Feteror paused as there was a sudden consternation among the Russian soldiers. One of them came forward carrying a dirty burlap sack. He laid it at the feet of Feteror and opened it. Inside lay the battered heads of the eight Russian soldiers from the helicopter.
The elder closed his eyes, waiting for the bullet, but seconds passed and he slowly opened them, to look into Feteror’s. The major’s face was expressionless, only the glint of the eyes showing his anger. He reached down and picked up one of the heads. The face was contorted, but it was easy to see that it had been a young man who had not yet reached his twentieth birthday. The elder had heard that the Soviets were sending younger and younger men to fight the war. He felt nothing about that. His brother’s middle son had been only eleven. A man was a warrior when he was big enough to pick up a rifle.
“It will not be that easy, old man.” Feteror barked some commands in Russian as he placed the head back onto the bag. His men lined the villagers against the mud wall of the elder’s house, then stepped back on the other side of the street. They put their weapons to their shoulder and aimed, waiting.
The elder was proud that his people stood still, glaring back. There was no crying, no pleading. One woman spit, then the rest did the same, while also putting their children behind them. The four old men walked to the very front.
Feteror yelled some more orders. The muzzles of the seven AK-74s moved back and forth, sighting in on one person, then moving to another. And another. But still no bullets came.
“Tell me when, old man,” Feteror said.
The elder couldn’t keep track of all seven weapons. He looked at his wife, whom he had been married to for thirty-two years. His four grandchildren. His two daughters.
“Tell me when, old man, or they fire on full automatic. As it is now, they will each shoot only once at your command.”
The elder ran his tongue along his lips, feeling the dryness. He knew that in the long run it would not matter. “Now.”
Feteror yelled a single word and seven rifles fired in one sharp volley. Seven bodies slammed back under the impact of the bullets. The elder saw that one of the seven was his wife, and in a way he was grateful that she would be spared whatever else was to come.
“You play well,” Feteror noted.
The Russian fired as the old man swung the knife he had slid out from under his robe. The round caught the elder in his upper right shoulder, knocking him back onto the ground, the knife falling harmlessly to the dirt.
“But you don’t fight so well.” Feteror kicked the knife away. “So we will have to keep playing and not fight.” Feteror leaned and smiled, revealing even teeth. “You are a disgrace and a coward. ” As the elder struggled to rise up, he kicked him down with a heavy boot. “Watch my men play, old man. It was what you were going to do with them,” he said, pointing toward the heads. “You have your games, we have ours.”
While four of the Russians stood guard, the others dragged the women into one of the huts. The elder listened to the screams and curses of the women for several hours as the soldiers raped and sodomized them. When they were done with a woman, they slit her throat, throwing the body out the back onto the refuse pile. Halfway through, they simply killed the women, no longer able to force themselves on them. The old man noted Feteror took no part in that sport. While that was going on, Feteror had each of the children tied with a blue cord cinched tightly around their necks and made to stand in the center of the street under the bright sun, ignoring their cries for water.
It was early afternoon by the time all the women were dead. Feteror had the old men executed, a bullet to the back of each head, and then only the children were left. The elder had watched the sun slowly climb across the horizon with a growing feeling of contentment.
Feteror attached a small green plastic tube to the end of one of the blue cords and walked over to the elder, who was now weak and dizzy from the loss of blood.
“I am being merciful, old man,” Feteror said as he handed the green tube to him. The elder slowly followed the cord; it was tied around the neck of his six-year-old grandson. He looked to the Russian in confusion.
“Pull the ring,” Feteror ordered.
Still not comprehending the elder did as he was told. The detonating cord ignited instantly, and with a flash and small pop, the elders grandson’s head lay in the street, the body still standing for a few seconds before slowly toppling over.
“I think sometimes that the heads can see their own bodies if they fall in the right direction, ” Feteror commented as he inserted the next length of blue cord into the green tube.
“No!” the elder protested as Feteror held the tube out to him. “I will not!”
“Ah, then I will not be so merciful.” Feteror gestured to the guards. While two kept their rifles ready, the others drew knives out of scabbards and approached the closest child.
“I will peel them alive if you do not play,” Feteror warned.
The elder took the green tube and pulled the ring. A second head lay in the street. The Soviet slid another end of blue cord in. The elder closed his ears to the cries of the children who were left. His hands worked automatically, taking the ignitor each time the Soviet gave it to him and quickly pulling the ring. He lost count, but mercifully there were no more lengths of blue cord.
The elder turned to the Russian leader. “Kill me.”
“I would,” Feteror said, “but then who would tell the others what I have done here?” Feteror grabbed the old man’s chin. “This was a warning. You take heads, we take heads. I think I have made that perfectly clear.”
“Kill me,” the elder insisted.
“No. I will have my medic bandage you and tie you so that you cannot hurt yourself. When the men come back, you will tell them how you failed the village and what I have done. Then they will kill you. And the war will go on, but there will be that many less”— Feteror gestured at the heads lying in the street— “ to grow up and fight us and that many less women to bear more spawn to grow up and fight us.”
“You are the devil!” The elder tried to work up spit in his mouth, but it was dry. He had expected to die now. The thought of facing the men in the midst of this was unbearable.
Feteror smiled. “The devil-Chyort. I like that.” He suddenly straightened and looked to the north, toward the mountains. Then he glared down at the elder. “You kept me here. You knew they were coming. That is why you didn ’t fight me when I first came.”
The elder smiled as Feteror slammed the stock of his weapon into the old man’s head, knocking him out. Yelling orders, Feteror turned and ran for the southern end of the village, his men falling in line behind him. The radio man ran next to Feteror, proffering the handset. From the north there came a sound like thunder, hundreds of horses’ hooves striking the hard-packed ground and closing on the village.
Feteror took the handset and began calling for extraction when the earth exploded in front of him.