They were up and off once more. They raced downhill, and reached the river in short order. They stopped at the bridge that crossed it, for further uphill there was a crowd on another, larger bridge. They were stacking barrels beneath it, near the supports. They were stacking gunpowder, Rehada realized. They were going to destroy the bridge-one of the largest that crossed the river and the one used often by the Oprichni as they headed east to patrol the city.
Rehada whirled at the sound of men speaking in low voices. She thought it would be the streltsi, but she was wrong. It was a group of peasants hauling a hand-pulled cart. In the bed were three wooden casks containing what was most likely gunpowder.
Atiana took Rehada’s hand and began walking back up the way they’d come, but they stopped once more when they saw, coming toward them, the two guardsmen.
Rehada turned and began walking swiftly across the bridge.
“Stop, there,” came a voice behind her.
Rehada ran, Atiana following. Below, over the low stone wall, the Mordova coursed, creating a rush of sound.
Footsteps followed close on their heels.
A gunshot rang out. Rehada glanced behind and saw one of the guardsmen pointing a pistol at the nearby group of men, who looked on not with fear, but open hatred.
Rehada and Atiana managed to cross the river, to make it deeper into the city. The lowering sun sat behind a thick layer of clouds, casting the city in a pall, but it wasn’t so dark that they could easily hide. Plus their pursuers were close behind and gaining. They were eventually caught as they reached a narrow intersection crowded on all sides by tall stone buildings. Rehada was yanked back by her arm. She tried to free herself, then to push him away with her free hand, but he shrugged off her attacks.
Atiana had pulled her kindjal, and was facing her assailant warily. “We don’t wish to hurt you,” Atiana said.
The strelet lunged forward, but Atiana skipped backward and slashed at his wrist. He snatched his hand back, a thread of blood marking his wrist.
“You won’t be harmed,” the strelet said.
Atiana shook her head. “I’m a simple woman from Izhny, come to meet with my friend. Why would you chase us?”
The man paused, stood up straighter, confused. He looked to the other, as if he were considering her words.
“Watch him!” Rehada shouted, but too late.
Quick as a mongoose he darted in, twisting away from Atiana’s sharp thrust. In a blink he was inside her guard and levering her arm behind her back. Atiana screamed and the kindjal clattered against the cobbled street with a metallic ting.
“Don’t do this,” Atiana pleaded. “Tell them you weren’t able to find us. I’ll make both of you rich men.”
From the shadows of the alley they’d run down, the group of men were walking forward. Two were holding pistols, another a musket, and all of them were eying the streltsi with cruel eyes that spoke of emotion that had been bottled up inside for months, years-emotion ready to burst forth now that the blight had placed its heel upon their throat.
The strelet holding Atiana turned her toward them and backed up. “By the authority of your Duke, I order you to stand down.”
“Not this day,” an older man with graying hair said. Rehada recognized him. His name was Kirill. He was a butcher in the poorest part of Volgorod that also ran a drug den. He was not a man Rehada would wish to be rescued by. “You’ll be allowed to go unharmed, but you’ll not be taking them.”
“We are on the Duke’s business,” the strelet said, raising his pistol to point at the man. The other strelet did the same.
“One’s fired,” Kirill said, “leaving one shot between the two of you.”
Without speaking, the two streltsi began backing up.
Kirill angled his pistol lower, toward Rehada’s legs, and fired. The shot echoed in the cramped space as the strelet holding Rehada screamed. He tightened his grip around Rehada’s neck, favoring his right side.
“I said you’ll not be taking them.”
The men behind him fanned out. The one with the musket raised his weapon to his shoulder and sighted along the length of it. Rehada was reasonably sure he was aiming at the strelet’s head, but she was not so sure of his aim, nor of the strelet’s reaction if he sensed the man was about to fire.
“That one you can have,” the strelet holding Atiana said, motioning to Rehada, “but this one will be coming with us.”
Kirill paused at this, studying Rehada and Atiana in turn, but then he shook his head. “ Nyet — ”
Before he’d even finished speaking, the strelet fired.
One burst of red near the crown of his head, and the man with the musket was down.
The other pistolman fired, but Atiana’s man had shoved her to one side and was already rolling away. He was back up on his feet in a flash, running forward holding a short, gleaming blade he’d pulled out from a leg sheath beneath his cherkesska. The pistolman raised his arm to defend himself, but the strelet thrust beneath the other man’s guard and ran him through just below the ribcage.
He pulled his weapon free as the other strelet, hampered by his bloody right leg, joined him. They fought fiercely, efficiently. Another of the peasants dropped, and another, until there were only four left to stand against them.
Rehada was about to grab for Atiana when another shot rang out, louder than the others.
Kirill was holding the smoking musket. A strelet fell to his knees, a hole in the center of his cherkesska darkening with blood. The three other men, perhaps emboldened, stormed the lone remaining strelet. Had he not been wounded, he might have won-and as it stood, he delivered a savage cut to one man’s leg, and pierced another man’s gut-but in the end he was taken down from a blow to the head by a fist-sized rock, thrown by the man furthest away. He fell, eyes wide, unresponsive.
The men turned toward Rehada and Atiana.
“Let us be,” Rehada said.
Kirill grinned. “And what kind of fool would I be”-he pointed to Atiana-“if I let a woman of royal blood slip through my hands?”
“I am not royal,” Atiana said, her eyes wild.
“Blonde hair? Fair skin and fairer hands? Promising to make the soldiers rich? Nyet. You’re royal or I’m an old goat.” He kneeled and began searching the coat of the nearest strelet. “Take them.”
Rehada was nearly ready to run when she felt something press against her legs and groin and chest and neck. She felt it against her skin, along her scalp as her hair was tugged, along her whole body as the air around her seemed to shift.
And then an almighty boom shook the city. The low layer of darkening clouds glowed yellow, then orange, then red. The sound-a conflagration of unimaginable dimensions-continued. A cloud, darker and thicker than the clouds above, rose from the north, from the bridge that had been teeming with the peasant mob and barrels of gunpowder. The cloud rose higher, roiling up until it was caught in the wind. It began drifting eastward toward the sea as the sounds of the explosion finally fell away, replaced with the crackle of fire and human cries of pain and shouts for help.
“Go and see,” Kirill said. “I’ll meet you.”
From the corner of her eye, Rehada saw a dark form filling a doorway. Standing there was a burly man with brown hair and a thick beard. Hidden as he was, only Rehada could see him. He raised one hand to his lips, and then leaned forward until he could see Kirill and the other-the youngest who had remained behind. When he saw that they weren’t looking, that they were concerned with little except their men who were just now walking out of sight, he slipped quietly from the doorway, allowing a black bag to snake down from his left hand. The heft of it made it clear that it was weighted-by sand, perhaps, or small stones.
Quick as summer rain, he rushed forward and swung the bag high in the air. It came crashing down on the crown of the young man’s head. He dropped to the ground immediately. Their savior spun, dodging as Kirill swung the butt of the musket at him. He slipped in around Kirill’s guard and snaked the cloth bag around his neck.