Struggle: The Path to Power - Владимир Андерсон

— With what else?

— It's just watching to see how we're going to do. It doesn't care whether we win or lose. It already knows the answer to that question… It cares how we do it, what efforts we make, how we try….

— I like your philosophy. And you know what? I'll take it.

— Because of Natasha? To be together forever? No matter what happens, you'll be together because the sun said so?

— Yeah. (chuckles)

— Well, you're good. You know how to pick a side… Practical…..

Misha smiled.

— I'll help you again. You two look really good together. So you don't have to worry.

— Thank you.

From afar, there's dust on the side of the road — they're coming.

— Get ready! — Misha shouted softly back.

After just a minute, the plagues showed up. In their sun-protected overalls. Plagues on horseback:

where had one seen such a thing before? The column was long: more than twenty riders, one, in the middle, tied up.

All of them are in black, except for the bound one, and the one next to him is in acrid yellow with circles, asymmetrical, that is, not quite circles, and, of course, fangs. His clothes were not a robe, but a sort of camisole, with many tiers. Around his neck, in a long chain of rectangular links, was a stone, all black and so black that it did not reflect the light. And his head, of course, was covered with a steel helmet with a visor.

— It's time. — Misha thought, and immediately someone from his squad fired a grenade launcher at the column — dagger fire.

The front three were flipped over, sprinkling earth around them. Those who tried to shoot back fell immediately. Everyone who could, rushed to the hillside.

Shooting in the back is not very decent, but who thinks about decency in war? Especially since the enemy was initially facing. As the horses stomped along the rising ground, where the road still passed in front of the hill, the plagues piled up on the ground. Then the slope. The Chief Inquisitor grabbed another horse, already with a dead plague in the saddle, and began to cover his prisoner.

It was time to step out of the forest a little — the penalized men went forward. Coming out from both sides of the hillock and approaching the road, Misha shouted: "Blow it up!"

There was an explosion: several handfuls of earth flew up from the top, horses with chums fell under the slope. Only the chief, taking the prisoner's horse by the bridles, rushed off into the steppe. Misha ran back into the forest to his horse.

A couple more seconds, and he's after them.

The sun is already scorching. The night-black earth and yellowish grass fly out from under the hoofs.

Dust, oblique columns of dust, and the tent, sometimes shooting back, but unable to break away.

Misha dodged once again and took aim. And then a line of three shots came from somewhere behind him. The Inquisitor flew off the saddle to the side and, tipping back his legs, remained attached to the horse.

Dima was the shooter.

He picked up the bridle of the prisoner's horse and rode leisurely across the steppe. The others are here on horseback.

Misha decided to check what lurked beneath the inquisitor's mask. Whether they are different from ordinary plagues. And whether they are very different. And maybe something else… He carefully got off the horse. The wind was blowing even harder, and it was swaying the plague's clothes from side to side, even though he was already lying motionless on the ground.

It was not a tent. When Misha took off his balaclava, the face of an ordinary man was revealed inside. Just like himself. Even with roughly the same Slavic features. With closed eyes, a calm, already peaceful face, a human face.

Misha looked around and immediately covered the enemy's head back with his balaclava. This is simply impossible. They had just killed people… Maybe they were Maquis from another squad? Maybe they just disguised themselves as chums to take out a prisoner? That's why they're all wearing uniforms with that fang? But that doesn't make sense. They saw who was attacking them… Even if they had a glitch and started shooting back on automatic, it wouldn't have come to that. They would have signaled surrender or something… But they fought to the last man. And they were covering the plague prisoner…

Misha rushed to the prisoner and ripped the sack off his head… The wounded, tortured face of a man.

Not the plague again, but a man… And these people needed him for some reason.

— Did we take a prisoner of war? — Dima stood next to me with a surprised look. — This is crazy… — It's not bullshit, Dima, it's fucked up.

***

We rode all morning. Without stopping and almost without taking a step. And there was no point in stopping — there was only steppe around, no water for the horses.

The meeting place was 17 kilometers east of Kharkov: a "bare" or, perhaps, on the contrary, "blossoming" steppe. Who knows how to call it right, when it does not give birth to grain from seeds, it grows on its own. Any farmer will say that God made the black soil fertile in order to feed people, otherwise why he gave people the opportunity to grow something. Few would deny this, but few would agree. The penalized men were met by other penalized men — their commanders. Bolotnikov and

Khmelnitsky. One on a black horse, the other on a white one. One frowning, the other calm. But both were pleased with the meeting.

— Are you sure you didn't get it mixed up? — The former Commander-in-Chief shouted as he approached.

— Maybe they did. — Misha answered a little skeptically. —