“Help!” She was too far away for anyone to hear, but she shouted anyway. Then she screamed when the footsteps behind her grew louder and one of the men grabbed for her, brushing her clothes.
A moment later, he lunged into her from behind, tackling her and pushing them both into the snow. She screamed as loud as she could until he grabbed her mouth and muffled the sound. His enormous hand grasped her chin and shoved her head to the side. She wanted to bite him, but his hold prevented it. She tried kicking or scratching, but he’d pinned her limbs to the ground. She was absolutely helpless.
The other men stood around her. She didn’t understand their language, but she understood their intentions, especially when they jerked her to her feet and marched her to a group of sturdy Siberian ponies. She struggled against them, knowing she might never see the village again if they took her. One of them struck her in the face so hard her vision blurred. Then they tied her to a pony and left the village far behind.
For a few hours, she held out hope that Filip would find her. But then it began to snow. Every clue about her struggle and the direction she’d gone would disappear.
Reality set in with stark clarity, a dark future as awful as anything the Cheka could do to her. She was the band’s property now, and no one would find her, no matter how much they wanted to save her. Her dreams of a life with Filip were as frozen as the Siberian landscape.
***
Filip scanned the steppe with his field glasses, cursing the falling snow and the way it cut their visibility to almost nothing. “Someone was here, but they’re gone now.”
Maly knelt next to the rail line. “Why did they go through the trouble of prying off the bolts if they weren’t going to tear up the tracks?”
“Maybe they backed away when that White Russian train went through.” The troop train had passed only recently, so the bandits were probably still near. Filip bent next to Maly to see how bad the damage was. “That won’t stop a train, but it needs repair, after we find out who did it.”
“Reds?”
“Maybe.” Filip stood and stamped his feet repeatedly to keep circulation in his toes. “Maly, swing around south. I’ll take my group north.” His brothers in the Urals had enough problems without their supply lines being cut. Were bandits or partisans lurking nearby? The flat, snow-covered expanse went on and on, an endless stretch of white and gray. There were hardly any trees in sight and certainly no packs of soldiers, regular or otherwise.
They mounted. He and his men were infantry, but they used horses for patrols so they could monitor a longer length of track. He had taken to calling his tan gelding Konstantin, after Nadia’s horse. Or maybe it had been her aunt’s horse. Either way, Konstantin’s trot across the proving grounds had led to he and Nadia’s first meeting. He owed a lot to that horse.
The garrison at the little village was only ten strong, plus Dalek and the supply sergeant. Filip and the four men with him rode north from the track, hoping to find some sign of whoever had damaged it. But the snow was getting thicker, and there was no sign of unfriendly forces.
Why had they started their sabotage but not finished? Troop trains moving west were common enough that if they missed today’s, they could wreck the rails for the one that would come tomorrow or the next day. They hadn’t found footprints near the damaged rail ties, so the saboteurs must have left before the patrol had been within range, long enough in advance for the snow to cover their tracks. If the patrol hadn’t scared them off, what was their purpose?
Ambush. That could have been their goal. “Careful, brothers. They might be trying to draw us out.” Would they want to pull them north, where Filip’s group had gone, or south, where Maly’s group had gone? Filip wasn’t too worried about the village. Even with the garrison gone, Dalek and Pavel could handle most bandits. And if the group was large enough to attack a village, Filip and his men would have seen them by now.
A sharp crack sounded, and a solid burst of pain pummeled Filip from his horse. He grunted and reached for his rifle, but his arm wouldn’t follow his commands.
Rifle shots came quickly, sounding all around him. He tried to see, pushing with his healthy arm and struggling to turn, but he’d sunk into the snow, and he couldn’t move. Agony pulsed in his shoulder.
The rifle shots died down, but his men’s horses remained in place, so they must have driven the bandits off.
“Sedlák?”
Filip tried to answer, but neither his voice nor his vision worked properly anymore.
White. And red. Why was the snow red? He must have lost a lot of blood for it to soak through two coats and leave the snow stained scarlet.
***
Dalek heard the men coming back from patrol. He put on his coat and fur hat to step outside and knew something was wrong when only four riders approached. Ten had left that morning. “What happened?”