Susan Johnson (32 page)

In the hour before his men appeared, he scrutinized the maps on the wall, trying to calculate Korsakov’s immediate destination. The remnants of the Russian corps would most likely flee east, he decided, toward Bohemia. He boldly marked the route on the map.

Bonnay appeared first with his orderly and the latest messages from Lecourbe’s couriers. “He’s holding,” Bonnay said. “The Russians haven’t managed to break through.”

“Send every reinforcement we have to him. Move headquarters down to Altdorf so we’ll be nearer the engagement. I’ll be back in two days.”

“With the Butcher’s head in a sack,” Vigée cheerfully said, hearing the last part of the conversation as he strolled into the room. “I don’t suppose there’s any coffee for my brandy.”

Bonnay pointed to a steaming kettle his orderly had carried in with him.

“You should be someone’s wife, Henri,” Vigée pleasantly said, striding to the table in the corner. “Such an eye for detail.”

“And you should be someone’s child,” Bonnay countered with a smile.

“Preferably someone young and beautiful with a soft lap and big tits.” Vigée winked wolfishly.

“I don’t suppose you’re sober,” Duras said, casting a tolerant eye on his best cavalry officer.

“Not precisely,” Vigée pleasantly replied, accepting a cup of steaming coffee from Bonnay’s orderly. “But almost, enough to see me through this exhilarating manhunt. Good sport on a fine fall day,” he cheerfully finished, pouring brandy into the cup from his flask. “My troopers are looking forward to some souvenirs.”

“No ears, Vigée,” Duras warned. “I trust we understand each other since that last episode.”

“Chmiel was made to understand, sir,” Vigée said with appropriate deference to his commander, who’d raised holy hell after the last scouting trip into enemy territory.

“Good. Glad to have you and your men along,” Duras said, knowing that the killer instincts of Vigée’s troop were ideal for the pursuit. “I’m favoring the road to St. Gall,” Duras went on. “Although Korsakov may be riding for the Prussian border.”

“St. Gall, sir,” Vigée unhesitantly said. “His Cossacks
particularly like the women there.” A brothel of some repute was situated in the town. “Korsakov and his guard need women every night, I hear.”

Duras had heard the stories as well; Korsakov’s hand-picked Cossacks had a reputation for rape and brutality. “They stayed somewhere last night, then.”

“And their heads are aching this morning.”

“Is everyone ready?” Impatient, Duras thought only of killing the man who’d abused Teo.

“They’re bringing the horses around,” Vigée replied, quickly draining his coffee cup.

“Two days’ rations are packed for each trooper. Don’t eat all yours this morning,” Bonnay sportively warned Vigée as he moved toward the door.

“I’ll be eating
Russian
rations by tonight,” Vigée cheerfully replied, waving as he exited the room.

“
You
eat,” Bonnay said, handing Duras a flask of coffee.

“Later.” Taking the flask, Duras smiled at the man who’d served him so well. “When this is over, we need to see to your next promotion.”

“Just come back. We can’t face Suvorov without you.”

“Relax, Henri. I’ll be back in two days.”

“You should let someone else cut his throat,” Bonnay grumbled, anxious that the risk to Duras was too great.

“I want the satisfaction,” Duras said, his voice flat.

They traveled fast, resting their mounts only twice, stopping often at villages to question the inhabitants about a Cossack troop. Since early morning they’d been on Korsakov’s trail; the distinctive bodyguards were easily recognized.

When dark came they stayed on the trail, though the moonless sky made tracking more difficult. Stars appeared only in patches in the gray-blue sky, clouds hovered low, and an inhospitable coolness chilled the autumn air. But the turf was soft, covered with occasional clumps of tall dry grass, and Korsakov’s large troop left tracks evident even in the dim light.

The soft, damp earth absorbed the sound of horses’ hoofs and Duras’s men moved silently through the night, their tack muffled, conversation limited to hand signals. Willow trees lined the track alongside the river, their long branches swaying in the night wind. And then the trees began disappearing and an open field, scarcely visible, unrolled before them.

They smelled the smoke first and then saw it rising over the edge of a ravine, saw the red glow of fire as a blush on the horizon. Leaving the horses behind with two men, they crept cautiously through the underbrush lining the river-bank. On all fours they crawled to the edge of the ravine and gazed over the precipice.

Below them in the bottom of the dark bowl of the earth, gathered around bonfires, Korsakov and his Cossacks, inclined to plunder, accustomed to violence, were engaged in an evening of brutal entertainment. The scene was inhuman, a vision from hell.

Knapsacks and coats were scattered all around. There were four small tents and a larger one in striped silk before which Korsakov, robed in red brocade, seated in a campaign chair, surveyed his camp. Two naked women were chained to stakes at his feet. All around the fires were the Cossacks, and each man had a woman or two with him. Some were bound and thrown onto the ground; others were gagged, their clothing torn, the whiteness of their skin gleaming in the light of the flames.

Some women were struggling in their captor’s hold, their high-pitched screams and cries animal-like in the night, counterpointed by the laughter of the men.

A young girl was running wildly among the men, trying to avoid them, but each time a man let the girl go, he tore away part of her dress. When she was naked and nearing the bushes bordering the camp, three men overtook her, pushed her back toward the light and dragged her down and swarmed over her.

At the farthest edge of the illuminated area two girls stood back to back, one armed with a stick, the other with a saber, fighting off the pack of men who were trying to get them. Finally the girls ran toward the steep slope of the ravine and desperately started to climb straight toward where Duras’s men lay. “Let us go! Let us go!” they pitifully cried and Duras aimed his rifle. Each trooper made ready to shoot, waiting for Duras’s order.

“Not Korsakov,” he softly said. “He’s mine.” He waited until the command passed down the ranks in a rippling murmur, wanting to make sure everyone understood, and then he fired.

The gunshot was deafening in the hollow below them, echoing from wall to wall, blending with the shouts from the Cossacks as they scrambled for their rifles, the shrieks of the wounded, the yells of horror and fear from the women.

Duras’s men emptied their rifles, methodically reloaded and fired once, twice, three times, picking off the Cossacks like targets in a fishbowl, until Duras caught sight of Korsakov running toward the picketed horses, carrying a naked girl under one arm, as though she were no more weighty than a parcel.

“Hold your fire,” Duras shouted, already sliding down the steep slope of the ravine, estimating the distance between himself and Korsakov, between Korsakov and the horses. Leaping and sliding, he plunged recklessly downward, keeping his prey in sight. Oblivious to the Cossacks’ gunfire exploding around him, he reached the ground in a flying bound and raced through the camp, jumping over campfires and dead Cossacks, over weeping women and saddlebags.

The horses were agitated in their roped-off paddock and Korsakov was having difficulty steadying his mount. Holding tightly to the horse’s halter, he was trying to pull the animal around and heave the woman onto its back, but the
animal reared and backed away, the herd around it eddying like a restless tide.

Drawing his saber, Duras ran full-out, praying Korsakov wouldn’t get the horse under control before he covered the distance between them.

Wresting the animal’s head down with a brutal wrench of his arm, Korsakov flung the woman up and, leaping up behind her, positioned her as a shield. Grabbing at the reins, he caught them in his fingertips, adjusted his grip, and digging in his heels, spurred the horse forward.

Sprinting full-out, Duras focused on his prey. Nothing else mattered, not the scene he’d just witnessed, not the war, not Suvorov’s threat from the south. Only the man he’d come to kill.

“Korsakov!” Duras’s cry rang out above the crackling gunfire and high-pitched screams, echoed in undulating waves into the night.

On catching sight of Duras, Korsakov bellowed with a cry of rage that shook the heavens. “Die!” he thundered, charging straight at Duras like a maddened bull.

Coming to a halt, Duras stood his ground and raised his saber. Unflinching as the horse bore down on him, he watched Korsakov close the distance. At the last possible second, in a blur of movement, he swung his saber in a vicious arc and leaped aside.

Its front legs slashed, the horse went down, throwing Korsakov and the woman off with such force, the woman lay stunned on the ground. Korsakov rolled to his feet with amazing agility, considering his bulk, his teeth bared like an animal, his eyes dark with hate.

He still wore his crimson robe like a boyar or hetman from some earlier time, the long skirts swirling about his ankles. With an oath, he ripped it off and tossed it aside, revealing his huge body in loose Cossack breeches, low boots, and nothing more. A long-bladed Cossack knife—kinjal—hung from his waist; the saber he wielded was oversized as well.

“Come and get me,” he roared, drawing his kinjal out, his face apoplectic, his straw-colored hair disheveled, bristly, like an albino boar, his huge chest gleaming in the firelight.

Although Duras was tall, Korsakov was a giant of a man and Duras’s whipcord-lean body would be at a disadvantage against such brute strength. With a tactical eye Duras surveyed his adversary as he quickly unbuttoned his tunic and shrugged out of it.

Korsakov’s reach exceeded his, Duras assessed. He carried too much weight though, and his dissipation showed. An advantage perhaps, but regardless of the odds, tonight he intended to be Korsakov’s angel of death.

In a portion of his brain Duras had taken note of the subsiding gunfire, of the lessening cries and shouts, but not until Vigée hove into view, running fast into the periphery of his vision, did the world intrude.

Vigée’s rifle was raised.

“He’s mine!” Duras cried in warning, swinging quickly to the left and right, taking in the scene of carnage and the position of his men. “Don’t anyone touch him!”

A marginal hush descended on the firelit scene. And then Duras turned back to the man who had drawn him so far from his duty and said to him, “I’m taking your wife from you.”

“Not when you’re dead, you won’t,” Korsakov defiantly proclaimed.

“Just give me the word and I’ll finish him off,” Vigée offered, his rifle at the ready.

“No.” Duras was already advancing.

“Take this, then,” Vigée said, lobbing a kinjal in the soft dirt beside Duras’s feet.

Retrieving it, Duras balanced it for a moment in his palm. The handle was smooth from wear, like his saber. And for a moment he wondered if he were any less barbarous than Korsakov, the number of men he’d killed too numerous
to recall, his need for personal vengeance against this man a primitive ferocity.

And then Korsakov said, “I’ll kill my whoring wife after I kill you.”

And Duras remembered why he’d come so far.

A savage light shone in his eyes and he moved forward, intent on eliminating Korsakov from Teo’s life. The men stalked each other in diminishing circles, watching, wary, unsure of their opponent’s strengths and weaknesses, waiting for the right opportunity to strike. More impulsive, Korsakov lunged first, his saber flashing.

Sidestepping the deadly blade, Duras whirled away, nicking Korsakov’s arm with his kinjal as he spun around.

Swearing in a stream of expletives, Korsakov clutched at the thin line of red on his upper arm.

“Kill him!” a woman screamed. Her cry was instantly muffled by one of Duras’s troopers. A gathering audience began to mill on the verge of the dueling ground, and a shrill tone vibrated in the air, repressed, controlled by Duras’s men. The besieging girdle of sound, like a muffled, angry shriek, seethed from the raped females hungry for Korsakov’s blood.

“Maybe I should just turn you over to them,” Duras said.

“If you do, I’ll take some of the bitches with me,” Korsakov snarled, lunging at Duras while he was distracted by the sight of bloodied, naked women breathing vengeance.

Duras managed to spin away before Korsakov’s saber blow cut the bone, but the wracking agony in his shoulder almost brought him to his knees. Trained as he was to the inch, his reflexes took over and he swung out of range. Furiously marshaling his senses against the brutal pain, he quickly assessed the extent of the damage. His left hand still gripped the kinjal, but any movement was torture.

Shifting his stance, he set his teeth to meet Korsakov’s next rush, in which the oxlike body swooped toward him
with incredible speed. With sheer grit Duras parried Korsakov’s powerful downstroke, the jarring crack of blade to blade sending shock waves through his wounded shoulder.

He wasn’t able to slip away quickly enough that time, his reflexes blunted by the corrosive agony, and Korsakov slipped under his guard, catching Duras’s sword arm with the kinjal.

Sucking in his breath, Duras recoiled, putting distance between them.

“It doesn’t look as though … you’re going to have my wife,” Korsakov said with a triumphant smile, his breathing rough, his chest heaving, his face red from his exertions. “She’ll be my property again … to do with as I please.”

Duras stood utterly still, conserving his energy. “I’m going to kill you,” he quietly said, as if he weren’t savagely wounded, as if his indefatigable spirit was means enough to accomplish the task. And then his father’s voice came to him, vivid as life, reminding him with shrewd expediency that honor was wasted on dishonorable men.

How many times had he fought with knife and sword at his father’s side, against the Barbary pirates encroaching on his father’s territory. They had been as depraved and ruthless as Korsakov. “Kill them quickly,” his father would always say, disciplined, eminently qualified to deal with his foes. “This isn’t a gentleman’s game.”