by Dan Millman
Over the past few years, the Ataman had attracted restless youths and hardened veterans as they passed through towns and villages. Several women had joined too, for reasons of their own. A few were married or attached to new recruits. Some were willing to service the other men, so rules were made and order maintained.
During this time, Stakkos began a new custom: Every year or two, he would spare a Jewish infant and give the child over to the women to raise as a good Christian. This way, even as he murdered and burned, he adopted the mantle of “savior of children.” Eventually, this nomadic tribe came to resemble the makings of a Cossack village.
Each small atrocity opened the way for a greater one, until no act was unacceptable. By their standards cruelty was necessary, even virtuous. Armed not only with swords and firearms, but with the certainty of any zealot, they indulged every kind of impulse.
In their temporary camps they appeared to be like ordinary villagers, with huts and hearths and women and children. But they were men without humanity. Intoxicated by a growing sense of invincibility, setting themselves above both law and decency, they thundered across Russia and wrought the horrors of hellfire on their victims.
Thus it was that Gregor Stakkos and his men rode into a peaceful meadow on a Sunday afternoon in July.
.21.
SERGEI AND ANYA HAD JUST FINISHED their picnic meal, and she rested her head against his shoulder on this languid afternoon, listening to birdcalls in the summer wind, blowing through the trees and across the Neva River.
As he was about to lie down in Anya’s arms, Sergei saw a dust cloud rising in the distance. He sat up to see riders coming their way—most likely soldiers out on patrol.
Maybe if he had taken immediate action at first sighting—maybe if he had trusted that sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach—they might have gotten away. Leaving their belongings in disarray, he might have gotten Anya up onto the cart and whipped the old horse into a gallop. But such actions might have sent Anya into a needless and confusing panic. After all, it was just some men riding in their direction.
Riding fast. And now it was too late to flee. As the men drew near, Sergei thought he recognized one of the men, then another, who had surrounded him on the previous September. His dread grew when he saw among the fourteen riders a giant, one-armed man who looked like a Mongol warrior.
Then their leader pulled his horse up a few meters away. He was older now, and had a scar angled across his forehead, but there was no mistaking him. Towering above, astride his warhorse, and gazing down with a cold smile that Sergei would never forget, was Dmitri Zakolyev.
Sergei stood immobile, reeling from revelations and contradictory emotions: relief then regret that he had not killed Zakolyev, followed by a sense of impending doom.
He quickly turned to Anya, who was still sitting, not yet frightened, only puzzled, looking up at Sergei for a sign of reassurance. “I know him,” he said. “We’re old schoolmates.” His mouth was suddenly dry, and his voice rang hollow. He looked back at Zakolyev.
“It’s good to find you, Sergei—I believe you’ve already met a few of my men,” he said, gesturing toward the four riders who had surrounded him months before. “When my scout told me of a man he had encountered who fit your description—a Sergei…Voronin, I believe he said—I was quite cross that he had not brought you back to the camp for a reunion. I was going to properly chastise him, but he assured me that he could find you again. And so he has. An opportune time for us to catch up, don’t you agree?”
Not waiting for Sergei’s response, Zakolyev continued, “I inquired about you for a considerable time, but no one had heard of Sergei the Good. And after the way we parted on such unfortunate terms, I truly wanted a chance to make things right. And now here we are, together again, and you with a pretty wife, no less. And with child…”
Zakolyev’s voice was so gentle, his manner so courteous, that for a fleeting moment Sergei believed that his fellow cadet might have changed. Then some of the men smirked and laughed. The muscles on Sergei’s arms twitched as he snapped back to cold reality.
“Well, Sergei,” Zakolyev continued, “where are your manners? Will you not introduce us?”
Sergei’s mind raced, taking stock of the situation: If Zakolyev was dangerous, his men were even more so—they were followers, anxious to please their leader, to rise in rank and status. No doubt they were well-trained fighters. He might be a match for a few, make a heroic effort—
But if he fought, Zakolyev would kill them both; perhaps if he pleaded and humbled himself, they might only spit on him, beat him…but what of Anya?
He would not allow his mind to go further.
Sergei searched desperately for the right words or action that might at least save the life of his wife and child. All this passed through his mind in the time it took for Anya to climb to her feet—Sergei reached quickly down to help her. She came to his side and took his hand. It was cold and trembling. Her hand drove him into a primal rage. Contain it, he told himself. Use it. But not yet…not yet.
“I asked whether you were going to introduce me to your woman,” Zakolyev repeated, an edge in his voice.
“Dmitri,” Sergei heard himself say, calling on better times. “Do you remember when I was under your guidance during our survival training? How we helped each other—?”
“I remember everything,” said Zakolyev, cutting him off.
Sergei knew, upon seeing him alive, that Zakolyev must have been waiting for this day—that he must have rehearsed and anticipated everything that Sergei might say or do, every desperate attempt to escape. But Zakolyev had not foreseen the sweet surprise of Anya.
“I appeal to you as a Cossack and a man of honor,” Sergei finally said. “Let my wife go home. I give you my word—”
A bored-looking Zakolyev raised his hand to silence Sergei. Then he asked, politely, as if he were merely curious—as if reminiscing about old times—“Do you still have that old locket?”
“I…I gave it away,” he answered. “As a gift.”
Anya’s hand automatically reached up to her neck.
“Indeed you did,” said Zakolyev. Then he barked, “Korolev!” and gestured with his head in Anya’s direction. The huge one-armed man with the black braid dismounted and walked slowly toward Anya. The stench of him hit Sergei’s nostrils—not just the scent of sweat, but the rank odor of a man possessed.
“Back off!” said Sergei, stepping between his wife and the muscular giant. “Call off your attack dog, Zakolyev!”
Korolev paused. The chieftain nodded toward his men, and six of them dismounted immediately and surrounded Sergei, with Anya outside the circle.
“What is this?” said Sergei.
“I need a man to search you,” said Zakolyev.
“And the others?”
“In case you try something stupid.”
Sergei decided to cooperate. So far, no one had been injured or even threatened. There was still a chance. But he stood balanced on a powder keg.
Then, as the keg exploded and all six men restrained Sergei, the giant grabbed Anya’s wrist and dragged her away from Sergei.
In the next five seconds, with a burst of energy, Sergei disabled two of the men, one with a blow to the windpipe and the other with a kick to his knee. Both fell back, one gagging, the other unable to stand. But the other four managed to grasp his arms, his legs, his neck—a crushing weight of bodies as they took him down, smashing his face to the ground, immobilized.
Instantly, Sergei relaxed as if he had given up. He would wait for a few moment more, until they least expected it…but there were too many. He managed to lift his head and spit out dirt and blood, and watch in helpless fury as the scene unfolded.
ZAKOLYEV NODDED once again. Korolev released his one-arm grip on Anya’s wrist, and rapidly, like a snake striking, ripped the locket from her neck and, in the same motion, backhanded it up to Zakolyev. Anya gasped and held her neck as a red line appeared on the soft throat that Sergei had kisse
d only minutes before. She was frightened now—terrified for her husband, for herself, but most of all for her child.
She would not take her eyes from Sergei. If she could imagine that no one else was there but the two of them, maybe she could make them all go away. Her eyes searched her husband’s for a glint of hope, but found none.
Zakolyev spoke. “Thank you for keeping my locket safe all these years, Sergei. And on such a lovely neck.” He sniffed the locket. “Ahhh, it has her scent. I rather enjoy the aroma…”
Some of the men laughed, and a blood red sea flooded Sergei’s vision. “You have the locket,” he growled from his belly-down position. “It’s yours…and I’m at your disposal.”
“Yes, you are,” Zakolyev with his lifeless smile.
“Then let my wife go—she’s not part of our business. Let’s face each other if that’s what you want…but for God’s sake, Dmitri, we were fellow cadets—”
“I find you tiring,” Zakolyev replied, as if bored. “I have always found you tiring, Good Sergei.”
He turned to Anya. “Is our Sergei also good to you in bed?” he asked. “Does he say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ before and after?”
Zakolyev’s men barked like dogs thrown a scrap from their master. He was a cat playing with its prey.
Korolev tightened his grip on Anya’s wrist, and she winced, beyond Sergei’s powers to help. He could feel her dread; he knew her mind and heart. She had narrowly escaped from Cossacks as a child, and it tore at Sergei’s guts to watch her brave face, even as her eyes spoke a single prayer: “Protect the life inside me.”
But Sergei lay impotent, a pawn in Zakolyev’s game.
As one man searched his pockets, the others let down their guard. Only for a moment, but it was enough. Sergei whipped his elbow up and broke the searcher’s jaw. He managed to turn and kick another man in the groin when the others fell on him with again with crushing force so that he could hardly breathe. They forced him belly down again, pinning him.
Zakolyev spoke: “So you see, Sergei, how I have become a leader of men?”
Sergei spat out dust and blood. “I see what you’ve become.”
“And you have remained what you always were—a weakling anxious to please the parents you never met.” Zakolyev opened the locket. “Ah, yes, here I see your sainted mommy and daddy. I always liked this family photograph. I found it touching,” he said to no one in particular as he stared at the tiny faces. His gaze shifted back to Sergei. “Then you stole it from me.”
Sergei tasted bile rising in his throat. In that moment he knew that their luck had run out, that their prayers would not be answered, that his last act on Earth would be one of desperation.
Zakolyev turned to Anya and looked her up and down. Sergei tried again to throw the men off. “This bauble means nothing to me now,” he said. “Maybe I’ll even give it back to the pretty wife in exchange for a little kiss.”
Anya’s eyes, frantic now, like the eyes of a young doe, looked again to Sergei. Even now she had faith that he had a plan or power to save them. Even then, with her husband pinned by all those men, a thread of hope still remained—until Zakolyev said, “On second thought, with all the trouble I’ve gone to over my locket, I believe it’s worth more than a kiss.”
Wallowing in his power, knowing that Anya was Sergei’s weakness, Zakolyev spoke to her, while looking straight at Sergei, “Little wife, it’s such a warm day, why don’t you remove a little clothing so the men can enjoy a look—” He nodded again to Korolev, who released his viselike grip on Anya’s wrist and ripped open her blouse. She stood, terrified, trying to cover herself and to protect the child in her womb.
Sergei exploded with a superhuman ferocity, breaking free of the five who now held him down. “Run Anya! Run!” he cried out as he broke the ribs of another man. Then all the remaining henchmen save Zakolyev and the giant fell on him like an avalanche, burying him again under their weight, breaking his nose and cheek as they smashed his face down into the rocky soil.
Sergei felt no pain—only an overwhelming need to protect his Anya and his absolute inability to do so. He drew upon every skill, every ounce of strength or cunning he had, to no avail.
Two words spat from Zakolyev’s mouth: “Hold him!”
A hand grabbed Sergei’s hair and pulled his head up to watch Korolev release Anya’s wrist and roughly squeeze her full breast. Anya spat in his face, in a maternal fury now, fighting, kicking, clawing at Korolev’s eyes—
Enraged, his face bleeding, Korolev reached around Anya’s head, grabbed her jaw, and twisted.
With a sickening sound, Anya’s neck snapped. She died three meters from Sergei’s reach.
Everything happened in slow motion after that. Sergei no longer felt as if he were in his body but rather floating above as Korolev threw Anya like a rag doll to the earth and she lay still, staring sightless into the pale blue sky. His benumbed mind refused to believe what his eyes beheld. It couldn’t be true; it was only a nightmare; he was asleep.
But the nightmare wasn’t over. Zakolyev dismounted, his brow furrowed, and walked toward Korolev. Drawing his sword, he approached the man who had just murdered Sergei’s wife.
“Korolev,” he said, his voice sharp, “you really must learn to control that temper of yours. You’ve spoiled a moment I had hoped to prolong.”
The giant wisely remained silent, backed away, and remounted his horse, waiting for the Ataman’s next words: “Well, not all is lost.”
As Sergei stared, horrified, Zakolyev knelt by Anya’s body and, almost tenderly, drew his saber across her swollen belly, opening her lower abdomen. Then he reached inside her and pulled out an infant, hanging the tiny newborn upside down, its cord still connected to its mother.
Zakolyev shook his head grimly as he saw, along with Sergei and the others, that his saber had cut too deeply—the infant was dead.
Disgusted by this ruined triumph, Zakolyev turned to face Sergei. “It was a boy,” he said, dropping the dead child next to Anya’s body.
Sergei screamed, trying to drown out the pain he couldn’t bear. Out of the corner of his swollen eye, Sergei glimpsed a pistol swinging toward his head. Then he saw no more.
AFTER TAKING A SOUVENIR, as was his custom, Zakolyev remounted. Korolev dismounted again, drew his knife from the sheath at his side, and approached the unconscious Sergei Ivanov.
“Leave him,” said Zakolyev. “I want him to live. I want him to remember.”
“You have made an enemy for life—now my enemy as well,” Korolev responded. “A man with nothing left to lose may be dangerous; it would be wise to kill him before he returns the favor.”
“He’s a weakling and a fool, and no threat to anyone,” Zakolyev responded sharply, aware that his men bore witness to this conversation. “You have done enough damage for one day. Leave him!” It was not a request—and the Ataman did not like to repeat himself. Ever.
Korolev hesitated, but not for long. With a shrug, he returned to his horse and asked, “Ataman, why did he call you Dmitri Zakolyev?”
“It was a name I took in my youth,” he answered. Then louder, he called out to all his men, including those limping or being carried back to their horses, “From this day on, Gregor Stakkos is dead! I never want to hear that name again. To commemorate this day, my name is now Dmitri Zakolyev—but you will call me only Ataman! To signal your assent, raise your sabers!” They drew their sabers and pointed them skyward. After a moment’s pause, Korolev did the same.
Zakolyev and his men wheeled their stallions and rode out of the clearing. With a last look back at Sergei Ivanov, who lay facedown and still, Korolev turned and followed the others.
.22.
SERGEI IVANOV came back to life with a gasp—to another life, a hellish reality filled with the shrill cries of carrion birds. Leaping to his feet, flailing and screaming like a madman, he vented his rage on the winged harpies tearing apart the remains of his wife and child. His bloody head throbbing, he fo
rced himself to look down, but his mind could make no sense of the shards of skin hanging from the bones of a tiny hand, stretched out toward the breast of a waxen figure whose abdomen lay open to the sun.
Wrapping his family’s remains in the blanket, he tried to dig a grave, scraping at the earth with his hands until his fingernails were torn and bloody, but the hard soil of summer would not yield. He could not save them, and he could not bury them. So he pounded his fist against a flat stone, watching from faraway as his knuckles cracked open.
He would gladly have lain down with them upon the quiet earth but for his last duties—to find and kill Zakolyev and the man Korolev and then, if he still lived, to tell Anya’s mother and brother what had happened.
A hollow man, he had no fear left in him; they could not kill a man from the netherworld. Seeing nothing beyond a dark tunnel, he stumbled and groped his way toward the river, where he vomited. When the ripples cleared he saw the face of a stranger who meant nothing to him—a weakling, a coward, a fool.
Anya, the love of his life, had thawed the ice of his past until it flowed into the warmer seasons of love. Now he was chilled to the bone, shivering as he staggered aimlessly through a world of shadow.
Another sharp pain pierced his skull, and a sickly light flashed behind his eyes. Sergei fell to his knees and prayed for an end to memory, for an end to suffering, but neither prayer was granted. He knew that his wife and child were dead. The purity and goodness in this world had died with them. There was no God left for him, no justice, no light remaining.
Then his head exploded again, the earth tilted, and he fell.
HE AWOKE in darkness, and the pulsing pain returned. Finding himself on a soft bed, he threw off the covers and started to rise, but his legs gave way and he knocked over a table as he fell. An older woman appeared and helped him back into bed.
“You rest,” she said. “Later we’ll talk if you want.”
“My wife, my child…in a blanket—”
