I asked.
‘Yes.’
I was glad to be moving again. I was tired, but I wanted to press on towards Dolinsk and hoped I would find some clue as to where Koschei had gone. I didn’t know why he was heading north; most of the Cheka units in this area would be heading towards Tambov rather than away from it. Like Commander Orlov, their orders would be to crush the rebellion, and yet Tanya and Lyudmila had said that Koschei was heading north. Always north. I hoped that was still the case; that he hadn’t turned in a different direction, leaving us to follow a false trail. I needed to find some civilisation now, some way of knowing if I was still heading the right way.
As we moved, I reflected on Commander Orlov’s words, seeing how his eyes had been opened to the chaos, just as mine had. His escape had been on a different path from the one I intended to take, but his words had put an idea in my head; one that showed me a hint of what my future might be. To find somewhere quiet, a place where the eyes of the world might overlook me. Before that could happen, though, I had to escape my pursuers and find Marianna and the boys. As Orlov had said, they were the most important thing now, and without them I was nothing but the soldier I no longer wanted to be. Father and husband were the roles I saw in my new future, but it was the soldier who could make them happen.
&n
bsp; Stanislav’s comrade had said something, however, that troubled me. I had tried to put it out of mind, but it scratched at my subconscious, from somewhere beyond coherent thought, and I couldn’t help returning to it over and over again. He had said that Nikolai Levitsky made Koschei, that I had made him. I contemplated on how that was possible and the only explanation that came to me was linked to the name Commander Orlov had given me. Or rather, a name he had mentioned.
Krukov.
If any man I knew bore any resemblance to Koschei, it was Krukov, and if it was he who had murdered the old men of Belev and taken the women and children away, then Stanislav might have been right. Perhaps I was responsible for him in some way. And perhaps the men of Belev would still be alive if Alek and I had not deserted. We had been in the same unit as Krukov and would have steered him away from Belev without him even coming close to it.
That was a notion that wrapped itself round my heart and squeezed hard. That I could be to blame for my family’s fate was beyond anything I could live with. If I discovered it to be true, and if my family lost their lives because of it, would I want to take the path that Commander Orlov had chosen?
But when I looked at Anna, I knew I had another responsibility. I could no longer choose the path that was best for me; I had to take the one that was best for both of us.
23
When morning finally broke, the low sun was bright and good. It was as welcome as any morning had ever been, and though its light lacked heat, there was enough for it to burn away what was left of the mist. Our spirits were lifted even further when we came to the edge of the forest and stepped out into the open. There was a greater chance of being seen, and we would be easier to follow, but it was a relief to be away from the forest once more, and we would move quicker, taking us further from our pursuers and closer to our goal.