Read Online The Ocean of Time by David Wingrove - Free Book Online Page B

in the air. I change the setting on the
staritskii
and aim again.
    Krylenko’s furious. He’s almost spitting as he points to me and yells at his men to get me. He’s screaming that he wants me dead, but midway through his rant he falls back, dead, a neat, coin-sized hole burned straight through his forehead and out through the back of his skull.
    If it’s a fight to the death, I don’t believe in fighting fair, not even with decent men, let alone some bad fucker like Krylenko.
    But I’ve barely time to think. Even as Krylenko falls, the prow of the second boat ploughs into ours, knocking us all off our feet again. There are shouts and screams and then one of them jumps across, a boat-hook in one hand. I aim up at him from where I’m sprawled on my back and burn a long, steaming gash from his groin to his neck. He falls back, clutching at himself and screaming, his clothes on fire, his eyes wildly staring, unable to believe what’s happened to him.
    And he’s not alone. They are beginning to panic now. Several of them leap from the boats into the water, making swiftly for the shore.
    I get up on to my knees, knowing that I’m likely to have a better centre of gravity thus than standing and, seeing Krylenko’s eldest, let him have it full power.
    There’s the smell of roasting flesh and he topples, dead, into the water, his burning entrails sending up bubbles of steam from below the surface.
    That ends the fight. With Krylenko and his eldest dead, the others flee as if from Satan himself. And to make sure that they don’t come back, I fire the
staritskii
one last time, turning one of the trees on the shore just beyond them into a flaming pyre. They run, screeching, into the forest.
    In the silence that follows, I look about me and see them all watching me, astonished and fearful, as if I’ve changed my shape. Bakatin, brave as he is, looks almost comically upset.
    ‘Sweet Mary, Mother of our Lord,’ he says, in a tiny, cracking voice. ‘What
is
that?’
    ‘It’s a gun,’ I say. ‘A weapon. Like a bow. Only instead of shooting arrows, it shoots fire.’
    ‘A
weapon
?’ Bakatin asks, disbelief heavy in his voice. He frowns deeply, trying to take it all in, but I have turned away, looking to Katerina. She is cowering beneath the cart, staring up at me, completely shocked, unable to believe what she has witnessed. Her eyes flick toward the
staritskii
then back to meet mine.
    ‘It’s okay,’ I say quietly. ‘It isn’t magic.’
    But she’s looking at me like she doesn’t believe that. After all, she’s seen the vivid flashes of light, the way it ate away at the men’s flesh like some awful, burning acid, and how it cut a neat hole through Krylenko’s head. No normal tool – no weapon
she’s
ever heard of – could do such a thing. No, this is big magic and I some kind of sorcerer.
    ‘
Katerina
…’
    But it’s no good. I’ve frightened her badly, and when I crouch down and make to gently touch her, she cries out and moves her whole self back, as far away as she can in that cramped space.
    I am tempted to jump back and change it all. I could make Bakatin stop the boat a mile downstream and sneak up on Krylenko and his men.
    Only I can’t. If I did, Hecht would want to know why. And then he’d find out about Katerina.
    How do I know that? How can I be sure? I don’t, and I can’t, and yet I’m absolutely certain of it. If I go back, he’ll start asking questions, whereas as it is …
    As it is, he thinks I’m with Ernst, travelling overland to Moscow to meet up with Prince Alexander – Nevsky – who is spending the winter months there. Hecht wants me to establish myself at Nevsky’s side and win his trust, so that I might subsequently undermine him. All this before the great battle on the frozen lake. Before the single event that will change this whole section of history.
    Katerina isn’t in this scheme, not in any shape or form. Hecht doesn’t know about Katerina, and if he did