They stopped talking again. Anton took a look at Anka. Her eyes were like black slits. “Since when?” she asked.
“Oh, one moonlit night,” Anton answered cautiously. “Just don’t tell anyone.”
Anka chuckled. “No one made you talk, Toshka,” she said. “Want some wild strawberries?”
Anton mechanically scooped berries from her stained little palm and stuffed them into his mouth. I don’t like gossips, he thought. I can’t stand blabbermouths. He suddenly found an argument. “You’ll be carried in someone’s arms yourself someday,” he said. “How would you like if it people started gossiping about it?”
“What makes you think I’m going to gossip?” Anka said, sounding distracted. “I don’t like gossips myself.”
“Listen, what are you up to?”
“Nothing in particular.” Anka shrugged. A minute later she confided, “You know, I’m awfully sick of having to wash my feet twice every single night.”
Poor old maid Katya, thought Anton. A fate worse than the saiva.
They came out onto the trail. It sloped down, and the forest kept getting darker and darker. It was overgrown with ferns and tall, damp grass. The pine trunks were covered in moss and the foam of white lichen. But the saiva meant business. A hoarse, utterly inhuman voice suddenly roared, “Stop! Drop your weapons—you, noble don, and you, doña!”
When the saiva calls, you have to respond in time. In a single precise motion, Anton knocked Anka into the ferns to the left, threw himself into the ferns to the right, then rolled over and lay in wait behind a rotten tree stump. The hoarse echo was still reverberating through the pine trunks, but the trail was already empty. There was silence.
Anton, lying on his side, was spinning the little wheel to draw the bowstrings. A shot rang out, and some debris fell on him. The raspy, inhuman voice informed them, “The don was struck in the heel!”
Anton moaned and grabbed his foot.
“Not in that one, the other one,” the voice corrected.
You could hear Pashka giggle. Anton carefully peered out from behind the stump, but he couldn’t see a thing in the thick green gloom.
At this instant, there was a piercing whistle and a sound like a tree falling. “Ow!” Pashka gave a strangled cry. “Mercy! Mercy! Don’t kill me!”
Anton immediately jumped up. Pashka was backing up out of the ferns toward him. His arms were above his head. They heard Anka’s voice: “Anton, do you see him?”
“I see him,” Anton answered appreciatively. “Don’t turn around!” he yelled at Pashka. “Hands behind your head!”
Pashka obediently put his hands behind his head and announced, “I’ll never talk.”
“What are we supposed to do with him, Toshka?” Anka asked.
“You’ll see,” said Anton, and took a comfortable seat on the stump, resting his crossbow on his knees. “Your name!” he barked in the voice of Hexa the Irukanian.
Pashka expressed contempt and defiance with his back. Anton fired. A heavy bolt pierced the branch above Pashka’s head with a crack.
“Whoa!” said Anka.
“My name is Bon Locusta,” Pashka admitted reluctantly. “And here, it seems, will he die—‘for I only am left, and they seek my life.’”
“A well-known rapist and murderer,” Anton explained. “But he does nothing for free. Who sent you?”
“I was sent by Don Satarina the Ruthless,” Pashka lied.
Anton said scornfully, “This hand cut the thread of Don Satarina’s foul life two years ago in the Territory of Heavy Swords.”
“Should I stick a bolt in him?” offered Anka.
“I completely forgot,” Pashka said hastily. “Actually, I was sent by Arata the Beautiful. He promised me a hundred gold pieces for your heads.”
Anton slapped his knees. “What a liar!” he exclaimed. “Like Arata would ever get involved with a villain like you!”
“Maybe I should stick a bolt in him after all?” Anka asked bloodthirstily.
Anton laughed demonically.
“By the way,” said Pashka, “your right heel has been shot off. It’s time for you to bleed to death.”
“No way!” Anton objected. “For one thing, I’ve been constantly chewing on white tree bark, and for another, two beautiful barbarians have already dressed my wounds.”
The ferns rustled, and Anka came out onto the trail. Her cheek was scratched, and her knees were smeared with dirt and grass. “It’s time to dump him into the swamp,” she announced. “When an enemy doesn’t surrender, he’s destroyed.”
Pashka lowered his arms. “You know, you don’t play by the rules,” he said to Anton. “You always make Hexa seem like a good man.”
“A lot you know!” said Anton, coming out onto the trail as well. “The saiva means business, you dirty mercenary.”
Anka gave Pashka back his rifle. “Do you always let loose at each other like that?” she asked enviously.
“Of course!” Pashka said in surprise. “What, are we supposed to yell ‘Boom-boom’? ‘Bang-bang’? The game needs an element of risk!”
Anton said nonchalantly, “For example, we often play William Tell.”
“We take turns,” Pashka caught on. “One day the apple’s on my head, the next day it’s on his.”
Anka scrutinized them. “Oh yeah?” she said slowly. “I’d like to see that.”
“We’d love to,” Anton said slyly. “Too bad we don’t have an apple.”
Pashka was grinning widely. Then Anka tore the pirate bandanna off his head and quickly rolled it into a long bundle. “The apple is just a convention,” she said. “Here’s an excellent target. Go on, play William Tell.”
Anton took the red bundle and examined it carefully. He looked at Anka—her eyes were like slits. And Pashka was enjoying himself—he was having fun. Anton handed him the bundle. “‘At thirty paces I can manage to hit a card without fail,’” he recited evenly. “‘I mean, of course, with a pistol that I am used to.’”
“‘Really?’” said Anka. She then turned to Pashka: “‘And you, my dear, could you hit a card at thirty paces?’”
Pashka was placing the bundle onto his head. “‘Some day we will try,’” he said, smirking. “‘In my time, I did not shoot badly.’”
Anton turned around and walked down the trail, counting the steps out loud: “Fifteen… sixteen… seventeen…”
Pashka said something—Anton didn’t catch it—and Anka laughed loudly. A little too loudly.
“Thirty,” Anton said and turned around.
At thirty paces, Pashka looked incredibly small. The red triangle of the bundle was perched on top of his head like a dunce cap. Pashka was smirking. He was still playing around. Anton bent down and started slowly drawing the bowstrings.
“Bless you, my father William!” Pashka called out. “And thank you for everything, no matter what happens.”
Anton nocked the bolt and stood up. Pashka and Anka were looking at him. They were standing side by side. The trail was like a dark, damp corridor between tall green walls. Anton raised the crossbow. The weapon of Marshal Totz had become extraordinarily heavy. My hands are shaking, thought Anton. That’s not good. He remembered how in the winter Pashka and he had spent a whole hour throwing snowballs at the cast iron pinecone on the fence post. They threw from twenty paces, from fifteen, and from ten—but they just couldn’t hit it. And then, when they were already bored and were leaving, Pashka carelessly, without looking, threw the last snowball and hit it. Anton pressed the stock of the crossbow into his shoulder with all his strength. Anka is too close, he thought. He wanted to call to her to step away but realized that it’d be silly.
Higher. Even higher… Higher still… He was suddenly seized with the certainty that even if he turned his back to them, the heavy bolt would still sink right into the bridge of Pashka’s nose, between his cheerful green eyes. He opened his eyes and looked at Pashka. Pashka was no longer grinning. And Anka was very slowly raising a hand with her fingers spread, and her face was tense and very grown-up. Then Anton raised the crossbow even higher and pressed the trigger. He didn’t see where the bolt went.