like strong, gamey meat. Every mind had its own unique taste, that was one thing he had learned. And here, in the wetlands, it was not only animals: ever since he and the mudjhik had entered the marsh territories, Safran had been aware of the semi-sentience of the trees themselves, and the rivers, even the rain. There was a constant, vaguely uncomfortable feeling that everything around him knew he was there and did not welcome his presence. He ignored it, as did the mudjhik, which disdained trees and water as beneath its notice. Safran, through the mudjhik’s senses, probed the interior of the isba. The third presence was a giant, then. That too was unexpected.
For all its physical stillness, Safran sensed the mudjhik’s eagerness to rush forward and attack. It enjoyed human fear and death. It fed on it. Some of the mudjhik’s bloodlust leaked into Safran’s mind. It made him hungry to charge and stomp and crush. He fought to keep the urge in check. He hadn’t anticipated the presence of the giant. It could be done, of course, but the position was not without risk. It needed thought.
His target was Lom. Chazia had been clear on that. And the Shaumian woman, if he found her there. There had been no mention of others, human or giant, but the strategic purpose of his mission was to draw a line. No loose ends. No continuation of the story. What that meant was without doubt. Leave none alive.
Mentally he checked through his equipment: a heavy hunting knife; two incendiary grenades; the revolver that Chazia had given him (a brand new model, the first production batch, a double-action Sepora loaded with .44 magnum high-velocity hunting rounds, power that would stop a bear mid-charge). The Sepora should be enough to handle the giant. And then there was the Exter-Vulikh, a stocky and wide-muzzled sub-machine gun with a yew stock, modified to take hundred-round drum magazines, of which he carried four.
The Vlast employed killers who prided themselves on the precision and refinement of their technique: they affected the exactitude of assassins, with high-velocity long-range hunting rifles and probing needle blades. But Safran was not one of those. He preferred brutally decisive weapons, muscular weapons that did serious, dramatic damage. Handling the Exter-Vulikh gave him powerful gut feelings of pleasure. He liked the weight and heft of it, the fear it provoked, and the noise and mess it made. Just thinking about using it stirred a feeling in his belly like hunger. Desire. And with the mudjhik, it was even better: the strength of the mudjhik was his strength, its power his power. The fear it caused was fear of him. Safran loved the mudjhik, with its barrel head and reddish brown stone-hard flesh. It was the colour of rust and dried blood, but it could glow like warm terracotta in the evening sun.
Years of training and long experience had built the connection between Safran and his mudjhik, until their minds were so closely intermixed there was no longer a clear distinction between them. Most mudjhiks passed from handler to handler and brought traces – stains – of their previous relationships with them, including the memories of deaths, fears, failures, human aging; but Safran’s had been a virgin, the last of them. Another reason to love it. But he feared it, too. Sometimes he dreamed it was pursuing him. In his dreams he tried to run and hide. In empty streets it followed him. Crashing through walls. Pulling down houses. Wherever he went it found him. In one dream he took refuge inside the Lodka itself, and the mudjhik was beating on the ten-foot-thick walls of stone, trying to break through. The boom-boom-boom of its heavy blows made the ground he stood on shake and tremble. He knew the mudjhik would never stop. Each blow chipped a fragment of the wall away. Hairline fractures opened and spread through the immense walls.
A mudjhik was tireless. If the man ran, the mudjhik would follow. Relentless and for ever. It was only a matter of time. There was no escape.
‘You’ll go alone,’ Chazia had said. ‘Travel light. Move fast. It’ll be better.’
The march had taken longer than expected. The mudjhik kept sinking into the soft ground and floundering in streams and shallow pools. Safran had become confused about direction, distance, time. The territory seemed larger than was possible. A day’s travel seemed to bring them no nearer the target. As time passed, Safran had felt his mind merging