The Winds of Khalakovo - Bradley P. Beaulieu [22]
“Back!” Nikandr shouted as he drew his flintlock pistol and fired it into the air. “Back, by order of the Duke!”
Borund followed suit. Finally some in the crowd recognized them while many more retreated from the putrid, writhing mass of skin and bone and teeth.
“Back!”
The crowd eyed him and the streltsi warily as the tarpfish flipped closer to the edge of the quay. Finally it fell into the water with a hollow splash.
It was with that one simple sound, from an animal few had ever seen, that the winds were released from the sail. Those at the edges of the crowd—the realization of what they’d done clear on their faces—retreated, and then ran. Soon the area was clear save for the wounded and the soldiers.
After reaching the Boyar’s mansion in the center of Volgorod, they spoke briefly with Ranos, but he soon put them off to deal with the wounded streltsi as well as two women who claimed their husbands had been shot “without provocation.”
“Wait here,” Ranos said as he grabbed his coat of office and opened the door of the drawing room. “I’ll be back as soon as I’m able, and then we’ll go to the eyrie together.”
Without waiting for a response he closed the door, leaving Nikandr and Borund in a room that held little to occupy their time. Ranos’s wife—cold in her choice of decor—had left it without so much as a deck of cards. By the time they had finished their second mazer of vodka, it was clear Ranos had been delayed.
Nikandr set his ivory mazer down with a clack and stood. He could feel his nose and cheeks and ears flush from the alcohol. “Come, good Vostroma, and we shall see what the eyrie holds for us.”
Borund, his rounded cheeks still red—more from the vodka than the cold—surveyed the room as if it were his last hope at warmth, but then he raised his lips in a wry smile and downed the last of his drink. “Da. Fuck Ranos.”
Nikandr smiled. “Fuck Ranos.”
Soon they were back on their ponies and headed uphill from the city along Eyrie Road, the wide, gravel trail that climbed up to the highlands and then west to the eyrie. After they passed the first rise, the wind picked up, and both of them buttoned their long cherkesskas up to their neck. As the trail led them above the expanse of Volgorod, they spotted the tall white cliffs of the eyrie and the great pillared rocks that withstood the churning green seas to the south of them.
Traffic along the road was high. Laden carts and wagons clattered toward Volgorod, while empty ones returned. Far ahead, a wagon had pulled onto the grass. Two men were changing the rear wagon wheel.
“Don’t you think it’s time we discussed my sister?” Borund asked as he pulled the collar of his coat up.
Nikandr stared at the men repairing the wagon as their ponies trotted onward. “I’m sorry the ship was damaged, Borund. I know it has caused difficulties with your father—”
“That’s not what I mean, Nischka.”
Nikandr didn’t know what to say, not without causing insult.
Borund’s thick eyebrows bunched together. “My sister is not so terrible.”
“She was always the worst of them, Borund.”
Borund laughed. “That may be true, but she’s grown into a fine woman.”
Perhaps, Nikandr thought, but the churning in his gut he got every time he thought about being married to her was still as strong as ever. Yet despite that, despite all his fears—founded or not—he would have buried his discontent and prepared for the wedding with diligence—if not passion—had it not been for the Aramahn woman he had seen near the gallows. Rehada. Had they come from slightly different places, he would have already asked for her hand in marriage. As it stood, however, such a thing was out of the question. Impossible. But it didn’t stop his heart from yearning for such a thing, even more so