Page 23 of Tiger's Tale
As he instructed his undead minions to prepare to move out, to march out of the forest toward the Kievian capital city, he kicked his horse, spurring it on, and thought about that black Arabian stallion for the first time in many centuries. Hehadloved that horse. If he had a chance to bring it back, he wondered if he would. He’d certainly love to ride that beauty right up to the palace gates. But he also knew it wouldn’t be the same.
And what would his parents think if they could see him now? Being personally invited to the palace of the empire itself? Would they be proud? Probably not. It didn’t matter. Grigor could feel it in his blood, just like he did when he found the other pieces. It was time. Something was coming. His destiny. The throne itself was waiting for him.
Those days on the farm were far behind him now. His country, his people, and even his old language were gone—absorbed by the ever-expanding Kievian Empire. That wheat field, if any part of it remained, was now farmed by someone else. His family had long since vanished into the dust where they had once dug out a meager living. Even their graves were likely gone.
Grigor whistled, and his undead army advanced, following the human soldier. He wondered: If he had the ability to draw his parents, his siblings, from the dust, would he?Would I feel some sense of justification, or liberation to have them serve me as I served them?he thought. The answer came to Grigor swiftly.No. He decided that even if he could raise them, making them undead, he wouldn’t. In the case of his blood family, he was surprised to note that like that beautiful stallion, he was content to let them enjoy their hard-earned respite.
7
LIE DOWN TO SLEEP: THE MORNING IS WISER THAN THE EVENING
To say Nikolai was uncomfortable leading this entourage of the undead was an understatement. Nik glanced back at the man briefly and caught him staring at him, transfixed. He shuddered involuntarily and reined in his horse. “Dawn is coming,” he said. “It’s time to break.”
“Very well,” the man replied. The Death Draughtsman pulled up, stopping his horse, then closed his eyes, silently communicating with his army who were traveling not on the road but through the woods on either side of them. Try as he might, Nik could see no more than a shadow or hear anything louder than rustling in the underbrush, which might as easily be mistaken for an animal. Any passerby would never know there was an undead horde lurking within striking distance.
“There,” their leader said, distracting Nik from his thoughts. “They will find shelter from the sun and meet us at dusk. Shall we proceed to make camp, then?”
Nik nodded, tearing his eyes from the gloomy trees. “There’s a small creek, not too far from here. We can water the horses there. I can hunt. Fish, too, perhaps.”
“No need,” the strange man said. “My army will leave game by the river.”
Tilting his head quizzically, Nik asked with barely disguised revulsion, “Do they... eat animals?”
“Not at all,” the Death Draughtsman answered with a wide, white grin. “The animals simply run from them.” He leaned forward in the saddle. “They sense death coming, you see.” He kicked the sides of his horse, causing it to skirt ahead of Nik. “Animals are usually smarter than people.”
“Right.” Nik nudged his own horse, following the frightening man, and had a difficult time sleeping after they made camp, not only because he was trying to sleep in broad daylight but because he couldn’t trust the man across the fire. When he did nod off, he had nightmares about being chased by the undead. He ran but was eventually caught by them and then... consumed. His dreams shifted then to their leader and of how the man had used his power on him in the forest.
* * *
He was back in the gloomy forest, a prisoner. Standing there in front of the Death Draughtsman, his arms held fixed by animated corpses, their stench filling his nostrils, Nik prepared for death, either that or to join the legions of the undead surrounding him. He mourned the loss of his beautiful tsarevna and wondered if the leshi had survived the swamp.
Then, when he wasn’t immediately killed or transformed, he opened his mouth to speak but found he couldn’t. Instead, the Death Draughtsman used a great power, one he could neither see nor hear, one that didn’t seem to depend upon any spell or magic of any kind, and yet Nik knew it was embodied in the man. He was at once terrified, fascinated, and bitterly envious.
With a simple penetrating gaze, the man slipped into Nikolai’s mind as easily as he would slip into another man’s pair of boots. Nik’s vision darkened, and then everything went white. He could feel the cold fingers of the man probing his mind, pulling his secrets out and examining them one by one, discarding the images he cared nothing for and then squeezing the one he sought until it popped into life.
The forceful man chuckled when Nik sobbed in pain, and he heard him say, “Don’t struggle. It hurts more when you do.”
Suddenly, the raw ache swelled and burst like a blister, oozing throbbing memories that lapped through him like boiling acid. He was back in the forest again but for the first time, years before. It wasn’t as diseased then as it was now. There weren’t as many undead to avoid. In fact, the man who found him wasn’t undead, not yet. Not that one could tell. Nik wouldn’t have recognized the man at all if he hadn’t spoken to him first.
Nik had been caught in a trap. Not one of the food traps. They didn’t exist back then. This trap was a simple rope snare meant to catch game. It was a well-made one, too, seizing him by the ankle and hoisting him ten feet off the ground. He hung in midair for the better part of three hours before someone came along, and by then he had lost all feeling in his lower extremities.
“Well, well, well. What have we here?” two men said as they walked noisily through the leaves down the trail. “Looks like we caught ourselves something good to take to the boss.”
“Shut up,” the bigger, uglier one replied.
He wore a large hat over his head. His voice was gruff and broken, and he was missing part of his arm, but there was something familiar about him. Prickles stood out on Nik’s neck and arms.It couldn’t be.
“Here. You watch him while I let him down.”
The big one pulled a wicked blade from his belt, and Nik braced himself for a hard fall, wondering if he could time it well enough to knock the big fellow to the ground without gutting himself, yet knock the knife from his opponent’s hand so he could saw off the rope before the other man returned. It wasn’t likely.
He felt the rope give, then he dropped several inches. Deciding to take a risk, he swung. The timing was good. He fell just at the right time and landed right on top of the larger man. The knife came up, but only nicked him on the shoulder and then got stuck in the tunic made by the kikimora.
While the big man scrambled, Nik quickly reached up and grabbed the knife and threw it at the other man coming around the tree. It was a lucky strike, sinking into the man’s throat. He died with hot blood gurgling from the wound and dribbling from his mouth. Swiftly, Nik slipped his foot from the thick boot and yanked the rope from it while the man went to inspect his friend’s wound and retrieve his knife.
By the time he turned back to his prisoner, Nik was gone, made invisible by his magic tunic and the boots made for him by the tree spirit. But what Nik didn’t know was that his attacker was mostly blind and had developed a good ear and strong instincts.
“I hear you, boy,” he said. “There’s no hiding from me. You might as well come out and save me the trouble of searching for you and yourself the pain of further punishment. Trust me—you won’t like what’ll happen to you when I find you if you make me look.”
