Dan Smith - Red Winter

Anna wiped the mouth of it with her gloved palm. ‘He could have stayed at the train. There were people there.’ She tipped back her head and took a sip.

‘True.’

‘So I think it’s because he likes us. Likes you .’

‘Me?’

‘He can see that you’re nice.’

‘Come on,’ I said, replacing the cap. ‘Let’s get moving.’

We followed the women’s tracks, always looking, always aware. I stopped from time to time to scan the surroundings with the binoculars, but never for long. There was a constant fear of danger here, just as there had been in the forest, but this was different. In there, it was the imaginary that played on my mind. It was the shadows and the creak of the trees in the wind. It was the dark fingers of the forest that inspired a more primeval fear. Out here on the steppe, it was the sharpshooter’s bullet that concerned me, the scouts of an approaching unit, and I was growing more and more conscious of the riders who might be following. While I was pleased to have caught up with Tanya and Lyudmila, and hoped they might have more information about the man we were following, I was concerned that the devils on our heels may catch up too.

The women had reached the part of the steppe that levelled out towards Dolinsk and they had split up, moving in opposite directions to investigate the outskirts of the town before they went in. There was a chance that Koschei was still there, or perhaps some other army had garrisoned the town for its own purposes, although there was no immediate evidence of that.

Spying the women in the distance, I watched them trot away from each other and approach the town. They looked as if they knew what they were doing and I was reminded of how well they worked together. If I had been down there with my brother, we might have used the same tactic to approach Dolinsk.

I moved the binoculars up to study the town. We were closer now, everything was clearer in the lenses, and the buildings were better magnified. The stone homes at the edge closest to me were sturdy and standing intact, but some of them were in ruins, perhaps struck by stray artillery fire as if the town had been caught in the crossfire between two forces. There were wooden izbas that were little more than blackened piles of charred logs.

‘Looks like they had some bad luck,’ I said.

‘Was it Koschei?’ Anna asked. ‘Has he been here?’

‘He’s not responsible for all the bad in the world.’

‘But those farms…’

‘This looks different… bigger. I think there were a lot of men here. Some kind of battle, but it must have happened a while ago, judging by the way it’s been cleared up.’

Anna tensed in front of me and sat up straight in the saddle. ‘There’s something there.’ She raised a hand and pointed into the distance. ‘Further away.’

Kashtan snorted and shifted beneath me again, eager to move on, but I held her steady.

‘Where?’ I narrowed my eyes.

‘There.’ Anna gestured with her small, gloved hand, stretching her arm further as if it might help. ‘Something in the distance. Behind the town.’

‘You have good eyes,’ I said, raising the binoculars to look at the horizon. ‘Is that… ?’

Beyond Dolinsk, the steppe stretched into the distance, the expanse of frosted fields broken by solitary trees standing guard, and at the limit of my vision, where the fields met the pale winter sky, there was movement on the horizon. Dark, indistinct patches coming into view.

I focused on Tanya and Lyudmila once again, judging their distance from Dolinsk. They were almost there, coming back towards each other as if they had decided the town was safe, riding side by side as they made their final approach. They wouldn’t be able to see beyond the roofs now. They had no idea that something was coming.

Looking back at the horizon, it was difficult to know for sure what I was looking at, but I could make a good guess. It was shadowy and ill defined, but it was growing, lengthening like a snake uncoiling itself from an unseen lair beyond the horizon.

‘That looks like a column to me,’ I said. ‘What do you think? You’re the one with the good eyes.’ I held the binoculars in front of Anna and let her take them.

‘Soldiers?’ she asked. ‘Looks like… lots of soldiers.’

Kashtan took a step forward, her ears turning, listening.

‘Soldiers,’ I agreed, taking the binoculars.

I estimated the column might be ten kilometres away, but it was difficult to be sure. They weren’t moving quickly, but they were fast enough for me to see the line growing as it marched down into the bowl of the steppe, straight towards Dolinsk. Longer and longer it grew, wider and wider.

‘There’s a lot of them,’ I whispered. ‘A small army.’ If they rode into Dolinsk, they would run straight into Tanya and Lyudmila. ‘I wonder what colour they are.’

‘Does it matter?’ Anna asked.

I packed the binoculars back into the saddlebag. ‘You ready to hold on to your cap, Anna?’

She reached up and tugged it down hard.

‘How about you, Tuzik?’ He was lying in the grass with his chin between his paws. ‘You ready for a good run?’

‘Are we going to go fast?’ Anna looked back at me.

‘Yes, we are. Hold tight.’

I spurred Kashtan into a trot and then pushed her into a gallop. She didn’t need too much encouragement, and she was surefooted as she thundered through the grass, hooves pounding the frozen dirt.

I leaned forward and kept low, holding tight to the reins and pressing Anna lower to Kashtan’s neck. I had to get to Tanya. She and Lyudmila would not have seen the army; they would enter Dolinsk thinking it safe. Perhaps even the people of Dolinsk, as many or few as they were, would not spot the advancing soldiers until it was too late for them to do anything. There was a chance the army meant them no harm, but it was unlikely that such a large body of fighters would pass the town without stopping to strip it clean of food and provisions.

There was little I could do for the town or its inhabitants other than warn them, but I had to get Tanya and Lyudmila away. They might have information I needed.

I urged Kashtan faster, feeling the cold air biting at my face and the tears streaming from the corners of my eyes. My kit rattled and jangled, Kashtan’s breathing resounded about me, and I felt every step she took. At first, Tuzik kept up, his long legs a black blur, but he tired quickly at that pace and soon fell behind.

‘Come on, girl,’ I shouted as we raced down into the bottom of the steppe, squinting to see the dark shapes ahead that were Tanya and Lyudmila.

Kashtan gave everything she had. She was sweating hard despite the cold, her breath steaming.

By the time Tanya and Lyudmila were out of sight among the houses, Kashtan began to slow. She had done everything she could, so I let her drop to a walking pace. We had gained good ground, though, and as we reached the bottom of the valley, the houses and buildings of Dolinsk grew in front of us, stretching outwards to replace the steppe beyond. Those solitary trees and the approaching soldiers were now obscured, and all that was visible were the stone houses, the izbas and the pale blue church dome at the far end of town.

I reached back and fumbled a rag from my kit, passing it to Anna, saying, ‘Dry her neck. It’s freezing out here.’

Anna was used to horses. She wiped the sweat from Kashtan’s coat without complaint as we pressed on, and I saw the care she took with it, rubbing the cloth along the horse’s neck, careful to move with direction of her coat.

We had reached the outskirts of Dolinsk by the time she had finished and I put the rag away, telling Anna to take the reins for a moment. She barely had to do anything – Kashtan was following the road – but Anna was confident to do as I asked, keeping us moving towards the town. I took off my gloves and dug the revolver from my pocket. I held it behind Anna’s back, pointing out into the fields as I opened the cylinder and checked the load. The rifle would have been better – it had a shortened barrel that made it good for use from horseback – but I had given it to Lev and now it was in the hands of the men who had caught him.