The women all hated men. She could shoot him as well as Russians. He tightened his grip on the gun.
From the half-formed lodge a guard stepped backward on stiffened legs, staring down at his hands grasping the arrow buried in his chest. His thin scream died away and he fell over backward. The straw boss slammed into Grisha and hunched down beside him.
“If you ain’t gonna use that thing, give it to me!”
“Who do you want to shoot?” he asked.
“Cossacks!” she hissed.
Chunks of wood exploded off the guard tower at their back as the sound of another Kalashnikov grabbed Grisha’s attention. The sergeant, framed in the window of one of the finished cabins, sprayed the trees at the edge of the clearing, then again turned his weapon toward the two convicts huddled at the water station.
Grisha finally felt himself shift into combat mode. He squeezed off three rounds as the weapon bucked furiously in his hands. The window frame around the sergeant disintegrated and the man’s face suddenly burst in a grisly spray.
“Pretty good shooting,” the woman said.
“Thanks.” He stared down at the rifle, then up at her. “Answer a question for me?”
She frowned and her eyes flicked around the area before coming to rest on his face.
“What?”
“What’s your name? I’ve been trying to think of it for five minutes now!”
She laughed, showing gaps that remembered teeth. “Blue. My name is Blue.”
Abrupt silence fell across the work site except for the crackle and pop of the furiously burning tank. The trees stood listless in the last surge of summer heat. Birds and insects, reeling from the cacophonous assault, remained silent lest they bring the racket anew.
His heart slammed against his rib cage and his hands shook unless he gripped the weapon tightly. He mentally eased back into slavery.
“I wish something would happen.” He didn’t realize he whispered the words.
Somebody tried to stifle sobs. The quiet became so loud that Grisha’s ears began to ache. Blue moved beside him, her hand touched his.
“Don’t be afraid.” Her voice rose barely above a breath, but he heard her clearly. “These are my people.”
His eyes flashed back to hers. Her face, alive with emotion, shone with sweat. He thought she looked beautiful just then.
“Soldiers of the Czar,” a voice called in Russian. “Lay down your weapons and you will not be harmed. If you continue to resist you will die, slowly.” A moment later the ultimatum was repeated in English.
“Who are they, your people?” Grisha asked.
“The Dena. The English call us Athabascans. We have lived here for hundreds of generations. This is our land.” Even though she spoke softly, her words possessed backbone.
“My mother was a Kolosh,” Grisha said. “She told me once that her ancestors traded with yours before the Russians came.”
“And after, too,” Blue agreed. “You have nothing to fear from us.”
“I hope you’re right. The last woman who told me that almost got me hung.”
The tall Russian corporal everyone called “Professor,” because of all the books he read, walked into the center of the square with his hands above his head. He didn’t appear frightened, merely curious. Another guard shambled out of a cabin supporting a third soldier who dripped blood from an arm wound.
“Don’t shoot! We surrender. My friend is hurt and in shock.” They came to a halt near Professor and the wounded man slumped to the ground.
“I saw three of them die,” Grisha said. “But there could have been more in the tank.”
“Two,” Blue said, “were in the tank.”
“Then there are two more somewhere.”
“The cabin that blew up?” she suggested.
The voice called out again, this time in a language Grisha didn’t recognize.
From the other side of the clearing another voice answered in the same tongue.
“They’re doing the same thing we are, making a tally,” Blue said.
One at a time, voices reported from around the clearing. The birds began to sing again. The voices stopped.
Movement flickered in Grisha’s peripheral vision. He jerked around to see a lithe youth, face painted black and green, dart into the edge of the square and take cover behind the corner of a cabin. The young man’s movements, quick and deliberate, suggested much practice—or experience.
Blue called out a question in Athabascan.
The youth scrutinized her carefully.
“Blue?” he said in English.
“Lynx?”
A rhythmic pulse worked on Grisha’s mind, persistent and bothersome. He watched the interchange between Blue and the person, Lynx. The pulse grew louder.
“Helicopter!” someone shouted. “Get into the tree line.”
How did they know to send a helicopter?
“They radioed for help!” Grisha blurted.
Lynx glanced at him, then back to Blue.
“Usually the Cossacks fight it out. One of the soldiers must have done it when the attack started.”
“How far are we from Tetlin?” Grisha asked.
“Thirty kilometers at the most,” Lynx said, “Why?”
“That’s an incredibly fast response, unless this attack was anticipated.”
The solid beat of rotors announced the impending arrival of the aircraft. Blue slapped Grisha on the arm and ran for the tree line. Grisha hesitated only a moment before following her. Professor thundered along behind them. Lynx had disappeared.
They ran into the forest for about twenty meters and threw themselves into a clump of alders. Grisha squirmed around so he could see the open square framed by trees. The unwounded soldier waved upward frantically.
The bright red helicopter hesitated in the blue Alaskan sky. Sparks suddenly danced across the bulbous fuselage as a Kalashnikov rattled.
The helicopter veered sideways and roared out over the river. Grisha watched, entranced, as it slowly turned back toward the camp, dropped to treetop level and bored in at high speed. The soldier still waved, grinning and hopping up and down.
Seeing only threat, the pilot fired his skid-mounted machine guns. The bullets threw up two walls of flying dirt, rock, and debris that raced across the square from left to right. The exploding tracks ripped across both soldiers, throwing them backward like sacks of bloody rags.
The Kalashnikov hammered again and a stream of greasy smoke threaded from the helicopter. The thread thickened into a tatter that rapidly ribboned into a banner. The craft turned awkwardly and labored out over the river again.
One island presented a long sandy expanse bereft of trees. The helicopter settled to within meters of the sand before it exploded. The blazing hulk ripped into pieces, some splashing down a quarter of a kilometer away.
Grisha turned to Blue with a wide grin. Two men flanked her. Both wore green and black paint applied in random patterns from the tops of their faces down to the neck of their dark shirts. The smaller one held a rifle that casually pointed at Professor, who sat quietly on the ground.
Grisha’s heart lurched as ice filled his mind.
I am Slayer-of-Men,” the taller man said in English. “We are Dena. This is our land.”
Grisha nodded, desperately trying to remember the names of his Athabascan Troika Guard troopers.
“We need your help and then you’re free to go,” the second man said.
