Small tributaries fed into the Tanana, and every tributary rushed from the heart of a small valley. Some they crossed on fallen trees, others they waded through up to their chests.
Growing up on the Inside Passage of the Alexandr Archipelago, Grisha’s idea of natural beauty differed somewhat from this. He loved the lush rain forest, the thirty-meter trees, the impressive fjords of Southeast Alaska, and the North Pacific Ocean.
The Tanana mocked him, hinting of the ocean to which it eventually traveled, which now sparkled forever out of his reach.
Valari Kominskiya entered his thoughts. Why had she thrown him to the Czar’s wolves? They could have talked their way out of Karpov’s death.
Had she set him up? No way of knowing. But there was no obvious reason for that. She must have just panicked. Her panic had cost him his old life, or what was left of it. He was surprised at how much he missed his boat.
At the top of a ridge the trail forked in a wide clearing. Wing signaled a halt and waved them up to her.
“Behold.” She pointed. “The Great One.”
A range of majestic snow-capped mountains lay unguessable kilometers in front of them. At the center of the range reigned a gleaming monarch reaching into the bright blue sky half again higher than any neighbor. Grisha and Nik stared dumbstruck.
“Claude,” Wing said. “Watch the trail behind us.”
“My God!” Nik said. “I’ve seen this from St. Nicholas Redoubt, but I had no idea it was this big!”
“That’s bigger than Mt. St. Elias,” Grisha said. “Even from here I can tell that. What did you call it?”
“Denali, the Great One.” She stared proudly for a long moment. “That is the holy place of the Dená. You might say this the heart of why we fight the Czar and kill his Cossacks—this is the only ikon in our church.”
“But you don’t kill his soldiers,” Nik said. “Why?”
Her eyes flicked over both of them before settling on the soldier again.
“We’ve discovered that most soldiers of the Czar hate their life. They’re merely slaves in uniform. We need soldiers too, but ours share with everyone else, they’re not a lower class to be used like animals. They’re respected.”
“I find that difficult to believe,” Nik said. “Will the people go into battle with them?”
“I am not a person?”
Grisha laughed as a look of consternation swept over Nik’s face.
“You’re twisting my words. Of course you’re a person! But you’re part of a paramilitary group, aren’t you? You don’t look like a schoolgirl to me.”
“Once I was a teacher. My husband and I lived in Holy Cross where the Russian Army maintained a small garrison. One night three Cossacks broke into our house, killed my husband, raped me”—her left hand touched the scar on her cheek—“and left me for dead.”
It pained him to look at her just then, so Grisha stared at the mountain.
“Friends found me, hid me, nursed me back to health. I was introduced to others who were tired of being used by the Czar and living in constant fear. Through them I received training and began striking back. One of the most satisfying moments of my life was the morning I gelded those three bastards and left them tied in the forest to bleed to death.”
“You’ve had a hard life,” Nik muttered.
“Who hasn’t? That’s why we’re here, to end the Czar’s rule over our people and our homeland. We’ve been slaves to a man and a government none of us have ever seen, never will see. We’ve had enough, we’re fighting back.”
“You’re talking about armed revolution,” Nik said. “You’ll never get away with it, you’re too few and they’re too many.”
“I’m willing to fight,” Grisha said. “And it’s because they took my life from me, twice. Not quite as brutally as they took yours,” he said, nodding at Wing, “but they took it just as completely.
“While serving the Czar I, and the men under my command, took the lives of countless men. We never questioned, never asked ‘why?’ because we didn’t care. Now I’ve killed one Cossack and I’m more than willing to kill more. And I know why.”
Part of him stood shocked, aghast at his treason, but the rest of his being cheered as elation filled him.
“Well, by comparison I’ve had it pretty good,” Nik said. “But there’s certainly no love lost between me and the army.”
“So you’ll join us?” Wing asked.
“Conditionally.”
“Good.” She whistled, sounding just like a bird.
Claude came panting up. “There’s someone behind us.”
“How many?” Wing asked.
“Three, four, I’m not sure. They’re good, they don’t break the skyline and they skirt clearings.”
“Who are they?” Nik asked.
“One Cossack for sure, and two or three others. The rest must be promyshlenniks.”
“Damn!” Grisha said.
“They die just like anybody else,” Wing snapped. “This is a perfect place to take them.” She pointed. “Grisha, you take cover behind that fall of birch. Nik, over behind that large rock with the moss. Wait for my shot, then fire at whatever you see.”
They all hurried to their posts. Claude and Wing disappeared to the left. Grisha quietly opened the chamber of the rifle he’d carried from the construction site. Shiny cartridge cases reflected redly in the light.
Algeria seemed a lifetime away. His service to the Czar was a subject carefully blocked from his day-to-day mind. The government had stripped him of two careers. He was ready to try a different tack.
“No,” he hissed softly through clenched teeth. “They can’t do that to me anymore.”
He settled back and waited.
Off to his left he could see Nik. The soldier appeared calm and deadly. Grisha wondered about the man and abruptly realized he wasn’t paying attention.
For long moments he stared first at one tree, watching for movement with his peripheral vision, before shifting his attention to another tree or rock. After ten minutes something flickered at the edge of the trees.
A hundred meters to the left, and right on the trail, a man stepped out in the open. He stopped at the brush line, clearly visible. Red collar flashes identified him as a Cossack.
The Cossack craned his head around, seeking a target. He shrugged and trudged up the slope to where the trail forked, as if hunting rabbits. He didn’t waste a glance at Denali.
Grisha forced his eyes back to where they had been when he first saw the flicker of movement. Nothing. He stared at the spot, waiting. The Cossack irritated him, bouncing up and down at the far edge of his eye.
He was always aware when someone stared at him; the skin on the side of his face, just in front of the ears, would tingle slightly. Suddenly the spot actually itched. A shadow moved at the other corner of his eye.
He swiveled his eyes over and slowly let his head follow. Another movement. Grisha finally made out the shape of a man. The woodsman was huge, with arms the diameter of stovepipe, wearing a great, dark beard that stretched halfway down his chest.
That’s two. Beads of sweat rolled down his face. Where’s the other one, two? He realized that the man on his far right was visible only to him. The others couldn’t know about the promyshlennik because they couldn’t see him.
Slowly he centered his sights on the man’s chest, directly between the shoulders, in the middle of the beard. His target knelt and stared at the Cossack, rifle butt resting on the ground beside him. Although Grisha’s shoulders itched, he ignored the Cossack. The man in the trees was a much more important target.
The promyshlennik suddenly gripped his rifle and rose to a crouch, peering at something.