by Stacy Gregg
She collapsed into the straw on the floor of Drakon’s stall. The big grey horse walked over and lowered his enormous head so that his muzzle was right up against her face. His breath was sweet like meadow hay, a soft warm breeze against her ice-cold skin. It was freezing tonight. Already the snow had fallen heavily enough to deeply cover the palace lawn. Tomorrow the drifts would become treacherous. The course across the taiga would be terribly dangerous. But tonight all Anna could think of was her wonderful horse.
“You will not let me down, Drakon. You are not only the fastest but the most intelligent, the most loyal, the most courageous horse in the whole of Russia,” she whispered to him. “And tomorrow, we will prove this in front of the Empress – and there will never again be talk of the executioner’s axe for you.”
Anna shivered, feeling the sting of the night air on her skin. It was too cold to linger – she had to get back inside the palace where it was warm.
“Goodnight, my dearest.” She gave the horse one last kiss on his velvet muzzle and then left his stall, locking it behind her.
As she strode up the row, she passed the stalls of Drakon’s opponents and eyed each of them in turn. She passed the stall of the Kabarda stallion, a dark bay with eyes as black and beady as those of his master. Beside him, the Turkmene stallion with a coat of burnished copper and long, lithe limbs was eating from his hay feeder. And next to him stood the horse of Count Sokolov, a skinny grey with a ewe neck.
If Anna had shifted her gaze from the stalls and looked in the opposite direction she would have seen the row of carriages, including her own, a pretty affair painted pink and turquoise, with gilt trim on the framework and burnished wooden wheels.
Even if she had taken the time to glance at the carriage frame, however, it is unlikely she would have noticed her brother’s handiwork with the axe.
The cuts that Ivan had made when he sneaked out to the stables after the Empress’s speech were well-hidden beneath the chassis. You would need to get down on bended knee and look underneath the carriage to see where his blows had gouged the rod of the axle.
Ivan’s sabotage was masterful. The carriage would not collapse straight away. Anna and Drakon would start the race and at first the axle would hold. In fact, it should stay intact right up until they reached the rugged outlands. Only there, where the ground became hard and rocky, would the axle give at last, and the little sister who Ivan hated so much would be stranded miles from home and alone.
Ivan the Terrible would have his revenge at last.
CHAPTER 12
The Race
The next morning, Anna could not see out of her bedroom window. The ice was so thick it had crusted over the pane, and as the dawn light hit the frosty surface it turned a million tiny crystals into glistening gold.
As she dressed, Igor roused himself from the foot of her bed and made a great display of stretching and yawning. The borzoi stuck close at her heels as she walked the palace halls heading for the snow-covered lawn of the western wing. The carriage drivers and horses were already gathering outside.
Vasily was waiting, standing beside Drakon, the grey horse harnessed and prepared.
“A good morning for a race,” Anna said, breathing mist into the air and rubbing her gloved hands together.
“Niet, Lady Anna,” Vasily frowned. “Look at the clouds. A blizzard is coming …”
Anna’s attention was drawn away by a commotion further down the lawn. Count Smirnov, dressed in a bearskin coat and hat with his bushy beard protruding from beneath it, looked almost like a wild animal himself as he struggled to control his Kabarda stallion, which was straining and lunging against the harness. The Count tried to subdue the stallion with his whip but the horse fought back with a squeal of fury, and struck out like a snake, his neck whiplashing, fangs bared. Count Smirnov began to rain blows upon his stallion and Anna, horrified at the sight of the horse being struck, turned away.
“That man is a beast!” she said through gritted teeth.
“There are worse than him,” Vasily said, staring down the row of carriages at the Counts and Dukes now boarding and preparing to set off. “These men are battle-hardened. They have raced before, and you have not.”
Anna clambered up into her carriage. “But I know the taiga better than any of them. And I have the best horse,” she replied, trying to sound braver than she was truly feeling. She put out her hands for the reins. Reluctantly, Vasily passed them to her. “Promise me you will come home safe,” he said.
Anna nodded. “I will.”
The drivers were ready to depart. On the ground beside Anna’s carriage Igor began to whimper loudly, begging to be allowed up to take his usual spot in the luggage hold.
“Not this time, Igor,” Anna told him firmly. “The taiga is no place for you today.”
The loud clang of a gong sounded and all eyes turned to the palace steps. The Empress appeared, dressed in a regal gown and a red velvet jacket with a high collar and matching hat trimmed with mink fur. Standing beside her, looking pleased to be presiding over the excitable crowd, was Count Orlov. A full head taller than the rest of the men present, he drew attention to his great height by wearing a silver turban plumed with peacock feathers. His dress was even more flamboyant than the Empress’s – a full-length fur coat and beneath that a long silver and gold brocade robe, a glittering treasure that he had brought back from his travels in Turkey. He cast a look over the gathering as his serfs moved briskly through the crowds with silver trays of glasses.
The gong sounded again and silence fell as the Empress raised her goblet high in the air.
“My people,” she smiled. “I am sure you all wish to thank Count Orlov for hosting us at his magnificent palace.”
“A toast to Count Orlov!” one of the guests cried out.
“To Count Orlov!” The others chanted in unison as their goblets were thrust into the air and then emptied in a single gulp. The Empress raised her hand once more and silence fell.
“Count Orlov has told me often of his desire to create the ultimate Russian horse. He has made it his life’s work here at Khrenovsky to produce the perfect carriage trotter – elegant, surefooted and swift enough to rival the greatest in all of Europe.”
There was a murmur from the crowd. The Empress waited for silence before she continued. “Today we will see if the genius of Count Orlov is proven. His grey stallion, Drakon, son of the famous Smetanka, will be tested against the very best horses from the finest estates across our great nation.
“The race will run beyond the boundaries of this estate to the Bridge of the Single Pine. Here the drivers must fasten their heraldic colours and then return across the taiga to Khrenovsky Palace.”
The Empress held out her goblet for a servant to refill it and then she lifted the vessel aloft once more. “Let us drink,” she said, “to these thirteen valiant men …”
She corrected herself: “… twelve valiant men and one young girl. May the best horse in Russia win!”
“To the horses and to Russia!” Count Orlov reinforced the Empress’s words as they all took great swigs.
Standing to the right of his father, dressed in a thick black fur, Ivan Orlov raised his goblet with the rest of them. His eyes met Anna’s as he took a drink and he mouthed words to her: Good luck, Sister.
On the ground beside her carriage Igor, still whimpering, could stand it no longer. He leapt up and put his front paws on the carriage, trying to climb up beside Anna. Vasily had to grab hold of the hound and pull him back down again.
“Hang on to him and do not let go,” Anna told Vasily. “Make sure he doesn’t follow me.”
The carriages began to move off. Anna gave Vasily and Igor an anxious smile as she tapped Drakon lightly on the rump with the whip. The grey stallion jolted forward and the carriage wheels began to roll as they took their place in the grand procession. The carriages moved in single file across the unmarked snow of the palace gardens, weaving between hedges and topiary, heading for the
river.
As they rolled closer to the black, glassy surface of the Voronezh, Anna was feeling sick with nerves. She had not been on the river since that fateful day with Smetanka.
Anna held Drakon back and watched as the other carriage drivers guided their horses out on to the ice. These men with their stocky, thickset horses were much heavier than she and Drakon, Anna reasoned. If the ice could handle such burdens it would not crack beneath their slender weight.
“Come on, Drakon.” She fought the sickness inside her, bracing herself as she asked the horse to take his first step out on to the ice.
Drakon did not hesitate. He walked out briskly, snorting in the icy morning air, plumes of steam coming from his nostrils. He set one hoof upon the ice and then the next and before Anna knew it they were on the river.
The cold wind whipped across the surface of the ice and swirled the snow in eddies around Anna, stinging her bare cheeks. She wished that her hat had ear flaps like Count Smirnov’s. He had parked his carriage a little way away from her on the ice and now the other drivers were lining up their horses between them, forming a straight row across the river, preparing for the race to begin.
Through the icy, howling gale, Anna heard the nicker of horses and the groan of carriage wheels creaking. She thought about the cold, dark depths of the river directly below the ice. She had nearly died in the frozen waters that lay beneath her wheels. She had never wanted to set foot on the ice again, but now she was here once more. With each anxious stamp of his hoof against the surface Drakon sent a shiver of fear down her spine. At that moment she wanted to turn back, to get off the black ice as fast as she could, but it was too late. The Empress had walked out on to the ice with Count Orlov, Ivan and a courtier carrying a gigantic blunderbuss. In her hand Her Majesty held aloft a red flag, which whipped and twisted in the wind as if it were trying to escape her grasp. As the riders tightened their grip on the reins, the Empress let the flag fly loose. It gusted up into the air and stayed there for a brief moment, suspended on the icy updraught. Then the flag fell to the ground and the blunderbuss discharged.
The race had begun!
Drakon leapt ahead with the others, his sudden burst of forward momentum spinning the wheels wildly, and Anna felt the carriage skidding sickeningly across the black ice. Theirs was not the only carriage that was out of control. All across the river the drivers tried to keep on course as the horses flailed about in a mad panic. Their footing failed them and the horses tripped and stumbled trying to gain purchase upon the glassy surface.
Anna used the reins to steady Drakon, and braced her feet against the rew bargeboard so that she would not be flung from the carriage as they lurched, tilting over to one side. And then Drakon’s grip on the ice became sure and strong. His powerful knees locked and he regained control of the carriage behind him. The grey stallion was facing straight down the river, moving like an arrow, accelerating with such speed that within a few strides he was a full carriage-length in front of the other horses. Anna left the commotion of the other drivers behind her in the wind and for a moment all she could hear was the furious tchok-tchok of Drakon’s enormous hooves striking the ice, cutting like blades into the frozen surface of the river.
But Anna was not alone as she pulled free of the pack. To the left, she caught a glimpse of the dark bay Kabarda moving up the ice strongly on the outside track. The Kabarda’s choppy, fervent gait pitched him swiftly across the ice. His strides were even quicker than Drakon’s and Count Smirnov drove his horse on, lashing him again and again with the whip.
Anna took a sideways glance at the Count. He was manoeuvring his stallion over the ice to get closer to hers. On the slick surface of the frozen Voronezh all it would take was a shoulder charge from the Kabarda stallion and Anna and her carriage would be sent spiralling into a crash!
“Drakon!” Anna’s voice cried out above the howl of the wind. “Drakon, we need to go. Now!”
At the sound of her voice, it was as if Drakon found his wings. His strides stretched out and devoured the ice beneath him. Surefooted and bold, he struck out a rhythm with his enormous hooves that seemed to suction to the ice.
The Kabarda’s strides were quick but they lacked the length and grace of Drakon’s. The grey stallion was pulling away from the dark bay horse, moving further and further ahead. The Kabarda was already spent from his initial frantic burst of speed. His pace began to falter and he had nothing left in reserve. Compared to Drakon, it was as if he had come to a standstill. For the Kabarda, the race was over.
Anna kept casting backward glances over her shoulder, wondering where the next challenge might come from. The other carriages were so far behind they were no more than misty black shapes falling away in the blur of the swirling snow.
Up ahead the forest loomed closer, the snow-frosted treetops tinted rose-gold in the glow of the morning light, casting long shadows all the way to the black ice of the river. Anna turned the carriage now, heading towards the firs, and drove Drakon on. She kept the pace, asking him to stride out as fast as they could race towards the shoreline.
As the wheels struck land, Anna was jolted about as the smoothness of the ice was replaced by ruts and hollows. The carriage keeled left and right beneath her, being shaken like a toy rattle in the hand of a giant. When they hit a deep rut Anna was thrown with a thump out of her seat, biting her tongue and tasting blood as she crashed hard on to the bench seat.
She slowed Drakon’s trot so that she could keep the carriage under control, but even at half the speed they had been doing on the ice the going was so bumpy! Every single bounce reverberated painfully through her body, making it hard to keep hold of the reins. At times the carriage would lurch out from underneath her and she would find herself struggling just to stay on board.
The shadows of the fir trees closed in as they carved a path through the gloom into the heart of the forest. Anna chose her route carefully. Some of the tracks were broader than others. Some became narrower or tapered into dead ends. She had to remember the right one or all the time they had gained on the ice could easily be lost again.
Anna cast a glance up at the treetops and caught a glimpse of sky flickering past. Vasily had been right; ominous snow clouds had gathered, making the heavens above so dark it was as if night had fallen.
In this gloomy half-light, filtered through tall trees, shadows fell across Drakon’s grey dapples. Anna looked ahead, sighting her route. The excitement of the black ice was behind them and the rhythm of the race had changed. This would be a long journey into the taiga. They had many more hours to go and Drakon’s hooves settled into a hypnotic tchok-tchok that soon became one with Anna’s heartbeat as they drove on into the dark woods.
***
All this time the carriage axle had held strong. Black oak is a sturdy wood, almost as hard as pig iron, and the construction of the axle stood fast despite Ivan’s sabotage attempts. On the frozen river it had given very little, the carriage wheels skating evenly across the surface. On land, however, the bumps and dips of the potholes jarred the frame with every stride, doing exactly what Ivan had anticipated. With each jolt the axle wood was weakening, the splits deepening, the carriage beginning to sag.
Anna did not realise any of this. As she drove Drakon on, her only thoughts were to make it to the Bridge of the Single Pine, fasten her colours and then turn again for home.
When she saw a boulder peeping up out of the snow in the track ahead she tried to avoid it, swinging right, but amongst the trees she couldn’t risk veering too far off course. She thought nothing about letting the left-hand front wheel clip the rock as she drove past.
Suddenly there was a crack like a blunderbuss, a noise that echoed through the snowy hush of the woods. Then Anna felt the world give way underneath her.
She screamed as the front wheels tilted and then collapsed entirely, caving in and plummeting the chassis of the carriage downwards, ploughing the bench seat hard into the snow. Anna was jettisoned as if she were a ston
e launched from a catapult. She saw the flash of Drakon’s gigantic hooves come over the top of her and she remembered thinking how odd it was to see the undersides of his feet and how very big they were so close to her face. Then she felt a metal horseshoe strike hard at her temple and she hit the snowy ground face-first. The whiteness all around her became black and Anna was gone.
***
It was the snow that roused her. The icy cold on her skin prickled her awake, making her cough and sputter. All around her was a scene of devastation. The carriage was a wreck, the wooden bench seat in pieces, the wheels tilted inwards sickeningly, the spokes splintered and broken.
“Drakon?” Anna’s voice was shaky. “Drakon!”
When the carriage had collapsed it brought her horse down with it. The sudden impact had dropped the grey stallion to his knees and now the harnesses held him there, pinned to the ground unable to move.
Drakon had dug himself through the snow to the hard dirt below, and streaks of mud and crimson blood stained the white drifts all around him. He must have been struggling the whole time that Anna had been unconscious. The wooden strut on the left side of the harnesses had snapped in two and Drakon had been impaled on the wooden shaft. Blood was seeping into the snow as he lay there, a froth of sweat on his neck and his flanks wet and heaving with exhaustion.
Anna rose trembling to her hands and knees, her head swimming as she took deep, panicky breaths. She got up and began to stagger through the snow towards her horse. As she moved closer, Drakon began thrashing and flinging himself against the harnesses.
“Niet! Niet!” Anna commanded. “ Drakon, please! You are making it worse!”
Blood was staining Drakon’s grey dapples as it trickled down to the snow beneath him.
Never before had the stallion looked quite so dragon-like as he did now, surrounded by the wreckage of the carriage and the blood-stained snow, plumes of steam shooting from his nostrils and his eyes wild with fear. Drakon flung himself against the harness, lashing out with his hooves, trying to work his way free. Anna threw herself down at his side in the snow, ripping off her gloves so that her half-frozen fingers could work loose the harness straps. Drakon was in danger of hurting them both with his wild lunges. Anna kept a watchful eye on his flailing front legs, anxious to avoid being struck down.
