delivered a fearsome punch to the horse’s head, knocking it to its knees. Then
she kicked and lashed it with her whip until it returned to its feet. As she
remounted, she was rewarded with cheers from her fellows.
Uchitel touched the cold hilt of his saber, remembering the good feeling of
decapitating an enemy. He wanted to capture more enemies so that he could use
the sword once more. Perhaps in the town of Ank Ridge there would be plenty of
chances.
When the wind shifted to the south he caught the bitter taste of salt on his
tongue, in addition to the ever-present sulfur from the surrounding volcanoes.
The salt meant the sea could not be far away, which meant that Ank Ridge must
also be close.
Grom, their explosives expert, reined in his horse alongside Uchitel. “That
would make a fine show for my toys,” he shouted. Grom was almost stone deaf and
shouted all the time.
Grom pointed to a large dam with towers, set across a valley to their left. It
dominated the valley where they rode, silhouetted against the amber sky, which
was splashed with streaks of vivid green lightning.
“The water will be frozen, Grom,” he called, facing him so Grom could read his
lips.
“No, Uchitel! See ahead, there is a river that flows and there is green to its
sides. Away beyond that dam you see the smoking cone of a volcano. It heats the
water so that it flows. Let me burst it and wash all away down here. It would be
a fine sight, I swear.”
“Not now, brother. Perhaps another day, but not yet. Not now!”
“WHAT IS THAT, UCHITEL?”
Evening was dragging its murky cloak across the wasteland, the yellow clouds
turning a sullen maroon. It had snowed a little during the late part of the
afternoon, dusting the trail ahead. The dam was still visible behind them. This
time it was Barkhat, with the smooth, velvet voice, who spoke; as he did so, the
puckered scar at the corner of his mouth twitched and danced.
“Where?”
“Yonder. Like a large ball.”
Uchitel strained his eyes into the gloom. He saw several squat buildings and a
large saucer-shaped object, which was cracked along one side and mounted on a
tripod. It was difficult to judge its size, but it looked to be about a hundred
feet in height. There was also a huge ball, half as high again, that seemed to
be made from a complicated pattern of interwoven triangles. Uchitel had never
seen anything like it, but it nagged at his memory. There had been something
like it in one of the old history books in Yakutsk.
“I think it was a defense against firefights.”
“What?”
Uchitel nodded, the facts trickling back into his mind. “It was called radar,
Barkhat. It was a way of seeing great distances and watching for enemies. There
were many such installations along the coasts. I have read that such buildings
stood where the Sakhalin and Kamchatka lands were. But they were—” he hesitated,
seeking the expression that he’d read —Da, they were ‘primary objectives’ for
the nukes. This one must have been missed.”
“Should we go look, Uchitel? Might there not be much gold?”
“Imbecile! Would there be gold after a hundred years? They were not places of
wealth. No. Let us ride on by.”
“Perhaps we could camp there if the buildings are safe.”
Uchitel considered it. “Perhaps, brother. Perhaps we can.”
“And watch for enemies,” added Urach, who’d come in time to hear the latter part
of the conversation.
“Our enemies are all ahead of us. We need no radar to tell us that.”
“None behind?” asked Urach.
“Nyet,” replied Uchitel, forcefully. “If there were, then they stayed back in
Russia. They will never be a threat to the Narodniki.”
ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY MILES behind the Narodniki, Major Gregori Zimyanin was
leading his group of one hundred mounted militia. They were at the foothills of
the Alaskan Range, spread well out, the horses picking their way carefully
through the torturous mountain terrain.
Aliev, the Tracker, was a little ahead of them, waving them forward. Zimyanin
had deliberately held up the crossing of the Bering Strait, hesitant at the