Heart of Iron - Ekaterina Sedia [101]
I sat in the sleigh, my heart in my mouth, finally understanding the reason and the nature of Jack’s strange behavior: our separation and his notes, his promises to meet me and his reluctance to do so. I now doubted he would be at the factory he had sent me to.
It was the behavior of a steppe bird, the one that faked injury when a predator stalked her nest, and ran, dragging her wing behind her, refusing to fly and hopping ever so awkwardly, luring the enemy away from her nest and yet never wandering far enough away to lose the sight of it.
I bit my lip until tears beaded my eyelashes and froze, a string of pearls that refracted the light of the low sun just brushing the treetops of the forest. I smelled the fire pits of the village and the frozen spruce sap, and felt foolish and ungrateful as I thought of Jack who struggled and risked so much to keep Nightingale’s attention on himself, not me. I only hoped the detour to the factory would yield its purpose soon, and that I would have enough smarts and the presence of mind to use this opportunity. After all, we were so close to China, I could almost taste it.
The shaman had explained the way to Kuan Yu. He now sat in the front, next to Volzhenko who refused to surrender the reins, and pointed the way. The road was slight but well packed, and the horses’ hooves rang on it as if they were wearing glass shoes.
“There should be a turnoff soon,” said Kuan Yu, and pointed. “Over there, by that log, I think.”
“That is no log,” Volzhenko answered and pulled on the reins, stopping the horses short of a dark heap marking the side path.
We got out of the sleigh. The horses, who already knew what lay there, snorted and neighed. The lively one in the center even got to his hind legs and danced, the whites of his eyes flashing wild.
The dark heap was a dead horse, already frozen solid, its mane all icicles and matted hair, its eye reflecting the treetops—filmed over, opaque as a cataract. Snow had been dug up by the thrashing of its front legs and the deep furrows crossed the beginning of the path, obscuring it while simultaneously marking it. A small spray of blood from the beast’s mouth marked the snow in front of its muzzle, but we did not see any further injury—until we circled the body and saw that the horse was not merely swaybacked but that its back dipped and rose again at a sharp angle. Its spine was broken, I realized with a pang. The poor thing died a horrible slow and thrashing death as it flailed and struggled to regain its feet and failed.
“That was done intentionally,” Volzhenko said. “What terrible bastards. Who’d do something like that to an animal?”
I had my ideas but remained quiet, and I hoped that the rest of my companions wouldn’t notice a deep depression in the snow, near where the faint path turned between two closely growing spruces. It looked like an ordinary hole in the snow, brought about by a falling tree or a jumping deer, but I knew that if I looked closely I would find boot prints—the same boot that used the back of the poor horse as a springboard, the boot that pushed off with enough force to break its back.
As Volzhenko clucked his tongue and circled the dead animal, examining the uneven bumps of broken bones stretching its skin in small, gruesome tents, I looked for the traces of Jack’s possible pursuers. There were a few hoof prints clustered about the stiff-legged corpse, which then continued down the road. At first I wondered at how they managed to miss the small side path, but then realized that there were more footprints running down the main road—gigantic strides that could only be Jack’s. Like a bird leading away and then doubling up on his own footprints, to confuse the predators.
“Well, no saving this horse now,” Volzhenko said. “We’ll tell Kurashov to send some men to collect it—it ought to be good for dinner.”
We helped him to push aside the dead horse and climbed back into the sleigh. We started down the narrow winding path, and I kept looking for other traces of Jack’s passage. I prayed he would be waiting for