Free. I have to get free.
Ignoring the pain in my feet, I lean over further, bring my bound wrists to my mouth and tear at the scarf with my teeth—threads ripping and the knot loosening until finally I'm free. I push up to standing, but someone grabs me. Katyenka.
"You must to stay," she says. "You must, Gwenechka.”
"No!”
I rip my arm away and just barely slide out of her grasp when someone grabs her from behind?—
Callahan.
"Go, Gwenna!” he cries, his massive form enveloping her tiny one. “Run!”
I nod, scramble, my bleeding feet slipping for purchase on the dried flowers and the worn tiles. I run towards the back of the church, the only way I can think to go, hopefully towards that hidden staircase, but something catches me across the chest.
Sveta, her long arm extended, clotheslines me as I sprint. I slip and fall—hard, on my wrist and tailbone—and cry out in even as she yanks me to my feet by the front of my dress. The smile is gone from her face now, replaced with something closer to frenzy. She's saying something, fast and angry-sounding, and for some reason I try to bargain one last time.
"Please," I say, "please, just?—"
It's too late. Something clocks her across the head. A bell guard, I recognize.
It's Kai.
"Fuck you," he says to her, then pivots to look at me. "Gwenna?—”
“I’m okay,” I say. “It's okay, just?—"
A flash of blade interrupts me, knocking into Kai's weapon and almost throwing it from his hand, but he braces just in time, beats it back, and slashes furiously at the attacker, a burning look in his eye I've never seen before.
"Lanz," Callahan yells, pulling a struggling Katyenka down the center aisle. "Cover her."
I swivel my head across the nave just in time to see Lanzleap,from what seems like fifteen feet away, clearing the altar entirely and landing in a crouch.
"Duck!” he screams.
And I do, moving before I've even registered what he says. He snaps his arm out and the tip of his blade hits something. Someone. A spatter of blood hits the tiles beside me.
I glance up, the blades clashing above me, and decide to crawl, crawl to the side, hope that one of them will follow me and fine me. I can't see them, can't make anything out clearly in the chaos until I'm behind the throne, and I rise, just barely.
Lanz has got a Russian knocked to the ground, a streaming gash pouring from his cheek. The guy swears mightily and thrusts upward, but Lanz punches with his sword-arm and knocks the blade clean out, sending it skittering across the floor and under the skirts of the terrified-looking women, who run to the edge of the church, away from view. A few feet away, Callahan has Katyenka and Dasha in a pew, lashing their wrists together with what looks like their hair ribbons, yelling something to Kai, who's just on the other side of the altar, fighting off two at once—shing, shing, crack.
And Kingston. Kingston is taking Moroslav. Kingston’s face is streaming with blood, a big ugly cut above his eyebrow pouring into his eye, as he fights forward, beating ceaselessly at his blade. He cuts over and over, high and fast, forcing Moroslav’s blade up just in time to thrust for his side.
But Moroslav parries. Barely.
The wound is bleeding worse, there’s no way Kingston can see, but it’s like he doesn’t need to. Moroslav drops his blade, a quick disengage, but Kingston surges, beating it away with a crack of steel on steel, sending Moroslav stumbling back into the grand iconostasis. It rumbles with the impact, the saints and Virgin shaking, as Kingston closes the distance. With a tight circle of his blade, he parries away Moroslav’s weapon, goes for a lunge,missesas Moroslav ducks away.
Clang.My gaze snaps across the room—to Kai, smacking away one weapon with his own before slamming the pommel into his attacker’s head. Lightning-quick, he spins to the second andkickshim, right in the chest, sending him backwards and spinning over a pew, landing somewhere out of sight with a sickening crunch.
I wince, close my eyes. And when I open them?—
“No,dorogaya.” Father Maksim’s handsome face looms over me. “You must stay. You must?—”
“No!” I spin, both hands up, and shove with everything I have left. Father Maksim stumbles, slides,slips, his foot catching a clump of dried flowers and skating over a pool of blood.
My blood.
It’s like slow motion as he falls, arms reaching for nothing, long black robes billowing. And then, all at once?—
