Because life or death odds gave him an adrenaline edge, Kismet chose to believe the worst. As the ski trooper drew alongside the sleigh and reached out to pull himself in, Kismet unleashed his kukri.
The wounded soldier cartwheeled away, his skis whirling like fan blades. His crash created an obstacle in the path of his confederates. The second commando's skis hit the motionless form of the fallen man, ripping his feet from the bindings to send him sailing through the air, over the cliff. The third skier turned hard, angling into the snow piled up along the wall. Rather than losing control, he skillfully negotiated the sheer wall and actually advanced upward as his skis cut a new path through the accumulated snow. Without slowing, he angled his skis down and skipped across the nearly vertical surface, directly ahead of the sleigh. As the horses passed beneath him he pushed out with his legs and launched himself at the sleigh.
Kismet had followed the soldier through his maneuvers, but the last move caught him by surprise. Unable to throw together a last-second response, he simply ducked his head as the skier slammed into him.
He felt a searing pain along his back as the sharp edge of one ski raked through his thick leather jacket, gouging a bloody trail from his shoulder blade to his waist. Before he could give voice to his pain, a second blow exploded like fireworks in his skull; the trooper's gun, swinging wildly from its sling, had chanced to clout him in the back of the head.
As he crashed down on top of Kismet, the soldier wrapped an arm around his neck. His head presented a perfect target for the German's blows. Flashes like lightning swam before his eyes while the dull hammering left his ears ringing. In desperation, he drove backward with his elbow. A grunt signaled that the blow had done some harm and was accompanied by a momentary respite in the assault.
Kismet became aware of two things in that instant. First, that Irene and her father were struggling to overpower the unwelcome visitor. This gave him the strength of will to muster his own retaliation, in spite of his indefensible position. The second observation, which lent urgency to the first, was that no one was driving the sleigh.
A second blow from Kismet's elbow elicited an outcry from the soldier. As his stranglehold weakened, Kismet changed his aim, driving downward into the man's genitals. The attack drew a primal response. Howling, the German's hands flew to protect his bruised groin. Kismet raised his head, and with a vicious grin, launched a cross-body left to the man's jaw. The commando rolled over, making a desperate effort to save himself with one hand, but was unable to resist the persuasive power of Kismet's boot in his back. He flipped over the side railing and tumbled into the snow as the sleigh raced away.
Through a haze of pain, Kismet looked with groping hands for the reins to the sleigh. Although several seconds had passed with no one to guide them, the horses had maintained reasonable control over the descent. Holding the reins loosely, he let them have their head and turned to scan the slopes behind for signs of other pursuit.
He quickly found it. Charging in loose formation down the trail were at least a dozen more skiing commandos. With their bodies crouched low and their weight forward over the curving tips of their Nordic skis, the soldiers were rapidly gaining on the sleigh.
Ahead, the trail was starting to level out. The merits of this fact were eclipsed by his realization that the short flat stretch was followed by a hairpin turn that led into a switchback. He had precious few seconds in which to slow almost to a complete stop, or their momentum would carry them past the turn and headlong into certain disaster.
Irene saw it too. She slid into the seat beside him and grabbed his arm. He shook his head and pulled free. "No time for that!" Thrusting the reins into her hands, he vaulted over the back of the bench and past Kerns.
With both hands fiercely gripping the backboard, he hurtled out over the snow. Like a crazed gymnast, he dangled behind the sleigh, thrusting forward with his legs. His feet hit the snow heels first. He kept his knees locked and ankles rigid so that the thick boot soles would dig into the icy surface. For a moment his plan seemed to work. Then his feet hit an unyielding bump and his legs were driven backward under his torso to flop uselessly behind him.
Seeing his peril, Peter Kerns leaned out over the back end of the sleigh and grasped Kismet's forearms. At the same time Irene began to haul back on the reins, attempting to convince the horses to arrest their downhill charge, but her efforts were futile. The horses had too much momentum and not enough room to stop.
Kerns' timely assistance roused Kismet for a second try. Swinging his legs forward, he once more attempted to slow their descent. The friction of his heels in the snow, coupled with the leveling of the trail and, in some part, Irene's efforts to control the team, accomplished the impossible. The horses came to a complete stop a few lengths from the hairpin curve.
Kismet let go and dropped back into the snow. Icy shavings had filled his trouser legs up to his knees, but there was no time to shake the cold powder away from his clothes.
The skiers were visible but still a ways off, but in the time it took Irene to maneuver the horses around to face the next leg of the descent, they halved the intervening distance.
"Go!" Kismet urged as he scrambled aboard. He made no effort to take the reins; her control of the draft horses was far superior to her performance behind the wheel of the garbage truck in New York. As they began descending once more, he retrieved his kukri from the splinters of broken skis and poles and slid it into its leather scabbard.
His assumption that his foes would have to slow down before making the hard turn was only partially correct. Several of the more confident among their number elected to cut out the switchback altogether by turning prematurely and charging down the vertical face of the cliff.
"They're crazy.“ whispered Kismet. “And they're about the best damn skiers I've ever seen. We've got to try something else, and fast."
Irene took his final word literally. With a shout, she urged the team into a full run. Their path took them directly under the skiers and just past them before they could complete their descent. Nevertheless, as soon as they touched down on the slope, the commandos were in close pursuit. Less than a hundred yards separated the sleigh from a pack of four soldiers. The rest of the group had already rounded the hairpin curve and was not far behind.
The trail they followed soon opened up into a broad powder valley. The passage of the tracked vehicles had carved a pathway through the soft accumulation, allowing them to proceed without slowing, and soon they were once more following a gradual decline. They were no longer on the trail that they had originally followed up from the foothills. Instead, they were now on the path Grimes' snow-cats had blazed, a route that would bring them east along the southern flank of the range.
"We can't keep running like this," he announced. "Eventually we're going to get chased over a cliff, or worse."
"So what have you got in mind?"
"Change the rules," he replied, understanding even as he said it, what that would mean. "Go on the offensive."
"How?" wheezed the Kerns. "We haven't any guns. And as good as you are with it, I don't think that knife of yours is any match for an automatic rifle."
"You might be surprised," he muttered, then in a more commanding voice added: "Get down this mountain any way you can. Then go to Anatoly's house. I'll catch up to you as soon as I can."
"What?" Irene gaped at him and let her hold on the reins momentarily go slack. The concern in her eyes hit him like physical blow. "Nick, you can't leave me."