The Last Tsar's Dragons

Chapter 28

In the blackness before dawn, the mad monk’s left index finger moved. It scraped across the ice, and the slight scritching sound it made echoed loud and triumphant in his ears.

He’d lain unmoving for three days.

A peasant child had thrown rocks at him on the second day, trying to ascertain whether the drunk on the ice was alive or dead. The mad monk was surprised when the child didn’t come out on the ice and loot his body. But then he realized why.

The ice was melting.

The days had grown warmer, and the ice was melting. Soon, the mighty Neva would break winter’s grip and flow freely to the Baltic Sea once more. Icy water was already pooling in his best boots and soaking his black velvet trousers. It splashed in his left ear, the one that lay against the ice, and he thought he could feel it seeping through his skin to freeze his very bones.

Terror crept in with the cold as he realized that his attempted murderers would not need to kill him. The river would do their work for them. Drown him as his sister had drowned, or waste him away in fever like his brother. He would have shivered with fear or cold, but he could not move.

Night fell, and for the first time, Father Grigori felt the terror of the mortals he’d ministered to. Through the night, he felt like Jesus on the cross, his iron faith wavering. Why hast thou forsaken me?

The night brought no answer, just more cold water in his boots. More icy water in his beard. More cold seeping into his bones.

But then, before dawn, the finger.

If one finger can move, the rest can as well.

And putting thought to deed, he moved the index finger on his other hand. Moved it as if he’d never been hurt, tapping it on the ice, once, twice, a third time. His spirits soared as the sun broke the horizon, and with a great effort, he bent up at the waist, levering himself to a sitting position. He was sore. He was cold. Every bit of his body ached. But he was alive. And moving!

However, he was also very tired, and he decided not to try to stand quite yet. Facing the rising sun, he waited for the heat to reach him.

“When I am warmed straight through,” he said, his voice calm despite the creaking and popping of his stiff limbs, “I shall go ashore and deal with Felix and the others.”

Watching the sun rise and turn from red to gold, he saw a flock of birds pass before it. A big flock of birds, not just in size, but in number, hundreds of them, casting long shadows across the ice.

What are those? he thought. Egrets leaving their roost? But it was winter. There were no egrets here.

And the birds were too big.

Even from far away, he could tell they were huge. Larger even than the Siberian golden eagles he had hunted with in his youth.

Suddenly, he knew he was too late. He’d lain on the ice too long. And Lenin had come to loose the Red Terror on the land.

Now staring in horror, he watched the flock move closer, revealing red scales and leathery wings, smoke curling from their nostrils.

He made a small cry, like a rabbit in extremis, and struggled to stand. But the movement that had come so easily just moments before was a trial now. His limbs cried in protest and refused to budge. Despite straining and sweating, he’d only achieved an ungainly half-crouch when the dragons were upon him.

The lead dragon swooped in low and swatted him aside with its forefoot. He went skittering across the ice, feeling his ribs shatter. Crawling for the shore, his fingernails broke on the ice as he dragged himself along far too slowly.

Finally—finally—he was able to shiver. But this was in fear. He no longer felt cold. Terror rushed hot in his blood.

A shadow enveloped him, and he looked up into the black eyes of a hovering dragon. Before he could react, the dragon’s talons shot toward him, and one long claw pierced him through the chest, pinning him to the ice. It looked as if it were laughing at him, its teeth filling its horrible great mouth. He tried to scream, but suddenly he had no breath. Lungs pierced, he could only stare stupidly as the dragon’s wingbeats slowed and it landed on the ice beside him, as gently as any songbird.

But the dragon was no songbird, and the ice shattered under its weight. Water splashed the beast’s belly, and it roared its displeasure, flapping madly trying to get aloft. Then it belched out a lash of fire, which further melted the ice around itself and the ice below Rasputin.

When the dragon managed to lift out of the water, it slowly shook itself free of water and prey at the same time. The wind from the dragon’s wings was so strong, it pushed Father Grigori Rasputin over the melting edge of ice and down into the dark water.

We have put a rope through the nose of Leviathan, he thought as the waves closed over his head. He could still see the dragons, distorted by the water, hovering over the hole in the ice like terns. But he is king over all the sons of pride.

And then like his sister, Maria, so many years before, his throat and lungs filling so swiftly with the cold water that he could not even cough, Father Grigori Rasputin drowned.