Russian Amerika

“Let’s go,” Slayer-of-Men said. “We have a long trip ahead of us.”

Just before dark the column reached a cache of food and equipment. Each former prisoner collected a backpack, sleeping bag, rubberized ground cloth, small ax, and a sheath knife. Grisha felt fully equipped, but bordered on total exhaustion from carrying the heavy load of two Kalashnikovs since morning. In addition to observing his rescuers, he had spent the day dropping back into the mind-set of a major in the Troika Guard.

He dispassionately assessed the soldiers around him.

The largest and most fearsome of all the Indians, Malagni, built a small fire. The muscular man radiated energy. His long hair clouded around his head as he effortlessly performed one task after another, never resting, never asking for assistance.

Grisha decided the man had at least five years of paramilitary service behind him and no doubt improved the morale of the other soldiers by his mere presence. Malagni didn’t trust any of the newcomers. He watched them carefully, but not openly.

He had yet to speak to any of the former prisoners.

With the help of Heron and Lynx, the two women, Cora and Wing, quickly made a stew using meat from a moose hindquarter they had previously covered with moss, wrapped in a shelter half, and tied high in a tree.

Any one of them would have done well in the Troika Guard.

Cora’s quiet appearance hid a reservoir of strength that she applied to the task at hand. Her small stature and limitless energy produced an appeal not apparent if a man only looked at her surface. Far from unattractive, her inner glow enhanced the promise she carried like a badge.

Wing strutted, proud of her well-developed body, carrying herself with an authority backed up by a willingness to kill in an instant. The knife scar down her left cheek didn’t mar her beauty—rather it heightened the observer’s appreciation for her finely chiseled features. When she grinned, which was often, the scar writhed and bent double.

Grisha felt an instant attraction to her and quashed it quickly. He wasn’t twenty anymore and his recent experience with women kept him at a remove. Still assessing recent events, he no longer trusted himself, let alone women.

The position of the others in the column didn’t allow close scrutiny. Grisha spent most of the day perversely wondering what it would take to interest a woman like Wing. He ate constantly, glad his diarrhea had eased.

The moose stew registered somewhere between ambrosia and soporific. Grisha snored in his sleeping bag within minutes after eating his fill.

An insistent hand shook him out of sleep. When his eyes popped open, he thought for a long moment that he was still in the Cossack camp. The sleeping bag brought him back to reality. The morning air felt good and smelled of fall.

Everyone else was up and moving about. He quickly pulled on his boots and packed his gear, bothered that he hadn’t heard the general movement without being awakened. Cora came down the line handing out small bags.

“Here’s your breakfast,” she said as she passed.

More squirrel food. He grinned in the weak morning light when he realized he had confidence in these people and finally felt safe from those owned by the Russian government.

Lynx suddenly hurried into camp and murmured to Slayer-of-Men. The older man moved to the middle of the group and spoke in an urgent low voice.

“We’re being followed. Lynx picked up a party of Cossacks and promyshlenniks about a kilometer behind us.”

Grisha felt alarm stab through him. Promyshlenniks seemed to be half man and half forest beast. Adventure tales about them had been in vogue in Mother Russia for decades.

Although skilled forest hunters and trappers, they would also kill their mother for a ruble. More often than not, they were the collectors of the Czar’s share of half a man’s yearly production.

“We have to split up now, they can’t follow everybody,” Slayer-of-Men said.

Samis, the woodsman, grinned at the Dena.

“Why not just shoot these people rather than leave them to those animals?”

“We won’t leave you. We’re just going to separate into smaller groups.”

After a quick consultation, the Dena strike team broke into pairs and hurried over to the released captives. Wing and Claude came up to Grisha.

“You and the soldier are going with us, now,” Wing said.

Nik looked troubled. “Would it be possible for me to go with—”

“Either get in front of me or be rear guard,” Wing snapped.

“By all means, lead.”

Grisha had no idea which direction they took. He glanced back once at the camp, but the forest had already swallowed the others. He could hear Nik behind him, muttering under his breath.

He wondered how many were following them. Didn’t matter, he decided, they would deal with the problem when they had to.

11

On the Tanana River Trail

Muscular Boris Crepov earned the name “Bear” from fellow promyshlenniks, who more closely resembled the ursine race than their own. Shaggy headed, his beard spanning from mid torso nearly to his black, distrustful eyes, he moved quickly through the forest despite his almost twometer, wide-shouldered bulk. Following the Dena trail wouldn’t have proved challenging to a St. Petersburg courtier.

The thought made him grin.

They don’t know we’re behind them. They think we were all killed in their hellish maskirovka. They have no idea that we were patiently waiting for the word, or how quickly we moved out.

The mixed force of Cossacks, promyshlenniks, and Imperial Army rangers had been chosen for speed and woodcraft. At the last minute the general in charge of the mission had ordered the tank and regular infantry to accompany the ranger force. “Insurance,” he said.

Insured to slow them down! Crepov thought contemptuously.

The Cossacks had wanted to charge into the construction site. Bear Crepov knew better. He’d already been at two such sites in the past. There would be nobody there and the Indians always left a maskirovka-deception.

When he asked those he guided for a volunteer, six Cossacks and two army rangers stepped forward, growling. He chose the biggest Cossack and instructed him to look in every building, to carefully examine the whole area for fool traps. Through his binoculars he saw the man snatch up the Kalashnikov in the middle of the square and wave triumphantly before he and all the buildings around him were blown to fiery pieces.

That slowed both the Cossacks and rangers down and they no longer questioned Bear as the obvious expert- in-place.

“Now you see what they are capable of,” he told them in his rumbling voice. “The Dena Separatist Movement are not your normal fish-stinking Indians-not only can they kill, they like it as much as we do.”

The tourist camp burned to the ground. Crepov didn’t care about that. There were plenty more convicts at Tetlin Redoubt and villages full of lazy Indians to be inducted into service for the Czar if needed.

Only twilight stopped their pursuit. Crepov knew they were close but he didn’t want to stumble over them in the dark.

Just before the sky bled to gray, his belly clock woke him at the final edge of blackness. He kicked his six men out of their blankets and gave them a few minutes to prepare their departure. Then he went over to where the six Cossacks snored and farted. He prodded the foot of their sergeant, Tulubev.

“There is game to be hunted, my friend.”

The Cossack sergeant reared up from his blanket with a knife in his hand.