Akrum-as-a-wolf waited for Naktim to stretch on his back, hugging his neck. This wasn't the most comfortable riding position, but it looked more real than in the fairy tales where lovers rode wolves side-saddle, cuddling each-other. Akrum's long legs straightened, lifting Naktim like a feather.
Meanwhile, Yasuwa climbed unsteadily to all fours, shaking his head to break hold of whatever poison Akrum injected in his veins. Every exposed patch of his already ruddy skin flushed: neck, ears, cheeks. His mouth worked through a foaming spittle before opening in a furious scream. He launched himself at the wolf.
Akrum snarled, showing his white fangs, and danced away. Naktim held fast. The wolf's eyes blazed another threat at Yasuwa, before he sprung into the night. He ran slower at first, ears pricked for any sign of his rider's distress. Then his gait widened, but his paws landed heavier with the load on his back.
The thunderous falls of the horse's hooves shook the ground. They echoed off the horizon. Yasuwa's people were gaining on the fugitives. The pursuers' torches streamed orange, the tidal wave of the fire ocean, about to sweep Akrum and Naktim under. The Yamnaya ululated the moment they spotted their prey on the open steppe. You're finished, wolf, they gloated, we'll box you.
"Leave me," Naktim yelled. She released her grip on Akrum's neck and would have rolled through the dust, if he didn't skid to a stop, almost tumbling head over heels. He took on his human shape and sat up, rolling tongue over his teeth to check for blood, then pushed to his feet.
"Hide in the Shrine of the Roots," Akrum commanded. Without waiting for her answer, he turned to the Yamnaya. The staff appeared in his hand out of the thin air. It looked weird next to his body covered in charcoal symbols, head to toe... and nothing else. Volya didn't realize that his clothes fell off when he transformed. But it made sense.
Naktim, also in the buff, grabbed Akrum's forearm to pull him along with her. "Hurry!"
He didn't budge. His eyes glazed over, as if he couldn't see anything but the approaching Yamnaya.
Naktim let go of him and staggered a couple of steps back.
"You are a shaman," she whispered in wonder, before limping away.
The stars went out as if on command in the graying skies. The pre-dawn light produced a ray of pale green, the forerunner of sunrise. The lead horses were only two hundred yards from Akrum when he came back to life to start a ritual dance. Volya realized that this was the precise moment that Anabelle had witnessed.
This was when Akrum created the first centaurs in the world.
Volya strained his eyes to remember every movement of Akrum's legs and torso, every twist of his head, and every blazing sign that Akrum inscribed in the air to curse the Yamnaya. He had to remember everything.
If Anabelle hadn't given out the spoiler that Akrum's curse had worked, Volya would have chewed his lips in suspense. The horses bore on Akrum, abreast, neighing in primal exaltation of the gallop. Their hooves rose and fell in a terrible rhythm, shattering the world.
Yasuwa, not worse for wear, loomed the largest among the men, with a cruel grin on his lips.
But Volya couldn't look at the approaching doom. He had to look at Akrum.
The horsehair whips hissed through the air, ready to latch onto their dancing prey from all sides.
Akrum winced at their first sting, red welts rising on his skin. He swayed on his feet, but miraculously kept his footing. The whips couldn't snarl him. The Yamnaya jeered at their inexplicable failure. Akrum stabbed the ground with his staff. It connected, with sparks flying as if it was flint hitting on metal, not wood sinking into dirt.
The earth exploded from under the bare soles of his feet into a shower of glowing coals. The ground shook. Akrum set his legs wider apart to weather the storm he had unleashed, scowling like a feral beast. His yellow eyes glared with hatred from under the mass of hair and furrowed brow. No wonder Anabelle was terrified.
A cry went up in the Yamnaya's ranks, deafening Volya, despite the padding of centuries between him and this moment of dark wonder.
Akrum had flowed to and from his wolf form like water. Naktim had convulsed during her transformations.
The curse went against the will of both the humans and the horses, making them scream in protest, violated. From the waist down, the riders sunk into the horses, while the horses' heads arched back in the agony of terror, tore apart, exposing bones and bleeding meat. Mind and flesh were breaking.
Volya glanced at Akrum. Pity that rose in his heart, tempered by the modernity, didn't flicker in the ancient man's flint-sharp eyes. Not even a drop.
Yasuwa dove to the side, every muscle coiled, then he sprung out of the fusing horse, to the max, arms flapping through the air.
His strength was so great, that a bleeding stitch ripped the place of joining. For a second, it looked like he'd free his bones from the flesh trap... that his hips would tear away, meat and sinew overcoming the binding, but no. He rolled his horse to the ground instead... No, not the horse. No longer he was a man and his horse. They were one.
Yasuwa had already become a centaur, the first centaur that lived. As a centaur, he rolled on the ground, kicking his legs and wailed against the violation. One by one, his companions hurtled themselves onto the grass too, their limbs refusing commands from their brain. They shrieked in a helpless mockery of labor.
Once the living bodies of all his foes clashed, ground away and remolded for good, as he had ordered, Akrum had closed his eyes. The jowls worked under the skin. If he was expecting retribution, none came from the twisted forms or from his gods.
However, more hoof beats rang over the steppe in the distance. The lesser riders, those who weren't among Yasuwa's retainers, were catching up.
Akrum flowed back into the wolf. He whirled away from the miserable scene and ran low to the ground. He streamed through the night like an arrow tipped by his nose and fletched by his tail.
Volya followed his form until the vision blurred.
***
He gasped. He was back on the Buyan Isle, under the oak tree.
Sangha's face loomed over him, her fingers on his neck, counting his racing heartbeats.
"You'll put on the heart-rate monitor the moment we return to the camp. Keep it on at all times." Her tone brooked no objections.
"I must remember," Volya croaked through bluish lips. It was a non sequitur, but also it wasn't. "I must see this again."
"Not today." She put the bottle of his protein tonic to his lips.
The taste didn't improve any, but he suckled gratefully. After a few thirsty gulps, he wiped his lips. "Okay. I will. You're right."
Sangha gawked—surely, he hadn't been that difficult? Then again, he kind of argued with her every step of the way. Guilt washed over him, making the next thing even harder to say. "I still have to conceal the island, Dr. Sangha. I think it would show up as clouds on the satellite imagery, but if Dr. Gatchik shows up in person, we're screwed."
"If Dr. Gatchik shows up—" Sangha started, obviously intending to tell him that the adults would deal with it.
Another bribe wouldn't work here. Gatchik would never turn his back on a brand-new island cloaked in mist. It was one thing to let some crazy foreigners survey a patch of empty steppe to their heart's content, but a major alteration in landscape would get him excited. He was a scientist too. He would want in on the discovery.
Volya opened his mouth to offer his objections, but then something marvelous happened. Sangha's brows creased under his stare. Instead of putting him down as a boy who knew nothing, she paused for a moment. "Do you understand that you have limits, Volya?"
It was an honest question, so he answered it honestly. "Yes. I also know that I'm stronger here, on the island. But you're right. I need a heart monitor and I need someone to watch over me."
She took in a huge gulp of air, as if preparing for a dive. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but very well, hide the island after we return to the other shore."
Mad laughter burst out of him. It probably wasn't winning Sangha to his cause, but he couldn't help it. It was too funny. Too effing funny that they hadn't clued in yet that on his island, he didn't need their permission for anything.
On the contrary, they needed his permission.