“So what do we do, General?” Ivan asked, with a grin.
Tim thought about it. The land between the river and the town was open; muddy bank fading to grassy field to streets and buildings. His force was outnumbered, but at the same time each of these people had sat down with the czar, the czarina, and Princess Natasha. They had talked with Bernie and Filip and they were volunteers who knew what they were fighting for. They could sit in the town and fight from behind the buildings. It would work, but it would get a lot of people killed. No, that isn’t the way.
“We’ll march out to meet them.”
Ivan gave him a look and Petr Kadian asked, “Why?”
“You saw them,” Tim said, still trying to figure out exactly what he had noticed about the invaders.
Petr Kadian nodded.
“Well, how did they look to you?”
Petr Kadian was by no means a military genius, but he had served the Gorchakov clan as an armsman and retainer for near twenty years. He had seen armies and he had seen battles. He had seen fierce resistance to overwhelming odds and armies coming apart in the face of a light breeze. He hadn’t noticed it when he was out there looking at the opposing force because it wasn’t his job to notice that sort of thing. But now that the boy general brought it up, he realized that those fellows out there were… “A rout waiting to happen, sir.”
That was what Tim had seen without quite knowing why.
Ivan, now that it had been explained, knew why. “We want them to see each other run.”
“More importantly, we want them to see that we won’t,” Tim said. “We want them to see us as a real army. The czar’s army. Small maybe, but real.”
They marched out in two columns with sergeants counting cadence loudly. When they were a little over one hundred yards from the still-milling mob from Nizhny Novgorod, they made a right turn and the columns stretched out into lines. Finally Tim called them to halt, then shouted, “Left, face!”
“Dress ranks!” Tim carefully paid no attention to the mob from Nizhny Novgorod as he watched the men dress their ranks, then as he walked down the line, commenting on uniforms and weapons. It wasn’t a bluff. Tim was quite sure these men would slaughter the mob they were facing. And it wasn’t a matter of bravery. Tim wasn’t sure how to put what it was. But he never would consider doing this if he were facing Sergeant Hampstead’s men. Nor if he were facing the Moscow Streltzi, even without the walking walls. Finally, he looked over his shoulder.
The mob of Nizhny Novgorod was no longer milling around, but they weren’t forming themselves into a unit either. They were just standing there, staring.
Tim shook his head. “All right, men,” Tim shouted. “On the command, the first rank will kneel and ready their rifles. Pick your targets. We want to hit as many in the first volley as possible. We will then wait till the breeze clears the smoke away before the second rank fires.” Tim looked back at the men across the field then continued, in as loud and penetrating a voice as he could manage, “There will be no reason to rush.”
A shot rang out. Tim didn’t spin or jump; he had been half-expecting it. He turned around to see a man near the end of the sort of arching line that the Nizhny Novgorod contingent had drifted into. There was smoke drifting from a musket in his hands. “Sergeant Kadian,” Tim said loudly.
“Yes, General?” Kadian asked.
“That uncultured fellow with the smoke coming from his musket is your target.”
“Right, General!” Kadian sounded quite pleased. And men started edging away from the fellow who had shot his musket.
“Very well. Where was I? After the first rank has fired and the air has cleared, the second rank will, on command, advance five paces, kneel, and fire. When the air has cleared again, the first will…”
Bernie and Natasha were boarding the dirigible when they heard the shot. They didn’t turn. It was just one shot and all it indicated was that they were in a hurry. The Czarina Evdokia wasn’t the Graf Zeppelin. It was a seventeenth-century airship built by seventeenth-century craftsmen informed by late-twentieth-century knowledge. Still, it was the same basic shape as the Graf Zeppelin, if a bit smaller. They loaded in a dozen passengers, and Captain Nikita Ivanovich Slavenitsky, the first Russian to fly, gave the order to pull her out of the giant hangar.
Tim finished his little speech and ordered the first rank to kneel. The Nizhny Novgorod force had lost several men who just faded away, but not enough. They still outnumbered Tim’s men. “Take aim! Fire!”
Blaaam! Blam! Blam!
A bit ragged, but not too bad. And certainly better than the spatter of shots that the Nizhnys had put out in response.
“Wait for it!” Tim shouted. “Let the breeze clear the smoke!” Let the enemy see their dead and think about being elsewhere.
The breeze was taking its time in clearing away the smoke. And when it did, the results were a bit disappointing. They were at the outside edge of the AK4.7’s range. Well outside of the effective range of a musket, but Tim had hoped for better. Almost fifty men had shot and less than ten of the enemy had fallen.
“Second rank advance!” Tim moved forward with the new front rank. “Your left! Your left! Halt!
“Kneel. Ready! Aim! Fire!”
Blam! BlBlaBlaaaam! Blam! Blam!
Definitely a bit ragged. It was strange. Tim should have been scared and, in a way he was. But the effect it had on him was weird. He just noticed things. Every detail became intense and distinct. The stench of the air, not just the acrid smoke of the burned powder but the smell of the river’s muddy bank, combined with the dew on the grass. The patterns the smoke made as it wafted away under the light breeze. And, most of all, the enemy across the field. It was almost as if he could see their faces. Feel the fear that was eating away at the little discipline they had. He was honestly a little amazed that they had held this long.
Then the Czarina Evdokia appeared over the roofs of Bor. It was massive and it was flying. It wasn’t the first time these men had seen it. It had made several test flights and some of them had gone over Nizhny Novgorod. But in this case, it meant that their last reason for being here was floating away.
“Next rank! Forward five paces!”
The Nizhny Novgorod force scattered. Tim let them. Honestly, he had nothing against those men. They were following the orders they had been given by their lawful lords.
Ivan came over. “So what now, Tim?”
“We go to Ufa.”
Czarina Evdokia looked out the window of the Czarina Evdokia, awash in conflicting emotions. Staying alive in the bear pit of Russian politics wasn’t ever easy, and her habit-along with her husband’s-had been to keep her head down. That hadn’t worked. Apparently it had in the other timeline, but not in this one. Now they were out of position. They couldn’t keep their heads down and Evdokia wasn’t at all sure that Mikhail would be able to handle being his own man. Or that she would be able to handle it. What would Sheremetev and the Boyar Duma do now that Mikhail had escaped the relatively comfortable prison? It was safe to assume that the gloves would come off, but how? Would they declare that Mikhail was False Mikhail, like the False Dmitris? Would they depose him in favor of Sheremetev and his family?
Evdokia didn’t know. All she really know was that she was scared to death and at the same time thrilled to be alive and flying over the countryside in a dirigible named in her honor. She looked over at her friend and confidant, Natasha, and wondered what the future would bring.
Natasha didn’t notice. She was holding Bernie’s arm and wasn’t quite sure how it had happened. Some time, while she was watching the battle of Bor probably. But she had no desire at all to let the arm go.
Nor the man it belonged to. So many other customs and attitudes were being cast aside, why should she worry about this one any longer?
And so many things would be changing for them, anyway. She thought about what Filip had said to the czar, when he compared him to a Cossack. He’d been joking, but the more Natasha pondered the matter the more profound that jest became.
Everyone knew there were noblemen out there in the Cossack bands, not just runaway serfs. One of them,
