Almost without his knowledge, he began to nod.
“Glory,” the priest repeated. “You would be the bravest, the fiercest, the strongest warrior there is.”
Anatoliy nodded again.
That was what he wanted.
Bravery: to lead his men to battle without flinching.
Ferocity: to inspire fear in his enemies. They would hear his name and know to fight him meant their death.
Strength: to make it through this blasted winter without losing a man. To keep the men whole. To keep them fed. To keep them clothed. To keep them alive.
He wanted all those things. He wanted to epitomize, to embrace, to embody those things.
The priest smiled, his teeth black and rotting.
A change overcame Anatoliy. His hands trembled until he could no longer hold his blade. A pain, fierce and scalding, began in his neck before shooting like lightning up to his head and then down his spine, exploding out of his hands and feet.
He made a sound of pain and confusion, screaming out, but the sound that came from his throat was not his voice. It was a roar, deep and loud. Louder than any noise he’d ever made before.
He thrust his face up to the sky, his eyes shutting at the brightness of the sun.
And then he blinked. His face resting against the snow.
Anatoliy stood, searching for the priest. He meant to kill him now for whatever he had done.
But he was gone.
As he scanned the forest, he became aware of the turn of his head. He no longer looked easily from side to side, in a straight line. Now he had a greater range of motion, but each movement bore a weight against his neck. His head was a pendulum, swinging, not turning.
He stood and tried to examine his body to ascertain if he had been injured, but his neck would not bend low enough.
He was injured. It would account for the limited range of motion when he tried to look up and down. Forcing his eyes downward, he made out a shadow. But when he turned his head, down and back up, the shadow was gone.
There it was! Something dark, a shadow almost in front of his face, but not quite. With each head tilt, the shadow disappeared.
Even his entire posture was different. He was used to standing erect, ready for muster, or inspection. Now he was slumped, his shoulders forward, his spine curved.
He stood up, stretching, and kept standing, up and up and up, until he was eye-to-eye with the branches he knew were well above his head when he’d entered the forest.
Panic bloomed in his chest, and his brain began to shoot him messages: fight, fight, fight.
He roared. He roared.
And then he ran.
His hands hit the ground. The force of his body falling forward reverberated across his bones. Muscles contracted and extended, and he crashed through the forest. Still, his mind screamed at him, fight, fight, fight.
A moment later, Anatoliy tumbled free from the forest. The sun, unfiltered by tall pine trees, momentarily blinded him. He roared in his confusion before realizing he was back in his camp. He was almost eye-to-eye with Dara.
Shocked, Dara widened his eyes, grasped at his shoulder, attempting to grab and aim his rifle. Behind Dara stood his men, all of whom stared at him in horror. Was something behind him?
Danger!
Whipping around, Anatoliy expected to see a squadron of enemy soldiers piling out of the forest, but there was no one but him. A sharp burning pain blossomed on his shoulder, and he swiped his hand back, as if to shoo a mosquito.
He heard a cry, and he spun toward Dara, his massively heavy head dipping and rising.
Wounded, Dara bled, his face clawed, and his uniform gaped as if slashed. His second in command collapsed onto the snow, but his chest rose and fell.
Instinctively, Anatoliy took a step forward and reached toward the man, but what he saw extended was not his hand. It was a giant furry paw, dull black claws extended and dripping crimson blood into the snow. His mind thought, turn, and the paw turned so he could see the furrowed tough black pad.
That was his hand.
Horrified, he tried to cry out, but again, only a roar reverberated through the field, and behind that roar, the cries of men. Branches snapped, trees bent, and snow was pushed and plowed away.
The enemy was coming.
Now the squadron of opposition soldiers he’d expected emerged from the forest. His men hesitated, confused. Who should they fight? The monster in front of them, or the enemy they had tracked through winter?
Anatoliy made the decision for them. The answer had been echoing inside him over and over: fight.
He put his head down and charged, roaring his anger and fear. He leapt onto the enemy. A beast, he bit through muscle, sinew, and bone. The enemy cried for mercy, but their voices didn’t penetrate his blood soaked brain.
His paws swiped and ripped, rendered and tore. All around him was a red haze, and the only sound he heard was fight.
So he did.
Until he stood, shoulders heaving with effort, and watched the bright red blood pool and melt the snow.
He rolled his head on his neck, felt the powerful muscles of his back ripple as they supported the movement. He opened his eyes and saw his men, the soldiers he had chosen and trained, staring at him with terror and confusion. But beneath that, was an emotion more terrifying. It made his brain start to echo its refrain, fight. He shut it down. These were his men. He would protect them.
Because now he was everything he wished to be: brave, fierce, strong.
Bear
St. Svetleva, Konstantin 1896
Anatoliy scratched his blunt claws along the gray stone of his room. The gray chipped away, leaving a chalky white slash he slowly sketched into the shape of the letter he wanted to write. I am here. He wrote it over and over. Each time he returned to this room, bloodied, bruised, confused, wondering if he was animal or if he was man, he saw the words written on the walls and remembered it didn’t matter.
He was here. He still breathed, though he often wished for the end of his existence.
The doorknob rattled, warning him to back away from the entrance. He’d tried to escape once when that door had opened, and he had the thick, roped scars to prove it. It angered him to no end that he couldn’t get through the door. His huge thick paws were unable to manipulate the round, smooth knob. The yellow sunlight gleamed on the knob as if it was his salvation.
Anatoliy stretched his massive body, his muscles sore and his wounds oozing new blood as the muscles contracted and bunched. He sat on his haunches, making himself as nonthreatening as possible.
The door opened, and four soldiers, not his, marched into the room. They held spears, metal tips to the sky, and then let them drop to waist height. He would have to impale himself to get to his tormentor.
King Aleksandr walked into the room, his mustache waxed to perfection, a smile above lips that never did anything but sneer. He held his hands behind his back, no doubt of his safety. He had assured himself of it after imparting that fact cruelly onto Anatoliy’s back.
“Bear,” Aleksandr began.
Anatoliy no longer referred to Aleksandr as “His Majesty” or “the King,” in his mind. Now he had seen the man’s true measure, and he refused to give him the respect of title, even in his thoughts. He chuffed in response to Aleksandr’s words, irritation causing his claws to extend and flex. The soldiers took a step forward. It was part of his conditioning they willingly repeated. Any move that could be seen as aggressive was met with an aggressive response. He willed his body to relax.
“These are dark times,” Aleksandr continued. “Men want to plunge this country into chaos. I hold on to power with a tight fist, but the tighter I close it, the more power seems to slip through my fingers, like water.”
Anatoliy could have told him this if he could speak. Harshness breeds harshness. He was the perfect example, a loyal soldier broken, his dedication only assured by his conditioning.
“My spies tell me that the anarchists are meeting,
planning, building bombs. You will find them, and you will kill them.”
Of course he would. It was what he was now: a machine, an automaton of death.
“You will travel with your former comrades and mete out the punishment these men deserve. You will leave the calling card I designed, as you have in the past, before returning to the castle. I will have guests who expect to be entertained by you.”
Anatoliy’s skin shook, the fur standing on end before lying flat again. He knew what entertainment the king expected. “Bear, do you understand?”
Anatoliy inclined his head to show his understanding.
The king nodded once, before his gaze was captured by the writing on the stone walls. His eyes crinkled in delight as he read the words etched over and over into the rock. Finally, he let out a laugh, one which made the soldiers wince and Anatoliy steel his body for the pain to come.
“You are a bear,” Aleksandr stated. “You are a weapon I wield. I am your master, and you are nothing.”
Aleksandr looked over his shoulder into the hallway, and Anatoliy realized no matter what his response to the king may have been, their interaction was always leading to this.
He heard a low growl, followed by a second, and a third. Aleksandr stepped to the side and three wolfhounds, straining at their leads, pulled their struggling masters into the room. Anatoliy growled, low and warningly. Aleksandr rubbed his hands in anticipation before he commanded, “Release them.”
The dogs attacked immediately. Anatoliy stood on his hind legs, towering over the dogs. He roared at them, but they were worked into a lather. They didn’t know he was their death.
In a move honed over a score of similar, hopeless experiences, Anatoliy snapped, bit, broke, and clawed, leaving three dead animals in his wake.
“Leave them,” Aleksandr said, pulling out a handkerchief and dabbing at a spot of blood on his coat. “They will feed him for the next days.”
That meant Anatoliy would starve. He held onto his humanity by a thread, and he would never eat what he killed, as he usually killed people or dogs. They would be left to rot here, and he would starve until they were cleaned out, or shoveled out, depending on how long Aleksandr wanted to punish him.
Anatoliy pushed the bodies closer to the door. Perhaps if the smell wafted down the hall, they would be removed sooner.
Terror
The men were being altogether too noisy. Anatoliy nosed Dara, huffing through his nostrils, and his second promptly whistled, a birdcall meant to signal the need for silence. Immediately, footfalls muffled as feet were placed more carefully, and voices quieted.
Anatoliy pulled air into his nostrils, swirling it around his palate. He could smell smoke and sweat and the burnt cheap tobacco he had smoked in basic training.
There was another scent underlying the human smells: gunpowder and metal. He ambled ahead of his team, looking for guards, searching for traps.
He saw nothing and swung his head to Dara, stay here.
The lieutenant nodded, whistling again to the rest of the team.
Anatoliy kept his nose to the ground, moving forward heavily but carefully. He smelled metal again and came across a thin trip wire stretched from tree to tree. He lifted one foot over the wire and then the other three. Dara was watching and would make note of the trap.
He was impressed with the men he stalked. They had taken precautions around their base, but they didn’t know to plan for someone like him. The shutters on the shack were closed tightly. Anatoliy lifted one paw, extending a claw, and peeled back the wood. He saw four men inside, huddled around the table. A burlap sack of nails sat on the floor while they filled a metal canister with gunpowder.
Bombs.
For once Aleksandr had been right. There were plots against him. Anatoliy sympathized with the men inside. The only people Aleksandr treated worse than him were the peasants he was supposed to govern. Aleksandr’s entire government balanced on the backs of these men. A few wealthy, spoiled kin ruled over multitudes who had nothing. Konstantin was a huge country. Its borders stretched from over-populated cities in the West, where fashion and industry advanced, eastward, to deserts and mountains.
Aleksandr ruled over miners, bankers, doctors, and warlords. Some of these tribal people were so ancient that to enter their villages was to step back in time thousands of years, where humans followed the seasons and the migration of animals.
The distance between the monarchy and the people had grown until their carriages traveled through the streets and the royalty didn’t look out the windows. If they had, they didn’t see the masses struggling to buy bread and keep their children alive. They saw rats: teeming, gnawing rats. They didn’t realize there were more rats than royalty and that when these rats finally swarmed, they would drown them all in a sea of bodies, teeth, and garbage.
Anatoliy respected these men he stalked. They fought against a force that was powerful and well-armed. Aleksandr’s forces obeyed without question, following a tradition their great-grandfathers had followed merely because it was the way it had always been.
These rebels had to know that their plans would fail. At best, they would end up executed, and at worst, well, he was the worst.
The wind was at his back and smelled of rancid tobacco. There were others out here, and his respect for Aleksandr’s enemy grew.
Despite his mass, Anatoliy was able to stay in the shadows. He knew Dara would track him. He went back to the forest, scraping his claw down a tree, signaling the direction of the smoke. He knew without looking that his men would divide and find the guards, dispatching them quickly and quietly.
They were the prestige, but he was the turn; the trick that would be whispered about in days to come. He was the warning for any other fool who sought to challenge the king.
He smelled the explosion before he saw it. The sky lit up like mid-afternoon for just a second. The bomb-makers ran from the house, their automatic weapons in hand.
Anatoliy struck, but he let them see him. He reared on hind legs, standing tall, his arms outstretched as if to embrace them. Their fingers trembled, the movements they’d practiced over and over, training for the day they were engaged by the king’s guard, forgotten. Automatic movement and responses were delayed when faced with a prehistoric personification of their fear. Some attempted to flee. It was the one frozen in fear who would be Anatoliy’s victim.
He pulled the man into his body, his arms wrapping around him in a corrupt embrace. The man screamed as Anatoliy squeezed, popping and breaking bones. His claws sliced deeply through muscle and fascia into bone and organs.
The man had no more breath to scream.
And finally, the bite. The finishing move that would be told in hushed voices around tables and glasses of vodka.
His jaws wrapped around the man’s throat, and he bit, tasting blood and sweat, before he ripped.
The woods were quiet now. He heard only the panting breaths from the soldiers in his team of killers. These soldiers, the ones he’d handpicked because of their honor and loyalty, their strength and intelligence, had skills now perverted by a selfish king. And him. He was a man who was a bear, and who had wished to be strong, fierce, and brave and was none of these things.
Aftermath
Anatoliy walked alongside his men. They were quiet, absorbed in their own guilt and contemplation. He could see the world weariness on their faces. Each strike they made ricocheted off their victim and killed a little piece of them. Dara’s eyes stayed trained on the ground. With his night vision, Anatoliy could see the splatters of blood staining his uniform and face. He could see the pain etched around his eyes. Using his massive body to block the man, he butted him with his head, while chuffing at the others.
Dara nodded at them, signaling for them to continue to their base. When the men were out of earshot, he sagged, sitting on the ground, elbows propped on knees.
“I don’t know how much longer I can do this, Kapetan,” he whispered, his voice barely audible above the bre
eze blowing through the trees. “Dealing death, watching you become less and less human.” His blue eyes shown bright in the moonlight. “What will you do when he asks you to kill us?”
Anatoliy paced. It was possible that Aleksandr would ask him to do that. He swung his heavy head from side to side, agitated.
“Would you kill us?”
Stilling, his human heart broke within his beast’s body.
He growled low and quietly, no, never. These men were the only leverage Aleksandr had ever held over him. They were why he chose to stay alive and obey Aleksandr.
“Not even if it meant your death?”
No.
“What if he could make you a man again?”
That will never happen.
Anatoliy pictured the priest, the demon who gave him his wish. But like in the fairy tales he’d read, his wish hadn’t been precise enough, and he’d been cursed instead of gifted.
Dara stood, stretching out his hand to rest on Anatoliy’s head. “Kapetan…”
Anatoliy butted him again. Go on, catch up to the men.
Dara sighed, removing his hand and shifting his rifle on his back before walking ahead of him.
Soon they stepped into a brightly lit field, an iron carriage pulled by a team of horses waiting for them. The guards from the castle approached him holding whips, torches, and spears, and prodded at him to enter the carriage.
Dara watched him sadly, lifting his hand as the cage was shut and locked. The horses began to walk, rocking the carriage. Anatoliy’s shoulders pressed against the bars. There was no space for him to drop his head, to lift a paw, to give Dara any sign of what he really wanted, which was for him to raise the gun and shoot him between the eyes.
Eggs
Polya stared at her governess, Miss Boslova. Her tail swayed from side to side then whipped back and forth angrily; sway, whip, sway, whip. She raised her lip and growled, showing her teeth, and stalked forward. “Polina Pytornova!”
Wrath and Ruin Page 5
