Dmitri turned to her unhappily. "This," he said, indicating the man with the bandoliers, "Sergeant Sergei." Another rumble from the hulk. "Pardons,
Comrade Colonel
Sergei Andropovitch Kozin." A frightened glance. "With… helpings-man? Ah,
aide
, Comrade Blensikov. Comrade Colonel is being our
leader
—" he used the literal German term,
fuhrer
, with a slight emphasis
"—while our commander, Ivan Yuhnkov, was prisoner of SS.
Commander Ivan—" using the Russian word
kommandyr "
—is becoming here again in charge soon now, has called all First Partisan Brigade to meet him here."
Johanna pursed her lips, feeling sweat trickle down her flanks from her armpits. Her back crawled with the consciousness of so many about her: wild serfs, strange ones, not domesticated, and armed… And these two were not going to be rhinoed that easily.
She forced her perceptions into action, to see them as individuals, reading the clues of hands and face and stance.
The
tool that speaks can also think
, she reminded herself.
You're
supposed to be more intelligent
—
outthink them
!
It was not comforting. The big one was an animal, and the bug-under-the-rock type a fanatic. From the signs, a smart fanatic. But… this was like running down a steep hill. If you kept running, you
might
fall on your ass; if you tried to stop, you
certainly
would.
"Tell them," she said in neutral tones, "that I will speak to this Commander Ivan, when he comes."
Dmitri translated, his ravaged face becoming even unhappier.
"They… they saying you talking to them, now, in
khutzba
, in hut." He held out his hand. "Gun?"
Too many of them out here
, she thought with tight-held control. Brushing him aside, she followed the NKVD officer into the hut, blinking at the contrast between the bright sunlight through the leaves outside and the gloom of the interior. That deepened as the other man filled the door, swung it to behind him with a heavy thud. He did not bother to shoot home the bar.
The interior of the hut smelled rank, like an animal's den, but with an undertone of clean wood. Johanna breathed deep and slow, needing the oxygen and the prahnu-trained calmness that the rhythmic flexing of her diaphragm produced. It would all depend on…
The thin man seized her, hands on her upper arms, thumbs digging into her shoulder blades, trying to make her arch her chest out. She let the muscles go limp under his grip, the shoulders slump. There was no fear now.
Ju
, went through her.
Go-with
. The big man stepped close, very fast for someone his size; he must be twice her weight easily, and there was plenty of muscle there. A hand clamped painfully on her breast, kneading and twisting; another behind her head, pulling her mouth up to meet his. The smell of him filled her nostrils, strong, like a mule that has been ploughing in the sun. The two men crowded her between them; they must be expecting her to try to kick shins like a child.
Is
everybody
outside the Domination a complete idiot about immobilizing an enemy? she thought in momentary wonderment. Her arms could not move forward or back to strike… and did not need to. Instead her elbows punched
out
, away from her sides. The NKVD officer found his grip slipping; instinctively raising his own stance, he found himself pushing down on her shoulders rather than gripping her upper arms. The Draka's own hands shot down to clasp the fabric of the Cossack trousers; she let her knees go limp, and pulled herself downward with a motion that drew on the strength of back and stomach as much as arms. The thin Russian found the rubbery muscle and slick fabric vanishing from his hands, bent to follow them. His forehead met his comrade's descending kiss with a
thock
of bone on teeth that brought a roar of pain from the giant.
Johanna found herself squatting, her knees between the big Russian's straddled legs, her face level with the long swelling of his erection. There were several means of disabling a large, strong man from that position; she chose the most obvious. Her hand dropped to the ground, clenched into a fist, punched directly up with a twist of hip and shoulder, flexing of legs,
hunnnh
of expelled breath that put weight and impact behind it.
The Russian would probably have been able to block a knee to the groin while she was standing; against this, there was no possibility of defense. The first two knuckles of her fist sank into his scrotum, with a snapping twist at the moment of impact that flattened the testicles against the unyielding anvil of his pubic bone. He did not scream; the pain was far too intense for that.
His reflex bending was powerful enough to send his comrade crashing into the bunk at the rear of the cabin, and he staggered away clutching his groin and struggling to breath through a throat locked in spasm.
Johanna flowed erect, turning. The NKVD man turned out to be a fool, after all: he staggered to his feet and threw a punch at her head, rather than going for his gun. She relaxed one knee, swaying out of the fist's path; her right palm slapped onto his wrist, drawing him farther along…
pivot
on the heel,
straddle
stance…
throw
the weight into it… her left elbow drove into his side just below the armpit, with the force of his own momentum behind it. Her left arm went tingling numb, but she heard something snap audibly, felt bone give under her blow. She kept control of the Russian's arm, bent, twisted, heaved. His body left the ground, began a turn, ran into the door three-quarters of the way through it. Something else snapped, and he went limp to the split-log floor.
One down
, the Draka thought, turning again. The machine pistol was out of immediate reach on her back… and the giant was coming at her again.
She blinked, backing, almost frozen with surprise. He was moving with one hand pressed to his groin, as if he could squeeze out the pain, but the other held a knife, a khidjal, held it as if he knew how to use it. His face worked; he spat out a broken tooth, grinning with a blood-wet mouth in an expression that was nothing
like
a smile. The knifepoint made small circles in the air.
Johanna snapped out her own, hilt low, point angled up. Left hand bladed, palm down, shuffling back in a flat-footed crouch.
This was
not
good, the Russian had a full ten centimeters'
advantage of reach and there was no room to maneuver, the whole Loki-cursed hut was only four meters on a side, and the knife was
not
a weapon to duel with. It was fine for surprise, good for an ambush in the dark, but in a straight-on knife fight the one who ended up in the hospital was the winner.
What do I do now
? she thought. Then:
Kill or die, what else
?
The Cossack straightened a little and came in. The Made moved up, feinting a thrust to the belly, and his left hand reached, going for a hold. Stupidity again, still trying to subdue her. She spun, slashing, and the blade sliced up the outside of the other's arm from wrist to elbow. Cloth parted under as the edge touched meat, cutting a long, shallow gash. The giant roared and attacked, thrusting and slashing in deadly earnest this time.
Some far-off portion of her mind wished for a heavier blade; the narrow steel strip she carried in her wrist-sheath was a holdout weapon, without the weight for a good cut. There are few places on a human body where a stab is quickly disabling, and none of them is very vulnerable at arm's length to an alert opponent. To kill quickly in a knife fight you must slash, cut every exposed surface to ribbons and rely on blood-loss to knock the other out.
That seemed unlikely. A long blade and longer arm were reaching for her life, and she backed, parrying steel-on-steel, the most difficult of all defenses, drawing out the exchange until an opening let her side-slip past the Russian and back into the center of the room. The effort had been brutal; she stood and breathed in deep careful motions, eyes never leaving her opponent's. He waited for an instant, face gone blankly calculating, even the pain in his crotch forgotten. The three-second passage had let them feel each other out; Johanna knew that she was more skilled with the knife, and faster—just enough to compensate for the cramped quarters and her enemy's longer reach and heavier knife—and she would have less margin for error. Desperation surged; could she reach the gun before…
Her back was to the door as it opened, forcing the limp body of the NKVD man aside. Light speared in, taking the huge Russian in the eyes, and he squinted, peering. Then his face changed, first to a fresh rage, then sudden fear. Johanna almost had him then, and his recovery cost him a cut across the face.
Johanna bored in, knocked his knife wrist aside with a bladed palm, skipped her left foot forward and flick-kicked. The toe of her boot landed solidly under one kneecap, and there was a tearing
pop
as cartilage gave way; she spun back out of reach as he bellowed and tried to grapple. The Russian stayed on his feet, but his face was grey and all the weight on one leg. Now to finish it: she came in low and smooth and fast, and—
—one foot skidded out from underneath her in a patch of blood. The floor slammed into her back, hard enough to knock the breath out of her. She saw lights before her eyes, and knew the knife would come down before she could recover.
"
Shto
," a cool voice from behind her said. "
Ruki verch, Sergei
." Then purling Russian syllables, meaningless. A woman's voice, with crowd-mutter behind her. And a very meaningful metallic click—the safety of a pistol being flicked off. The man before her kept his involuntary crouch, and pain-sweat dripped into his thin black beard; he licked blood off his lips as he dropped the knife and put his open hands above his shoulders, speaking in a wheedling tone. The woman's voice cut him off sharply, a sneer in it.
Johanna rolled out of the line of fire and came erect. She stood, slipping the knife back into its sheath as she took a careful step to the side, slowly, hands well out and empty. Turned slowly also, in a position where she could see her opponent as well as the door. She was not going to turn her back on that sort of strength—not until she knew what the score was.
At first the woman in the doorway was nothing but a silhouette, surrounded by sun-dazzle and haze. Then her pupils adjusted, her body lost the quivering knowledge of steel about to slice into vulnerable flesh.
Tall
, was her first thought; about the Draka's own height. Long straight hair the color of birchwood, gathered in a knot at the side of her head. Open coat, fine soft-tanned sheepskin edged with embroidery and astrakhan, reaching almost to the floor. Pressed-silk blouse, tailored pleated trousers rucked incongruously into muddy German boots a size too large and stuffed with straw. Young, was her next impression. Not much more than the Draka's own age. Pale oval face, high-cheeked in the Slav manner, but not flat. High forehead, eyes like clover-honey, straight nose, full red lips drawn back slightly from even white teeth. Broad shoulders emphasized by the coat; full high breasts above a narrow waist; hips tapering to long dancer's legs…
With a Walther P-38 in one elegantly gloved hand, pointed unwaveringly at the other Russian's face.
Interesting
, Johanna mused.
That is a seven-hundred-auric
item, if I ever saw one
. A thought crossed her mind: if they both came through this alive, it would be almost a charitable act to acquire…
The pistol swiveled around to her. Johanna considered the black eye of it, followed up the line of the arm to meet the amber gaze.
Then again, no. Definitely not. This is not someone to
whom I can imagine saying "lie down and play pony for me
."
Pity.
Lovely
mouth, really.
"Valentina Fedorova Budennin," the woman said. "Once of the Linguistic Institute, now of the partisan command, and just out of Pyatigorsk. At your service, although you seem to need less rescuing than Dmitri led me to expect." Astonishingly, she spoke in English, almost without accent except for a crisp British treatment of the vowels. "Air Corps, I see. You may have paid me a very pleasant visit yesterday, then." She smiled, an expression which did not reach her eyes.
"Pilot Officer Johanna von Shrakenberg," the Draka said, keeping the surprise out of her voice. "Believe me, the effort was appreciated. Although," she frowned, "this is the
second
time today I've survived because somebody assumed I was a harmless idiot. Not complainin' about the results, but it's damned odd."
"Ah." The smile grew wider, but remained something of the lips only. "That would be because you are a woman. I have been relying on men underestimating me because of that for some time; the more fools, they." The Russian woman called over her shoulder. "Ivan!" and a sentence in her own language. A stocky Russian walked in with a Fritz machine pistol over his shoulder and… a
Draka
field dressing on one side of his face, nobody else used that tint of blue gauze.
To Johanna: 'This will seem odd, but I think I have a man here who knows your brother. We should talk." Her gaze went back to Sergei, backed against the wall, eyes flickering in animal wariness. "After we dispose of some business." The pistol turned back and slammed, deafening in the enclosed space. A black dot appeared between the big Russian's eyes, turning to a glistening red. The impact of his falling shook the floor.
It was much later before Ivan and Valentina could talk alone, low-voiced before the fireplace of the hut, ignoring the bodies at their feet.
"Impressive," Ivan said, nodding to the door. Johanna had gone for a tactful walk, while they considered her advice.
"The Draka did not get where they are by accident," Valentina said, seating herself and crossing one leg elegantly over another.
"Which leaves the matter of your decision. There are two alternatives: to attack Pyatigorsk while the Germans are occupied, or to strike at the rear of the SS column attempting to clear the pass."