Kremlins Boxset

by K L Conger

The man lunged. Taras slashed with his khanjali. It connected with flesh, and the man grunted, though the cut must have been superficial. The man rushed Taras again and Taras swiped, connecting more solidly this time, though it didn’t seem to have much effect. The man slammed into Taras, knocking him into the snow once more.

  Sitting up, straddling Taras’s middle, the man balled his fist and swung downward. Taras dropped the khanjali to block the blow. He couldn’t use the large knife effectively here anyway.

  The fight became all fists and boots and body weight. Taras struggled to move away and find the khanjali again. The man blocked him at every turn. Taras supposed the kidnapper wanted to keep them on equal ground. Of course, Taras quickly learned they weren’t on equal ground. Few people in Siberia possessed weapons of fine metal, as Taras did. They’d become experts at using their bare hands and limbs to survive.

  The man landed blow after blow on Taras’s arms, legs, shoulders, torso, and face. His fist connected with Taras’s nose, and Taras returned the blow with his elbow, spitting blood.

  The man aimed a kick at Taras’s groin. Taras turned at the last moment, absorbing the blow on his thigh, which still hurt, sending pain lancing up Taras’s spine. He fell onto his back in time to see his opponent fly toward him once more.

  Rolling away, he caught the glint of moonlight on metal, perhaps an arshin away. Rolling through the snow toward it, he jabbed his now-numb hand through a bank of white powder and clutched the icy hilt, wondering if he’d be able to let go later.

  Just as his hand closed around it, something arced past his head, slamming into his numb hand. Sharp, raw pain bloomed where his smallest finger met his palm. With a cry, he dropped the khanjali as a red stain spread in the snow. His opponent’s knife lay in the white powder.

  He sensed as much as heard the man running up behind him. Something told him this would be the deciding moment of the fight.

  Gritting his teeth through the pain, he snatched up the knife, gripping the khanjali as tightly as possible. Staggering up onto one knee, he wrapped his other hand around the hilt as well to steady it and whirled to meet the attack, sword straight out in front of him like a spear.

  His opponent bore down on him. Another second and the man might have knocked the khanjali aside. Taras whirled with a finger’s breadth of space and the man impaled himself cleanly on Taras’s knife.

  The metal sliding through the kidnapper’s chest did little to slow him. He ran full-speed down the length of the blade and slammed into the hilt, knocking Taras onto his backside in the snow. The cold of the snow immediately soaked through his already wet britches. Taras’s entire body trembled, though whether from the cold or the battle fever, he couldn’t have said.

  He sat nose to nose with the kidnapper, whose face slowly fell, eyes closing last, until he collapsed forward as the final breath left his mouth.

  His weight bore down on Taras and it took all his strength to push the man to the right so his body fell to the ground, breaking through a crunchy, top-layer of snow and disappearing into the powder beneath.

  Chest heaving, Taras examined his injured hand. Where his smallest finger should have been, there remained only a stump, oozing blood. His enemy’s knife had taken his little finger off. It bled less than he’d have thought, though he supposed the cold might be slowing the blood flow. He couldn’t feel either of his hands anymore.

  Reaching down, he gripped the khanjali’s hilt and, after three, bone-breaking tries, yanked it free of the man’s chest.

  He studied the man’s face in the moonlight. Not one he recognized. He supposed it might be someone from the same village the child’s mother came from, but he couldn’t be sure.

  The entire fight took place at the side of the valley. The man lay in blood-stained snow at the base of the sloping side.

  A branch snapped on the ledge above, and Taras’s whirled, his body going rigid in preparation for another attack.

  Another figure stood part-way down the valley’s slope. It had been descending but froze when Taras whirled. More petite than the person Taras had killed, this figure had long, dark hair and what it wore below the waist billowed out like a skirt. It must be a woman. The moonlight glinted off the knife in her hand.

  Had she waited at the tree line to ambush him, should her companion fail? For several seconds, Taras couldn’t understand.

  Her body angled not toward him, but slightly off to one side. He turned his head, wondering what she’d been heading for. Trying to escape? No, she could have run in the opposite direction, up the slope, and disappeared into the woods while he fought her friend. Trying to flank him, perhaps? Possibly.

  A soft, mewling sound reached his ears. The baby! She’d been heading for where the baby had landed. Taras lunged toward the mewling sound, putting himself bodily between her and the infant.

  She peered at him a few moments before turning and fleeing up the slope and into the woods. As she turned, the moonlight caught her cheeks and Taras thought he recognized her. The woman he’d seen in the village. The one who looked so angry her village agreed to trade with Taras. Whoever Taras killed must be a friend of hers.

  Why on earth would she want the baby?

  Taras possessed neither the strength nor inclination to follow her.

  Instead, he whirled and ran several paces to where he’d first seen the baby fall into the snow. It no longer cried. Snow had soaked through the thin blanket the man took from the crib.

  Pulling the baby into his arms, he leaned down close to its chest. He listened for several seconds before being confident it still breathed. He couldn’t be certain in the moonlight, but he thought its skin had turned blue.

  Not sure how the boy would survive now, Taras ripped his shirt open, unwrapped it from the now-crunchy blanket, and put the boy against his bare skin. He used the wet blanket to wrap his hand. He then started the long trek back to the cabin.

  He didn’t have the strength to run, so he pushed through the snow as quickly as he could manage, knowing he needed to get the baby near the fire, and fast.

  When he stood a fathom from his porch and no longer felt his legs at all, the front door opened. A fire blazed inside, and Abramov stood motioning him in. Taras hadn’t spared a thought for his guests before bursting out into the night. It must have awakened them, and they’d stoked the fire in his absence. They’d already hung a small cauldron of water from the swingarm over the fire, for which Taras raised a silent prayer of thanks. The water felt deliciously warm on his skin. It hadn’t boiled yet so they used it to gently douse the baby while Taras rubbed the boy’s tiny hands and feet, focusing on the fingers and toes, gently between his fingers.

  The three men offered to take over while Taras changed out of his icy clothing, which he agreed to after wrapping the baby in a fire-warmed wolf skin. Abramov took the baby while Kirov helped Taras change. Kuzmin helped Taras bandage his hand, glancing at the missing finger, but not saying anything about it.

  Within five minutes, the baby began to wail.

  Abramov’s eyes darkened with worry. “Perhaps I am being too rough with the little man.”

  Taras shook his head. “I doubt it. The feeling is coming back to his limbs, and of course it will hurt. At least he’s feeling it now. Keep doing what you’re doing.”

  Looking doubtful, Abramov continued rolling the babies fingers and toes, one at time for a few seconds each, between his thumb and forefinger.

  When Taras finished donning dry clothing and wrapped his hand, he took the baby back from Abramov. Holding the baby in the crook of his right arm and using his good hand to hold a bladder of goat’s milk, he tipped it upward so milk trickled into the boy’s mouth. In the end, he didn’t drink much. Taras prayed what little he swallowed kept him alive.

  Opening his shirt again, Taras laid the baby against his bare chest. Exhausted though he felt after his fight in the snow, he doubted he’d sleep. He feared if he dozed off, the child would simply stop breathing.

  His
three guests settled back down to sleep, having not asked a single question about the incident. Taras dozed off a few times. Each time he startled awake, he immediately checked to make sure the child hadn’t expired on his chest. Each time, he registered the baby’s miniature stomach pressing against his chest with each tiny, measured breath.

  When daylight filtered in around the skins covering the windows, Abramov, Kirov and Kuzmin rose and gathered their belongings.

  Taras threw his legs over the side of the bed, watching them and rubbing the baby’s back. Kirov and Kuzmin each gave him a bow and murmured their thanks before leaving the cabin to saddle and pack their horses. The door bumped closed behind them as Abramov came to stand in front of Taras.

  “Might I make an observation, my lord?” he asked.

  Taras raised an eyebrow at him. “Why do you call me my lord?”

  Abramov smiled, as if at a private joke. “Because it clearly ought to be your designation. I didn’t want to say anything yesterday in front of my companions because you so obviously didn’t want your true identity known, but I recognize your name. Gossip in Moscow said you breathed treason against the Tsar in Novgorod and murdered young Sergei Tarasov before you fled.”

  Taras opened his mouth, not entirely sure what he’d been going to say.

  Abramov held up a hand to forestall him. “I make no accusations, my lord. I only wanted you to know I understand who you are. If you return to Moscow and are recognized, you will not live. You are a lord, for all that. I see how conflicted you are, and I wanted to extend an invitation to come with us. This is no place for a man to live out his life. Come with us to Poland. Bring the boy and find a home for yourself.

  “I can see you don’t own much, and I’d be willing to take you under my wing. It will be a long and arduous journey. Once there, we can all start new lives outside of Ivan’s reach.” He dropped his eyes to the baby on Taras’s chest. “Although, if I may be so bold, my lord, you say you do not wish to raise this child, yet you sacrificed a piece of yourself last night to save it. I do not know what happened in the frigid moonlight, or what caused it. I see your existence here is complicated, but perhaps you want this child more than you realize.”

  Taras didn’t know what to say. The instant the intruder took the boy, his sole thought had been for the child’s safety. He hadn’t thought about Moscow or the invasion or even Inga ever since. So perhaps Abramov was correct.

  “I travel toward three sons in Poland,” Abramov continued. “Sometimes, a man’s children are all he has to fall back on.”

  Taras considered the man’s offer. Truly considered it, as he’d considered Ganbold’s offer years before. Going with Abramov would be logical. Healthy. A new country. A fresh start. And yet, the call of Moscow whispered in his ear from the south.

  Moscow might be gone. He didn’t want to imagine the city burnt down to nothing, all the people enslaved. Yet the distinct possibility loomed like a bank of fog. Devlet-Guirey had probably attacked by now, and unless some miracle protected Moscow....

  The Tatars hadn’t formed a cohesive fighting force for more than a hundred years. Prior to that, they’d been the Golden Horde. If they took Moscow, they would supplant Russia as the dominant power in this corner of the world. Taras couldn’t imagine it becoming reality, yet what if it did?

  And what of Inga? He still believed she would come to him. Even if it took years. Of course, that could only happen if she still lived. The problem remained that he simply didn’t know. Maybe Inga lived. Maybe she didn’t.

  “Thank you for the offer, my friend,” he said, keeping his voice quiet so as not to awaken the baby. “In other circumstances, I truly might take you up on it. There are variables here I need to anchor down, first. I must return to Moscow, I think, and see how things fare there. Only then can I make a decision about whether to leave this valley or not.”

  Abramov nodded. “I did not truly expect you to agree to come. If you get to Moscow, and find circumstances there not in your favor, I encourage you to come to Poland. Come to the city of Warsaw. My family is well known there. Ask around and you shouldn’t have trouble locating me. If you come, I will get you settled.”

  Taras rose, still clutching the baby to his chest and bowed from the waist. “Thank you, my lord. I appreciate that more than I can tell you.”

  Abramov nodded. “Good fortune, Taras Demidov. I wish peace and contentment for you.”

  Taras inclined his head. “Thank you. Safe travels to you. Good fortune in Poland. If I follow, I’ll find you.”

  Twenty minutes later, after wrapping the baby in furs and leaving him on the bed, Taras stood on his porch and watched the three boyars disappear northward. When they shrunk to tiny specks in the distance, he turned to re-enter the cabin. Pausing, he peered briefly over his shoulder toward Moscow, then west toward the baby’s home village. He made a decision.

  Chapter 12

  When the fire burned out, mere hours after it began, Inga descended a lattice on one side of the church, determined to venture back into the city. Thankfully, the fire never quite reached the Kremlin. Most structures directly beside the Kremlin gates still stood, though many sustained partial burns or other damage from the intense heat.

  With a final leap, Inga landed on the cobblestones. Bodies covered the ground outside the Kremlin gates. Most mercifully unburnt, they littered the ground like a macabre carpet. People had been trampled trying to get to safety or killed by others who panicked. Many held knife wounds or gashes on their heads.

  Inga was not the only living person among them. The survivors of the fire seemed to be making their way slowly toward the Kremlin. And why not? The Kremlin, the icon of their city, if not their nation, still survived. Little else in Moscow had.

  The living trudged slowly toward the spires of the palace, faces smeared with soot and often nursing burnt arms or legs. Many were covered in blood, grime, and skin that had bubbled outward in the heat.

  As Inga picked her way among them, glancing at faces only long enough to reassure herself they weren’t anyone she knew, she passed Red Square. She felt no desire to go in. Mounds of bodies were piled in front of the Kremlin gates. Granted, Anne and Ekaterina could have gone in there, trying to return to the palace, but Inga doubted it. Anne would have been smarter than that. Inga didn’t wish to wade through the carnage. Not yet. Especially as she didn’t truly believe the women would be there.

  She opted to head back out into the burnt city. The Kremlin gates remained barred. It might be hours yet before the guards deemed it safe to open them again. Inga might as well survey the city and continue her search for Anne and Ekaterina. They weren’t dead. They weren’t!

  Smoke still hung so thick in the air, it hid the the sky and the sun. If Inga weren’t sure early or perhaps mid-afternoon still loomed, she might have thought night had fallen. Shapes and figures—the living, the dead, the remnants of structures—emerged slowly from the mist, growing toward her. Most often, she failed to see them until they stood only feet away.

  Inga threaded her way through city streets, struggling to breathe the hot, smoky air. Her throat and eyes burned and she coughed constantly.

  The streets themselves remained largely intact, the cobblestones providing a clear path through the rubble. Flames still licked the cobblestones in some places. Others glowed faintly red and would have burnt through Inga’s thin shoes, had she stepped on them. Still others proved cooler but had cracked under the immense heat of the flames.

  The structures lining the streets were another matter entirely. Most had burnt down to smoking stumps, if not completely to ashes. Where houses and the workplaces of craftsmen and artisans once stood, now only smoking cinders remained. Strewn among the ruins of structures lay the corpses. Hundreds of them. Everywhere. Inga, consistently moving forward, never went more than a few seconds before needing to step over or—in the case of large animals—around one.

  The stench of burnt flesh hung in the air. It smelled like any roasted
meat, but her stomach roiled knowing this meat did not come from an animal. The stench of burnt hair grew so pungent, her nose refused to adapt to it. She gagged with near-constancy and eventually untied her platok to wrap it around her nose and mouth.

  As she moved northward, she spoke to some of the calmer refugees, asking what they’d seen and what they knew. For some reason no one quite understood, Devlet-Guirey waited for the fire to burn out, then turned with his force of one hundred twenty thousand men and left. Why he waited long enough for the fires to cool, only to not loot the city was beyond anyone. Inga supposed they should be grateful, even if they didn’t understand the Tatar’s reasons. Something told her this wouldn’t be the end of it.

  Inga learned from a soot-covered priest trudging past her that the fire didn’t devour the northern suburbs, and many people had taken shelter there. She felt a surge of hope that Anne and Ekaterina might be among them and pointed her feet in that direction.

  It took her hours to reach the northern suburbs. Not only because she had to pick her way over corpses and through debris, but more than once, an area proved too hot or still burning, and forced her to double back and find a new route. Other times, she got turned around in the smoke-filled streets and ended up struggling in the wrong direction for some time before realizing she’d gone the wrong way. She knew her city well, but she felt as though she stumbled through a dark room, and the fire had rearranged structures enough to confuse her memories.

  Inga found a promising route and headed down it when a still-burning log fell directly into her path. No, not a log. It proved too large for that. She thought it might have been a bridge over the street between the buildings on her right and left. Now it lay in her path. Inga didn’t relish backtracking and finding a new way to travel in this direction. That would take time, and keep her from exploring the area on the other side of the burning bridge.

  She studied the bridge. If only it’s supports had burnt through, the entire structure might still be sound. Perhaps she could climb over. Deciding to try, she found a hand and foot hold and pulled herself up.