“My wife, my child…in a blanket—”
“Hush now. My husband buried them proper where they lay. Now sleep.”
When he awoke again, it was still dark. He heard snoring not far off as he rose on shaky feet, then sat back heavily. A demon whispered in his ear: “But for you, she would be alive.” He could not deny this truth, nor bear the pain, nor end it. That would be too easy. His penance meant living with that truth every moment. He would die many deaths before he could join them. First he had men to hunt and a mother to face.
Sergei stood again, trembling, and found his clothes, now cleaned and folded next to the bed. He turned his head and winced. Reaching up, he felt a bandage; his hands had been washed and covered with a poultice. Dressing quietly, carrying his shoes in a shaking hand, he wove his way toward the door. In the bare outlines of predawn, Sergei found a pen and paper on an entry table and scribbled a few words: “Thank you. I will not forget your kindness.”
Back in the meadow, in the early light Sergei knelt at the mound that marked his family’s grave. He spoke words of love and sorrow—but when he tried to apologize, his words died in his throat. Despising himself, Sergei swore on his family’s grave that he would avenge their deaths.
The tracks were not difficult to follow, at first. He traveled as quickly as he could manage on foot, limping through the day and part of the first night. His smashed nose, loose teeth, and swollen face left him in constant pain. That was good—it would keep him awake. But he had to maintain his strength, so he found a stick and sharpened it on a stone to spear a fish from a stream. He caught one and ate it raw as he stumbled onward, eyes on the ground, following the hoof marks. The next day he found bird’s eggs, and he picked fruit. No fires, little rest, no appetite. He forced himself to eat, to keep moving.
Time passed in a daze of light and darkness, a sunlit then moonlit dreamscape of shifting shadows. As he pushed on, reading the signs, following a map of trampled earth, Sergei thought about his father, and he finally understood how a man could drink himself to death.
Like his father, Sergei had also lost a wife and son in a single day. Only Sergei’s family was taken not by God, but by the will of twisted men. In taking their lives, Zakolyev and his men had ended Sergei’s lineage, for he would not marry again—he knew this as surely as he knew these men would die by his hand. No mere punishment would suffice; no redemption was possible. He didn’t want their contrition; he wanted their heads. From that day on, he would live for their deaths.
ON THE MORNING of the third day it rained—a sudden downpour—and the tracks disappeared. He found a few broken branches, then nothing. He had lost them. With this realization, he slumped to the ground, too weak to go forward or back.
Then he thought of Valeria. She would be crazed with worry. He had to complete the dreaded task.
On his return to St. Petersburg, Sergei’s preoccupation was so deep that he did not notice the passing scene except to take bearings. When he stopped to drink from a pond, he saw reflected back to him a swollen, grime-stained face. He also saw something else: His hair had turned completely white.
Hours later, the spires of the city appeared, marking his return to the world of men.
GAZING UP at the apartment window, Sergei recalled the moment he had first asked for Anya’s hand. A moaning sound escaped his lips. He walked slowly up the stairs and knocked upon the door. He heard the rush of footsteps and Valeria’s voice, frantic yet filled with the relief. “My God, where have you…” When she saw Sergei standing alone, her words fell away.
Valeria’s face was ashen, her graying hair disheveled. Dark circles had appeared under reddened eyes. Sergei was less recognizable than she. With his broken cheekbone, swollen nose and lips, hollow eyes, and stark white hair, he looked like a grotesque mask of his old self.
But Valeria knew who it was, and with a horrified glance she looked past him, searching down the stairs. “Where is Anya?”
Sergei stood mutely, unable to speak.
“Where is Anya?” she repeated, her voice a hoarse whisper. Then she looked into Sergei’s eyes, and her heart knew the truth before her mind would grasp it: Anya had not come back. She would never be coming back.
Sergei caught her as she fell and set her gently onto the couch.
When her eyes opened, Valeria sat up abruptly. “Tell me what happened,” she said in a monotone.
Sergei said only, “A band of evil men came to the meadow. I was overpowered and knocked unconscious. Anya was killed. I followed them to avenge her death, but I lost their trail…”
Valeria refused to accept this—far better to believe he was cruel or deranged to tell her such terrible lies. So Sergei sat with her in silence until the truth penetrated her heart. It was like watching her age and die. She finally spoke in a voice so weary it was barely audible. “Six days…and six nights of not knowing. At first I feared that you had both run away…later I prayed that you had…I tried to convince myself it was so, but I knew that Anya would never…”
Then Sergei read her unspoken thoughts: Valeria had begged them to remain in St. Petersburg so she could see her grandchild. For this selfish act of love, she would blame herself for the rest of her life.
Sergei imagined Anya’s brother, hard at work even now, losing himself in his craft while praying for his sister’s safe return.
Valeria took a deep, gasping breath and with great effort asked, “Did you at least bury my daughter?”
He nodded slowly. “She’s…in the meadow…”
He reached out to take her hand, but she pulled away, then spoke the words he most dreaded—the question he had asked himself a hundred times: “How is it that Anya is dead and you are alive?” Sergei had no answer, so she asked another: “Here, in this room, did you not promise to protect her—to give your life for hers? Did you not make this promise?” They both knew the answer.
His eyes looked into hers, searching. “Mother, I—”
Valeria stood stiffly and said, “You let them kill her. You are a coward, and no son of mine. Now leave this house.”
He stood slowly, then entered their bedroom to fetch his few belongings. Sergei gazed for the last time at her pillow and touched the nightdress folded neatly for her return. He held it to his face and inhaled her scent. Images appeared—moments they had shared. The pain was so intense his legs gave way.
Sergei pulled himself to his feet, gathered his rucksack, knife, shovel, and a few items of clothing, and left as he had come, a lone wanderer without a family.
WHEN HE HAD GONE, Valeria leaned against the door. Her dry eyes stared at nothing. She hardly breathed until she realized that Andreas would soon be home, and she would have to tell him. Then a gasp escaped her, a spasm of breath. “Oh! Oh!” she sobbed and couldn’t stop.
Later, like a sleepwalker, she rose and walked across the living room, hugging herself, suddenly cold. The apartment, like her body, felt barren. She turned toward the hearth as another shrill cry of grief burst forth, a final acknowledgment that she would never see her daughter again.
Valeria pounded her fists upon the mantelpiece—once, and again—and her blows dislodged the clock resting there. She watched it tip and fall, somersaulting…this clock made by Heschel Rabinowitz, from wood prepared by her Benyomin’s hand, tumbling down…
Its corner struck the floor, and with an off-key clunk it broke apart, scattering pieces that sparkled like jewels across the floor. But Valeria saw only ashes and dust before she collapsed on the living room floor.
HIS FINAL TASKS behind him, Sergei returned to the meadow where his wife and child now lay buried and prepared himself to die. He had thought it through: He would not let his life’s blood stain the earth where Anya lay—he would only lie near her grave and let hunger and thirst do their work.
One day passed. Then two…then three…then he stopped counting. Hunger had long passed. His parched lips served as small penance, his death a mere pittance on a debt he would never clear.
/> He did not plan to rise again.
A stream of thoughts, sounds, and emotions rose into his awareness as he lay in dreamlike reverie, random images of bygone days mixed with what might have been: his father, drinking alone in a darkened room…his grandfather disappearing in the distance…Anya, nursing their child…children playing in a park in America…
Then mysterious impressions arose from the dark, mythic realms of his mind. He saw Charon, ferryman of the dead, a sulky old man waiting for him on the shore of Acheron, the river of woe, waiting to carry him across the river Styx to the underworld. But Sergei had no coin to give the ferryman and was doomed to wander through the mists, along the rivers of the dead.
Sergei saw the river before him as he stood naked on the shore of no return, gazing down into the black water, seeing only moon and stars reflected upon the rippling surface. Then it came to him that he was not imagining this—that his body had somehow risen from the dead, and he now stood on a small outcropping on the shore of the Neva. He leaned out, tipped forward, and fell down toward the moon and the stars…
The shock of hitting the surface roused Sergei’s heart, and it beat strongly. He gasped, then drank deeply, and the waters had a strange sort of curative power. In a moment of grace, the demon of self-hatred was cast out from him, and he turned away from the path of death.
Sergei struggled out of the river like the first creature to emerge eons past from the sea. Dripping wet, reborn on this warm summer night, he heard the voice of Alexei the Cossack in his mind: “A man is measured twice—first by his life, and then by his death.” Sergei’s life had come to nothing, but his death could still count for something. He decided then that he would not throw away his life. Anya had fought bravely; he could do no less.
“Why are you alive?” Valeria had asked. He’d had no answer then, but now he knew that he had survived for a purpose. As he stood naked under the starry sky, his purpose crystallized, and it had carried him back from the underworld to the realm of the living.
The face of his grandfather appeared, then his mother and father, bringing a moment of sanity, the memory of love. But the moment passed; memories alone would not sustain him. Only one man had that power—and his name was Dmitri Zakolyev.
Sergei thought back on his deluded attempt to hunt down those men. How could he have imagined himself succeeding? Was he hoping for divine intervention, for a burst of superhuman strength? His training as a youth had prepared him to fight one, maybe even two or three untrained men, not an entire band of seasoned fighters. Dying was easy. It was time to live, to pursue this final purpose: He would train as no man had done before; he would suffer any hardship and develop such strength and skill that the next time he faced them he would be ready.
Even a dark purpose can keep a man alive.
On this night, as a warrior spirit possessed him, Sergei Sergeievich Ivanov became his father’s son. With newfound clarity, patience, and resolve, he trusted that the necessary power would come in time. He would seek out those who might help prepare him. And when he was ready, he would find Zakolyev and Korolev—and he would send them to hell.
Part Four
THE
WARRIOR’S
WAY
I had not always believed
that strength could come from brokenness,
or that the thread of a divine purpose
could be seen in tragedy.
But I do now.
MAX CLELAND
.23.
IN THE SUMMER of 1892, nearing his twentieth birthday, Sergei Ivanov set out on his quest to become an invincible warrior.
As he walked south, Sergei could still picture Alexei the Cossack pacing before his enthralled audience of cadets, reminding them, “A wise soldier does not attempt to cut down a tree with a dull ax nor should he rush into battle unprepared. To defeat an enemy, you must know the enemy. To know the enemy, you must first know yourself. Face your own demons before you confront others on the battlefield.”
Of late Sergei had made intimate acquaintance with his demons: He still had trouble focusing on a task for more than a few moments before the recent horrors rose up to haunt him. His tort u red mind and emaciated body needed to heal before he could even begin to train seriously.
So he returned to the wilderness once again, where he found a quiet stream and made camp. There he set traps, and he fished and he hunted. He drank the pure water of rushing steams and returned to his cold-water dousings each morning. In the evenings he sat in quiet contemplation, gazing into the flames of his campfire.
At first his ribs stuck out, but as the weeks passed, the late summer brought ripe fruits to supplement his simple, nourishing diet. He began to stretch in a relaxed yet rigorous way, and he added strength-building exercises for his abdomen, back, arms, and legs. At first he recalled what he had learned as a youth, but as time passed he relied more on his instincts and created new ways to challenge his muscles. Life develops what it demands, he reminded himself, recalling the words of his Cossack instructor.
The hills and woods offered many opportunities to increase his vigor. He walked, then ran, uphill and upstream in waist-high water. He progressed to long, slow runs of ten kilometers and more over hills and rough terrain, with intermittent bursts of speed as spirit moved him.
Each day he imagined that he was facing the giant Korolev, then Zakolyev, then two, then three, then four. He fought phantoms, boxed shadows, ducked and evaded and rolled, refining movements he had learned in the past. He fought until he was drenched in sweat—ten minutes, twenty minutes, thirty minutes, or more—imagining enemies leaping out from behind the trees and boulders, from every possible line of attack, with every weapon. He formulated how he would respond—and he defeated them all.
It was easy enough to do in his imagination. But when the time came, he would have to end each confrontation in seconds, not minutes. To destroy these renegade Cossacks, he would seek out the best Cossack fighters and train with them.
By mid-October, Sergei was ready to travel farther south.
HE JOURNEYED ON FOOT—walking, running, and fighting shadows, developing his stamina, looking for any opportunity to better himself as he traveled south along the River Don.
As the December winds blew and the snowfall deepened, it came to Sergei that he needed a horse. If he were to find the training he sought from Cossacks, he needed to arrive on a mount. Besides, a horse would allow him to cover more ground in less time, and time was precious.
The three remaining gold coins, and nearly two hundred rubles he had earned, remained in the pouch in his knapsack with his other possessions. The coins would enable Sergei to purchase a suitable horse; the rest would serve for future needs that might arise. When a man has learned to live without money, he thought, a few rubles can go a long way. This is good, because I have a long way to go. Sergei also thought about how he should have left some money for Valeria—but she would not have accepted it, and at the time he had not been able to think clearly.
He inquired at each farm he passed whether they had a horse for sale. Some days later, in exchange for the three remaining gold coins and fifty of Sergei’s remaining rubles, a farmer was willing to part with a strong-looking stallion, and a blanket, saddle, bridle, and bit.
“He’s a bit skittish—doesn’t take to the plow or wagon,” the farmer added as they closed the deal.
As it turned out, the horse didn’t much take to a rider either. But Sergei had learned enough about horses in his youth to reach an understanding with the animal. After some bucking and bargaining, the stallion calmed down. Sergei named him Dikar, which means wild and crazy.
As the weeks passed, a bond formed between the man and horse. Sergei reminded himself that he rode an intelligent creature, not a mere possession like his knapsack or the saber or clothing he had purchased in a nearby town. So it was agreed: The horse would carry Sergei, and Sergei would care for its needs.
THE WINTER went easier atop his mount, with Sergei
wearing the Cossack waistcoat and the burka, a long felt cape, to keep out the winds that sometimes threatened to tear him from his mount. But Dikar was stolid enough, and if the horse could weather the storms, so could his rider.
Several months after heading south, just before the spring thaw, Sergei came to a settlement near the shores of the Don. This small community had the appearance of a simple village, but only the most ignorant of bandits would venture among these men and women, among the most formidable fighters the world had seen.
Chimney smoke mixed with falling snow as Sergei entered the settlement, passing between the first cabins of birch logs scattered under a sparse covering of birch and pine trees. The clearing was about two hundred meters from the river, on ground high enough to escape flooding should the Don overflow its banks. The forest stood near enough to form a windbreak in rough weather but not so close as to provide cover for unfriendly observers. A few boys scurried about; an elderly man, wrapped in a woolen coat, sat in a chair and smoked a pipe.
At the sound of hoofbeats behind him, Sergei turned to see a rider pull up alongside until their horses walked shoulder to shoulder. With a glance, he took in the man’s traditional Cossack dress—the soft leather cheviaki, or boots, and a cherkesska, the belted, long-sleeved black coat, and a row of cartridge pouches on his chest. His burka, which served as a blanket, tent, or head cover from winter winds or burning summer sun, was folded neatly over the man’s saddle. He also carried a saber at his side and carbine slung over his shoulder.
A few sturdy-looking women came out to greet the other riders who followed close behind. Several younger women carried infants on their backs, leaving their hands free to fight if need be, according to custom.
The Cossack riding alongside Sergei—about ten years his senior, with a powerful frame and shaggy mane of light hair—nodded in welcome. Taking his measure, Sergei sensed that this man could be a good friend or dangerous adversary. The Cossack asked in a clipped local accent, “Do you pass through, stranger, or look for shelter?”