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Chapter 13
The first thing he felt was the cold. A bitter, biting, aching cold that made Charleston think he would drop dead right then and there the shock of it was so sudden and painful. It took his breath away, stung his face. It was like nothing he had ever felt before in the temperature-controlled, air-locked domes in which he had spent his short life.
No, that wasn’t right. He had felt such cold before. In fact, it wasn’t even that cold, he suddenly realized. With the same abruptness that the sub-zero air had struck him, the pain it caused disappeared and he laughed out loud at the strangeness of it all. It was now a bracing, life-affirming cold, one that evoked images and sounds, both familiar and strange. He had been in such cold before. In fact, he had lived through the better part of fifty winters. This one wasn’t even a particularly brutal one, though he and the others had been standing in it for close to eight hours, he estimated, looking around at his fellow soldiers and the bleak square and buildings in front of them.
Before he could fully take in his surroundings, though, a flood of memories, both foreign and yet his own, made Charleston close his eyes, the laughter dying on his lips. No, he wasn’t Charleston, he realized, struggling to gain some purchase in this strange reality. He was, he was… More memories rushed through his mind, one following the other with such rapidity he didn’t think he could keep up with them all, yet his mind and consciousness somehow registered them. He wasn’t seeing these memories for the first time, he realized. They were his own. They had always been there. Yet, a part of him, the part that was still Charleston, felt disoriented and uncomfortable, as if he had just put on a second shirt on top of the one he was already wearing. His mind felt over-filled, stuffed with a lifetime of events, feelings, people, superimposed on what was his real self, threatening to wash that self away, leaving only this new person.
Who was he? Was he Charleston or this, this other? New thoughts rushed through his mind, memories of a childhood spent in a small village not far from…where was he, Petersburg…the Northern Capital. That village, it wasn’t a village, it was his family’s estate, he realized. He had parents…and siblings. Grief flooded his mind and heart as he realized his parents were long dead, his mother dying from complications after the birth of Vanya’s brother, and his father drinking more and more until there was finally nothing left. He had died while Vanya was away at the war.
Vanya, Charleston realized, that was his name. Ivan Fyodorovich Kuznetsov. The name felt foreign to Charleston only for a second, and then it was his name, he was Ivan, Vanya for short. The initial shock of grief over the loss of parents he only just realized he had subsided quickly to little more than a twinge of pain as he realized he had grieved for them years ago, after coming home from the war. The guilt at not staying home with his father had been almost worse than the sorrow at his passing. He knew he never should have left his brother, Seryozha, to run the estate and keep an eye on Father. Seryozha had no sense of duty, no discipline, and was drawn to the allure of Petersburg, to “society” life, though their family was far from the upper crust of that society. Once the Imperial army had turned the tide of the war and was harassing Napoleon and his army all the way back to Paris, Seryozha had rushed off to the capital, having convinced or cajoled Father to give him part of his inheritance in advance, to experience the high life in the big city.
Seryozha had quickly gambled the money away, while also catching consumption from the company he chose to keep. He had died before Vanya, only recently returned from Paris, could properly bury their father and set right the estate, which had fallen into disarray.
Again grief flooded his heart, followed quickly by anger and bitterness over his brother’s wasted life. They were his, Vanya’s, feelings, but they were simultaneously somehow Charleston’s, as well. The memories and emotions associated with them relentlessly continued, and Charleston felt his own, real self dissolving in the morass of Vanya’s life. Charleston struggled to keep his self together, to stop the erosion of his identity, but there was so little of him and so much of Vanya.
The war, Charleston thought, still cognizant of this self, even as this other self, Vanya, continued expanding in his mind, threatening to push Charleston out entirely. He had been a low-ranking officer, a sergeant with men at his command, stationed in Pskov, when Napoleon invaded Russia in the summer of 1812. The fighting had been terrible, like nothing he had ever seen before. Grape shot ripping through flesh, killing you if you were lucky, but often leaving you maimed or dismembered to die a slow, painful death on the field of battle or on the surgeon’s table. Calvary charges trampling men to death. Sabers slicing through bone Canon balls leaving craters in the earth and body parts on the ground. The fields soaked with blood and carpeted in bodies. The memories of the war never failed to bring back the terror and the horror of the moment for Vanya.
For Charleston, the images of battle after battle as the Russian forces employed a calculated retreat, of death after death of the men in his command, forcing regiments to consolidate to reach full capacity, only to have to consolidate again, and again, and again, these memories and images nearly erased what little remained of his consciousness. He desperately struggled to remember one thing, just one thing from his own life to which he could cling while Vanya’s life played out before him. He somehow knew that this was part of the Test, that if he failed in this, then he would fail his pod, or worse, he would just disappear.
His pod, he thought joyfully, latching on to this memory. He was a part of a group, one of twelve. He had friends, New York and Savannah, Jacksonville and Paris. As their names came to him, so did their images, and his, his own, memories began expanding again, pushing back against the torrent of Vanya’s recollections and life.
His earliest memories were of his podmates. He recalled playing tag throughout the dome, giggling and screaming to the point Martin or Claire would lose their temper and start shouting. Or how he, New York, and Savannah would stay up late whispering about fantasy worlds and mythological creatures, trying to avoid setting off Apu. He remembered the early days of Combat class, when training felt more like play, as he and his podmates tumbled across the floor, sped, leapt, and swung through various obstacle courses meant to sharpen their agility. Or how they danced to various Old World music in order to develop coordination and grace. As more and more memories from his own life returned, Charleston felt his sense of self solidifying again, while he simultaneously somehow knew Vanya’s life and past. He focused his mind more, remembering the skills Professor Duman had taught them about mindfulness and awareness. He sought more memories to further anchor his true self in this new reality.
One memory in particular from his childhood, one he hadn’t thought about in so long it could be said he had forgotten it, came to him sharply. It was just before his and his podmates’ 10th birthday. Professor Thurmond had designed a series of trials to mark this transition from childhood to the beginning of adolescence and the next level of their training. His memory was of the final test, an obstacle course that ran the length of the Combat floor before twisting and turning its way back so that the podlings would end up where they started, atop a huge elevated platform at least 50 feet in the air. Like most of their training, the podlings were paired off in competition with one another, and per usual, he and Arkhangelsk were set to compete.
As he remembered that day more clearly, Charleston sensed the panic he felt over losing himself to Vanya’s memories begin to abate. The more he remembered of his own life, the stronger his own consciousness and sense of self became. Vanya’s life and memories were still rushing by him, but they were not in the forefront of his mind anymore. His memories of that last day of childhood pushed Vanya almost to his subconscious.
“You ready, Ark?” he asked her, smiling and looking at his friend.
“Of course, I’m ready,” Arkhangelsk replied shortly.
Her tone caught Charleston off guard. The two had been paired together since almost before they could remember and they had developed a friendly banter and rapport that made each trial or exercise they faced more fun than anything else. They always teased each other before competing, Arkhangelsk usually dishing it out better than he. It helped relax them. At least, that’s what Charleston thought. But now his friend seemed almost annoyed while they waited for the signal from Tank to get ready.
Charleston tried again. “Think you have a chance this time?” he said, laughing and trying to catch her eye. So far, he had beaten her at most of the challenges Tank had concocted.
She continued studying the course before him, pretending not to hear him.
“After crushing you in dodge ball, I’d hate to embarrass you again so quickly,” he laughed, still looking her way, waiting for her comeback. She finally turned to look at him, but her stare was icy, not friendly, as he’d expected.
“Ready,” Tank’s voice sounded above them from the intercom, interrupting whatever she may have wanted to say.
Charleston turned to face the course, his confusion over Arkhangelsk’s odd behavior vanishing as excitement and adrenaline made his chest tingle. The obstacle course was awesome. It was so large he couldn’t even see all the parts. The first leg stretched before them, consisting of monkey bars running about 20 feet across the ceiling to a ramp that would send them sliding into a pit of foam squares. It was hard to tell how deep the pit was, but they would have to make their way through it before then climbing up a rope, using only their hands, to another platform about half as tall as the one they were beginning from. They would then need to leap between several horizontal planks that were all at various heights, before reaching the far wall.
“Go!” Tank shouted, despite the fact that the intercom projected his voice effortlessly throughout the dome. He was excited, as well, Charleston could tell.
Before the word had stopped rebounding off the dome’s ceiling, Arkhangelsk reached over and pushed Charleston hard towards the edge of the platform and then leapt to the monkey bars, using her momentum to skip several bars with each swing. Charleston took a hard step towards the edge, then turned to see Arkhangelsk fast approaching the end of the first leg.
“Hey!” he shouted lamely in protest before leaping after her, swinging from bar to bar as quickly as she had, angry at the dirty trick. She had a head start now and, unless she made a mistake, it was doubtful he would catch her. He couldn’t believe she had pushed him, but he didn’t have time to dwell on it. He could see that Arkhangelsk had reached the end of the monkey bars, but, instead of dropping to the slide that would send them into the foam pool, she swung so strongly from the final monkey bar that she flew past the ramp, gracefully executed a half flip, and landed back-first more than halfway through the pool.
Of course she would add some flourish, Charleston thought. She always did stuff like that. He was almost at the end of the monkey bars now and he increased his speed to try and fling himself as far, if not farther, than Ark had.
If she can do it, so can I, he thought.
With a grunt he went flying through the air towards the center of the pool. Rather than flip unnecessarily, he went in feet first and realized with a sinking feeling as he did so that Ark hadn’t just been going for style points. The foam squares easily parted as he knifed through them, his weight and momentum sending him so deep he couldn’t see the lights of the dome above him. He frantically scrabbled and clawed his way towards the top, but it felt like it took forever.
He was panting when he finally crawled out of the pool, Arkhangelsk nowhere in sight. He quickly ran to the rope and leapt as high as he could before pulling himself up hand over hand. He was good at rope climbing, but his plunge in the pool had tired him out and he was sure he wasn’t making up any time on Arkhangelsk. Once to the platform, he took in the next leg with a glance. There were about seven or eight planks, each about four feet long and about one foot wide, hanging from two chains attached to either end. The planks would swing with his momentum, Charleston realized, and he hoped to use this fact to help catapult him forward, skipping several of the planks, much like they both had done with the monkey bars.
He raced to the edge and launched himself at the first horizontal plank, which was about seven feet from the platform and at least two feet below it. He was aiming to land smoothly on his feet so that he could use the momentum of the landing to propel him beyond at least the next plank, but in the second before he landed the plank suddenly rose in the air. Instead of landing on his feet, he crashed into it chest first with a groan. The plank bounced jerkily as Charleston desperately tried not to fall, gasping for the air that had been knocked out of him.
He awkwardly pulled himself to a squat on the still moving plank and eyed the next one. It was three or four feet away and about eight feet above him. The plank beyond was at least ten feet away, but not as high. He grasped the chains with both hands and began swinging the plank back and forth, trying to calculate if he could get enough momentum to make it to the far plank. He had to assume each of the planks would move unpredictably so it was impossible to aim or time his leap. Charleston felt frustration burn in his gut as he realized how long it was taking him and how much further ahead Ark was at this point. He tried to ignore the panic he could sense beginning to bubble up in him and think. There had to be an easier way.
And then it hit him. With one last heave backwards, he swung forward with all his strength and launched himself up towards the closest plank. Instead of aiming for the plank itself, though, he reached for the chains. The plank was a diversion, the most obvious path. And as Professor Thurmond repeated so frequently, the obvious path was typically the wrong one when in enemy territory.
Charleston was right. As soon as he released from the first plank, the second plunged to a point even lower than where the first one had been. If Charleston had been aiming for the plank, he would have overshot it and plummeted to the ground below. Instead, he was ready for the shift and easily grabbed the chains on either side, his feet suspended above the plank some twelve feet below. He again began swinging his body back and forth, picking up momentum, before launching himself at the next plank. It, too, moved suddenly, this time upwards, as soon as Charleston was in midair, but now that he knew to aim for the chains, it didn’t matter much where the plank was. He made short work of the remaining planks, swinging lightly from the final one to a small landing jutting out from the far wall.
Hand- and footholds were scattered across the wall leading to another small landing the twin of the one he was standing on. From there, the course doubled back in the direction he’d only just come. Taking in the various possible paths along the wall in a glance, Charleston quickly traversed this portion of the course. Maybe this obstacle, which tested hand strength as well as flexibility, would give some of his podmates problems, but he easily made his way to the far landing where he stopped and examined the next leg of the course.
What he saw puzzled him at first. It was a simple, cylindrical tube, about five feet in diameter, and it ran halfway the length of the first part of the course. It looked suspiciously easy. Charleston peered hard through the tube, but saw nothing odd. He looked on the sides, above it and below it, but there wasn’t anything to suggest what the obstacle was beyond the tube itself. After a moment, he stepped carefully into it and began making his way through in a crouch. The inside looked innocuous enough, no sign of anything out of the ordinary.
He picked up his pace, still in a crouch, his eyes darting from floor to ceiling to each side for any hint of the true obstacle but he could discern nothing suspicious or in any way suggestive of danger. His nerves were tingling as he continued down the tube, fear threatening to overwhelm him. He cleared his mind using one of the techniques Professor Duman had taught them and focused on his surroundings. As long as he kept his eyes open and his wits about him, he was confident that he wouldn’t be caught by surprise.
Yet he still didn’t see it coming. One second he was walking cautiously down the interior of the tube, the next he was falling through a gap that hadn’t been there before. As he dropped, he instinctively reached his arms out to catch the sides of the now obvious hole in the tube. The hole itself wasn’t that large, and Charleston was able to get his elbows on the edges of it easily enough. He pulled himself back up.
That’s when he heard the sound. A large thunk, followed by a smooth scraping came from behind him. He managed to look back as he pulled his feet through the hole, which disappeared again, and saw a giant ball just small enough to fit into the tube rolling with increasing speed in his direction. There was only one way out and he had to move fast. Charleston scampered down the tube, cognizant of the giant ball’s ever-quickening approach, but wary of more tricks to trip him up or slow him down.
Yet he was again caught off guard when the tube suddenly spun, the floor beneath him becoming the wall, pitching him painfully to his elbows and side. He began to stand, but the tube spun another ninety degrees, throwing him once more to the ground.
The ball was moving even faster now, and Charleston could feel the tube vibrating from the spinning orb, but each time he went to get to his feet, the tube spun and he lost his purchase. He desperately tried to lunge forward on all fours in the hopes that he could keep his balance better that way, but the tube continued its sudden spins, careening Charleston off its sides and back to the floor. The sound of the giant ball filled Charleston’s ears and he couldn’t control the intense rush of panic that filled his chest as he realized he wasn’t going to make it. With one last push, he scrambled forward on his hands and knees, but the tube spun again, this time a full 180 degrees, leaving Charleston momentarily upside down in midair. He fell to his back in a crash and looked up just in time to see the ball making its last rotation before careening into him.
Charleston opened his eyes and took in the scene before him of what he now knew was Senate Square in St. Petersburg, Russia. He was Vanya, but he was Charleston at the same time. He had the memories and body of the former, while the complete consciousness of the latter. He knew what Vanya knew, but he was still Charleston, still a child-man, trained in martial arts, the sciences, and a world history and culture that far surpassed the present, the now of the moment.
And that moment was December 14th, 1825, and he and his fellow soldiers were going to kill the tsar.
Chapter 14
Steel-gray clouds hung low in the sky, softly illuminated from the early setting sun to the west. An icy sleet had been steadily falling all day, intermingled with snow. The Neva River was behind him, though he couldn’t see it through the crowd of soldiers shuffling their feet, trying to stay warm. The Bronze Horseman, the statue to Peter the Great, stood above the crowd not far from where he stood, the hulking mass that was St. Isaac’s Cathedral rising up in the distance behind it. The square was flanked by the Admiralty building, home of Russia’s naval command, and the Senate building, where the legislative body was housed. It was this latter building that was the main focus of Vanya and the men around him, for it was in this place that the usurper Nikolai would be crowned Emperor of All Russia, stealing the throne from his rightful older brother.
“To the devil with this cold and this waiting,” Koyla muttered angrily for the tenth time. “Where the hell is Trubetskoy?” he asked, also for the tenth time. It was a mantra repeated again and again through the ranks of men, 2,000, maybe 3,000 strong, as they stood in loose rows bordering the square and facing three times their number of soldiers loyal to the usurper.
Charleston snorted in derision, looking at his friend. Koyla was a huge man, the biggest in the regiment, with blond hair and the signature moustache of the grenadiers. “Trubetskoy?” Charleston asked, the Russian coming naturally to him, yet feeling foreign on his lips. “What about Yakubovich? He’s the one who’s been calling for Nikolai’s head, but now that the moment is upon us, he’s nowhere to be seen.” Though Prince Trubetskoy was the unofficial leader of this “revolt”, Charleston felt more anger at the hypocrite and coward, Yakubovich.
This knowledge and emotion came to Charleston as easily as the Russian did. They were his, Vanya’s, memories and experiences, but Charleston’s own self was somehow there as well. He no longer felt panic or danger because of this blending of consciousnesses. His vivid recollection of that final day of childhood and his failure on the obstacle course anchored him in this new mind, the threat of losing his real self gone. It was bizarre, yet natural. And it wasn’t just that he was somehow inhabiting Vanya’s body and mind, aware of the other man’s life, but Vanya’s experiences and memories were informing Charleston’s understanding of his own life as well. He realized with a certainty only the older man’s knowledge could give him that this melding of two minds had been the first challenge of the Test. Had he not succeeded in stabilizing his own self within Vanya’s, he would have surely failed.
“He was here earlier,” another soldier, Dima, answered. Dima was also a rather large man, with dark hair and a neatly trimmed moustache. Charleston noticed as he listened to the man that he was looking down at him. Charleston then realized with a start that he, too, was a big man, tall, with broad, muscular shoulders and large calloused hands. It was mesmerizing. He had never felt so powerful. He stretched his arms out, flexing his forearms underneath his jacket and spreading his fingers wide.
“You okay, Vanya?” Dima asked with a questioning look.
“What?” Charleston said, dropping his arms and meeting his friend’s gaze. “I’m fine. Now what were you saying?”
“I was saying that Yakubovich was here earlier,” Dima continued, still looking oddly at Charleston. “He shouted something about Constantine, then left, then came back and gave a little speech about how we had to stand firm and not be cowed by the imposter. Then he left again, the bastard.”
Charleston understood without trying that Constantine was the rightful heir, the next in line after Tsar Alexandr had died, just a few weeks prior, and that Nikolai was trying to take the throne for himself. He and the men around him had been convinced by Trubetskoy, Yakubovich, and others that it was their duty to prevent this.
“And where’s Bulatov?” Charleston asked, peering in the gloom of the fast approaching December night. “This is absurd!” he said, his temper flaring. “They’ve been planning this revolt for months, they convince the Moskovsky regiment to turn out in support of their plan, and now they don’t even show up for it!”
Vanya and his fellow soldiers were Grenadiers, an elite assault force made up of the biggest, strongest, and bravest men. You had to be when one of your primary duties in war was to take out the opposition’s defenses, thereby putting yourself in imminent danger. He and almost half of his regiment were currently on the square, under the command of Panov, a lieutenant. It hadn’t taken much to convince Vanya to support Constantine. He was both a military man and a Christian; law and order were of primary importance to his worldview. As such, he believed the tsar was appointed by God Himself to rule and protect his people. Constantine was next in line. It wasn’t for his younger brother Nikolai or anyone else to deny what the Almighty decreed.
And so Charleston was standing in Senate Square along with his regiment of Grenadiers, the Moskovsky regiment, and some of the Marine Guard, facing a force at least three times their number and still growing. The time to act was now, or Nikolai would lose whatever patience he had and give orders to fire. Vanya was amazed the man had held out this long. Several shots had already been fired at those Nikolai sent to try and negotiate a peace. Vanya found this despicable and cowardly, but it wasn’t for him to punish soldiers from a different regiment.
Actually, Charleston thought, the time to act was hours ago, but our so-called leaders disappeared without a word to anyone.
“And where’s Ryleev?” Kolya asked. “Didn’t you say he was one of the ones in charge?” he asked, turning to Charleston.
Charleston grunted an unintelligible reply. His men had been asking variations of these questions for the past several hours and Vanya had no more answers now than he had had when they first started grumbling. What he did know was that the longer they waited, the more likely it was that Nikolai would bring in the artillery. That’s what he would do if he were in the usurper’s place. No point in risking hand-to-hand combat if you could simply fire a few canons into the crowd. The 3,000 men crammed into the square had no fortifications or defenses, short of their guns and their courage. Neither would last long against canon shot.
“Listen,” Charleston began, instinctively lowering his voice conspiratorially, knowing this would get the others’ attention more effectively than a shout. “We can’t just stand here like this. Who’s ever heard of a standing revolution? We have to act. To hell with Trubetskoy and the others who were supposed to be here. Go get Panov. I have a plan.”
Charleston understood that he was acting out of character and out of line; Vanya was a soldier, used to obeying orders, rather than giving them. But Charleston also knew that this was part of the Test. How he acted as Vanya in this situation was what would be judged by Professor Thurmond and the others.
But there was something else motivating him, too, something that was coming from Vanya. He had spent most of his life in the military, the veteran of wars both big and small, and he had learned the importance of morale to the success of any battle. Looking out over the square full of freezing soldiers, Charleston knew that morale was plummeting. If they waited much longer, the men would lose whatever will to act remained.
Charleston looked up as Panov approached, his long black military coat open despite the cold, a sword at his hip. He wore his cap cocked to the side over sparse brown hair. He, too, bore the moustaches ubiquitous among the grenadiers, and his cheeks had splotches of red that explained why his coat was billowing in the wind. Panov had been drinking. Whether to stay warm or from boredom, their ranking officer was not sober.
“Grenadier Kuznetsov,” Panov began by way of a greeting. He and Vanya had always been on friendly terms, but the seriousness of the situation, or the drink, made the lieutenant strike a more formal tone.
“Lieutenant,” Charleston said, saluting. “We need to act. It’s almost dark and we’ve been standing here since early this morning. If we don’t do something soon, the usurper will be crowned and all of us arrested, if not killed. He won’t wait much longer before sending in the artillery.”
Panov looked as if he were considering Charleston’s words, one hand instinctively stroking his moustache. “I couldn’t agree more, Grenadier Kuznetsov,” Panov began, articulating his words carefully. “But it is not for us to decide. Prince Trubetskoy is in charge. He’ll make the decision if and when to attack.”
Charleston heard Koyla snort behind him in response. Charleston quickly spoke before his friend could say anything that may be considered insubordinate. “Prince Trubetskoy hasn’t been seen since this morning,” he began. Panov’s face hardened at the implication of Charleston’s words, despite the fact that every man on the square was thinking the same thing. Charleston hurried on before Panov could reprimand him. “More than likely he’s been arrested by Nikolai’s men. He’s probably being held captive right now. It is on those next in line to command us, but if they wait much longer…”
A shout prevented Charleston from continuing. He, Panov, and the others all turned to see what was happening. Across the square, there was movement among the enemy soldiers. Charleston peered through the gloom and could make out men on horseback riding up through the ranks of soldiers. Nikolai had sent in the cavalry.
“Positions!” Panov shouted, a shout echoed by officers across the square. Soldiers formed up in lines, their rifles and bayonets ready, to face the enemy. Charleston stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Dima and Koyla, his rifle both comfortable and unfamiliar in his hands. On the other side of the square, the would-be tsar’s men formed into lines behind the cavalry regiment that had temporarily come to a halt in front of them.
“Something’s off,” Charleston muttered. It was hard to tell in the approaching darkness, but the cavalry didn’t seem as crisp and well-ordered as they usually were. Their lines seemed to undulate, as if a ripple were passing through them.
“Charge!” he heard from across the square, and the riders as one spurred their mounts forward. Nikolai was hoping to scatter the opposition. To Charleston, it was another surprising move. The false tsar was doing his best to avoid out-right bloodshed to handle the revolt. Charleston wasn’t sure what this meant, but he knew instantly what Vanya thought about it: the rightful ruler would not hesitate to put down a rebellion. That Nikolai had taken all day to act only confirmed in Vanya’s mind that he was a usurper.
“For Constantine!” Charleston shouted without thinking, Vanya’s ardent belief in the divine ordering of society bursting through the boy’s consciousness.
Others around Charleston and across the square picked up the shout and Charleston felt the familiar, yet new, rush of adrenaline that always came before battle. Mingled in the adrenaline was both fear and excitement. It was an odd combination, one that Vanya never tired of, but that Charleston was experiencing for the first time in an actual battle. It was similar to what he felt before sparring or the interpodal melees, only more intense. Far more intense.
The rush didn’t last long. Almost as soon as the cavalry started, their lines broke as the horses lost traction on the icy square. Charleston now understood why their lines had looked so odd. The horses must not be shod, he realized, and over the course of the short winter day, the square had turned into a sheet of ice. The soldiers around Charleston burst out laughing and began shouting taunts at the cavalry, as horses slipped and slid into one another. One horse, angered by another sliding into it, tried to rear, but lost its footing and crashed down on its side, trapping its rider’s leg and surely breaking it.
It was a fiasco. The cavalry floundered on the ice, accompanied by mockery and insults, before eventually managing to make it off the square to more firm footing. The damage had been done, however. The crowds of onlookers, which had steadily grown throughout the day, joined in, taunting the retreating horsemen. A log suddenly flew through the air from somewhere behind the soldiers, aimed at the backs of the cavalry. It landed with a thud, well short of its target, but its power lay not in its making contact. It was a signal to the 3,000 soldiers standing in revolt of a usurper that the people were on their side. Another log went flying. Then another. Soon, logs were being hurled from multiple points behind the soldiers.
“Now!” Charleston shouted at Panov. “The time to act is now! The people are on our side.”
“Charge!” came a cry from behind Charleston. Charleston couldn’t make out who had taken command, but he didn’t need to be told twice. The lines of men surged forward as they rushed towards the barricades, rifles at the ready. Charleston and the grenadiers were out in front, followed by the Moskovsky regiment. Charleston felt for the second time that surge of adrenaline mixed with fear as he rushed forward.
The battle was over as quickly as it had begun, though. Just as the horses had lost their footing on the ice, Charleston and the other advancing soldiers began sliding, many falling hard on their hands and knees. Charleston flailed at the air as he lost his balance before he caught himself on Dima’s shoulder. Now it was the enemy’s turn to laugh and jeer at the floundering men.
“This is ridiculous!” Koyla shouted before abruptly hitting the ice, backside first, with an umph.
“Dima, Koyla,” Charleston said quickly, offering the latter a hand. “Take some men and head to the Neva.”
“What for?” Dima asked.
“There should be sandbags somewhere along the embankment. Grab them and bring them here.” The Neva River ran through the heart of St. Petersburg, which itself was built on a swamp, and in the spring it frequently flooded. The city tried to curtail the damage from the floods by lining the embankment with sandbags. If Charleston and the others could put some sand down, they should be able to keep their footing on the ice.
As Dima and Kolya grabbed some others and went in search of sandbags, Charleston headed towards the spot where the order to charge had come from. If Panov was going to continue to defer to those above him, Charleston would simply go to them with his idea.
He made his way awkwardly off the ice and headed to a group of officers knotted together in the back. As he drew closer, he could make out their conversation.
“And you’re sure Nikolai is there, too?” a voice said.
“Yes, sir,” another answered. “I saw him myself. Now’s the time! This is what we’ve been planning for for years!”
“You don’t think I know that,” the first voice responded tersely. “I ordered the attack and you saw what happened. What exactly do you propose we do?”
“We have to break that ice up somehow,” the second voice replied.
“I know a way,” Charleston said from just outside the group of officers, who turned at the sound of his voice. Charleston saluted. “Grenadier Kuznetsov,” he said, meeting the hard blue-eyed gaze of the commanding officer and ignoring the looks of the men around him. “I apologize for interrupting, but what if we were to put sand down on the ice?” Charleston asked hurriedly, hoping his solution would make up for his ignoring the chain of command.
“Who are you exactly?” a red-haired man asked, sniffing disdainfully. Charleston recognized the voice, but didn’t know the man himself. “Where is your commander?”
Charleston ignored him and continued to look at the commanding officer. “I sent some men to get sandbags from the embankment. If we can scatter enough sand over the ice, we should be able to keep our footing.”
The red-haired man took a step towards Charleston, his face turning a closer shade to his hair. “Who are you to give any commands to anyone?” he spat. “Now return to your regiment, or you will face the gauntlet when this is over.” Charleston instantly knew what the gauntlet was from Vanya’s memories. It was used to punish a wide range of offenses, from desertion to not keeping your uniform in order. The offending soldier was made to walk between rows of his comrades, often numbering in the hundreds, all of whom would hit the lone man’s back with a birch rod. In front of the man walked another soldier with a bayonet pointed in the direction of the ‘criminal,’ ensuring that he not walk too fast. One pass through the gauntlet would shred a man’s back and put him in the hospital. Several passes was as good as a death sentence.
“When what is over?” Charleston retorted. “This standing revolution? The way this is going, there won’t be a gauntlet to walk! We’ll all be dead by nightfall!”
The red-haired man started to say something in response, but the commanding officer put a hand on his shoulder and stepped forward. “What’s your name, son?” The blue-eyed man was probably younger than Vanya, but his rank granted him certain liberties in address.
“Grenadier Ivan Kuznetsov, sir!” Charleston said, saluting again.
“Vanya,” the officer continued. “While your approach is unorthodox, this is an unorthodox situation. Sandbags, you say?”
“Yes, sir,” Vanya replied, relief that this man would at least listen flooding his chest. “I saw some down by the embankment on our way here. They help with the flooding, sir.”
“Yes, I am aware of their purpose,” the officer replied. “How many did you see?”
“A good dozen,” Charleston replied. “The men should be back by now if your Excellency would care to take a look.”
“Rodya,” the officer said, turning to the red-haired man. “Send the word out to the men to stay in ready formation.”
“Yes, sir,” Rodya replied, shooting Charleston an angry glance.
“Anton, Volodya,” the officer continued to two of the men gathered around. “With me.”
Charleston led the officer and the others back to the grenadier regiment. He felt awkward not knowing the officer’s name, but he didn’t know how to ask. The man seemed to understand Charleston’s dilemma, as he introduced himself. “Second Lieutenant Bestuzhev.” He eyed Charleston as they walked. “You’ve been around, huh? 1812?”
“Yes, sir,” Charleston replied. “First Grenadiers Division.”
“We need more soldiers with your kind of experience,” he said as they made their way along the outside of the square, where the ice had not formed due to the many stamping feet of soldiers. “This revolt has gone all wrong,” Bestuzhev continued. “No sense in pretending it hasn’t. Trubetskoy, Yakubovich, Ryleev, all gone, disappeared, hiding more than likely, trying to figure out how to betray more heroically.”
Charleston was stunned to hear the lieutenant speak so bluntly about those in charge. Clearly, the anger that he and the others were feeling was not theirs alone.
“Years of planning,” Bestuzhev continued, as if to himself, “all wasted because those fools turned coward.” He paused, the silence between them filled with the sounds of shifting men, muffled voices, and the crunching of their boots on the snow. “They would rather die on the gallows than on the battlefield. Phoo!” he spat over his shoulder in disgust. “And now this damned ice! Had we followed the plan, Nikolai would be dead by now. But instead we are left to flail away on the ice until he sends in the artillery and blasts us into the Neva.” He spat again.
Charleston could see Dima, Kolya, and several other men a short ways away, standing around a stack of icy, half-frozen sandbags. “Sir,” Charleston began. “Look, they’ve brought the sandbags. If we can rush the Senate building before the artillery is brought in, we still have a chance.”
They covered the remaining distance quickly and came to a halt by the pile of sandbags. Bestuzhev nodded at the soldiers, who greeted him with a salute, and placed a hand on the nearest bag. “Frozen,” he cursed angrily. “Of course.”
“Not all the way through, sir,” Kolya said quickly. “A few pokes with a knife will loosen it up and let us spread it across the ice. Give us a few minutes and we’ll have a path ready for the men to charge.”
Bestuzhev was silent, his hand grasping and ungrasping the edge of the sandbag, his eyes distant. Finally, he looked up at Charleston, who recognized the look of a man resigned to death. “Make it so,” he said before turning sharply away and walking back the way they had come.
The work took less time than expected. Charleston and the other grenadiers quickly loosened the sand with their bayonets, realizing as they did so that the holes left in the bags would facilitate the actual spreading of the sand across the ice. Under the cover of the approaching night, the first grenadiers layered their side of the icy square with enough sand to allow for 20 men standing shoulder-to-shoulder to approach the center of the square in front of the Senate building. They had to stop well short of the barricades themselves or risk getting killed or alerting the opposing soldiers of their plan. Instead, Charleston hurried back to Bestuzhev.
“Sir,” he began, saluting. “We are ready to make the final push, but once the usurper’s men see what we’re doing, they will surely open fire.”
“Yes,” Bestuzhev replied, understanding Charleston’s point. “Rodya, get the Moskovsky regiment in position behind the grenadiers. Cover them as they put down the last of the sand and tell them to be ready to storm the building once this is done.”
“Yes, sir,” the red-haired man responded, saluting and turning to gather the regiment.
Charleston returned to his fellow grenadiers.
“Has anyone seen Panov?” he asked.
“Alesha went to find him, but he hasn’t come back yet,” Dima replied.
Charleston sighed. “We can’t wait any longer. Once the Moskovsky regiment lines up, we’re going in. I want two lines of men. The first will finish putting the sand down. The second will cover them. The Moskovsky regiment will be firing, too, but I want our men looking out for their own.”
It felt natural to be commanding the men, despite his lack of any rank that would justify it. He knew that Vanya was both well-liked and well-respected by his fellow grenadiers. He was one of the oldest soldiers in the regiment, a veteran of the war of 1812. The others often followed his example, and it was more for this reason than any other that so many from his regiment were standing in the cold of Senate Square.
“Let’s go,” he said, throwing a bag of sand on his shoulder and setting off across the square towards the Senate building, his adrenaline beginning its now familiar rush through his chest.
It was almost totally dark now. The square was bitterly cold, the wind lashing Charleston’s face and threatening to scatter the sand off the ice. Torches had been lit at various points along the wooden barricades the enemy had erected while waiting for the rebels to make a move.
Another mistake, Charleston thought.
It would have been far more effective to have stormed the Senate building in the early hours of the morning, before the would-be tsar could bring in so many reinforcements. But Vanya’s own knowledge sounded against this, Charleston realized. Those men across the square were his fellow Russians. And while Nikolai was a usurper, shedding the blood of soldiers just like himself, drafted from villages and towns across Russia, who were devoted to the Motherland as much as Vanya, was no easy thing. No wonder there had been no attack for so long from either side.
Charleston’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a shot and the whistling of a bullet nearby. They were at the center of the square now. He and the others in the front line began spreading the sand as best they could while also dodging bullets. More and more shots sounded, now from both in front and behind, as the second line of grenadiers and the men in the Moskovsky regiment began returning fire.
Charleston was flanked by Dima and Koyla, and the three made quick work of the first sandbags. More were passed up from the rear. They were now about fifteen feet from the barricades. Charleston heard a grunt of pain from off to his right and saw a body fall out of the corner of his eye.
“Steady!” he shouted, hunching lower while swinging the perforated sandbag from left to right in front of him, taking a step with each pass. Shots were ringing out steadily now, as men alternated with one another as they fired, then reloaded.
They were now ten feet away. Blood suddenly splattered Charleston across the side of his face, temporarily blinding him in his left eye. He heard a thud and looked to see the blurred form of Kolya slumped on the ground, a bullet hole oozing blood from the top of his head. He hadn’t made a sound. He had just fallen, probably dead before hitting the ice. Charleston stopped momentarily, stunned by the deadly quickness of it all. He had never seen someone die, not like this, not this close. It was horrible and surreal.
“Vanya!” someone shouted from his right. “Vanya!” and an arm tugged him down, just as a bullet whizzed above his head. It was Dima. “What’d you stop for?! Keep moving!”
Charleston snapped out of his temporary daze, Vanya’s memories of more death than Charleston could mentally register coming to the fore, dulling the shock of it, if not the pain. They would mourn Kolya later…if they survived themselves.
“Now!” Charleston yelled, remembering the plan. With one great swing of his massive arms, he closed his eyes and threw a fresh sandbag, riddled with holes, high into the air and across the remaining space between the grenadiers and the barricades. It spun sand seemingly from all sides as it topped the barricade, catching an enemy soldier in the chest and knocking him backwards.
It was the final part of their push over the ice. Charleston and the others knew they would be easy targets from such close range, even with accounting for the unreliability of the muskets the Imperial army had been using since before Napoleon. And so they’d decided to hurl the sandbags at the enemy themselves, rather than over the ice, hoping to catch them by surprise and blind them long enough to allow the second line of grenadiers to scramble across the remaining ice and over the barricade.
Charleston rubbed his hand across his face, clearing it of the grit and sand, and saw that the plan had more or less worked. The second line was up and over the barricade, the Moskovsky regiment pushing forward from behind. Charleston unslung his own rifle and rushed through a gap in the defenses. The fighting was fierce and chaotic. The battlefield had fragmented from lines of men all firing at one another in an orderly and controlled fashion to shards of space, large enough for two or three men to struggle, to kill, and to die.
The larger battle was played out in miniature in dozens of places across the space in front of the Senate building. Men screamed and fell on all sides as pistols and sabers were brought out, the closeness of the opposing soldiers rendering the muskets useless. Charleston sensed Dima to his right as his eyes scanned the various pairs and trios of men locked in deadly combat. He saw one of the second line of grenadiers, Anton, get shot point-blank in the chest by a soldier, while a second hacked his saber into his shoulder, the blade cutting through bone and muscle with an odd crunch.
Charleston lunged forward before the man could pull his sabre from Anton’s body and sunk his bayonet deep into the enemy’s stomach with a sickeningly wet sound. Rather than pulling the bayonet out of the man’s midsection, he used the momentum from his charge at the man to push him back into the soldier who had fired the shot. The move knocked the man off balance and Charleston immediately let go of his musket, the dying soldier falling backwards, bloody hands scrabbling at the rifle barrel. Before the other soldier could regain his balance and take aim at Charleston, he fell, blood poring from a gunshot wound in his neck. It seemed to Charleston that he heard the shot only after the man hit the ground. He looked at Dima, who was lowering his own pistol.
“Good shot,” Charleston said before turning his attention back to the chaos around them. It was impossible to tell what was happening beyond the immediate pockets of battle in front of him, but he knew it was a good sign that the battle was still going on. Nikolai’s men more than tripled the rebels and should theoretically recover from the initial charge and begin pushing the grenadiers and the Moskovsky regiment back towards the square. Instead, it seemed to Charleston that the Imperial soldiers were falling back, caving in before the entrance to the Senate building. This left their own flanks exposed, Charleston knew, but what mattered now was speed. If Charleston and the others could break through this last outer resistance and into the building before the enemy could collapse on them from the sides, they could take the Senate building and possibly Nikolai himself, thus effectively ending the battle in their favor. At the very least, they would be advantaged.
Charleston grabbed the saber still sticking out of Anton’s shoulder and yanked it free, while drawing the pistol from the belt at his waist. “Let’s get to those doors,” he said to Dima, nodding at the entrance. He could see Imperial army soldiers bunched around the entrance, offering the fiercest resistance of any. Charleston wondered if Nikolai really was inside, or if that had just been a rumor.
Charleston and Dima rushed forward, quickly dispatching the few enemy soldiers who attempted to stop them. The saber felt odd in Charleston’s hand. He could tell that Vanya had very limited experience wielding one, while Charleston had even less. He took aim with his pistol and fired a shot into the crowd of soldiers guarding the door. From his right, he saw Bestuzhev and the red-haired officer riding up, leading a group of soldiers and infantry straight at the Senate entrance, both firing their pistols. The Imperial army soldiers protecting the doors were quickly surrounded and outnumbered and soon surrendered. Bestuzhev ordered several of his soldiers to escort the prisoners away from the building, and then turned to the locked doors.
Charleston noticed that the enemy threatening to flank them wasn’t attacking, but he didn’t have time to dwell on why.
“Where are those grenadiers?” he shouted, looking around. Charleston, Dima, and several others stepped forward.
“Sir!” they said, saluting.
“Get those doors open!” Bestuzhev shouted.
Charleston immediately leapt forward, slamming a heavy boot into the center of one of the doors, just below the handle. He was amazed at how powerful Vanya was. Nevertheless, the doors only shuddered. It was clear they were barricaded from the inside.
“The hinges,” Dima said, pointing. “Let’s see if we can pry them off.”
The men went to work with their bayonets on the metal hinges. From inside the building, Charleston heard shouts, curses, and what sounded like fighting. He redoubled his efforts on the hinges, but he only succeeded in scratching the wood of the door. Charleston stood and turned to Bestuzhev.
“Sir, it’s barricaded from the inside, but I have an idea. We need some rope and horses.”
Bestuzhev barked the orders, and a soldier brought Charleston a thick piece of rope. He quickly secured one end of it around both handles of the Senate building’s doors and ran the other to the three horses that had been brought. He had the riders line up in a row, head to tail, rather than side by side, and he looped the rope taut around the first saddle horn, before repeating the process with the other two horses.
As he finished tying the rope off, he heard shots from behind him. He quickly turned to the building, but there were no enemy soldiers in the area. The Moskovsky regiment had formed a perimeter around the entrance, though the fighting on the square appeared to be over.
More shots rang out, and Charleston could now tell they were coming from within the building itself. He looked at Bestuzhev, who shouted to the riders to spur their horses. The animals leapt forward, their hooves scratching across the ice. The rope strained and the doors jolted, but the locks on it held. The horses were struggling to gain purchase on the ice, despite it being broken in places by the battle.
“What now?” Bestuzhev shouted, more as a reprimand for Charleston’s failure than an actual question.
Before Charleston could answer, a scraping sound, followed by several thuds, could be heard from the other side of the Senate doors. Charleston and the others froze, looking with both curiosity and apprehension at the entrance.
“Rifles at the ready!” Bestuzhev commanded.
“Don’t shoot!” a voice shouted from behind the doors, which opened a crack. A white cloth appeared, held by an equally white hand. “Don’t shoot! We’re on your side!”
It was then that Charleston realized why the battle on the square had ended in their favor. Despite the day-long standoff and the sheer number of Imperial army soldiers, the majority of them must have had their own reservations about Nikolai. It was clear now that they had been biding their time to see if the rebels would succeed or not or if Nikolai would give a definitive order that they could no longer ignore. With the onset of night and the rebels’ successful charge, most of the enemy had seen the writing on the wall and surrendered.
The Senate doors opened and several men came out. The first was still holding the white cloth, while the other two held a man between them by his arms. Everyone’s attention was immediately focused on this man. It was Nikolai himself. His hat was nowhere to be seen and his hair was disheveled. A trickle of blood ran down his face, evidence of the struggle to subdue him. His shirtfront was untucked and his pants torn at the knees.
“You fools!” he shouted, spittle and blood flying from his mouth. The two men behind him twisted his arms up and pushed him down on his knees in front of Bestuzhev, who remained in his saddle.
Nikolai struggled through the pain and the awkward angle to look up at his enemy.
“You will all hang for this!” he shouted, trying to maintain his authority, despite his obvious disadvantage.
“It is you who will hang, usurper,” Bestuzhev retorted quickly.
“Usurper?!” Nikolai spat in contempt. “You are all idiots. Constantine abdicated the throne to me! You are assaulting the rightful emperor!”
Charleston felt a momentary pang of doubt at these words, but before he could react, the scene before him became somehow fuzzy, as if it were melting. Charleston shook his head and blinked several times, but to no avail. Everything seemed to waver for a second, and then he was in complete blackness, the cold of the Petersburg night and the feel of the ice and snow beneath him gone.
Before he could fully process what this meant or what had just happened, he sensed a new environment taking shape around him. It was still dark, but a dank, wet smell filled his nostrils.
The second part of the Test was beginning.
The Podkind is a science fiction/fantasy novel written by Johnny Cycles. Click here for the next installment!