The Impossible Future: Complete set by Frank Kennedy (mini ebook reader .txt) 📕

will die an honorable death,” she told Kamily as he dropped his rifle and reached for his shashka. “And when you are dead, I will kill every man outside this train. And then I will unleash a fury to do for the Doroshenkos what Vasily Shkuro could never have imagined. I will be the demon who will haunt your family to the end of time.”

“No, Rayna,” he said. “You will haunt only me and my memories.”

They each took a defensive posture, their blades high and angled for a strike. Rayna sensed the flow and rhythm of the battle before it began. She anticipated each move and countermeasure. You made a mistake, Kamily. You taught me everything you know.

She did not wait for the old man to move first. Instead, she leaped to her right, landing upon an empty seat and gaining the high ground on her opponent. As she expected, Kamily pushed off, intending a similar maneuver. But she lunged at him as he entered mid-flight, her blade swinging down across her chest left to right, a decisive arc guaranteed to slice into his vulnerable side. At impact she swung through; Kamily grunted as he repositioned himself. Rayna thought of that boy along the Dnieper, how she stalked him on cat’s feet and delivered the mortal blow without warning. How the blood gushed from his mouth as he gagged.

She twirled on those same cat’s feet and brought the blade in for the kill. But Kamily blocked the maneuver, their blades clanging at a brief impasse. She relished his fear. He might yet hold her off, push her away, unlock the blades and counterattack. No matter. Victory was inevitable.

Rayna turned inevitability into finality. Her free left hand, which she kept at her side throughout her maneuvers, reached into a pouch on her kaftan. With a nimble grab rehearsed dozens of times every day for months, she snatched the hilt of a second blade, this one straight and serrated. A blade crafted to her own specifications.

“God will never forgive you,” she told Kamily as she drove the second blade deep into his gut. He heaved as she twisted the knife.

His eyes revealed his mortality, and his shashka gave way with one more surge. With her right hand, she brought the blade across his neck, the blood spewing much as it must have when they cut her father’s throat.

She took a final look at the body and spit on Kamily Doroshenko.

“Fortunately,” she said, “There is no God to forgive you.”

The Mentor applauded from the seat behind.

“A delightful parting shot,” he said. “And the second blade? Very crafty, dearest. Now then, about this business of killing the others outside. Might I recommend you consider the speed of your mount. We have places to be, and the surviving observers will, I suspect, need your immediate assistance.”

Rayna understood Mentor’s sense of urgency, but she could not bring herself to run away. She turned to her father.

“If I leave this, they will take him to Kiev. Vasily Skhuro will gloat. All the Tsukanovs will be gone, either way. He cannot have a victory, Mentor. Not today.”

“He will if you take on all these Cossacks, and they put a bullet through that bone cap protecting your stubborn brain.” He checked his pocket watch and started toward the rear door. “And Vasily, he is little more than a rodent. He scurries about this forsaken land in search of cheese. He will find his poison soon enough. Let us leave these unfortunate rabble. History will bury them.”

Rayna accepted the logic in Mentor’s argument, but the code of vengeance at the center of her principles weighed upon her. She grabbed both rifles – hers and Kamily’s – and started toward the rear of the train. She allowed the Jewel to sense her surroundings like radar, to detect her enemies moving toward the rear with her. They will come to see me lying dead next to Father. They will gloat.

She raised both rifles. Her blood stirred.

    “I hear it, Mentor. It’s coming. I see it like a waking dream.”

“Beg pardon, dearest?”

“I tasted it the moment I died and became the Jewel. It flows through me. It wraps around me like the thickest fur. It was there by the river when I slit Anatoly’s throat.”

“Do not lose focus, Rayna.”

She closed her eyes as she reached the rear door.

“It is hungry, Mentor. It wants what I can give it, and it will guide me to my destiny. Father’s enemies will be consumed.”

“Careful, Rayna. You are not prepared for that particular feature.”

She shut herself off from Mentor and plunged ahead. Her targets were where she expected. She pulled the trigger on each rifle. To the left, to the right. Two Cossacks fell. She scanned the tracks, found her steed and called to him with a familiar whistle. Black as coal, the horse galloped to her with urgency.

After dropping the rifles, she leaped over the railing, landed square upon the saddle, and grabbed the reins. She whispered to the horse.

“Make them think we are running for our lives.”

She snapped the reins, and the horse surged over the rails and toward the tree line. They shouted from behind; their rifles cracked. Once she hit the tree line unscathed, she sensed they were regrouping, quick to pursue on horseback. That gave her the time she needed.

Rayna changed direction, leading her horse through the thick forest but never beyond sight of the railway. She counted, just long enough for her pursuers to group. Then she whistled as she pulled the reins to steer her steed back out of the woods and into the open.

As expected, she caught them together: nine on horseback, fifty meters away, racing to the trees. They pulled on their reins when they saw her. She raised her arms, showing she had no rifle.

“If