wondering whether he might make out the rest of the Narodniki.
UCHITEL URGED his stallion on. The sea cliffs of Alaska were towering ahead of
them, snow tipped, only a hundred paces away. Birds resembling gray gulls, but
with a vastly larger wingspan, circled and wheeled from their eyries, their
echoing cries like the moaning of long-drowned sailors.
Behind him in single file, came twenty-eight men and women, their horses
advancing through the crumpled sheets of jagged ice, watching for the softer
contours and crystalline outcrops that might hide gaps in the surface and for
hidden crevasses through which a man and horse might easily slide, vanishing
completely and irrevocably into the sucking waters.
For the hundredth time that day, Uchitel turned in his saddle, feeling a crick
in his neck from continually looking back. Once they were across, they would be
safe. He had never heard any legend or read any account of any Russian crossing
this narrow shifting neck of ice. If it were true that they were being pursued,
then the land ahead of them promised safety.
NUL RAISED THE LAST MOUTHFUL of the golubtsy to his lips.
Then he was lying on his back in the trampled snow, staring blankly up at the
dull sky.
There had been no sense of time passing. No sense of falling.
No pain.
The only feeling was shock; a sensation that someone had managed to creep up
unseen and strike him in the middle of the chest with a huge mallet. He was
aware that his feet were kicking and twitching. It felt odd, as though his feet
belonged to someone else. With gloves that seemed to be filled with iron, Nul
carefully touched the numb center where the hammerblow had come.
He suddenly felt very cold.
A full fourteen hundred paces to the southwest, the tall sniper lowered the
Samozaridnyia Vintovka Dragunova rifle. The rimmed 7.62 mm bullet had done its
work. Through the PSO-1 telescopic sight he’d seen it rip explosively into the
target’s chest. The man wasn’t going to move very far with a wound like that.
“Good shooting, Corporal Solomentsov. An extra ration of food this month from
the grateful party.”
The speaker was about thirty, with a long, drooping mustache that hid a
pockmarked chin. He stood five inches below six feet and wore a gray uniform of
thick material, with long boots of tanned hide. Removing his high fur cap, which
bore a single silver circle at the front, he revealed a totally bald head.
“Thank you, Major Zimyanin,” said Solomentsov, giving a click of his heels and a
sharp bow.
“Holster the Dragunuv rifle, Corporal. You know what ice can do to the sight.
Last time you left it uncovered the frost cracked the bulb of the reticle lamp.”
“Yes, Major,” the corporal replied, taking the long gun and pulling a cloth
shroud over the neat sight.
“And send Tracker Aliev to me.”
The tracker was less than five feet tall, with the slanted eyes that revealed
his heritage. He had the waddling gait of a Mongolian who’d spent most of his
life astride a barrel-chested pony. A thick woollen scarf was wrapped about the
lower part of his olive-skinned face.
“Aliev, do they still move on toward the sea? Be sure.”
The rest of the hundred-strong militia unit kept well clear of the tracker. Some
of them crossed themselves when they went near him. His skill at scenting the
enemy was so developed that there were those who said he was a witch. As he
approached the head of the column, past the depression where Solomentsov had
knelt to fire, he unwound his scarf. Though Major Zimyanin had seen him many
times, he still fought hard to restrain a shudder.
The nukes used by the Americans in this part of once-mighty Russia had been
awesome in their power. Aliev came from a family that had always lived near the
Kamchatka Peninsula, and his face was the stigma of his background.
Most of the lower jaw was missing. Where the nose should have been, there was
only a large hole fringed with damp pink tissue like rotting lace. The mouth
gaped, with a few yellowed teeth left jutting crookedly from the upper jaw.