They had been told cannibals lurked in the dense forest waiting for the unwary. No matter how grim their life under the Cossacks, they continued to live.
However, he was sure they were in Dená country, or very close to it. Soldiers from here had served under him in the Troika Guard. If there were cannibals roaming the forest he would have heard about it long ago.
But slipping away without even a knife would mean starving to death, or perhaps ending up as dinner for a bear. He reflected that, in all his military travels, until now he had never been to the interior of Russian Amerika.
Irena poked him sharply with her elbow.
“You’re cloud-gazing again, slave. Pay attention and help me pull the rope.”
Grisha tugged obediently on the rope. Irena had arrived in the same coffle of prisoners with Grisha. He’d noticed her compact, pleasing body on the trip here, before sickness dominated his life. She was the first of the coffle to be raped by the Cossacks. Even now her purpled right eye swelled as a result of further attention from one of their masters.
His willpower had dissipated in tandem with his physical strength and both approached their nadir. At the trial he had felt grateful toward the judge for saving him from the rope, even though was not sure he had received the most humane sentence. At least now the mosquitoes were nearly gone.
A breeze wafted through the trees and cleared the air momentarily. Instantly Grisha imagined himself on the deck of Pravda, the master of his domain, and free on the water. A frustrated tear leaked from the corner of his eye and he concentrated on hoisting the log onto the wall. Only three weeks completed out of thirty years.
Kazina’s name stuck in his mind. But try as he might, he could no longer picture his wife’s face. Last week he received official notice of the dissolution of his marriage. He used the paper at the slit trench and wondered if she still slept with the naval kommander.
Another tear broke free of his suppressed emotions and blended quietly into his sweat. In all of this upheaval and hell, he nursed but one teethgritting dream—to meet Valari Kominskiya one more time. He vowed she would not live through the encounter.
Hammers sounded from the small cabins grouped around the ever-growing lodge, bringing him back to grim reality. They all worked as hard as possible to finish before the subarctic winter snapped down on the land. All this for foreigners, he thought. Why would anyone pay money to vacation here?
“Put your back into it, you cockless mare!”
Grisha gripped the rope and did as he was told.
8
Slayer-of-Men kept one ear cocked at the distant pounding while he conferred with his team. All wore the same face paint and camouflaged clothing. None of the uniforms carried any indication of rank.
“Wohosni.” His eyes flashed over the tall, thin man. “You take the Cossack in the tent.” His finger jabbed the twig model. “Paul, Claude,” he glanced at the shorter men, one burly, one slight, “you deal with the three soldiers in the kitchen.” A wood knot surrounded by smoothed dirt.
“Leader,” said Malagni, a wide-faced, big-boned man whose muscular chest threatened to split the fabric of his large shirt. “I would like a Cossack.” His fingers caressed the skinning knife he held in his other hand.
“You take the one with the Kalashnikov. He has to die first, but not too early. And don’t depend on your knife, use your bow.”
“I understand,” Malagni said through a wide smile.
“Heron.” The man personified the bird. “You eliminate the soldier on the turret. Lynx, you take out the tank with the satchel charge. Remember, we want their slaves alive; that’s the reason we’re here.”
“Maybe that’s true for you, big brother,” Malagni said. “But I’m here to kill Cossacks.”
“That’s our second reason,” the tall man said. “Alex, you move in on the left here”—he pointed at the twig standing upright—“and as soon as Malagni takes out his Cossack, you destroy the radio with your satchel charge.” Alex, easily the handsomest man present—despite the blotches of paint—nodded and displayed perfect teeth.
“Cora, you cover Alex; we have to get the radio. Wing, can you get two with your bow before they know what’s happening?”
“Of course I can,” the raven-haired woman said as she thrust out her finely chiseled chin. “You know that.”
“Just checking. I want you to get the armed guard here”—his finger prodded dirt in the model layout—“and cover this one. If he makes a move to shoot, kill him.”
She grinned, causing the scar on her wide cheek bone to bend back on itself. “Can’t I just kill him?”
“No. We need trained people.” Slayer-of-Men felt proud as he looked over the nine under his command. Each of them had commanded raids like this in the past.
They were the best warriors the Dená nation offered. He fervently believed that every day brought them closer to the time when the Cossacks and their masters would be driven from Dená land. And people like these would lead new armies.
“You must all be in place by the time the shadows have moved from here”—his finger traveled less than a hand’s width—“to here. I will signal and, after Malagni kills the Kalashnikov, the attack begins.”
Murmurs of assent dissipated in the air and the team melted into the brush. Slayer-of-Men made his way back to the wide oval hacked out of the forest by the Russians. He waited and watched the huge Cossack who sat on the small guard platform with an automatic rifle resting across his knees.
There would be more weapons like that in the camp. The Cossacks ruled their world so completely that they felt only one of them at a time needed to be armed in this manner. Every one of their camps the Dená had attacked had been just like this one.
The only deference the Russians made to their previous losses elsewhere was the decrepit tank sitting on the riverbank. The tankers had lapsed into boredom and indifference over a week ago. The prisoners didn’t need the machine to keep them working; the Cossacks did that.
The Cossacks wasted their own strength, Slayer-of-Men thought for the second time in less than an hour. He knelt and took his bow from its hiding place. Nocking a metal-headed arrow, he leaned back and calmly waited for his team to strike.
The shadows crawled inexorably along their appointed paths.
9
Grisha could not ignore his thirst any longer. One of the many Cossack rules forbade convicts more than one drink of water per hour. He felt sure dehydration due to diarrhea played no part in their calculations; a drink of water would improve his work. Perhaps if he just explained it to them.
The water station stood directly in front of the squat guard tower. A Cossack corporal dominated the middle of the newly built square, a Kalashnikov resting across his muscular thighs. Fear threatened the tightness of Grisha’s bowels as he spread his arms outward in the prescribed manner and shuffled forward.
As if it were animate, the barrel of the automatic weapon lazily centered on Grisha’s chest. The corporal’s blocky, bearded face remained bereft of expression. When Grisha was five meters from the drinking water, the big Russian spoke with a voice reminiscent of rusty iron hinges in use.
“What are you doing here, dung-eater? You guzzled more than your share of water much less than an hour ago.”
Grisha stopped and braced as straight as he could. The weight of his hands multiplied every trembling second but he resolutely held them out.
“Yes, master, that is true.” He felt overwhelming disgust for his selfdebasement. “However I have the shitting sickness and my body does not retain the fluid—”