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  He turned to Anushka. She stared at him, her eyes wide.

  “Wake the children and get to the cellar,” he said.

  “But where are you—”

  “Do as I say!”

  Lyov left her sitting there bewildered, his long strides carrying him through the small house to the front door. He undid the bolt and stepped into the muddy street. Scattered groups of armed men rushed past him on their way to the town’s outer defenses. The acrid smell of smoke drifted through the cold air, and a faint, orange glow welled just over the roofline of the buildings across the street. He heard men shouting somewhere in the distance.

  Mirona’s breath, he thought. They’re here.

  He drew his sword and hurried to join the rest of the militia at his designated post along the town’s wooden palisade. As he neared the fortification, the shouting grew louder, along with the sound of clattering weapons. By the time he reached the open stretch of ground separating the wall from the town’s buildings, flames had consumed the guard towers nearest the gate. A group of armed men did their best to hold the gate shut as burning timbers collapsed around them, but many were already wounded.

  Before Lyov could join them, more than a dozen figures armed with long, narrow clubs clambered over the palisade and dropped into the midst of the defenders. Between the spreading flames and the savage club blows, the militia could not hold its ground. Several men abandoned their positions, scattering as the invaders struck their comrades dead. The massive door broke with a thunderous crack to reveal a horde of attackers waiting to pour into the town. They cut through the remnants of the militia and charged across the clearing, howling and snarling like ravenous wolves. Those carrying torches flung them at the houses’ thatched roofs while the rest smashed through doors and chased down any wounded defenders still trying to escape.

  Anushka!

  Lyov turned and ran.

  He had gone only a few yards when one of the attackers tumbled from the roof of a building just ahead of him. The fiend rushed at him, growling. Lyov scarcely got his sword up in time to deflect a blow from the invader’s club. The impact sent a shiver down his arm, and he frantically gave ground as the invader pressed in on him.

  Lyov could not get a good look at the Dikarie in the darkness, but he moved as gracefully as a wolf, and his growling voice sounded nearly as feral. Despite Lyov’s considerable strength, he was not an accomplished swordsman, and his ripostes proved clumsy and inaccurate. The Dikarie turned most of them aside, and the others missed the mark completely. He managed to keep his footing in the mud, but his attacker proved less careful. An overeager lunge left him slightly off-balance. Lyov threw his weight against him to send them both crashing into the mud. He adjusted the grip on his sword and plunged the blade into his attacker’s unprotected back.

  Lyov went on stabbing after inflicting the mortal wound, fearful that the fiend might rise again. Once the Dikarie stopped moving, Lyov rolled the body over to get a better look at its face. Although he had heard many stories about the Dikarie, he had never actually seen one before. Most of the stories sounded too outlandish to believe, and some learned men insisted the Dikarie were nothing more than men still mired in barbarism. While seeing one up close did not help him to separate truth from fiction, he knew one thing for certain:

  This was not a man.

  A long, bony ridge extended from the eye sockets and ran along the sides of the shorn skull just above the temples. Black markings adorned the skin, beginning at the top of the scalp and tracing down to the bridge of the nose. Two sets of canines sprang from the upper and lower jaws, one slightly longer than the other. The bone structure differed from a normal man’s, with more bone along the cheeks, eyes, and temples. It looked primitive and crude, like a hunk of stone waiting to be chiseled into some useful shape.

  The tip of the Dikarie’s club glistened with fresh, blackish blood.

  Anushka.

  Lyov stepped over the corpse and sprinted toward his house.

  Once they overran the town’s defenses, the Dikarie swept through the streets like a swarm of ravenous locusts. The fires spread quickly across the close rooftops, driving more and more people from their homes to be murdered on their doorsteps. The savages sang out in their coarse, ugly language as they gleefully went about their bloody work. They made no distinctions among men, women, or children, butchering anyone caught in their path.

  Lyov’s house remained untouched by fire, but the door stood open, hanging loosely from the hinges. He charged inside to find a pair of Dikarie warriors tearing through the main living area. There was no sign of Anushka or his children.

  He prayed they made it to the cellar in time.

  Before the Dikarie noticed his arrival, Lyov drove the dulled point of his sword through the closer one’s back. The warrior shrieked as the blade pushed through his skin and punctured his vitals. He dropped to the ground, convulsing. The other one wheeled around and lashed out with his thin club before Lyov pulled his sword free. The blow surely would have cracked his skull had it landed squarely, but it narrowly missed Lyov’s head as he withdrew the blade. He heard the club whistle through the air as it swiped past his face.

  Before the Dikarie could make another move, Lyov lunged forward and caught it in the arm with an awkward thrust. The blade wasn’t sharp enough to cut through flesh and sinew, but the tip must have bruised a nerve, because the savage dropped his club with a pained yelp. Lyov pressed forward, hacking wildly before the fiend could recover. The notched sword bit into the Dikarie’s neck like a butcher’s cleaver and drove him to his knees. Lyov threw all his weight into the next swing and chopped deep enough for the blade to scrape against the bones of the neck. The Dikarie fell without a sound to the floor as blood streamed forth from the grisly wound.

  “Anushka!” Lyov called her name out repeatedly as he pushed aside the overturned furniture to find the cellar’s trapdoor. It was locked from below. He pounded the hilt of the sword against the door as he shouted again.

  “Open the door, Anushka! We have to get out of here now!”

  He heard the door unlatch, and he yanked it open to find his family unharmed. His daughter, Raisa, scrambled up the steps and wrapped her arms around his waist, sobbing. Anushka came next, followed by his son, Ilya, armed with a hatchet. Lyov hugged his wife and put his hand on Ilya’s shoulder with an approving nod.

  Anushka looked at the Dikarie bodies and gasped.

  Lyov took her by the arm and shook her back to her senses. “There will be more if we don’t get moving! Come on; we have to get out before they burn everything to the ground!”

  He took Raisa’s hand and started for the door. “Hurry!”

  Anushka and Ilya fell in line behind them as they rushed outside together. The fires burned out of control now, with more than half of the town in flames. Lyov made for the south gate, the smallest and least-used of the town’s entrances, hoping that the Dikarie had ignored it thus far. They ducked through the streets, but the smoke and flames forced them to take a circuitous route to reach the gate.

  Bodies lay everywhere, broken and bloodied.

  Lyov heard Raisa sobbing frantically beside him.

  “Don’t look at them, girl! Keep moving!”

  They turned onto one of the town’s main streets and ran into a teaming mass of townspeople trying to push past one another to escape. Fire and smoke had driven most of them away from the narrow alleys between the surrounding houses, but the Dikarie had herded the rest into the makeshift defile, forcing their defenseless victims to choose either the club or the flames. A few armed militiamen remained among them, trying valiantly to drive the savages back from the crowd.

  When the Dikarie moved in, however, it would be more a slaughter than a battle.

  Lyov sheathed his sword and gripped his daughter’s hand. He motioned to Anushka to take both children by the hand.

  “Run!” Lyov said. “Keep together, and don’t stop moving!”

  They ran down the
street and pushed into the crowd. The terrified mob pressed in on them from all sides as Lyov shoved people aside with his free arm. He spotted a gap between the flames on the far side of the street and jostled through the human sea to reach it before the Dikarie closed in on them. Finally, he emerged from the crowd with his family in tow. They raced through the gap before burning debris fell to cut off the passage.

  Screams filled the air behind them only seconds after they escaped.

  Lyov guided them between the rows of houses and slipped past the stables, where the Dikarie slaughtered the horses to prevent anyone’s escape. They turned south once they cleared the stables and made their way around another row of burning buildings to reach the clearing on the edge of town.

  The fighting there had not been as fierce as at the main gate, but dozens of bodies still lay strewn across the mud, some armed, some defenseless. A few, surviving militiamen struggled to fend off the Dikarie packs on the near side of the clearing.

  For a moment, Lyov admired their courage.

  Then he realized that the Dikarie were toying with them, each one darting in to land minor blows and prolong the bloody, inevitable outcome. The fiends made a horrible sound as the spectacle went on, something like a cross between a dog’s barking and a mule’s braying.

  It might have been laughter.

  On the far side of the clearing, Lyov saw the palisade’s south gate standing open and unguarded. If they hurried, they might be able to make it there before the Dikarie could converge on them.

  “This way,” he said.

  They ran into the clearing, dodging past overturned wagons and leaping over the dead bodies strewn through the mud. For a moment, Lyov thought they might escape notice, but then he heard one of the fiends cry out, and he turned to see a small pack assembling to run them down.

  Lyov cursed and tried to turn his family back toward the town. The Dikarie would surely catch them before they crossed the clearing. They would have to try to lose them amidst the burning buildings and make for one of the other gates.

  But before they could fully come about, a large group of townsfolk poured into the clearing, fleeing the flames and killers at their heels. The Dikarie hesitated before many of them broke away to chase after the new arrivals. They fell upon them mercilessly, bashing in skulls and shattering limbs with each swing of their clubs. Dying screams mixed with elated war cries created a frightful death song.

  Lyov made the most of the distraction and led his family toward the gate. Once outside, they would be able to make for the forest and get to a more fortified settlement. Kver was only two days to the east on foot.

  If they could reach its walls, they would be safe there.

  Anushka’s sudden cry snapped Lyov’s attention back to his surroundings. He turned to find Ilya crumpled on the ground, his head slick with blood. A Dikarie stood over him, raising his club to deliver another blow. Lyov drew his sword and charged before the savage could attack again. Rage lent extra fury to Lyov’s assault, and he overwhelmed the surprised Dikarie with a flurry of crippling strikes. The club fell from his hands as Lyov knocked him to the ground, but the savage drew a small, spiked weapon from his belt and lunged forward to stab the point into Lyov’s thigh. The pain did not register immediately, and Lyov sent the Dikarie sprawling backward with a strong kick. A final, powerful stroke half-ripped the savage’s head from his shoulders.

  Lyov tried to help his son stand, but the effort was wasted. Although Ilya still drew breath, his skull was cracked and bloodied. Lyov eased the boy down as Ilya’s body twitched violently. Anushka fell over her son and cried out, hysterical.

  Just a few dozen yards away, the Dikarie finished their slaughter of the unfortunate stragglers. Luckily, only a few of the savages had spotted them and the path to the south gate remained open. Lyov felt the blood trickling down his leg. If he did not stop the bleeding soon, he would weaken.

  And once that happened, they would all likely die.

  He grabbed his wife’s arm and tried to pull her to her feet.

  “Leave him,” he said. “He’s as good as dead!”

  Anushka wriggled free and tried to shake Ilya back to his senses.

  “He’s still alive,” she said, sobbing.

  The Dikarie closed in on them. Raisa clutched at Lyov’s arm, trembling. The wound in his leg throbbed painfully.

  “He’s gone, damn you!” Lyov yanked Anushka away from their bleeding son. She squirmed loose again and shoved him away from her.

  “I’m not leaving our son behind!”

  She knelt beside Ilya and tried to make him sit up.

  “Come on, little wolf,” she said, the words catching in her throat. “You have to get up now.”

  Lyov looked down at Raisa. Soot covered her little, pale face, but her blue eyes shone clearly even in the dim light. She stared at him with an empty, helpless expression. Lyov knew that she would do anything he asked of her, that she trusted him completely to protect her, despite what just happened to her brother.

  He took Raisa’s hand and ran for the gate. She did not ask why her mother lingered, and Lyov made no effort to explain why they left her behind.

  Neither of them looked back.

  By the time they reached the gate, Lyov’s leg burned; he could hardly put any weight on it. He struggled to keep up with Raisa. She tried to pull him along as they drew closer to the distant, black tree line. The waterlogged ground, still swollen from the early autumn rains, further slowed their progress, and they soon found themselves slogging through ankle-deep muck.

  He tried to ignore the cries of the Dikarie warriors somewhere behind them. If he did not turn to look at them, he could go on convincing himself that they were still far away.

  Raisa looked back.

  “Father,” she said, her voice trembling, “they’re getting closer! Hurry!”

  The last bit of strength bled out from Lyov’s leg. He propped himself up with his sword to walk, and his pace continued to slow. Finally, he stumbled and fell.

  “Father!”

  Raisa tried to pull him up, but he was too weak to go on. His pounding heart forced more blood from his wound with every step. Lyov knew he had no chance of reaching the tree line before the Dikarie ran them down.

  He turned back to the town then to see a small pack of Dikarie running after them. Flames engulfed what remained of the buildings and cast enough light to make the black figures in the distance quite visible. They would be upon them in moments, and Lyov knew he could not fight off so many of them.

  Raisa tugged at his arm again. “Father, come on!”

  He shook his head. “I can’t.”

  “But they’re coming! We have to go!”

  Raisa would not be able to outrun them herself, he knew. Even if she could, she would not survive long in the wild on her own. There was no chance of her reaching the safety of Kver by herself.

  He took her hand and pulled her closer to him as she started to cry.

  “It’s all right, Raisa,” he said. “I’m here.”

  The girl buried her head in her father’s chest and sobbed. “Are they going to kill us?”

  Lyov ran a bloody hand through her hair.

  “No, girl,” he said, his gaze fixed on the Dikarie closing in on them.

  He reached down for the knife that he kept sheathed in his boot.

  “They’re not going to put a hand on you. I promise.”

  He pressed the knife against her chest and drove it into her heart. A thin gasp escaped her lips as Lyov pulled her little body against his.

  “I love you, Raisa.”

  Her body went limp, and Lyov held her for a few seconds before he set her on the ground and brushed her eyelids shut.

  He struggled to his feet and took up his sword as the Dikarie closed in on him, clubs at the ready.

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