Last Citadel

Katya trembled inside her frozen flesh. This was not the voice of either of the guards. This man was older.

The set of boots on the other side of Katya’s death pose made a nauseated sound, ‘Pfew.’ In Russian, the voice whispered, ‘Leave her.’

The old one murmured, ‘No. We can carry her.’

‘She stinks.’

Katya’s fear did not release easily. She recognized these voices, but cracked her eyes slowly, just enough to peer out under her lashes, to stay dead.

She saw boots. Russian boots. And there were jackets and dark civilian shirts, and yes! Filip, and nasty Josef. They’d come!

Katya gulped a deep breath and fought to sit up.

The two leaped away from her, old Filip staggered backward and fell to his knees, crossing himself and muttering to Christ. Josef recovered first, he stepped to her and without a word dug his hands under Anna’s spine to raise the horse off her.

‘Come on, old man,’ he growled at the starosta.

‘Witch?’ old Filip mumbled, still on his knees.

Katya turned to Filip, knowing how ghastly she must look. ‘Filip, help me get up.’

Josef grunted again, ‘Old man.’

Filip helped Josef heft the horse from Katya’s legs. Katya plucked the dangling intestine from her ripped shirt and tossed it aside, callous now for Anna’s death, her sorrow dismissed by the thrill of reprieve. She sucked down air and thought it sweet, blessed it, felt the honey of her own blood rush back into her feet, then reached up for Josef’s hand to stand on her own. Only minutes had passed since the C-3 exploded, that was all, and she had lived a lifetime in them, and a death. She wanted to hug both men, even Josef.

The two left her wobbling while they went to the tracks to collect the German guards. The blown rail was curled in the air like a beckoning steel finger. Josef and Filip hoisted one man to his feet, he’d been unconscious until Josef kicked him to wake him. The soldier’s hands had been tied and his mouth stuffed with a sock. In the moonlight Katya saw the shock on his face, his pupils wide and white at her standing before him, a blood-covered zombie partisan. The other guard did not rise. His throat was slit. The gash was gaping enough in his neck for Katya to see it from where she stood, blood had poured and pooled in the crannies of the gravel and across rail ties. Katya felt nothing at the sight.

Josef held his knife to the bound German’s throat and gripped him under the elbow. He led the soldier away into the hundred open meters between them and cover. The prisoner walked off with his eyes fixed on Katya.

‘ Sei still,’ Filip hissed to him, and drew a index finger under his own chin to make sure the German understood that Josef would kill him if he made a sound.

Filip took Katya under the arm. Together they hurried away behind Josef and the prisoner back to the trees.

‘Where are the horses?’ she asked.

‘Ivan and Daniel got them. They’re waiting. You had a close call, Witch. You scared me so bad I almost filled my britches. Well done. Are you alright?’

She ached down to her marrow, not just from the fall of her horse but from the tempest of fear in her veins; it had withdrawn, but not without leaving its mark in her.

‘Yes.’

Limping across the dark ground on Filip’s arm, she prepared herself for her return to life, to the war and Plokhoi’s partisans, this long night and tomorrow’s day, and her place in it all. Why did the C-3 go off before she was clear? Where was Leonid? Who was the traitor?

How does old Filip know German?

She asked him.

He answered out of breath, lugging her across the open ground. They were almost to the shrubs. Katya spotted the outlines of Ivan and Daniel saddling the remaining horses.

‘My mother was a Sudeten Slav,’ the old man replied. ‘My six brothers and I grew up speaking German.’

‘Did all your brothers come with you to Plokhoi?’

‘Yes.’ The starosta hesitated. ‘All but one.’

‘Where is he?’

‘He stayed in the village. He’s… he’s not welcome.’

Katya slowed, even before reaching the safety of the copse and the other partisans.

‘Why, Filip?’

The starosta’s whisper vented through tight lips, baring shame.

‘Nikolai works for the Nazis. He’s an interpreter. For their interrogations.

One day the village… No, my brothers and I, we’ll put a stop to it.’

Katya tugged Filip to a halt. This was a calamity in the old man’s family, a collaborator. She saw shame on Filip’s face, but could not pause for it. She needed to ask something fast, outside the hearing of the others.

Of all the partisans, she knew Filip was not the spy.

‘Did he ever question downed Soviet pilots?’