There was another scream. Ulyana Ivanovna crossed herself and began to pray. Samuel fell to his knees apparently doing the same. Emilia had her hands over her ears and was rocking back and forth. Ben looked at the group and rubbed his face with his hands.
The screaming began again. This time it was longer, pitching higher and higher. Nikolas hunched his shoulders, swore and then slid silently away into the darkness.
§ § §
Nikolas followed the sound of the screaming. After a while, he could smell a fire and followed the scent between the screams. Very cautiously, he approached a clearing, which had been formed around an area of marshy, stagnant ground. He slid into a tangle of undergrowth and considered his options. There were five men sitting around a fire. And Ruben, of course, but he was on the fire, and Nikolas knew there was nothing he could now do for him. If he’d had his rifle, he’d have shot him. But he didn’t have a rifle. Ruben screamed again. Nikolas’s mouth filled with saliva, and he spat silently. One of the men suddenly stood and stabbed his knife down into his victim and, over the screaming, shouted something in Russian. Nikolas felt a cold wash trickle down his spine as the import of the words hit him.
Things had been bad for them. Now, he realised, they were far, far worse than he’d thought.
Suddenly the men rose and began to stamp down upon the fire, putting it out. They dragged Ruben to one side, his screams now feeble whimpers. They shouldered packs, one swung an axe up, and they walked off as casually as if they’d been at a church social. Nikolas tracked them some distance away from the clearing until he was sure they’d gone and then circled back.
Ruben was still alive. He was babbling, weak moans and incoherent words mixing up. He seemed to sense Nikolas’s presence, and his words began to form together, make more sense. Nikolas knew what he was trying to tell him anyway. He’d heard it from the Russian. Hell, he’d heard it from Jonas Terry, only he’d not understood the message. Very carefully, he took Ruben’s hand and gave it a little squeeze as he put him out of his agony. He crouched for a while, considering the ruined man. He’d hardly known him at all and felt nothing for him, but his death had shifted something in Nikolas. He’d seen wanton cruelty before. He’d been the victim of it many times when he was younger. But this was something else beyond that. There was level of sadism in what’d been done to this young man and to his father Nikolas hadn’t seen since his days in Afghanistan. Medieval barbarism, pure evil, it seemed, lived here in these Russian forests, as it had in those terrible mountains. Perhaps it had migrated here, carried in the hearts of men deserting a war that had stolen their souls.
As he tracked back through the trees to where he’d left the group, he felt exhaustion suck at the sharp edges of his mind. He just wanted to lie down and have someone else decide something for a change. Stay or go? Fight or—? There was no alternative to that one. Stay or go, though? Stay or go? He approached the rest place and felt his heart miss a beat. It was empty. No sign of Ben or the group. He turned around, his brain too foggy with exhaustion to work out what’d happened, but that was when he saw the little piece of paper pinned to the base of the tree where Ulyana Ivanovna had sat. It was one of the chocolate wrappers. He pulled it off. In Danish, Ben had written in smudged charcoal: Half mile downstream. Island.
He took off, running, exhaustion pushed to one side. He was there in a few minutes and saw what Ben meant. The river at this point split and formed a natural island a few hundred feet long and perhaps fifty feet wide. The river, forced into even narrower channels, roared down either side of it. The island was covered in trees and shrubs and had no natural landing points, as its banks were constantly being swept by the icy white water. It was a perfect defensive position. He leapt to a boulder and then another and gradually made his way over. He found the group in the centre of the island. They had a fire going and were sitting around it, silent and grim. Ben rose immediately, as did Samuel. He shook his head at the young man and watched as he turned away and walked to the other side of the island, staring out over the river and into the dark trees beyond.
§ § §
Ben followed Nikolas until they were just out of sight of the group and sat on the ground alongside him. Very uncharacteristically, Nikolas laid his head on Ben’s shoulder. Ben put his arm around him and stroked his sweat-streaked hair. Within a few minutes, he realised Nikolas was asleep. Nikolas had pushed himself to the limit and now even his superb body needed to rest. Ben let him sleep. He’d know soon enough what had happened to Ruben. He didn’t need to know any sooner than he had to.
Humiliatingly, Ben felt tears prick his eyes as he recalled the expression on Nikolas’s face as he’d moved off into the tree line toward the sound of screaming. Who would have the courage to go alone toward whatever was happing to cause that agonised sound? Nikolas would have been better off if he’d never met Ben, never had the monster within him tamed. Alone, he’d be a man who’d just leave them all and survive.
At that moment, Ben didn’t want Nikolas to be a good man. He just wanted him to stay alive.
§ § §
At last they’d found some use for the preacher boy—a welcome break from walking.
Very nicely timed. Sure, the screams had been fucked up, coming out of the trees like that. But now they’d lit a fire and actually been able to eat something. Jeez, no one could walk all day at the pace that blond fuck had set and not eat. Goddamned Viking aborigine.
No one was listening to him, but it seemed to Sean that this was a very good place to stop for good. Once these mutants realised they couldn’t get their banjos over the river they’d piss off and leave them alone.
And maybe, just maybe, someone could speak with them! Hello? Find out where in the hell they were? Borrow a goddamned truck or something? Jeez. Did he have to think of everything?
The old witch was probably one of them, being neighbours almost. Send her out, give her a white fucking flag or something, but get her to mumble her incantations and find out where the fuck the nearest airport was.
§ § §
Nikolas slept for an hour in the late sun. Ben eased the blond head down into his lap, and just continued to run his fingers lightly through the long strands. It seemed to Ben as if Nikolas was dreaming. He’d never known Nikolas to dream once. He never spoke of dreams and claimed he didn’t remember them if he did.
Suddenly, Nikolas’s eyes flew open. He sat up and rubbed his face, looking at his hands. He took a deep breath and said, “They want Emilia.”
“What? What do they want a kid for?”
“What do you think, Ben? What do men always want?”
“Oh, Jesus, no.”
“Jonas Terry was supposed to tell me this, I think, but I didn’t understand it in his ranting. Rubies and pearls—it’s from the Bible. He was talking about Emilia—her price beyond measure. I heard one of them tell Ruben they wanted the ruby-haired one. He was to be another messenger.”
“They can’t have her.”
“Oh, no, they won’t have her. But I believe we must change our plan. They won’t give up. However far we walk, they will follow us.” He glanced over at Ben. “We must take the fight to them.”
CHAPTER NINE
Nikolas had killed two men and seen five more torturing Ruben Terry. None of the men he’d seen so far had guns, but they were very well armed with bows, axes and knifes, similar to the level of weaponry they had. Besides that, however, they knew next to nothing about their enemy, and they needed to know a great deal more. Nikolas had the distinct impression the men watching them knew everything they needed to know. “Satan said unto me I have been patrolling the earth, watching everything…” Jonas Terry had tried to tell him. They needed to even the odds.
They were now eight, although Nikolas doubted six of his group’s chances in a close fight with the men he’d seen. Nothing he’d observed about them had changed his opinion they were ex-prisoners, possibly deserters from the Russian army. Lawyers, even those who swapped their offic
es and leather chairs for an annual hunt, were powerless against that savagery. He doubted Sean Sands was physically capable of fighting; he was struggling massively with the walking. Samuel was an unknown quantity as yet, but he was young and emotionally shattered, and Nikolas couldn’t rely on him. That left Emilia and Ulyana Ivanovna. Whilst he didn’t doubt their courage, Emilia weighed less than his ego, and Ulyana Ivanovna was wider than she was tall. Courage wasn’t enough where brutality was needed. That left him and Ben. He could see Ben was thinking the same thing. He put a hand up and pulled a leaf out of Ben’s hair, letting it twist and twirl to the ground. “This isn’t the holiday you were expecting.”
Ben raised his brows a little, apparently considering this. “It’s still beating the tsunami. I think.”
Nikolas smiled and cupped his face. “I miss you.” He knew Ben got what he meant when Ben leant into the touch. But it was too much for Nikolas on top of exhaustion and horror. He turned his face away for a moment until Ben cupped his cheek and turned him back.
Ben brushed away the uncharacteristic trail of dampness which wet his prominent cheekbone and whispered, “Don’t.”
Nikolas put his face into the crook of Ben’s neck. “There may be only one way to get the information we need. I don’t want to be Aleksey again, Ben. I’ve tried so hard to be a different man. To be a better man.” He lifted his face. “And look where it’s gotten us.”
Ben held him tighter, shaking him gently as if to emphasis his words. “You haven’t really changed at all. Everything you are now was always there. You let me see the better you sometimes even before I met Aleksey for the first time. I’m not sure I’d have hung on for four years waiting for you if you hadn’t.” He laid his fingers over Nikolas’s lips, effectively preventing from him denying this. “But everything you were then you still are. It’s all just you, Nikolas: contradictory, infuriating, good, bad. I don’t know anymore.” He began to laugh, apparently at some private joke. “I don’t think God understands you either. He cast you out but still loves you best.”
“What are you babbling about, Benjamin Rider?”
“Nothing, nothing at all.” He kissed him, swiftly, urgently. “I’m right here, Nikolas, and I’m not going anywhere—whoever you are, whatever you have to do. Until death, yeah?”
“That may be coming quicker than we’d hoped.”
“Nah. We’ve got Aleksey Primakov on our side.”
Nikolas laughed and stood up, offering his hand to Ben. “And he’s got Benjamin Rider on his. We’ll be an irresistible force of two. Arm up, we take anything that’s sharp. If we have to fight and we fail, then there’s no hope for any of them.”
§ § §
They walked back to the group. Nikolas told them that he and Ben were going to find the enemy camp. He explained why they’d changed the plan—except he lied. He didn’t tell them about the girl. He said instead that he’d expected their enemy to have greater numbers, that he’d been shocked at their physical condition: half-starved, filthy, weak. He assured them these men could be defeated, that there was no need for them to run. He knew Ben would be able to tell he was lying, but he reckoned everyone else was falling for it. While he translated for the grandmother, he helped Ben select the best weapons. Just before they left, Nikolas pulled Jackson to one side and said something to him. The lawyer paled and tried to pull away. Nikolas insisted and finally the other man nodded. Satisfied, Nikolas handed the survival backpack to Ulyana Ivanovna, told them all they would be back before dark, and he and Ben left, heading toward the awful place where Ruben had died.
§ § §
Ben crouched down by the almost unrecognisable body, examining it. Nikolas let him. To do the sort of work they had ahead of them, they needed to dehumanise their enemy. These men had made it easy for them—they’d dehumanised themselves.
Finally, Ben nodded and stood. “You’re right. They’ll never stop coming after her. This is the only way.”
“So, now the hunters become the hunted.” He led the way. The trail was distinct and easy to follow. At some points it looked as if the men had sat and eaten, possibly consuming some of the choicer cuts they’d cooked and taken from Ruben. They tracked for miles into the forest. It got darker and colder as they went. Finally, Nikolas waved Ben to get down. There was nothing to see yet, but he knew Ben would smell it soon, a terrible, rank stench of body odour and rancid meat—a sentry.
Ben nodded, they separated and came upon the man as he was settling down to watch the trail. Ben hit him once above the ear, and he went down. They took one arm each and dragged him rapidly away from his position and into the great fortress of the forest.
§ § §
This one had a tongue, and after an hour he was using it. Anyone would, subjected to the encouragement Nikolas gave him. Although Nikolas had told Ben he wanted to be a better man, he was willing to do what was necessary, cut where was needed. Techniques, learnt the hard way, not forgotten.
The stinking man’s Russian was almost indecipherable, but Nikolas understood enough. He told them how he’d deserted the army when Gorbachev was still president. Nowhere had been far enough to run from the mighty revenge of the Soviet system until he’d come here, to the taiga. And here he’d met others like himself: deserters who’d learnt the worst an army can teach its young men.
However hard they pressed the screaming man, he wouldn’t give up the location of his camp or betray their numbers. It seemed as if his fear of Nikolas—what he could or would do—was not as great as that which awaited him should he betray his companions. There was only one thing they could think of to do. They knew each other so well they didn’t need to speak.
Ben bound the man. Nikolas asked him in Russian what he thought he was doing. Ben replied with his basic Russian that they mustn’t kill him. Nikolas pushed him away and came at the exhausted man, knife drawn, nicking his throat before Ben tackled him. They went down, wrestling, punching, and arguing. Nikolas pinned Ben down. Ben rolled, now on top. They could hear scrabbling from one side. They continued to fight and argue about killing the man.
Finally, Nikolas looked to one side, panting. “He’s gone—finally. One more minute of rolling like this with you, and he’d have had something more interesting to watch than wrestling.”
Ben snorted. “See? Even tying crap knots, the SAS tie the best knots.” They scrambled to their feet, Nikolas almost regretting they had to follow the man or lose him in the gloom. The wrestling had been the most fun he’d had physically for far too long.
They tracked the tortured sentry, following his clear blood trail. Every so often, Nikolas marked a tree so they’d be able to find the place again. Gradually the night became oppressively dark, the moon obscured by racing clouds. There was dampness in the air, threatening rain. Still they followed the man, as easy to track now by the noise he was making as his exhausted, tortured body gave up its fight, as by the blood they could no longer see in the darkness.
Eventually, the sentry led them to the edge of a ridge where the land fell away into a bowl. By now, the rain was coming down heavily. It was the first rain they’d had since the crash, and it was unwelcome, soaking their clothes, quickly turning over-dry land to mud. They crawled carefully the last few feet to the rim. This was a dank place, towering trees keeping out the light, and the ground appeared permanently damp even without the rain, but it was well concealed, and smoke from fires hardly rose above the tree line. One whole side of the encampment was river, a white torrent giving it superb protection from attack and a ready supply of water. They didn’t know if it was the same river they’d been following or another. The noise was deafening.
The tortured sentry had fallen at the edge, unable to make it down the slope, and his feeble cries couldn’t penetrate through the sound of the drumming rain and the river. Nikolas ended his problems for him, silently dispatching him. They lay on their bellies on the edge of the ridge, observing. There were fires lit around the whole bowl, illuminating the scene like a
Hieronymus Bosch painting. It was a squalid, fetid place to have lived for over twenty years. Skins were pegged out on tripods and the previous owners discarded, bloody carcasses thrown in heaps. The smell was terrible even from where they were. There was a low cabin made of logs, roofed with turf, which had no windows, and a few other lean-to shacks of varying sizes and states of dilapidation. Three men were working to pull covers over the stacks of skins.
“We could take those three now,” Nikolas observed in a whisper.
“You saw two more for sure, and there may be others as well. They all have knives. We have four more men back at the camp. We should return and come back together in force.”
Nikolas was reluctant to leave now that he had his quarry in his sights. Just as he was about to argue again for a surprise attack, the cabin door crashed open, and the largest man he had ever seen lumbered out. The giant was clearly the owner of the footprints. He was a good head taller than either Nikolas or Ben, well over seven feet. A beard almost wholly obscured his face, now more grey than black, but his hair was plaited in elaborate and filthy tangles of multi-coloured strands. He was dragging something in his hand, which he began to nail onto the side of the cabin. Nikolas let out a small breath. Ben glanced at him. “What is it? What’s he doing?”
The Bridge of Silver Wings Page 10
