There are certain moments in life in which the rules of time are susceptible to events in certain spaces. Most people identify these moments in one of two ways. The first being the acceleration of time, most often happening when people enjoy themselves so much that time passes by almost unknowingly, often in terms of several hours. The second involves the slowing down of time, in which an event causes a near constant acknowledgement of time, with people wishing that time would not drag on but rather quicken.
For Nicolai, time seemed to both elongate and quicken. It slowed in that every movement, every decision that Nicolai pondered, felt as though it took minutes to complete. His arms, his legs, which usually moved with the ease and comfort of his youth, now advanced as if he were in a bog. Nicolai was very much aware that he was not carrying on any slower than usual. Yet he could not help but think that each step, every reach of his arm, occurred with less speed than the situation warranted.
This slothful advancement of time was accompanied by a sense that there just was not enough of it. Leo, Fyodor, Petrov and Nicolai all had milliseconds to react before bullets stormed into their small encampment. Nicolai noticed the ammunition as it entered the camp the same way he admired its movements. The bullets streamed in, as hovering insects of uranium and lead, nearly crawling through the air rather than flying. They brushed past leaves and broke through twigs, with neither providing much resistance.
Although he saw them before they closed in, Nicolai was not able to react with any more haste. Just as his friends and the gunfire that threatened them, he too moved in the same way, almost at a leisurely pace. He knew, in the next few moments, that further volleys would be upon them. Where they would come or how often he did not know. But he did realize that something had to be done on his part, to give him and his friends at least a marginal chance of survival.
As he and his friends dove for cover, Nicolai arched his back, stretching out toward the campfire. No sooner had he hit the ground than he scrambled to put out the flames. The dirt clogged the orange light as a dust storm blocks the sun. With the new darkness the firing stopped. For a brief moment all remained suspended.
Nicolai withdrew his hands from the edge of the campfire. Lying on the ground, he cocked his head to search the surrounding forest. Beyond the trees and bushes that surrounded them there was no stirring or rustling of any sort. Nicolai turned to Leo, whose own head turned in all directions as he tried to listen, to pick up any sound. Leo's eyes met Nicolai's stare. Leo shook his head.
They only had a breath, a fraction of a moment, to assess the situation. They were poorly equipped. This they all knew. In his haste, Nicolai had forgotten to pack any weapons or protective gear, despite his recent scuffle with a Czarian thug. Had he known of the impending danger, a quick stop at one of Boris' less reputable contacts would have served them well. Nicolai, on his side, with his back to the forest, looked to his friends' knapsacks, which sat across from him. Two were tightly knotted at the top, so any effort to open them would create too much noise in their newfound silence. The other, lying next to Petrov, was open, it's contents partially spilled out onto the dirt. Nicolai could barely see the items, but he was certain that one was the hilt of a hunting knife.
Nicolai turned back to his friends, hoping that he could mouth to them, urging one to slide over to the bag. But the three of them, in striking unison, were staring off into the forest in the same direction. Leo, who no doubt had heard the slightest of sounds, was the most intense in his gaze, while the Fyodor and Petrov searched in vain to spot the source of the noise.
All of Nicolai's trepidation vanished. His senses became keen as his body developed into the predatory entity it had to become. He sprang from the ground, making an instant beeline for the open knapsack. As he had expected, the object he had spotted was indeed a hunting knife. From there, he dashed into the forest, past his friends, into whatever hellish situation lay before him.
As he stepped into the edge of the forest his momentum came to a brief halt. Nicolai suddenly found himself on his back, his feet still moving, his breath taken from him. A staff or pole hung over his torso as the figure of a brooding man stood by. The figure paused, as a hunter does when it has just stunned its prey, before lifting the staff over his head. The glint of an axe head caught Nicolai's attention. As subtle as it was, it might as well have been a bolt of lightening to him, for his senses, despite the blow to his frame, remained intact.
Nicolai swung his feet around, sweeping the figure's feet out from under him. The man holding the axe had not counted on Nicolai being anything more than severely wounded. He fell to the forest floor with a hard thud, with the only other sound coming out of him a muffled gurgle, as Nicolai ran the blade of his knife over his throat. Nicolai had not had the chance to notice the squirt of blood that sprayed his hands and face when he rose to his feet again, ready to face whatever onslaught lay before him.
His bloodlust was so strong that he did not bother to notice his friends as they approached. Within range of Nicolai's arm, Fyodor had stepped on a dry twig, which cracked under the weight of his foot. Nicolai swung around, his knife poised to strike Fyodor in his jugular vein, when Leo stepped in to block his arm. Leo held it tight, shaking it all the while as Nicolai's stare remained firm, his eyes portraying not the look of a friend but that of a killer.
"Nicolai!" Leo said softly but sternly. "Nicolai!"
Nicolai blinked. He shook his head slightly, as those awakening from hypnosis, before he turned his attention to Leo. Leo nodded. Nicolai pulled back his arm as Leo released it. He looked down at the fresh bloodied corpse at his feet.
"There was only one?" he said.
"No," Leo said.
Nicolai looked upon Leo, whose gaze once again focused straight ahead. Nicolai followed the direction of his stare. Unlike their last attempt to find the enemy from the fringes of the campfire, the four of them were now able to see their nemesis.
There were three men before them. One was kneeling on the ground while the second stood partially exposed as the left side of his frame was protected by a tree trunk. The third rested on the tree's thick branch. All three sported long rifles aimed directly at them.
The three enemies spaced apart, at different heights, loomed in the darkness. They might as well have been gargoyles or garden statues, ever still as they were, cloaked by the night. Their rifles held steady, remained unwavering, meaning that their aim was perfect. The slightest movement by any of the Chenians could have set off a round of gunfire. Nicolai knew this. Whatever element of surprise he had by the campfire, as quick as he was, had disappeared.
"Drop the blade," said one. Nicolai thought it was the rifleman on the tree. But since he lacked Leo's superb hearing, he could not be sure. Not that it mattered.
Nicolai dropped the knife. It pierced the ground, its hilt protruding from the dirt.
"On your knees. Slowly."
Each of them knelt down, their arms raised, as they stared into the shadows.
It was then, while they knelt on the ground, that Nicolai saw it. A small glint, a flicker, off to his right, followed by a short burst of smoke. The man on the tree branch gasped. He fell to ground with a thud, where he remained, unmoving. The other two took cover behind the trunk, their eyes scanning in all directions, as they gripped the barrels of their long rifles tightly.
Nicolai felt a light tug on his sleeve. He snapped his head to find Petrov beside him, hunched over and beckoning him to the cover of the brush. In Nicolai's focus of the gunfire burst he had forgotten that he wasn't a spectator but rather a combatant, an individual who could easily meet his fate by looking down the barrel of a rifle.
Nicolai rose to his feet slowly. Behind him, Leo and Fyodor stepped backward toward a large bush that bordered the camp. They made it behind the cover of brush before Petrov and Nicolai could reach it. Then the two riflemen caught a glimpse of their movements. They raised their rifles, the tip of their barrels aimed at them. Leo and Fyodor had only a fraction of a moment to open their mouths before a shot rang out. Nicolai pushed Petrov to the ground as he dove.
Another shot fired. Nicolai looked over his shoulder, ready to heave Petrov from the ground so that they could find cover. But in his search for the right moment to move he saw not the shadows of two menacing rifleman, but only the slumped corpse of one, while the other sprinted in the opposite direction.
A final glimmer erupted from nearby. The last rifleman arched forward, his body suspended in the air as his chest protruded, before falling.
Leo and Fyodor crept toward Petrov and Nicolai to pull them away. Petrov obliged, but Nicolai shook them off. He stood straight up even as his friends ushered him to stay down.
"Boris!" Nicolai yelled. "Is that you?!"
Nicolai held his breath awaiting an answer. None followed.
"Get down!" Petrov whispered.
Nicolai turned to Leo. "How many?"
"I only hear one," Leo replied, astounded by his own answer.
Nicolai turned away. He marched toward the dead rifleman that had fallen from the tree.
"Show yourself!" he yelled.
Still no response came.
Nicolai came upon the fresh corpse, who laid facedown in the grass. Nicolai knelt down next to him, all the while scanning his surroundings for any sign of their unknown savior. Petrov, Leo and Fyodor, not ones to leave their friend in harm's way, emerged from their cover, just as wary as Nicolai. Leo bent down to pick up Nicolai's hunting knife. The three encircled their friend as he turned the body over. The man was dressed in thick wool hunting gear, the kind available in any general store in Knight's Harbor. There was no visible insignia anywhere on his clothes or body. He appeared as any other man would look while walking the streets of Maricania.
"He's Czarian."
Nicolai grabbed the corpse's long rifle as he shot up to his feet. He and his friends looked around. Nicolai raised the length of the barrel as Leo gripped the hunting knife, leaving Fyodor and Petrov with only their fists to defend themselves.
"That's what you wanted to know, right?"
"Leo," Nicolai said. "Where is he?"
"I'm not sure."
"What? But you . . ."
"I can throw my voice," said the man as he emerged from behind a tree. Nicolai raised his newfound firearm, only to find that their stranger had beaten him to it, as he faced the tip of a rifle barrel.
"Lower it. We all know I'm not here to shoot you," the man said.
"You first, if you are so friendly."
"Together. At the same time."
Nicolai and the man across from him lowered their rifles.
"Step forward. Into the moonlight," Nicolai said.
"I rather like it here in the shadows, Nicolai."
Nicolai froze. His friends turned to him, expecting an answer to this surprise. Nicolai, however, remained silent. In truth of fact, he was dumbfounded. Who is this man, he wondered, this shadow immersed in darkness, who can identify me by name? Nicolai's mind raced through the possibilities. It could be a former dock worker or even one of the Chenians from the old country. But none of them were nearly as skilled or calculating as the one who stood before them. It could have been a Maricanian sympathizer, or a Shavice officer, who had stumbled upon their skirmish. Yet they were miles from the nearest town and not even the most righteous officer of the peace would risk so much by himself to save four derelict youths on the run. Perhaps it was a Czarian, even a Guard, who defected and found himself in Maricania. But this last possibility seemed even more farfetched than the first or second. Nicolai, ever prone to being on his toes in moments of tension, was caught off guard.
"How do you know us?" Petrov asked, wanting to break the silence as much as he wanted to know the answer.
"The four of you. And me. We have much in common."
"Such as . . ."
"We all want to go home."
The man stepped forward. The shadow rose from his torso toward his face as a curtain does when rising in a theater. The moonlight cast across his chest and advanced upward, revealing a man, much like them in stature and bone structure, a Chenian ever familiar.
Dmitri.105Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcZqjT7x6eN
