When I pressed for more details his response was simple. In Afghanistan, every day was a battle. You went to bed not knowing if you would make it through the next day. Every night you thought about the possibilities – roadside bombs, suicide bombs, betrayal by the troops you were training… After a while, like the citizens of the war zone, you become inured to it. You wake up, you do your job as best you can, and you try and be kind. You go to bed and then you wake up the next day and do it all again.
I felt humbled by his recitation. I was in a battle, yes, but this wasn’t my home. If I got too scared, or I felt like I couldn’t win, I could leave. Maybe I would have a hard time living with myself afterwards, but at least I’d survive. I had a choice.
The people who lived near this mountain range and this valley didn’t have that choice. If we failed, they would die in a confusing and violent wave of magical monsters. Those monsters would gain a foothold here and then, unassailable by modern technology, that foothold would grow and spread.
If we failed tomorrow, if I failed, Manya would die, her sons would die, and her grandchildren would die.
It was too much. I didn’t want to think anymore. I turned to Owen and reached for his strong shoulders. I pressed us close as I sought his mouth. I kissed him hungrily, our noses and chins bumping in the darkness. He captured my face with his hands and gentled the kiss. I pulled away and tugged at his clothes, inhaling desperately his unique scent, musky and wild. It soothed and excited me.
“Slow down,” he murmured, kissing me softly again, and I shook my head. I pulled his heavy weight on top of me.
LATER, when Owen slept deeply and silently beside me, my mind circled with possibilities still. I thought of everything we had to lose. I thought of Manya’s family picture and those smiling grandchildren. I thought of Zasha and her mother’s teacakes, and the missing doctor whom we’d never found.
I grasped the hilt of my nightingale knife. I gripped it so hard I knew that the bird motif would stay on my palm for a while. I promised whatever gods were on our side, those we’d seen and any others, that we would do it. We would destroy this cohort of monsters and then, we would close the gate. Chernobog would not gain a foothold in this world and Manya’s grandchildren would be safe.
Chapter 30
We decided not to pack up the camp when we woke. We carried only our weapons down the hill. No one talked.
About halfway down the slope, the bes army spotted us. I watched the leader shout and wave his sword around. He lined up the bauks in the front and the other monsters fell in behind, with the balachko in the rear. Psoglavs held the chains of the two azhdaya.
They rushed away from their camp and toward us. We were nearly on the valley floor now.
My vision went double for a moment and I was catapulted back to my dream from the Alaska farmhouse and then the plane ride to Russia. I watched the bauk army in the snowy valley, standing in front of the charging creatures. The sun was warm on my head and I could hear the snow crunching under their stampede. I held my sword in my right hand and I felt the weight of a knife strapped to my thigh. My hands were steady. As the ogres ran toward me, I could see their yellow eyes. They swung their arms low, using one arm or the other to push off the ground for a burst of speed. As they approached, I could see the iron capping their curling horns.
A figure stood to my right. I recognized Astrid; she was waiting for the signal. I shook off the vision and dropped to my knees, digging down into the snow. I felt the bare, cold earth and I pushed out a deep, subsonic whistle, pulsing into the ground, searching. Deeper and deeper I pounded my whistle. When I found the spark, I turned and pulled, whistling a low, steady beat. I pulled again, bringing it to the surface. It winked at me in the blackness below. I trilled to it, coaxing it up until there, I felt it at my fingertips.
It danced for me and asked a question. I said no.
Then, I throbbed out my whistle in a wave, building to a crescendo. Each whistle drove a vibration deeper and further. I risked a glance up and saw the bauks were nearly on us. Now or never. I whistled one last tone, this one crashing through my wave of sound like an arrow and I struck the valley wall to the east. An incredibly loud boom shook the valley and the bes army faltered for a moment before continuing forward.
I stood and told Astrid, “Get ready.”
I heard a tremendous cracking sound and looked up to see a long slab of snow break apart on the ridgeline above us. It started sliding down the mountainside, picking up speed. Soon, it seemed like the whole mountainside was involved, with the fractures racing along to release snow in numerous slide paths. An immense roaring noise filled the valley. I saw entire trees uprooted and swept along.
“Now,” I shouted to Astrid.
She put her arms out, palms up, and then swept them higher than her head. Suddenly the noise of the avalanche vanished. We were inside the air shield. I started counting to thirty in my head and saw Theo mouthing numbers too.
I watched the destruction. The wave of snow hit the valley floor and spread out like a cresting wave of white water. The wave hit the army and immediately swept it under. The besy vanished in the churning snow and the surge hit the edge of
