I took no time to linger over his decaying body, but withdrew the dagger and turned to face Iuda. This was my golden opportunity to destroy him at last. The blow to his arm had weakened him and he seemed in no mood to fight. He backed away from me cautiously. I had little time to think. The coach was now only seconds away from us. Though I might take Iuda's life, it would be at the cost of my own. I turned and fled towards the village.
The snow-covered road was not easy to run down. Once I had built up speed then maintaining it was feasible enough, but to turn, stop or even slow down would risk me slipping and falling to the ground. Behind me I heard the coach come to a stop. There was shouting between its occupants and Iuda and then I heard the rattle of the harness and the wheels turning once again. I had managed to cover perhaps a tenth of a verst in the time they had taken to set off after me, but now it would be only a few moments before they caught up with me. I glanced over my shoulder and saw that they were still distant, but gaining. The black silhouette of the coachman stood upright against the sky, whipping his horses furiously.
I kept on running, swifter than I had ever done before, but still I knew that the coach would soon be upon me. I heard its clattering wheels, partly muffled as they cut through the snow, coming closer and closer. I was lucky they had chosen a coach, not a troika or any kind of sled, which would have run faster, but even so, they were faster than me. The coachman's whip cracked again and again as he urged the horses towards me. They came so close that I could feel their breath on the back of my neck. I felt sure that the Oprichniki planned to run me down and let me be crushed to death in the snow under hoof and wheel, but that would have been too pleasant a death for them to inflict.
Rather than let the horses trample me, the coachman steered them to one side and the coach began to pull level with me. I looked over my shoulder again and saw the coachman – it was Foma – leaning out from his seat towards me, precariously balanced and leering like a gargoyle from the side of a western cathedral. In his hands he held his whip loosely so that the leather formed a long loop. He tossed the loop towards me and I felt it brush against the back of my head. He was trying to lasso it around my neck, so that he could drag me into the racing coach.
Foma was almost parallel with me. I was running level with the hind legs of the horses. I drew my sabre, knowing there was little I could do with it to fight the Oprichniki, but with one hope in my mind. I slashed at the hind leg of the creature that was racing alongside me. My sword bit deep, just above the hock, and with a startled neigh, the poor, lame animal instantly pulled up. As the heavy coach ploughed on into the two unfortunate horses, I lost my balance and fell to the ground, rolling over off the road and then into the adjacent field.
I turned to see what had happened to the coach. It had tipped over on to one side and was just coming to rest in the ditch on the far side of the road. One of the horses lay motionless in the road; the other was in the ditch, trying to get up under the weight of the coach to which it was still harnessed. Foma had been thrown off and lay dazed in the field beyond. The side door of the carriage, now facing upwards, flipped open like a trapdoor and Iuda emerged. He hauled himself out and then bent back in to help those remaining inside.
I left them to it and ran across the snowy field. The edge of the field was not far away, marked by a hedgerow. Once beyond that, I felt I was safely hidden, so I turned to look back at the Oprichniki. Through my spyglass I could see them making attempts to right the coach. Iuda was taking a supervisory role, evidently issuing instructions to the other three, but not himself participating. They soon abandoned the idea and began to remove from the coach a number of items of baggage. They then started to trudge purposefully through the snow, back towards the crossroads, Iuda still clutching his arm where I had cut him.
I shadowed them from a distance. The moon had now set and at times it was almost impossible to see them, but they were talking loudly and angrily to one another and, although I could not make out any of the meaning of what they said, it was enough to let me know where they were without ever getting a clear sight of them. Back at the crossroads they paused for a while. Stare as I might, I could see no sign of Filipp. I had not had a chance before to make certain that he was dead, but the fact that there was no sign of a body left me happy that I had indeed killed him. Pyetr knelt down in the snow next to the post where I had tied Filipp and lifted up a handful to examine. I inferred that he was holding the dust that was typical of a voordalak's earthly remains.
They continued over the crossroads, back along the road from which they had come. I continued to follow, though the snow in the fields was waist deep in places and my trousers were by now cold and sodden. Eventually, we came to the coppice from which the coach had emerged. To go round it would take me too far from the road, so I had to cut into the woods to keep close with them. While the voices of the Oprichniki had carried clearly across the open fields, once we were amongst the dense trees, they became muffled and soon faded to complete silence. I knew that it was from somewhere around here that they had set out in their coach towards the crossroads, so if they stopped and I continued on parallel to the road, as I was heading, there was a good chance that I would overtake them and lose track of them completely.
I changed direction, heading now towards the road instead of keeping level with it. In the dense woodland, there was no light at all. Looking up, I could just make out the stars through the canopy of branches which, although denuded of leaves, were clung to by sufficient snow to ensure that only patches of sky were visible. Without being able to see the pole star, it was difficult to know whether I was heading the right way. I had turned left to head back towards the road, but even after a few paces, I could have wandered a long way from that chosen path. Vampires are creatures of the night, and although I did not know for sure, I could only presume that they would be able to see far more clearly than I in this light. I could walk straight into the waiting arms of any one of the four of them and not know it until I saw the gleam of their fangs.
At least there was in that some morsel of comfort; there were now only four of them – one fewer than there had been when the night began. A part of me insisted that it was achievement enough for the evening; that I should return to rest and safety and leave the others for another day. It was an academic issue. More in question was whether I would make it out of these woods at all. Vampires were not my most pressing enemy. Wolves or even the icy cold itself were a more present danger.
I pushed on in the direction that I hoped would lead me back to the road. When I had entered the coppice, I had been only half a verst away from the road, and yet I had now been pacing through the woods for over a quarter of an hour without finding it again. Clearly I had not been sticking to a straight line. At last, a little way ahead of me I saw a light through the densely packed tree trunks. As I drew closer, I saw that I was coming to a clearing, opening on to the road but hidden by the trees so that I had not seen it from the crossroads. In the clearing was a small farmhouse and next to it a barn. The light I had seen was coming from the barn. There were no lights at the windows of the farmhouse. The sight of those lonely, snow-covered buildings looming out of the dark woodland gave me the sensation of being the child protagonist in some gruesome fairy story.
I crept close to the barn and listened. From within came the guttural, laughing voices of the Oprichniki. They seemed to be in a good mood again. Something had cheered them after their defeat at the crossroads. I quietly worked my way round to the door, looking for some crack in the woodwork through which I might observe them.