Citadels of Fire

by L.K. Hill

  Chapter 26

  Taras dressed in a hurry and joined Nikolai, while Inga hurried off to see where Yehvah would need her. Ivan had called in the army to help. None of the boyars would need to fight the fire yet. If it wasn’t put out soon, they might have to.

  The army was divided by battalion and sent to anticipate the flames. Taras led his battalion south. They crossed the Moskva River, using the bridge at Serpukhov Road, and made a stand between the tsar’s orchards and gardens.

  Reports said the fire began in a cathedral on Arbat Street. That was a busy district, full of people at market by now. By the time Taras reached his position, the fire had burned for more than an hour. Already, miles of land were charred. The wind blew with startling ferocity. When Taras gazed west, he could see tongues of flames leaping over the Kremlin Wall. From within, flames sprung up so high, Taras could see them above the wall, and the wind urged them on.

  Taras set his men to digging trenches and filling them with water, hoping to save the vegetable gardens. The flames came too quickly. Every time they poured a bucket of water onto the ground, it dried up in seconds, sucked into the parched earth. The fertile soil became desiccated sand in a matter of minutes.

  Thick, pungent smoke filled the air. Taras’s breath grated in the back of his throat. Tearing a strip of material from his coat, he leaned down from Jasper, who stood knee-deep in the Moskva River, and soaked the cloth. Then he wrapped the wet material around his nose and mouth, tying it at the back of his neck. Several of his men followed suit. Seconds later, they were forced to retreat or become fuel for the flames.

  They fell back to the orchards, still hoping to save them. Taras dismounted and worked side by side with his men, trying to create a moat around the perimeter. He set others to throw water on the trees, hoping it would make them more resistant to the flames.

  It didn’t.

  The fire marched right up to the orchard and jumped the moat.

  “Everyone out of the orchard!” he shouted, trying desperately to keep his voice confident and authoritative.

  They ran. The first leaf caught fire. Within seconds, the entire tree—trunk, branches, leaves, and fruit—were ablaze. The trunk split jaggedly down the center with a strident crack, and the two halves fell asunder, each lying down over several rows of trees. As the last few men dove out of the orchard, Taras watched the fire tumble through the rows of trees faster than a horse could run.

  “Nothing more we can do here.” Taras shouted to be heard above the roar of the flames. “The fire can’t go farther east. It will hit the marshlands.”

  He peered over his shoulder. Light and shadows played against what little of the inner Kremlin Wall he could see.

  “Into the city!” Taras ordered, thinking fast. The men exchanged worried glances. “We must fight the flames from within. People are dying in there. Be smart about it—let the fire have its fuel, as long as the fuel is not living. Stay low, under the smoke. It’s easier to breathe there. We must save Moscow!”

  The men stood a little straighter as he spoke. When he finished, they all stood straight-backed and ready to march. He rode at their head until they reached the gate. Then he dismounted.

  Jasper would have to fend for himself now. He stood a much greater chance of survival outside the walls. The question was whether Taras would find him again after the fire. Pushing on Jasper’s neck until he moved away, Taras followed his men into the city.

  As overpowering as the stench outside the city had been, inside smelled infinitely worse. The smoke pressed against his lungs, suffocating. Beneath the burning wood, something infinitely worse lurked: burned flesh and hair.

  A large mound to Taras’s right blazed, sending a pillar of black smoke heavenward. He assumed it to be a stack of hay. The stench coming off it made him gag. Suddenly the stack moved and let out a contorted, agonized whinny. It was a horse, enveloped in spiraling flames.

  Wishing he could help, but knowing the animal couldn’t be saved, Taras moved on. Every building blazed, full of people inside screaming for help. Surely the entire city couldn't be like this.

  Taras ran to the nearest building. A tiny box made of thin, dry wood—the kind that burned the quickest. The only way out was through the storefront. An angrily burning curtain framed it.

  Determined to rescue the people inside, Taras searched for some tool to use. Nothing. No ax, no hammer. He hadn’t even brought his sword with him. What good could a blade do against flames?

  He found a rock the size of a medium pumpkin with a jagged protrusion on one side. The rock burned hot, but his thick gloves protected him from the worst of its heat. Going to the side of the structure, he bashed the wall with all his might. Starting at his back knee, he swung his entire body in an arc, throwing all his weight into it. On the seventh blow, he broke through. Air from inside came out in a whoosh, scorching the side of his face. He fell back, covering his eyes. After a moment, he regained his composure and continued digging with the rock until the hole grew large enough to fit a person through.

  A woman fell through it, each hand holding onto a small child. She was barely conscious. Her husband came behind her, pushing her through. Grabbing her firmly around the waist, Taras dragged her, along with the two children, away from the flames. The man emerged, patting his beard to put out the embers that nestled there.

  “Thank you, sir.” The man fell to his knees when he reached Taras and took his hands. “Thank you for your kindness.” The man sobbed, but his eyes were dry. There was simply too much heat for tears here.

  “Don’t thank me yet. Your family isn’t out of danger. The flames are too alive.” Taras hadn’t meant anything in particular by it, but the man latched onto what he’d said.

  “Yes. Alive. The serdechniki. They are in the flames.”

  “What?”

  “The ghouls. They are removing people’s souls, soaking them in water and sprinkling the city with it. That water has magic to set everything it touches to flame. How do you think the flame spread so fast? How do you think it has the power to jump so?” The man motioned upward and Taras looked.

  When the flames jumped from structure to structure, they bent themselves into strange, man-like shapes, as though possessed of demons; like the fire indeed lived.

  Taras shivered, despite the heat, then shook himself. He had no idea if dark spirits were at work here, but now was not the time for discussion.

  Up ahead, the street intersected one of the main roads. People ran past, all heading in the same direction.

  “Look,” he pointed, “there. Can you get your family there? Follow the other people. They may be headed toward water or a safe place.”

  The man nodded, thanked Taras again, and scooped up his wife. She'd partially regained consciousness. He set her feet firmly on the ground and put an arm around her waist. With his other hand, he took both of his children’s wrists and towed his family toward the wider street. Taras watched until they disappeared into the smoke.

  The family's shop had become a fireball. The buildings all around it blazed too. It was too hot to stay here. Putting his eyes on the ground, Taras listened. The roar of the flames came and went like the waves of the ocean. When it hit a low point, Taras heard a woman screaming. He moved toward her voice, weaving in and out of burning structures.

  After ten minutes of searching, he found her: a woman around his age, leaning out a second story window above the street. Flames ravaged the building below her. The ground floor roared with fire, leaving the woman besieged. At any moment the floor of the second level would give way, and she would fall into the inferno beneath.

  He waved to her as he hurried over. As soon as she saw him, she disappeared. When she reappeared, she held a bundle in her arms. Taras couldn’t see clearly from this distance, but by the way she held it close to her chest, in the crook of her elbow, he guessed it was an infant.

  “Please, sir. Catch.”

  “Wait!” Taras shouted.

  She had alre
ady let go, and Taras stood nowhere near the falling object. Vaulting into a run, he crossed the intervening space in slow motion, arms outstretched. He prayed God would save the child. It neared the ground now, and Taras didn't have time to be precise. He prayed he would somehow collide with the small bundle. Long before his eyes caught up with his brain, something solid landed against his fingertips. It bounced, allowing him to fall to his knees and pull it roughly into his arms.

  Falling forward, Taras touched his chest to the ground in relief. He pulled back the threadbare, soot covered material. The child peeked up at him with large eyes. He couldn’t tell whether it was a boy or a girl. Its eyes moved about, caught by the color and movement of the dancing flames. It didn’t move. Or cry. He had caught it, yes, but not gently. The child’s neck had not been protected. A worry for another time.

  “Sir.” Taras peered upward. The woman stood at the window, holding a child a year or two older than the infant.

  “Wait.” He held up his hand. He needed to find somewhere to lay the baby. The only place not engulfed in flames was a spot of bare ground, equidistant from all burning structures. Taras rested his palm on the stone. It was hot. Taking off his coat, he put it down first, then the child on top of it, and returned to the window.

  He caught the toddler much more easily. He set the child—a boy—on the ground and pointed to the baby. The boy seemed to understand and waddled precariously to his younger sibling. He plopped onto his backside next to the baby, feet out in front of him, staring at the inferno raging around him.

  Taras glanced up again. The woman already dangled another child, five or six years old and obviously a girl, out the window. He held out his arms and caught her. She weighed more than the younger children, and catching her nearly knocked him off his feet. He set her down and looked up yet again.

  The woman climbed out now, and he breathed with relief. Beneath her the building groaned. She climbed down and hung by her fingertips, falling a shorter distance than her children. Taras could do little more than break her fall, rather than catching her, and they both ended up in a heap. He tried to help her up. She stayed on her knees, thanking him and kissing his hands.

  “Please, no time for that now,” Taras shouted over the roaring flames “We must get your children to safety.”

  The oldest child had picked up the baby and held it expertly in the crook of one arm. She grasped the toddler’s hand with the other. The woman ran to her and picked up the toddler. Together they ran toward the main street. Taras jogged behind them.

  As they moved away, a loud crash behind them announced the final collapse of the woman’s home. Taras did not look back.

  He'd saved two families, but there were dozens he had not. The screams in this part of the city died, drowned by the roar of the flames. Perhaps the fire roared because it was alive with all the souls it had taken. It trapped and cocooned them, the flames enveloping them like a spider with its web, and sucked their life away.

  Taras and the little family met a larger group of people, all pushing in the same direction. The woman and her children disappeared into the smoke and the crowd.

  “Taras!” a familiar voice cried.

  Taras turned to see Nikolai standing ten feet away, covered in soot and blood, as Taras suspected he was. Nikolai’s clothes were torn and dirty. The right shoulder of his shirt had been burned completely off, and the flesh beneath had bubbled and puckered.

  The two men grasped elbows when they met. Taras felt relief at seeing Nikolai alive, though he'd not thought about him since the fire started.

  “Come.” Nikolai jerked his head in the direction he'd been going. “I could use your help. Children are trapped.”

  Taras fell in beside him as they trotted into the heart of the city. The temperature rose as they neared the center.

  “The cathedrals and churches double as orphanages and schools,” Nikolai explained as they went. “Hundreds of children are trapped inside them.”

  “The tsar. Has he been—?”

  “Evacuated. Yes. To Sparrow Hills, outside the city. The fire has jumped the Kremlin Wall. Parts of the palace are burning.”

  Taras stopped in his tracks. Three paces further on Nikolai turned around, surprised to find Taras no longer beside him.

  “The palace is burning?”

  “Yes. Come. We cannot stop.” Nikolai urged, his voice thick with impatience.

  Taras moved forward again. The palace? That meant . . . Inga. Taras fell in beside Nikolai again. An icy hand gripped his heart. He could do nothing for Inga now. If the tsar had been evacuated, others might have been too. Even if he went looking, he might not find her. Besides, Yehvah would look after Inga. She always did.

  Taras and Nikolai worked side by side for the rest of the afternoon. They smashed windows and lifted children out of burning buildings. The work was exhausting—beyond exhausting—but everywhere they turned, more people needed help, compelling them on.

  Often the children and other adults in the cathedrals would cluster around the windows, awaiting rescue. Taras, Nikolai, and the other rescuers moved as fast as they could. Too often they could not get everyone out before the flames reached them. When that happened, the monks acted as human walls against the fire. Taras hauled people out through a window as fast as he could, while behind them the holy men were eaten alive by the flames. The smell of charred flesh became so strong, he turned his head and vomit, even as he worked.

  Scorched corpses piled up around them as the day wore on. When people were rescued, they hurried off to safety, but Taras didn't know where that was.

  As darkness came on, Taras and Nikolai, still working side by side, came upon an enormous wooden cathedral. It looked familiar to Taras, and he thought he ought to know its name, but couldn’t recall. Exhaustion, dehydration, and bleary vision slowed him.

  Flames ravaged the roof of the cathedral but had yet to climb the outer walls. The building next door was a bonfire of snarling flames. It had collapsed against the cathedral door, trapping the people inside. Flames on the inside cast silhouettes of trapped people against the windows. The windows of this cathedral sat higher than most, and the soldiers couldn't reach them. They tried to stack things up to climb, but anything that could be stacked had already burned. What little they found buckled under their weight.

  Taras circled the building, looking for another way in. The heat pushed in on him so heavily that he feared his head would collapse in on itself. They would not survive long in this furnace. Taras fell into a crouch. The air at ground level felt cooler by a scant degree. Even down here, breathing was difficult.

  “We cannot go farther in.” Nikolai’s voice in his ear surprised Taras. He hadn’t realized Nikolai followed him around the building. “The middle of the city is a giant furnace, and it’s expanding. After this cathedral, we head back out and hope we make it alive.”

  Taras nodded. They gazed up at the cathedral. Taras couldn’t see a way in. The silhouettes visible against the glass were too small to be adults. He looked around. On the other side of the street, something glinted in the firelight. Rising into the suffocating heat, he walked quickly toward it. It turned out to be a pair of razor sharp daggers, lying on a bed of hay.

  Taras had an idea. The cathedral was built entirely of wood. Walking past Nikolai to the wall of the building, he thrust one dagger into the wood at waist-height.

  “Help me.” Raising his foot, he pushed his weight onto the dagger and lifted himself up. Nikolai held his middle, keeping Taras fast against the side of the building. He thrust the second dagger into the wood higher up. Once he got his other foot onto that dagger, he would be able to lift himself up to the windowpane. He got his foot up, but as he reached for the window, something grabbed his belt and yanked him down.

  Taras hardly knew what happened. He fell, the air was driven from his lungs, and he found himself ten feet from the cathedral. Sitting up, he shook his head, trying to clear it. Nikolai sat next to him, hand still on Taras�
�s belt.

  “What are you—?”

  The crash drowned out the rest of his question. A horse-sized chunk of roof, alive with flame and crawling with embers, fell right where he'd been climbing. If Nikolai hadn’t pulled Taras out of the way, he’d be dead and burning by now.

  Taras ought to thank Nikolai, but couldn’t. He let his head hang and shut his eyes. His shoulders felt like granite cobblestones, as though he were shackled to this piece of ground and he’d never rise again.

  Voices came around the corner. They belonged to the men who'd been trying to get in on the other side.

  “We can’t get in. The roof is coming down. Any ideas?”

  “No.” Nikolai answered.

  A crash from inside the cathedral told them that the roof was coming down in there as well. Many of the screams from inside went silent. The silhouettes near the windows pounded harder and screamed louder. An adult might have broken the glass. These were obviously children.

  The small group of men stood silently watching outside, defeated.

  “There’s nothing we can do for them.” Nikolai said, his voice hollow and resigned. “We’ll die if we try.”

  “We can pray for them.” Taras did not know the man who spoke, but his large arms and white smock—blackened with soot—could only belong to a blacksmith. He made a motion as though to remove a hat. He wasn’t wearing one. Instead, he clasped his hands in front of him and bowed his head.

  They stood silently, listening to the horrifying screams from the cathedral for several seconds. Taras couldn’t stand it. The screams clawed their way into his veins, into his soul. With a groan he got to his feet.

  “I cannot sit here and listen to this.” He turned to stride away. Someone grabbed his arm and swung him around. Nikolai didn't look angry or judgmental. Only resolute.

  “Someone ought to be with them in their time of dying.”

  “But we’re not with them.” Taras’s voice broke. He would have been crying if not for the heat. “No one is.”

  “God is with them. It will be over soon.”

  “Not soon enough.”

  A series of ear splitting crashes inside the cathedral followed. The voices went silent.

  The men exhaled as one.

  “We must go now.” Nikolai said. The men all nodded in agreement. Taras said nothing. “It won’t be easy to weave our way back through all this flame. Everyone stay close.”

  “We’ve failed,” another man sobbed. “Moscow is in flames. How could this happen to the tsar’s holy city?”

  Nikolai shook his head. “I don’t know. There’s nothing else to be done. It will have to burn itself out. Then we will start over. We can look for more survivors on our way to the river. We must get ourselves out now, or risk becoming food for the flames. Come. I think darkness has fallen.”

  Taras followed the others mechanically as they wove through alleys and climbed over hot rubble. All of them made it to the river. The others talked of God's mercy. For the first time in his life, Taras could not find his religion.