The 88th Floor (7 page)

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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The Walls of
Dalgorod
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