Джейн Йолен: The Last Tsar's Dragons

“Lenin,” Bronstein said, as firmly as he could. “The dragons are ready.”

“Truly?” Lenin asked, not looking back.

“Yes, Comrade.”

Lenin waited just a beat, nothing more, then said, “Then let them fly.”

Bronstein nodded to Lenin’s back and practically leapt toward the dragons. “Fly!” he shouted. “Let them fly!”

The command was repeated down the line. Talon-boys dashed bravely beneath broad, scaly chests to cut the webbings that held the dragons’ claws together.

“Fly!” Bronstein shouted, and the handlers let slip the rings that held the pronged collars tight to the dragons’ necks, before scurrying back, as the beasts were now free to gnash and nip with teeth the size of scythe blades.

“Fly!” the lashers shouted as they cracked their long whips over the dragons’ heads. But the dragons needed no encouragement. They were made for this. For the night sky, the cool air, the fire from above.

“Fly,” Bronstein said softly as giant wings enveloped the moon, and the Red Terror took to the skies.

The last of the beasts to take flight was the first hatched and the largest, the leader of the brood. Dragons, like modern man it seemed, led from the rear. As the beast stood poised on an outcropping, wings outspread and testing the night air, it craned its long neck back to look directly at Bronstein, who felt a wave of heat and fury wash over him, through him. The heat was the dragon’s, but he recognized the fury as his own. He wanted to burn the country as badly as the dragons did. He wanted to punish them for Siberia. For his people. For himself.

The dragon bared its teeth in a reptilian smile and leapt into the air.

Bronstein suddenly knew that he had indeed spent too long a time with the dragons. I have become them. Their rage. Their fire.

He looked over to Lenin and saw hot fury in his slitted eyes as well.

But he has spent so little time with them…. Another thought, more profound, pushed that one away: Some men are born dragons, and some become them.

And the rest flee or are burnt to ash.

He watched in horror as Lenin turned to Koba. “Release your men to do their duty, as well.” And Koba laughed in answer, waving his hand.

Bronstein saw Koba’s men scurry away and knew for certain that Russia was lost. Releasing the dragons was a mistake; releasing Koba’s men was a disaster. Borutsch had been right all along.

It will be years before we struggle out of these twin terrors from land and sky. What I wanted was a clean start. But this is not it. He shivered in the cold.

I need warmth , he realized suddenly. By that he did not mean a stove in a tunnel, a cup of tea, schnapps. I want palm trees. Soft music. Women with smiling faces. I want to live a long and merry life, with a zaftik wife. He thought of Greece, southern Italy, Mexico. For if the Russian winter cannot quell the hot fury in me, perhaps some southern heat can mask it.

The dragon wings were but a murmur now. And the shouts of men.

In the blackness before dawn, the mad monk’s left index finger moved. It scraped across the ice, and the slight scritching sound it made echoed loud and triumphant in his ears.

He’d lain unmoving for three days.

A peasant child had thrown rocks at him on the second day, trying to ascertain whether the drunk on the ice was alive or dead. The mad monk was surprised when the child didn’t come out on the ice and loot his body. But then he realized why.

The ice was melting.

The days had grown warmer, and the ice was melting. Soon, the mighty Neva would break winter’s grip and flow freely to the Baltic Sea once more. Icy water was already pooling in his best boots and soaking his black velvet trousers. It splashed in his left ear, the one that lay against the ice, and he thought he could feel it seeping through his skin to freeze his very bones.

Terror crept in with the cold as he realized that his attempted murderers would not need to kill him. The river would do their work for them. Drown him as his sister had drowned, or waste him away in fever like his brother. He would have shivered with fear or cold, but he could not move.

Night fell, and for the first time, Father Grigori felt the terror of the mortals he’d ministered to. Through the night, he felt like Jesus on the cross, his iron faith wavering. Why hast thou forsaken me?

The night brought no answer, just more cold water in his boots. More icy water in his beard. More cold seeping into his bones.

But then, before dawn, the finger.

If one finger can move, the rest can as well.

And putting thought to deed, he moved the index finger on his other hand. Moved it as if he’d never been hurt, tapping it on the ice, once, twice, a third time. His spirits soared as the sun broke the horizon, and with a great effort, he bent up at the waist, levering himself to a sitting position. He was sore. He was cold. Every bit of his body ached. But he was alive. And moving!

However, he was also very tired, and he decided not to try to stand quite yet. Facing the rising sun, he waited for the heat to reach him.

“When I am warmed straight through,” he said, his voice calm despite the creaking and popping of his stiff limbs, “I shall go ashore and deal with Felix and the others.”

Watching the sun rise and turn from red to gold, he saw a flock of birds pass before it. A big flock of birds, not just in size, but in number, hundreds of them, casting long shadows across the ice.

What are those? he thought. Egrets leaving their roost? But it was winter. There were no egrets here.

And the birds were too big.

Even from far away, he could tell they were huge. Larger even than the Siberian golden eagles he had hunted with in his youth.

Suddenly, he knew he was too late. He’d lain on the ice too long. And Lenin had come to loose the Red Terror on the land.

Now staring in horror, he watched the flock move closer, revealing red scales and leathery wings, smoke curling from their nostrils.

He made a small cry, like a rabbit in extremis, and struggled to stand. But the movement that had come so easily just moments before was a trial now. His limbs cried in protest and refused to budge. Despite straining and sweating, he’d only achieved an ungainly half-crouch when the dragons were upon him.

The lead dragon swooped in low and swatted him aside with its forefoot. He went skittering across the ice, feeling his ribs shatter. Crawling for the shore, his fingernails broke on the ice as he dragged himself along far too slowly.

Finally— finally— he was able to shiver. But this was in fear. He no longer felt cold. Terror rushed hot in his blood.

A shadow enveloped him, and he looked up into the black eyes of a hovering dragon. Before he could react, the dragon’s talons shot toward him, and one long claw pierced him through the chest, pinning him to the ice. It looked as if it were laughing at him, its teeth filling its horrible great mouth. He tried to scream, but suddenly he had no breath. Lungs pierced, he could only stare stupidly as the dragon’s wingbeats slowed and it landed on the ice beside him, as gently as any songbird.

But the dragon was no songbird, and the ice shattered under its weight. Water splashed the beast’s belly, and it roared its displeasure, flapping madly trying to get aloft. Then it belched out a lash of fire, which further melted the ice around itself and the ice below Rasputin.

When the dragon managed to lift out of the water, it slowly shook itself free of water and prey at the same time. The wind from the dragon’s wings was so strong, it pushed Father Grigori Rasputin over the melting edge of ice and down into the dark water.