David Robbins - Last Citadel

Leonid breathed hard. He left the dagger in the guard and stood, teetering, emptied of rage and strength. Katya caught him before he sank beside the corpse. There were only seconds left until the rest of the German garrison hurried to this little blue house on the edge of the village to investigate the gunshots.

The door burst open.

Josef filled the opening. His pistol was leveled. The old partisan stepped into the bare room. His mitts were bloody. He took in the dead German with one glance, saw the rips in the soldier’s chest and the spreading pool beneath him, and raised an eyebrow at Katya. Without a word, he moved to Filip on the floor. He gathered the old man to his feet.

‘Can you ride, old man?’

Filip made no reply. Supported by Josef, he scowled and tested his wounded hip with a few struggling steps.

Katya led Leonid toward the open door. The clatter of saddles and horseshoes swirled in the street outside. He hesitated in Katya’s grasp.

‘Leonya, we’ve got to hurry’

‘The rest of the garrison is coming,’ Josef added with urgency. ‘We have to get out now.’

‘No,’ Leonid said, resisting Katya’s tugs. He twisted in her arms, pointing behind him into the house, at a closed door. ‘A woman. In that room. Another… prisoner.’

Josef left Filip. The starosta hobbled standing alone, favoring his right side. His trousers were torn below the belt where the bullet caught him. Josef sprang to the closed door.

‘Get them outside,’ he ordered Katya. ‘The horses are there.’

In that instant, gunfire spat from the rear of the building. The shots were answered by others, farther away, burps of bullets from German weapons. Ivan’s voice drilled through the walls and the rifle reports, ‘Dammit, Witch, get out of the house!’

Ivan was holding off the approaching German troops. Daniel must be outside with the horses and the German prisoner and Nikolai. Josef crashed into the back room. Katya impelled Leonid forward.

Daniel appeared on the porch, his pistol raised. In that moment, Josef emerged from the room with a woman clinging to his arm. She was starved and frail, her skirt and blouse stained; she’d been a beautiful girl before the abuse she suffered in this house. Now she was a dirty wraith.

The gun battle at the rear of the house surged. Ivan shouted again to Katya, firing his carbine.

In the bright doorway, Daniel did not lower his pistol. He looked across the room, past the corpse on the floor and the spilled chair and blood at the girl wavering on Josef’s arm. She said something, too weak for Katya to hear over the gunshots outside.

Daniel aimed the pistol at Josef.

‘Let her go,’ he said.

Josef stepped forward, drawing the feeble girl close. Filip gimped backward from Daniel’s raised gun until he stood beside Josef and the girl.

‘This is your wife,’ Josef said.

Daniel answered, ‘We’re taking two horses. Let her go.’

Katya tensed. Outside the horses nickered, frightened by the gunfire coming quicker and closer. Leonid swayed on her arm, bewildered. The girl looked at Daniel with frenzied eyes, confused. Why was her husband aiming a gun at the people who’d come with him to rescue her and the poor Soviet pilot?

She got her answer when Katya spoke.

‘You’re the spy in the cell,’ she said.

‘Shut up, Witch.’

The girl’s face twitched. She tried to move to her husband but Josef would not release her. Daniel took a step closer, sighting down his pistol at Josef’s head.

‘Let us go, Josef. Please.’

Katya thought of all the dead betrayed for this man’s wife. Their deaths choked the room, partisans and Witches. Leonid, nearly beaten to death. And herself, almost killed beside the tracks when Daniel told Ivan to blow the charge. She had no weapon, the knife was plunged in the German.

‘Please, Josef,’ Daniel said again, cocking his head, and Katya knew these would be his last words before shooting.

Filip hobbled, the only motion in the room. He slipped himself sideways in front of the girl.

‘You asked me if I can ride,’ he said over his shoulder to Josef, staring at the little mouth of Daniel’s gun.

‘No,’ the starosta said.

With that, Filip dragged himself in front of Josef. Behind him the old partisan flashed his pistol up. The girl screamed and Daniel fired. Josef’s gun roared, and for an exploding moment the two fired at each other across the barren room. Then Daniel crashed down, his chest dotted with three punctures. Filip fell next.

The gunfight outside the house broke off. Heavy steps pounded onto the porch. Big Ivan bolted into the room, his rifle ready. He stood dumb at what he found.

The girl had thrown up her hands in terror, still screaming. Josef let her loose. He knelt beside Filip. The elder croaked something with lifted head and fists balled in Josef’s coat. The girl stifled. Katya heard the starosta mutter, she caught only his brother’s name. Filip released Josef. The old man sighed and sagged to the floor.

Josef did not pause. He leaped and came to Katya to take Leonid from her, hurrying the pilot out the door, past thunderstruck Ivan. Katya followed. The girl was left behind, rigid in her horror pose, staring without believing at Daniel, the dead traitor, her hero.

Katya shoved Ivan out the door. Leonid was already in a saddle. Josef moved fast to get onto his own horse. Ivan lumbered to his mount. Katya stared across the wide steppe, at the two dust clouds roiling behind the hiwi Nikolai and the escaping prisoner Breit, galloping away.

Katya flew into her saddle. Down the street a rifle snapped, a bullet whizzed past. All the riders kicked their horses and bolted. Katya saw how Leonid rode, not well and barely steady. Ivan stayed close beside him. The four riders lit out into the fields, the thud of rifles bit beneath their hoofbeats. The hiwi and the German absconded in different directions, both away from Kazatskoe. Nikolai scurried back to his home village. Breit ran anywhere, away from the partisans, away from the village where the guards, his countrymen, were shooting at everything on horseback.

The guards fired after the partisans for seconds but hit none of them through the dust billows rising behind the horses. Katya kept her eyes on fading Nikolai and, farther to the north, Breit, doing his best to stay in the saddle.

She pulled alongside Josef.

‘Give me my pistol!’ she shouted.

Josef glanced past his bouncing shoulder at the receding village, at Filip. He reached into his waistband and took out her gun. He handed it over across the bounding neck of his own horse.

‘Go get the prisoner!’

Katya cut her eyes to Nikolai, then to Breit. She could catch either of them easily.

Josef shouted again, reading her expression.

‘We have orders, Witch! The German!’

‘No!’

Old dark Josef took one more look over his shoulder, to the little house where the brave starosta clutched him and spoke his last wish. He’d heard Filip’s last bloody whisper, the traitorous twin Nikolai’s name, and what else?

Katya turned to wheel her horse away Nikolai and Breit grew more distant by the second.

Josef looked out to Nikolai. There was no more time to choose between vendetta and his orders.

‘Go!’ Josef shouted. ‘I’ll deal with fucking Plokhoi. Go!’

‘Take care of Leonid! I’ll catch you!’

With that, Katya yanked Lana’s head around. The horse responded like a dzhigitka mount, digging in her hooves and whirling quick and nimble. Katya clamped tight with her thighs and struck a furious pace straight at Nikolai. She tucked herself low over Lana’s lathering neck, clicking and urging the horse, ‘ Tick, tick, hiya!’ absorbing the pumping and pounding of the animal, swelling with it to do the murder that grew closer with every reach of Lana’s long strides.