Dan Smith - Red Winter

Lev was fitting the throatlatch when Anna shouted back to us. ‘They’re coming,’ she said. ‘I see them.’

‘How many?’ I asked, jogging to the door and looking out.

‘Three.’

‘We have to go,’ I said to Lev, seeing three riders in the distance. Not much more than dots on the horizon, made hazy by the mist. ‘You ready?’

‘Let me get my shotgun,’ he said, but I held him back, closing the door and telling him to leave it. There was nothing they needed. Nothing that was worth dying for.

‘Just mount up,’ I said, as I ran to the back of the barn and pulled open the rear door. If we left that way, it would make us invisible from the direction of the advancing riders. We wouldn’t be able to hide our tracks across the steppe behind us, but at least it would earn us a little extra time if they didn’t see us leave. By the time the riders arrived, we would have reached the plateau I spotted earlier. They would probably approach slowly, watching for an ambush, and they would spend a while investigating the farm before discovering our trail. With a bit of luck, we would be in the trees beyond the plateau by then and we could better hide our tracks.

‘Hurry,’ I said, coming back to help Anna onto the horse. I lifted her up and Lev held her as she swung her leg over so she was sitting in front of him. ‘Go.’ I shooed them out of the barn, taking Kashtan’s reins and leading her outside before I shut the door behind us. ‘Come on. Quick.’ I continued to shout commands at them, feeling my nervousness increase with the added responsibility they brought.

I yanked open the back gate and ushered everyone through before closing it behind us and climbing onto Kashtan’s back.

‘As fast as you can,’ I shouted, kicking my heels into Kashtan and holding tight as she broke into a gallop without further persuasion. Like always, she was in tune with my emotions and my needs, and she responded exactly as required.

We raced across the field, Lev and Anna riding well and in close pursuit, and when we passed the dog for a second time, I looked back at him, seeing him change direction and follow once again.

On the other side of the furrowed field, there were patches of hawthorn and elderberry and places where the brambles had grown wild, but Kashtan avoided them, pressing on across the steppe until we came to the rise almost without me having noticed. I brought her to a stop and turned to look back at the farm in the distance, but it was no more than a dark smudge now, made indistinguishable by the trees around it. If I hadn’t known it was there, I would not have spotted it from this angle.

‘Are you both all right?’ I asked as Lev came to a halt beside us.

‘Fine.’ He was out of breath, and his skin was as flushed as Anna’s, both of them almost glowing in the grey and white that surrounded us.

‘Do you have scarfs? You should cover your faces.’

‘We only have what you see,’ Lev said. ‘Everything else is at the farm. We’re lucky to have coats and hats.’

‘Anna’s cap isn’t enough,’ I said.

‘It’s all we have.’ There was a hint of resentment in Lev’s tone.

‘I’m sorry,’ I told him. ‘I’m sorry I ever came to the farm. I’ve dragged you into this now and…’

Lev blinked long and hard, shaking his head. ‘No. I should be thanking you for coming back. We were already in this. Everybody is. You didn’t have to come back for us.’

‘We should keep moving,’ I said. ‘We’re not safe yet.’

I leaned down and patted Kashtan’s neck. ‘Well done.’ I praised my friend and encouraged her to find a good route to pick her way to the top of the rise. In places, it was almost sheer, while in others, the gradient was gentle and easy to navigate, and when we were at the top, we were perhaps ten metres above the part of the steppe we had just ridden across.

The top of the ridge was busy with a confused tangle of twigs and thorns, but we found a way through, coming out onto a steppe that rose into the distance where the forest erupted from its soil once more. Somewhere close to those trees, the road from Belev snaked its way to Dolinsk, and that was where I intended to head next – to follow Tanya and Lyudmila; to find Koschei. There was something I wanted to see, though, before moving on. I needed to assess the scale of what followed in our wake, so I dismounted, knowing we were out of sight from the farm.

I told Lev to stay and rest for a moment, and Kashtan wandered a few paces away, nuzzling the frost, searching for grass, while I went back to the undergrowth, finding a gap and lying down on my stomach. Crystals showered me as I pulled myself through, some finding their way down the back of my neck, but I ignored them and kept moving to the edge of the outcrop. From this elevated position, there was a clear view of the steppe, the farm and the land beyond it.

With the naked eye, it would have been impossible to see the men approaching the farm, but with the binoculars, the shapes were visible on the steppe between the distant forest and the field I had first seen yesterday.

Seven of them, approaching the farm in a line.

I shivered as I watched them, but I was not afraid now as I had been before. In the forest, there had been a sense of the unknown, but now I had confirmation. I was being followed, and that was easier to deal with than not knowing. My concerns were no longer washed in the shadow, and though I was still fearful of being caught, of failing Marianna and the boys and Lev and Anna, those seven riders were men. And men could be outsmarted, or confronted and killed if necessary.

They must have set out at first light; they couldn’t have navigated the dense forest at night, and they were tracking me, which would have been too difficult in the dark. But they had gained ground faster than I had anticipated.

I put the lenses to my eyes again, propping myself on my elbows and watching the figures coming closer to the farm. It was impossible to see them as anything other than riders, and I would have liked to know exactly who they were.

Which of my former comrades had betrayed me?

If I knew that, then perhaps I could face them. I was armed, skilled, and had a good position here on the ridge, but if they were seven men with the skills I had, then a confrontation might not swing in my favour. I would be of no use to Marianna and the boys if I was lying dead in the hoarfrost, waiting for the snow to bury me, and I had Lev and Anna to think about now, waiting just a stone’s throw behind me.

My life would be easier without them and the responsibility I had for them, but it would be poorer in other ways and I was glad they were here. As I watched those seven riders inch across the steppe, I knew I had done the right thing. The men following me would be well armed and expecting trouble – some of them would even be hoping for trouble, as I had once done. They might hardly even have needed an excuse to murder Lev and Anna.

The rider at the centre rode slightly ahead of the others and was the first to reach the gate, but the others were soon alongside him so that all seven riders were in a line facing the yard.

From here to there was a frozen sea of glittering hoarfrost on the thistle and feathergrass and shrubs of the wild steppe. With the wind dying, the mist was thickening, changing the light, threatening to shroud the landscape in a dense cover, and it was impossible even to tell what colour the horses were. They were just dark smudges. The men were faceless shadows and that made them all the more frightening.

As if on command, the men dismounted and came over the fence into the yard. Four broke off to one side, heading to the barn, while the remaining three made their way towards the house.