Dan Smith - Red Winter

The only advantage I had now was speed. Kashtan was rested and fresh. She had slept and eaten well and felt like a new animal. My pursuers would be tired from their night in the forest. The cold would be gnawing at them just as it was gnawing at their horses.

I pulled a scarf over my mouth and spurred Kashtan into a gallop, hoping the cold night had not darkened my pursuers’ tempers or else Lev and Anna would bear the brunt of it. I leaned into her, watching her head bobbing, her mane rippling, as we rushed past the clusters of trees that stood like sentinels, leaning away from the prevailing wind, unclothed and stark against the clear sky and the glistening grass. The cold wind was hard on me, like riding through something more solid than air, and I narrowed my eyes, feeling the tears squeezing out and freezing in the creases in my skin.

As I moved with Kashtan, confident to let her race on and choose the best route ahead, I began to wonder if I should have brought Lev and Anna with me. If anything happened to them, it would lay on my conscience, but I told myself I had my own family to consider, and they had to come first. Lev and Anna would slow me down, giving my hunters time to make ground, and if something happened to me, Marianna and the boys would have no one to come for them. They would be left alone to their fate, just as Lev and Anna were now left alone to theirs. I’d had to choose between my own family and another.

A teacher and a little girl.

And if the people who were coming to their place of refuge knew who I was – if they were men who had learned of my attempted deception and had followed me from the village where Alek and I had left our uniforms – then they were hunters of men. They were torturers and murderers. Violent individuals charged with the dispersal of terror. Not unlike the men I was following; the men who had taken the peasants of Belev into the forest and…

I pulled back on Kashtan’s reins and called to her, telling her to slow down. I rose in the saddle and twisted to look back at the farm. There was no sign of Lev and Anna, but they would be there, waiting for the approach of the devils. I knew now, just as I had known when I left, that they were not safe. I had done a terrible thing. Though I had tried to ignore it, I had known that if the men following me were the kind I expected them to be, they would not ride past and leave Lev and Anna alone. They would execute them for their collusion with a counter-revolutionary. A deserter. They would show no mercy. They would do what they had probably done a hundred times. They would kill and burn.

I had left them to die.

The seconds passed like hours as these things went through my mind. The cold air clawed at my throat, and the ice crackled around my eyes. I felt the ghost of Lev’s embrace and saw Anna looking up at me that last time.

‘We have to go back,’ I said to Kashtan, and though I could hardly believe I was going to do it, I felt a great joy in it. They would make me slow. They would be a responsibility I didn’t need, but I couldn’t leave them. I couldn’t go on to find my own family knowing I had left another behind to die.

I turned Kashtan and gave her the spur, pushing her hard so that we raced through the hoarfrost. The wind was cruel in my eyes as I watched for any sign of the rider Lev had seen, but so far, there was nothing.

There was a thickening mist that obscured the trees on the distant horizon, but I could still see a little way beyond the farm to the empty steppe. If the rider had been an advance scout, he would have returned for the rest of his party. He must have seen Lev and thought it might be me, preparing an ambush for them. He knew who I was and would not want to approach alone. Or perhaps they had split up to follow my confused trail through the forest and he was waiting for the others to catch up. Whatever the reason, I was glad for it, and I lifted my eyes to the sky and prayed once more to the God I had never trusted.

I asked Him to find us more time, to slow the riders down, and if He didn’t help, then to hell with Him. I would deal with it myself.

Halfway back, Kashtan’s hooves pounding, I spotted the dog following the flattened path of our trail. He had stopped, ears pricked and neck stretched, his whole body alert.

‘Wrong way, dog,’ I shouted as we reached him, forcing him to leap out of our way. ‘We left something behind.’

He turned his head as he watched us pass; then he was behind us and out of sight.

Kashtan felt my urgency and she didn’t let up, crossing the field at a gallop. She was probably glad for the chance to run without the restriction of the forest she’d had to cope with so much these past days.

Once across the field, she cleared the fence in an easy jump, and then her hooves were thumping on the compacted dirt of the yard and I was shouting for Lev and the girl.

‘Come out,’ I called as Kashtan turned in a circle, snorting with excitement. ‘It’s me. Kolya.’

I took Kashtan towards the rear of the barn and dismounted as Lev and Anna came out of the farmhouse. I pulled open the barn door and took Kashtan inside.

‘What’s going on?’ Lev asked, running in behind me. ‘I thought you—’

‘Close the door. You have to come with me,’ I said, grabbing tack from an armature on the wall. ‘Get this on your horse. Now.’ I thrust the saddle into his arms and went to Anna. ‘I want you to go to the door and open it just enough to look out, do you understand?’

She nodded.

‘Good. Now, it’s important you don’t go outside. Just open it a crack – enough to watch the horizon – and if you see anyone there, let me know straight away, all right?’

Anna nodded again and ran to the door.

‘What the hell is this, Kolya?’ Lev asked when I returned to him. He kept his voice quiet so as not to alarm Anna, but I could hear the edge in it. He worked as he spoke, lifting the saddle onto the horse’s back, setting it in the right position over the pad that was already in place.

‘Is she fast?’ I asked. ‘Your horse.’

‘Fast enough for what?’

‘You were wrong,’ I told him, taking the front cinch. ‘What you said about just being a peasant and his daughter. If the man you saw was one of the men I think are following me…’ I pulled the cinch tight under the horse’s belly and looked up at him. ‘If he was one of them, there will be more. And they won’t be forgiving. You helped me. You could die for that.’

Lev stopped what he was doing and stared at me. ‘Who are you?’

‘Keep working,’ I told him. ‘Get the bridle on.’

He didn’t move right away. Something was going through his mind, and I was sure I knew what it was. He was thinking about how I had left them, knowing what might happen to them.

‘The bridle,’ I said, looking up. ‘We don’t have time for—’

It was Anna who brought it, hurrying back from the door and snatching up the bridle as she came. She thrust it into her father’s hands, saying, ‘We’ll be all right, Papa.’

‘Yes, we will,’ I told her.

‘Kolya came back to help us,’ she said.

‘Right. Now get back there and keep watch. And you need to get that bridle on. Quickly.’

As Anna returned to the door, Lev did as I asked, putting the bit between the horse’s teeth and slipping the bridle over her head.

‘I’m sorry. I told myself you’d be all right.’ I bent to take the rear cinch and fasten it. ‘I listened to what you said and let myself believe you were right.’

‘What changed?’ The horse resisted the bridle as if she felt the tension in us, but Lev held her steady.

‘I had time to think about it,’ I said, standing and checking the saddle was firm. ‘And I realised you were wrong. I was wrong. I’m sorry. Sorry for putting you in danger.’