“Back up!” he shouted.
Before any of them could react, the ground erupted.
Nikandr felt himself lifted and thrown through the air like dust on the wind. He fell softly onto his back in the deep snow, his knee burning from the awkward angle at which he’d landed. Several yards away, standing tall as two men, was a mound of snow-covered earth not unlike the vanahezhan he had seen on Ghayavand. It stalked toward Ashan as the sotnik fired his musket. The flash from the pan was dimmed by the burlap sack protecting it against the snow. The musket ball struck the beast’s head as two more shots tore into it. Nearly all of the streltsi discharged their firearms into the hezhan.
Mere moments later, a cry rose up behind them.
Nikandr turned, recognizing the trap well too late.
It was the Maharraht-at least a score of them-advancing through the drifts. They trained their muskets as they advanced. A split second later, they stopped and released a clatter of musket fire.
Nikandr’s men cried out in pain as musket shots tore into them. Four dropped to the snow. Ashan spread his arms wide, and gazed to the sky. A musket shot pierced his pale yellow robes just below one arm, tugging at the fabric like a child trying to gain his attention.
“Ashan, beware!” Nikandr shouted as he backed away, but Ashan didn’t listen.
The vanahezhan pounded through the snow, but before it could come within striking distance its feet were caught as if it had stepped into deep, sucking mud. Its momentum carried it forward. Loud snaps broke above the din of battle. The beast’s body tumbled to the ground, and though its arms caught it, they were held by the same effect. The thing struggled like a collared wolf against the restraints holding it.
As one, the streltsi began retreating toward the depression where the vanaqiram had been only moments ago.
The Maharraht pressed their advantage, but then several of their muskets discharged before they were ready. Rehada’s doing.
“Something is wrong,” Rehada told Nikandr as she knelt down beside him.
“You noticed?”
Rehada shook her head. “I mean this doesn’t feel right. Soroush should be here, and so should Nasim.”
“Behind!” the sotnik yelled.
Nikandr glanced back while reloading his own musket. Several dozen yards up, firing from the top of a small knoll, were more Maharraht. Another strelet and the burly desyatnik were felled as the sotnik ordered half of them to return fire.
After one volley, as his men were reloading their weapons, the Maharraht charged.
Nikandr stared at them, knowing they were severely outnumbered, knowing they would most likely die whatever they did.
That may be true, Nikandr thought, but he would not go easily.
He drew his shashka and held it high over his head. “Charge!” he yelled as he sprinted forward.
Atiana watched in horror as Bolgravya’s streltsi unloaded from the skiffs. They marched forward, muskets at the ready. She could feel Alesya’s growing desire to have this done with and to rid herself of Atiana-she was growing increasingly disgusted by her nearness to Atiana’s emotions and thoughts.
Meanwhile, Atiana’s awareness of the rift had been growing like the coming light of dawn. There was a distinct feeling of familiarity to it that she could only attribute to her discovery of it within the aether. It lay wide open, a gaping maw in the fabric of the world, and through it she could feel the touch of Adhiya. She could feel warmth and earth and water, even air.
And running through it all was the scent of life.
But there was something else, the feeling that this place-the rift-was like one of any number of threads that ran through the fabric of Erahm-as if the filaments of Adhiya were spread throughout the world like thistledown. The nearest was the one on Duzol, all the more familiar since she had just come from there, and it felt-as it had within the aether-ripe.
Alesya paid little attention to these thoughts because the sounds of battle had broken out. And it was close.
Very close.
The shouts of Duchy men could be heard, as well as the high calls of the Maharraht. The crack of musket fire pattered like the first heavy raindrops of a terrible summer storm. Flashes of white were seen through the curtain of snow.
Grigory raised his fist, a signal that was quickly passed down the line. The men halted.
“Can you feel the boy?” Grigory asked.
Alesya forced Atiana to shake her head. “ Nyet. There is nothing.”
“Where is he?”
“She does not know.”
And then Nikandr’s voice filtered through the cries.
Grigory’s face hardened.
He motioned for the men to fan out to his left, to converge on the sounds of the musket fire that lay between them and Nikandr. They stalked forward, but one of the Maharraht called out a warning. Many of them turned and fired, as Grigory’s men laid into them.
It was then, with several Maharraht dropping their muskets and charging with wickedly curved shamshirs drawn, that Atiana realized why Duzol felt so near. Why it felt ripe.
The rift here on Uyadensk was not the place where Nasim could be used. It never had been. Ashan had been wrong in the beginning, and she had been wrong in the end. Like a jeweler calculating the perfect angle with which to strike the uncut stone, the Maharraht had understood that the key was not the rift on Uyadensk, but the one on Duzol-not because it was the largest, but because by ripping it wider it would cause a chain of events that would lead to the destruction they hoped to wreak.
“Grigory, stop!” Alesya yelled through Atiana’s voice. “Stop!”
Grigory didn’t listen. He couldn’t. He was locked in swordplay, parrying the fierce slashes from a tall Maharraht warrior.
That was when it struck.
A musket ball.
Without warning.
Straight through Atiana’s chest.
The enemy on the knoll had inexplicably pulled away, leaving Nikandr’s men free to face the Maharraht to the rear. The two forces crashed together. Men shouted as steel fell upon steel. In moments, their line was complete chaos. Blood fell upon the snow as soldiers dropped on both sides.
Nikandr parried the attacks of a warrior with a long black mustache. He retreated, keeping his parries slow, baiting the other man. When he finally overextended his advantage, Nikandr sidestepped quickly and drove his shashka through the man’s gut. He withdrew quickly and slashed the man across the throat before he could attempt a dying stroke.
His men were in disarray. There were less than a dozen left against twenty Maharraht. It would be over in moments.
But then a cry rose from beyond the knoll. Nearly two dozen streltsi came running over the hill.
“Hold, men! Hold!”
They did, and soon after the other group of streltsi fell upon the Maharraht. None of the enemy withdrew, however. None turned to run. They fought to the death, the last cutting four streltsi down before he took a musket shot at point-blank range through his chest, and even then he grabbed the end of the unfortunate soldier’s musket and swung his shamshir high over his head and swept it across the other man’s neck. The strelet’s head fell against the beaten and bloody snow, emitting a sound like a fallen gourd.
The Maharraht tried to fight on, but he fell to his knees while stumbling against the uneven, blood-matted snow. He blinked several times before the streltsi nearby fell upon him, unleashing their fury, their swords rising and falling and cutting him into barely recognizable pieces.
And then Nikandr saw the commander of the streltsi.
It was Grigory.
