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Chapter Five

Cobetsnya Military Garrison 19

Cobetsnya, Kolakolvia

Natalya Baston


“Have I told you how much I hate this city?” Natalya asked.

The bartender rolled his eyes.

She stared at him for a few moments. Squinted her eyes. Stared some more.

“Wait,” she said. “Where is Paol?”

“You mean Pieter,” the bartender replied.

“Whatever. Where’d he go?”

“His shift ended three hours ago.”

Natalya spun her stool around to get a look out the window. Sure enough, it was dark outside. That meant she’d been here for . . . six hours? This was a problem. A problem with only one solution. She turned back around and knocked on the counter next to her empty glass.

“Last one,” the bartender said.

“Then you better fill it all the way to the top.”

He did as instructed, likely just to get her to leave as soon as possible. Natalya lifted the glass carefully, not letting the tiniest drop spill over the brim of the small glass. She’d be damned if she wasted any of the drink she’d bought with hard-earned coin. Real coin. None of this voucher idiocy the masses were trapped using.

Some drank to drown their fears. Their worries. Their unfulfilled desires. Some drank to forget pains, or comrades lost. More than a few patrons of the Friendly Traveler fell into that category. This bar was one of the few that was allowed an actual name instead of just a number, likely due to it being the establishment of choice of the Wall. A look in the mirror showed her that several of the other patrons this evening were members of that particular illustrious unit. They were easy to pick out due to their large size, many tattoos, and general demeanor.

The rest of the patrons appeared to be military or whores. They both wore uniforms, in a manner of speaking. Drab green and red tunics for the soldiers, and wispy dresses and shawls on the ladies. There was only one patron she could see out of uniform, a middle-aged man dressed in black, with some white in his beard and at his temples, sitting by the fire, intently reading a letter.

But the noisy crowd didn’t matter. She had more important matters to attend to. Like drinking. She studied the dark brown liquid for another moment, then downed it.

Natalya only drank when she was in civilization, but she didn’t drink for the typical reasons. She had nothing she wished to forget. She drank for control. To tame the fire inside her. Alcohol was the only thing that seemed to quench it when she was around too many people. The drink was a placeholder.

After all, she could hardly shoot anyone here in the city.

She didn’t belong here. She hated it here. She couldn’t wait to be ordered back to the wilderness where she belonged. Absently, her hand reached down and rested briefly on her rifle that was leaning against the bar. She took a deep breath, let it out slowly like she did when lining up the killing shot. That, not drink, was her real addiction. The power she held to take a life, or not.

“Let me buy you another,” a man said.

Her peace was shattered.

“Leave me alone,” she warned the intruder.

“You seem like a vodka girl. Anton, get this girl a vodka.”

The bartender said, “My name is Sergi.”

“Yeah, I don’t care. Get the girl a vodka.”

“I hate vodka,” Natalya said.

“I doubt that,” the newcomer said. He wasn’t one of the Wall, that much was obvious by his lack of size. He had a mustache, regulation haircut, and pale eyes. She could smell drink on him. The cheap stuff. His hands were stained black at the fingertips. Powder stains.

Infantry.

Natalya pitied the infantry. She’d rather die than live in a trench.

“I don’t want your drink.”

The man stared at her, mouth open. His cheeks were beginning to redden in anger or embarrassment. She deliberately turned her stool so her back was to him and began fishing in her pockets for a coin. The first one that came out was worn to the degree of being barely legible. She held it up to the light. This one was from the old Belgracian mint. The actual origin of the coin mattered little. The weight and type of metal were the important characteristics. It would do.

The infantryman cleared his throat behind her.

Natalya turned and pretended to be surprised at his continued presence.

“Oh.” She lifted one hand and made a shooing gesture. “You may go.”

The people near enough to catch the exchange chuckled. Even the man by the fire looked up from his letter and smiled.

The soldier was a good-looking sort and was clearly not used to being rejected. “You don’t get to disrespect me, girl.”

One of the members of the Wall—a muscular man with a tattoo of a snarling wolf’s head covering his chest—stood and began walking up behind the infantryman. Of course he’d get involved. Their regiments shared some mutual respect. Natalya made a small gesture with her hand, warning him off. The veteran stopped but didn’t back away. He looked too old to participate in petty bar brawls, but the Wall had a certain reputation to keep up about not tolerating insolence from anyone.

“You’ve mistaken me for one of the whores. I work for the Tsar, not a pimp. Piss off.”

“You little piece of Rolmani trash,” the infantryman shouted. “I think it’s time you learned some respect for your betters.” He reached out and grabbed her roughly by the sleeve. “I think I’ll take you behind the building and—”

He never finished the thought because Natalya grabbed her covered rifle, spun around, and drove the steel buttstock into his jaw. He fell back, nearly colliding with the tattooed man . . . who neatly stepped aside to allow the falling soldier to hit the ground, stunned.

“Guess you didn’t need me,” the veteran said as he gave her a polite nod. “Good night, miss.” And then he returned to his table.

Natalya flipped the coin to the bartender. “Sorry for the mess, Sergi.”

Evenings in Cobetsnya were a mix of laughter and lies. It was when people fooled themselves into temporary happiness, like their lives had meaning. They weren’t trapped here. The Tsar was a man of the people. The Chancellor was a benevolent advisor. Living in a place that was entirely paved and whose air tasted like coal was progress. Not a word of it was true.

Natalya hated all cities in general, but she hated Cobetsnya with directed malice because it was the home of the Tsar, the man who held her family hostage.

Hostage was her word. Not the state’s. The Directorate declared her parents to be detained foreign guests. Oh, they assured Natalya her loved ones were being well cared for, and they would continue receiving excellent care as long as she continued using her gifts in service of the Tsar.

It wasn’t that Natalya minded the work. The challenge, the moments of pure calm, staring down the sights of her rifle at an enemy unaware of her presence. That was bliss.

She’d tried explaining to the Directorate officers she didn’t need the motivation. She would gladly serve in their army for coin, the nice rifle, and the ammunition vouchers. And she even meant it, until the point where she would inevitably become bored and desert, of course. She had been given a gift by the gods of her people. Not using it would have been a sin. Dragging her parents into it rankled her. Like all true Rolmani, her parents should be roaming the countryside as the winds dictated. Not living under guard, confined to some work camp in the bleak and frozen north.

One thing about walking through Cobetsnya, it was certainly well lit. Over the last few years most of the gas lamps had been replaced by the new electric ones. And the electricity wasn’t as rationed as much in the military district like it was in the rest of the city. She had been a little girl when the Chancellor had unveiled the strange new power. Now, it seemed like his wires and poles ran everywhere in the city. Their constant humming was one more thing that she didn’t like about this place. It was never truly quiet.

A woman called out to her from the second floor of one of the many brothels in the quarter. The prostitutes didn’t care what sex you were as long as you paid, and all the Tsar’s officers were given vouchers for prostitutes to give out to their soldiers as rewards. The whores had quotas to maintain. Harsh quotas. Natalya moved on without showing she’d noticed the calls. Even if women had been her preference, which they were not, she wouldn’t have picked that one.

Nearly every wall was plastered with propaganda posters depicting the Tsar with an outstretched arm, pointing west, toward the front. They all had slogans printed on them, like “Onward to Victory!” or “For Glory and Order!” or, her personal favorite, “Expansion Through Justice!”

What does that even mean? she wondered. She’d helped conquer quite a bit of land over the last few years, but she’d never brought justice with her.

Natalya danced aside as a soldier with his arm around woman in a revealing dress nearly ran her over. She readjusted the rifle slung over her shoulder and turned right at the next intersection. She never bothered reading the signs. Never had to. A sense of perfect direction was in her Rolmani blood.

Her intended destination was an unmarked door on the next street on the left. No bell marked her arrival. The door’s hinges were oiled to silence, and she opened it only wide enough to admit her thin form, then closed it slowly. She didn’t want a flood of cool air announcing her entry. This was the game.

“Well if it isn’t Natalya Baston,” came a voice from a back room. “I wondered when you were going to come for your resupply.”

Natalya sighed in disgust. No matter how quietly she entered, Davi always knew when it was her. She’d disguised her scent before. Wrapped her boots. Everything. But Davi always knew.

Bastard.

Davi shuffled in through the doorway behind the counter, a cheerful smile on his face. He was short, balding, and had a bad right knee. He made ammunition so good it was nearly magical, though. The sharpshooters loved him for it. His paunch confirmed he was still the receptor of double rationing, courtesy of the 17th sniper regiment.

“Hello, Davi,” Natalya said. She tried to keep a smile from her face but couldn’t. Bastard though he was, Davi was the best gunsmith in the empire, and also one of the handful of people she would call a friend. “What’ve you got for me?”

The gunsmith reached under the counter, pulled out a heavy sack, and placed it before her. “Here you go. Far better than that inconsistent garbage they foist off on the infantry. The imperial munitions factory is a bunch of degenerate, inbred fools. Do you know what their garbage standard is for acceptable accuracy?”

“Hitting a barn while standing inside of it?” Natalya opened the bag and pulled out one of the brass cartridges. It was nearly big around as her thumb. “Any changes from the last batch?”

“It should be consistent. Five-hundred-grain lead slug over seventy grains of powder, just as you like it.”

Her lips curved up into a smile. He knew her well. Kolakolvian heavy bullets had a trajectory like a rainbow, but she knew that rainbow very well. “Thank you, Davi.”

He scowled at her with fatherlike concern. “How much have you drank tonight?”

“Not enough to make me forget I’m in this city.”

“This is certainly not a place for nomads, but don’t let it break your spirit. The army will put you back to work soon enough. You are too young to drink so much.”

“Don’t worry. I save it up for when I’m here.” Which was true enough. She had no desire to drink when she was in the wilderness where she belonged. “Anything I can do for you?”

“Bring me back one of those new Almacian needle guns they’ve started fielding and some of their ammunition. The word from the front is that they are very accurate and flat shooting. I’d love to play with one.”

“Right. And in exchange you’ll tell me how you always know when I come through your door.”

“Trade secret. I hear the velocity on their little pointy bullets is significantly higher than ours, and they practically ignore the wind. Don’t you want to try one of those?”

“Almacian weapons are complicated and fragile.” Natalya shrugged. “Mine works fine.”

Davi gestured for her to hand her rifle over. She obediently lifted it onto the wooden surface and removed the firearm from the leather cover so he could inspect it. The breech-loading, single-shot Remek 10 was the standard Kolakolvian infantry rifle. The ones that were issued to the sniper regiment had longer barrels and a magnifying scope. The ones that Davi personally tuned himself became precision instruments of destruction.

“Ah, one of my favorite children . . . But what have you done to her?”

“Defacing the Tsar’s property is frowned upon,” Natalya said. “So if any commissars ask, those are just scratches.”

“I don’t care if you decorate the wood, as long as you didn’t mess with the action or trigger work I gave her.”

“Of course not.”

Davi studied the designs she had carved into the stock. “They’re rather intricate for scratches. This is Rolmani writing. What does it say?”

“Nothing much,” she lied. In reality, it was a devotion, thanking the Goddess of the Hunt for letting her be born with the eyes of a hawk and the stealth of a cat, and promising to use those gifts well in return. As far as she knew, Davi’s religion consisted of gun, so he wouldn’t care, but since the Rolmani’s pagan ways were despised by the Tsarist Communion, she didn’t expound. Then Davi flipped the rifle over, revealing where she had carved a notch in the handguard for each of her kills. He whistled when he saw how many there were.

The Goddess of the Hunt had blessed her greatly.

“It looks like you’ve been doing your maintenance. Not a speck of rust on her.”

“Don’t insult me, old man.”

“I’d never dream of it.” He reached under the counter again and pulled out a smaller bag. “Here. Just some extra cleaning supplies.”

“I don’t have another mission yet.”

“Just in case.”

Natalya took the small bag and tucked it in an inner coat pocket. She pulled a voucher from another pocket and set it on the counter. “For the ammo.”

Davi took the voucher and shuffled away toward the room from where he’d been working. In the doorway he stopped, and without looking back he said, “Take care of yourself, Natalya. Watch your back.”

Something was troubling him. “Don’t go all soft on me, Davi. What’s on your mind?”

“I’m concerned for the welfare of that rifle. I’ve put a lot of work into her . . . that’s all. It would be a real shame if she was to end up in some Almacian trophy case. So be careful.” He was through the door and out of sight before Natalya could reply.

She stowed her rifle back in its case, the good cheer that came from talking with Davi gone. The quartermaster had tried keeping his voice light but had failed. The Rolmani weren’t the only people who felt premonitions. Even half-blind city dwellers under the sway of the boring, new gods could feel the primal warnings.

Just as when she had entered, the door hinges were silent as she left. The alley was darker than before. The electric lamps along the street were flickering and dim. They did that often. The constant night sounds of the city seemed subdued to match her mood. Natalya considered returning to the Friendly Traveler for another drink, but the notion left almost as soon as it brushed across her mind.

She heard the scrape of a boot against stone right behind her.

Natalya pivoted, bringing the stock of her rifle around like a club, but too late. She was grabbed by the coat and flung hard against the nearest wall. She hit with a thud, and crashed to the ground, stunned. Breath gone. Some sort of liquid stinging her eyes. She reached up and wiped at them; her hand came back red and sticky. She didn’t even remember hitting her head.

She had barely pushed herself to her knees when the kick came. It lifted her into the air and she hit the alley wall for a second time.

“You need to be taught a lesson.” The voice was slurred. Wet. Slightly muffled.

Natalya looked up and saw the bruised and bloodied face of the infantryman from the bar. He’d followed her. Waited in ambush. She’d been too drunk and off her game to spot him. Damn this city.

He pulled a knife from under his uniform coat.

Her arms wouldn’t respond. Neither would her legs. Breath had yet to return to her lungs. She shook her head to clear the ringing in her ears. Her eyes settled on the shape of her rifle case, out of reach.

“You Rolmani are all the same. Homeless thieves who somehow still act like they’re better than everyone else. You walk into this city like you own it. Well, I’ll show you who owns who.” He knelt down, shoved her down on her stomach while his other hand pushed the knife to her throat. She felt the pressure of a heavy knee on her back, then the sound of him unbuckling his belt.

Natalya held still as she tried to catch her breath, but she would not comply. She was calm as she prepared to fight to the death.

There was a grunt of surprise and pain, and then the knife fell to the ground next to her face. The weight was lifted from her.

Natalya rolled to her back and pushed herself into a sitting position. Her attacker was being held by his neck, suspended in the air by a huge, shirtless man. The infantryman, face changing colors from the lack of air, pounded fruitlessly at the massive arm that held him aloft.

A match struck against the wall. Natalya’s eyes darted to the small flame that illuminated another man from further down the alley. He held the match to the end of a cigarette, then shook the match flame out.

“Well,” the stranger said. “We seem to have arrived at precisely the right time.”

“A little earlier would have been nice,” Natalya rasped.

He nodded, smiled, then took a deep pull on the cigarette. When he stepped closer, she recognized him as the man who had been reading a letter by the fire at the Friendly Traveler.

“Have you been following me?”

He waved the question away like an irritating gnat. “Hardly. Well, not in the beginning. I enjoyed watching what you did to this miscreant at the bar, but then I realized you are a Rolmani. It’s rare to see one of the wandering folk in the Tsar’s service, which told me that you must have been born with some of your people’s marvelous gifts, otherwise the army wouldn’t have ever conscripted you.”

That was true. At best the empire considered her people a nuisance, at worst a threat to state security. Regular Rolmani were seen as too disruptive to draft, but they made a special exception for those who had been blessed by the old gods—not that the Tsarist Communion admitted those older gods ever existed.

“Your rifle marks you as scout sniper, yes?”

“Yeah.”

“Perfect. I . . . oh. Vasily, please dispose of that nuisance.”

Without hesitation, the shirtless giant effortlessly snapped the would-be rapist’s neck, then dropped the body to the alley floor.

“Vasily once nearly died in a place just like this one. Come to think of it, you aren’t the first woman I have rescued in a Cobetsnyan alley. Interesting. Now, my name is Kristoph Vals. Your name and rank, please.”

“Scout Specialist Natalya Baston. I . . . ” She trailed off as the hulking man named Vasily moved to Kristoph’s side, and into the flickering light. The blindfold and the veins that seemed to pulse unnaturally warned her what she was dealing with. There was only one group who employed such freaks.

This was an Oprichnik, though nowadays they were called Section 7, as if that modern innocuous name changed who they really were. In the old days they dressed like monks, all in black, riding black horses, as they went from village to village, brutally rooting out enemies of the empire, both real and imagined. In modern times they were the Tsar’s secret police. The mission hadn’t changed, just the trappings. She knew their symbols were still a dog’s head, to sniff out traitors, and a broom, to sweep them up.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Vals?”

Kristoph smiled again, and removed his hat, tucking it under an arm. His hair was turning gray, but he didn’t have the appearance of an old man. His eyes were clear blue, and there were wrinkles at their corners where the smile reached them.

“Tell me, Natalya Baston, how much longer do you have before you are issued new orders?”

“Hopefully not much longer. I hate this city.”

“Oh. How long since you returned from your last assignment?”

“Less than a day.”

“Ah. I think I understand. Then I will do us both a favor.” Kristoph puffed at his cigarette until it was nearly gone, then dropped it and ground it out under his boot. “I have an immediate need for someone with your skills. I do not wish to go through regular channels to find someone who does. You will tell no one of this operation. To explain this need for secrecy . . . ” He nodded toward the obviously Cursed Vasily. “I take it you understand who we work for?”

“Yes.”

“Then I will notify your command that you will be away on special assignment for a time, so there won’t be any potential misunderstanding about you being a deserter. It would be a shame if you were accidentally executed.”

His lack of insignia made sense. It wasn’t due to a low rank, or a cowardly past. Natalya could see it in his eyes. In the calluses on his knuckles. The knife he wore under his jacket that he thought she couldn’t see. Even without the Cursed at his side, this man was beyond dangerous. She would have been better off dealing with the rapist.

“What’s the task?” Natalya asked.

That smile again. “I need you to scout out a prison.”


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