CHAPTER XXIII

'GOOD EVENING,' I RESPONDED, STEPPING TOWARDS HIM.

'I see you have come alone. Did Dmitry Fetyukovich not care to join you?'

'This is between you and me,' I replied.

'That is indeed true, Aleksei Ivanovich, although some of the others do have issues with Dmitry. But I agree with you – it is best to save those separate squabbles for a separate occasion. You will see that I too came alone. We will only be able to talk if we trust one another.'

'I don't trust you, Iuda,' I said bitterly.

'I'm sorry, my friend,' said Iuda with a sincerity that anyone who did not know him would have taken for genuine. 'I am unfamiliar with the nuances of your language. Of course you don't trust me. Why should you? I have not earned that privilege. But you do trust your eyes. I have chosen this place well, I hope. You can see that there is no one else here.'

'I can see that.' The wind blew up a little more fiercely. A light shower of snow had begun which, combined with the wind, reduced the distance I could see down the roads. As we spoke, I rarely looked directly at Iuda, keeping my eyes instead always prowling for signs of a distant attack. 'So what do you have to say?' I asked.

His face pulled an expression of mild anguish, as though what he had to say was distasteful, but had to be discussed – like a man ' about to confess to his wife his infidelity. 'You have now killed three of our comrades – the same number that Maksim Sergeivich succeeded in destroying.'

'I've killed more than three,' I said, attempting to twist the knife.

He pressed his lips together as though he had tasted something sour. 'We have chosen to be gracious over the death of Ioann in the cellar. Though you were there at his death and did nothing to attempt to save him from the flames, he was probably beyond salvation. To kill by omission cannot be counted as murder. As for the Russian soldier – Pavel, I believe he was called – I would not count him amongst our number. He was a useful foot soldier, but not a loss to grieve over. So we will leave the tally at three.

'We cannot but be impressed by the martial skills that you have shown as you have killed,' he continued. 'I do not know precisely what you did with Matfei and Varfolomei, but they were strong fighters, so you did well to defeat them. I saw in close detail what you did to Andrei. That was truly inspiring – not just in the skill you showed with your sword but in the relish you displayed in finishing off an already incapacitated victim. It was a pleasure to see your hatred surging forth in that way – so much more manly than your friend Maksim, sending his friends off to a remote death in which he need not participate directly.'

'I'm glad to have you as an admirer,' I said, 'but if you wanted to compliment me, you could have done it all by letter.'

'I could. I could. And that would have meant that dear Dominique could also have read my praises of you and then she would warm even more to the image of her dashing hero. But perhaps I will yet have the chance to tell her in person. The poor girl must be in something of a quandary. On the one hand she sees your bravery and heroism as you do battle with us. On the other she must see that we with whom you do battle were once your friends. She must wonder if she will ever make some similar tiny mistake that will turn you against her.'

'The only mistake you made, Iuda, was not a tiny one,' I said, responding with the anger that he had clearly hoped to instil. 'Your mistake was to willingly turn your back on humanity when you became a vampire. It was foolish of you to let me know that only willing victims become vampires. It erased the last trace of pity that I might have had for any of you.' Behind him, back along the road he had come from, I thought I saw a slight movement through the buffeted snow. 'I presume there is a point that you're going to come to? Some sort of deal between us?' I asked, trying to move things along.

'A man of directness, I see,' smiled Iuda. He began to walk as he spoke, almost as if trying to outflank me, and I realized that he was moving my attention away from the road down which he had come. I stepped closer to the centre of the crossroads, ensuring I still had a good view in all directions.

'But you are right,' he continued. 'We must come to some sort of accommodation. When one comes up against a strong and powerful enemy there are two possible ways to deal with it. The first is to attempt to destroy it, to wipe it off the face of the earth so that it can never again irritate one with its persistent aggression. We have both already attempted this; we have both failed.'

'I don't seem to be failing too badly. There's seven of you dead already.'

Iuda smiled, not unlike a father delighting in the premature wisdom of his child. 'Such camaraderie, Lyosha. You are right, you personally are doing well – you are alive. But taken as a group, I think the four of you have fared little better than the twelve of us.'

The flurry of snow had subsided and whatever movement I had perceived in the distance behind Iuda had gone. For as far as I could see in the silver haze of the moonlight reflected by the glistening snow, there was only stillness. I looked around again at the other roads. They too were empty. Behind me, the hanged French captain continued to swing gently with the momentum picked up from the earlier breeze.

'But there is also a second way,' continued Iuda. 'That is accommodation. A creature does not need to be an enemy just because it is powerful. Wolves do not attack bears and bears do not attack wolves. It is not that the wolf loves the bear, it is that he knows he has little chance of winning. So which would your choice be, Lyosha? Shall we continue to fight and see which of us survives, bloodied and maimed? Or shall we leave each other to go in peace and continue the comfortable lives we enjoy?'

I remained silent. I had known my answer when I spoke to Dmitry just before we parted. Such a deal would fail because I did not trust the Oprichniki. And even if they were to keep their side of the bargain, I would not have kept mine. Iuda read my thoughts.

'But I do us an injustice to make comparisons with wild animals. If the wolf and the bear seem to trust each other, it cannot be because they are wise, so it must be because they are fools. The path to personal safety does not come by hoping that one's enemies will not attack one. It comes by ensuring it – by destroying those very enemies. We both know, Lyosha, how much each one of us yearns to kill the other – how much we dream of the pleasure we will take in it. Neither of us could walk in safety with that knowledge. The only safety lies in knowing that the other is truly dead, in being sure that he can never rise again to harm one.'

His voice was rising now. The patina of civility fell away and his every expression was filled with wrath and hatred. 'Much as one can be sure that a hanged French captain, whose body one inspected in the afternoon, cannot come back to life and attack one.' He stared into my eyes just long enough see that I had fathomed what he was talking about. 'Unless of course one goes away to drown one's sorrows in vodka, allowing one lifeless carcass to be exchanged for another.'

At the same time as he spoke, I was grabbed from behind. The arms of the body hanging behind me wrapped themselves around my neck and the legs around my waist.

'You remember Filipp, of course, don't you, Lyosha?' asked Iuda, his overplayed politeness returning, but accompanied now by a look of maniacal victory in his eyes. I heard a snigger from Filipp, and he held me tighter as he continued to hang, unharmed, by the noose around his neck.

Over Iuda's shoulder I saw movement. A coach emerged from the coppice from which Iuda himself had earlier come into view. Iuda turned and saw it too.

'And soon the others will be here, and then we can all go away to some nice, quiet, secluded retreat and have dinner. Oh, I know you're a brave man, Lyosha, and your own painful death will mean little to you, but it will give me the deepest satisfaction to know that you understand exactly how much Vadim and Maks suffered as they died.'

The coach was moving only at a canter and would take several minutes to reach us, but if its driver chose to break into a gallop, it would be with us in less than two. I had to act there and then. I lifted my feet into the air, so that Filipp now supported my whole weight, and kicked hard at Iuda's chest. The impact merely caused him to take a step backwards, but it sent me and Filipp swinging back on the rope. Filipp could do little but hang on to me. He tried to tighten his grip around my neck, but his initial aim had been to hold, not to throttle, and so it was to little effect.

I managed to free my sword from its scabbard and we swung around in a wide ellipse with Iuda at its centre. He was crouched and ready; in his right hand he held the double-bladed knife that once, long ago, he had been so keen for me not to see. He made a few thrusts at me as I passed, but could not seem to get the measure of the irregular motion of the human pendulum confronting him. I had no control over where we were going, but I waited until we swung close enough for me to strike. In the distance, the other Oprichniki had seen what was happening, and the coach broke into a gallop.

One swing brought us close enough to Iuda, and I struck. I knew from Maks' experience that stabbing would be to no avail, so instead I used the edge of my blade. I caught Iuda across the upper right arm and he yelled as he put his hand up to the wound. At the same moment, I heard the sound of splintering wood and Filipp and I came thudding to the ground as the gallows above us gave way under our combined weight. As we hit the snow, Filipp lost his grip on me and I felt the coils of the rope which had supported us snaking down on to me. I rolled aside just in time to avoid being hit by the wooden beam to which the other end of the rope was tied.

Filipp was not so lucky. The heavy beam hit him hard in the chest, knocking the breath out of him, but doing him little serious damage. Still clutching my sword in my right hand, I now took my wooden dagger in my left and began to back away, looking to see which, if either, of the two Oprichniki would pursue me. Iuda was hanging back, unable now to use his knife because of the wound to his arm. Filipp, however, was almost instantly on his feet and advancing towards me, the noose still trailing from his neck.

The coach was less than a minute away now. I backed behind the vertical post of the gibbet as Filipp came towards me. Iuda shouted something to him and he replied scornfully, clearly not needing advice in the matter. He lunged at me to one side of the post and I dodged round the other, running for all I was worth until a depression in the ground, hidden beneath the snow, tripped me and I fell. I quickly rolled on to my back and saw Filipp's bulky form looming towards me, his jaws wide open in readiness for the attack.

Suddenly his head jerked back and his body came to a halt. His hands reached up to his neck. The broken beam at one end of the rope had become embedded like an anchor in the snow. Wrapped round the post, the rope had become taut and Filipp could move no further. I sheathed my sabre and, grabbing the other end of the rope, began to pull. Rather than let himself be hauled off his feet, Filipp trotted along with the rope. Meanwhile, as well as pulling the rope, I began to cut across in front of him. Iuda was screaming instructions at his fellow Oprichnik, but Filipp was in no position to obey. As his back thudded against the wood I jerked the rope fast across his chest and ran twice more round him, pinioning him against the post.

Realizing the imminent danger, Iuda began to approach through the snow. The rope would not hold Filipp for long, but it was not my intention that he should be alive for long. I lunged at him with the dagger, straining hard on the end of the rope so that he was squeezed still tighter against the post and giving me even greater force against him. The wooden blade paused momentarily as it came up against his overcoat, but the cloth soon yielded and I felt the blade separate his ribs and slide into his heart.

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.

I put my eye to the narrow gap at the door's hinge, but before I could look in, the door was flung open, outwards at a huge speed. I would almost have been crushed as it slammed against the side of the barn had I not rolled out of the way. I pressed my back to the barn, coiled to fight, but not knowing whether the door had been opened because of my arrival or for some other, coincidental reason.

From the open doorway, something was hurled into the snow outside, carrying almost as far as the trees. It was large and bulky and sank into the snow where it landed. I glimpsed the two Oprichniki who had thrown it, but they did not venture outside and saw nothing of me. Having completed their task, they went back in. I heard more laughter and chatter in their language and what I made out to be a Russian cry of 'Niet! ' in a voice that certainly did not belong to any Oprichnik. Then Iuda's voice barked some instruction, and the barn door was closed again.

Rather than going straight over to the object that they had thrown out, which would have taken me straight past the door and hence possibly through the vampires' line of sight, I went back into the coppice and skirted around the edge of the clearing until I was as close to it as I could be. I crawled out to examine what the Oprichniki had so carelessly discarded.

It was, in accordance with the expectation that I had desperately tried to deny, a body. I wiped the snow away from the face and recoiled in brief shock, raising my hand to cover my mouth. It was a woman, middle-aged and most certainly dead, but none of that was of especial horror to me. Clearing more snow from her naked body, I saw repeated almost everywhere what I had seen on her face. Beyond the usual wounds to the throat, the Oprichniki had gone far further with this victim.

There were bites everywhere. Not just bitemarks, but actual missing pieces of flesh, torn away by the vampires' hungry teeth. Both her cheeks were missing, along with parts of her throat, her breasts, her belly, her buttocks, her thighs and her calves. They had not been thorough in their devouring of her. There was plenty of flesh still remaining. From the look of torment on her face, I could imagine only one reason why they had decided to stop eating. It was that she had died.