Faithful Ruslan (24 page)

He did succeed in flooring his stocky opponent, but the man had time to swivel and meet Ruslan’s onslaught with a shoulder that was as hard as mahogany. It was a mistake to try biting that shoulder, but he had already started to get mad—if only the man would at least shout! Silently and deliberately the squat man freed both hands and gripped Ruslan by the neck. Everything around him became blurred and a chill began spreading through his body. Helplessly scrabbling with his claws at the squat man’s chest, he fought and strained to tauten the muscles in his neck, as oblivious to the blows on his back as if it had turned to wood. He felt nothing until a heavy, solid object with a sharp edge struck him on the forehead between the eyes. As it hit him, though, the
backpack frame must also have hit his adversary’s fingers, because the man’s grip relaxed, enabling Ruslan to wrench himself free, gulp down some air and leap back toward the wall of the bar. The woman in the flowered dress was no longer there.

The column had disintegrated and turned into sheer chaos, into a nightmarish shrieking mob gathered on the far side of the street, from whence Ruslan could still hear the voices of three or four dogs. Yes, there were now only three or four, headed by Baikal. He was a good fighter, Baikal, levelheaded, brave and strong, who never panicked, took a long time to tire and was able to infect others with his calmness—but if only Djulbars had been there! They might all have fallen in the struggle, but they would have tamed the flock.

The three men, who were far from beaten yet, were advancing again. The squat man was on his feet once more, calm and silent, not even holding his shoulder—and Ruslan realized that the situation was serious.

A fourth man had appeared from somewhere and was now moving forward ahead of the others. He was wearing an army tunic, army breeches and boots, and he had a short, straw-blond forelock. From the way he walked, his hands spread wide to grasp Ruslan’s collar, and from the way he talked—with a sibilant whistle in his voice as he called out in an affectionate but authoritative tone: “Here, good dog, come to me, good dog”—Ruslan guessed that the man had been trained to handle dogs. The old Ruslan would probably have obeyed this soldier, but not the Ruslan who had taken poison from the hand of his treacherous master. A master who was in league with the prisoners was an enemy many times more dangerous than the prisoners themselves.

Out of the corner of his eye Ruslan saw Dick, sneaking
away behind a man’s back, between another person’s legs, limping across the street toward a gateway. He was holding one bloodstained forepaw off the ground. Infuriated, he would turn and lunge at his tormentors, but each time he forgot about his paw and fell whimpering to the ground. Several people were beating the blind Asa as she cowered helplessly against a fence—surely she had not been fighting, too? The soldier could see all this—and yet he could still say, “Come here, good dog!”

Only at the very last instant did the soldier give up his attempt to cajole Ruslan. As he flung up his elbow in defense, Ruslan sank his teeth into it and brought the man crashing down into the dust. The soldier squirmed and groaned, feebly attempting to push the dog away with his other hand; he would probably have given in had he not been surrounded by his companions, who were kicking Ruslan in the ribs, pulling at his tail and ears. Ruslan hung on and would not let go of the man’s elbow, although he now realized that it was useless. He was unlikely to intimidate them even if he bit through the soldier’s bone: the only effective move was to get one of them by the throat. Seizing a moment when the other men seemed to hesitate, Ruslan suddenly leaped away from the soldier in order to catch his breath and size up the situation.

His despair at seeing Alma escape through the gap in the fence was only slightly relieved by the fact that her mongrel companion managed to make a worthier exit, taking a hefty bite at the leg of a prisoner who was whacking him with a fence post. If only that white-eyed mutt had been properly trained, he would have known it was useless to go for a man’s leg when he had a stick in his hand.

Where the crowd was thinner, Ruslan caught sight of
Baikal, trying to counterattack against two men who had chased him up a side street and were roaring with laughter as each tried to jab a fence post into Baikal’s mouth. That was it: Ruslan was alone. He alone must now reassemble this whole maddened, yelling, disobedient herd of lunatics, and even though he had lost all hope of escorting them all the way to the camp, at least he must hold them here until the masters arrived—surely they must be coming soon!

His rear was protected by the wall of the bar. No need to worry about the three men leaning on the railing; they had not changed their pose the whole time, and were simply watching the affray with drunken amazement. Nor was there anything to fear from the woman leaning on her spade behind the fence and frowning sorrowfully all over her brown, sunburned face. Most dangerous of all was the soldier, who was now sitting up in the dust, pressing his bitten elbow to his stomach. That man obviously knew something about the Service and might, filthy traitor that he was, encourage the others and instruct them in the proper tactics, but fortunately he seemed too concerned with his wound. There remained the low fence, which he could jump over in case of need, elude pursuit and return to the attack from another direction. That was his only hope. Meanwhile the crowd had formed into a semicircle and was closing in on the lone Ruslan—a crowd of angry faces, each person clutching either a stick or a heavy piece of luggage.

He growled—angrily, menacingly, savagely, to show that he was in no mood to joke but ready to kill or to die himself—and advanced on them, baring his quivering fangs. They stopped, but did not retreat. No, he had not managed to intimidate them. Again and again he made rushes, first at one, then at another, and they dodged him, held up
their packs like a wall, then lunged at him from the side and jabbed him in the flanks with fence posts, or purposely exposed themselves to his attack, taunting him with their proximity, in order to smother him with a canvas jacket or a raincoat. He knew that they were purposely wearing him out while the others, behind their backs, could run away in all directions.

He must get to grips with at least one of them and give him a proper trouncing. This was what he had been taught by the masters, by the Instructor and by the men in gray overalls: better to go for one man properly than to make halfhearted attacks on four or five. By now, though, he was seeing the world through a yellow film: the grass and the dust were yellow, the blue afternoon sky was yellow, as were the men’s faces and his own blood trickling from the cut on his forehead—and in this state he had no more dangerous enemy than himself. He picked out the boy in rubber-soled shoes, who for some reason angered him more than any of them, although he was standing well out of the way and only watching. Perhaps, in fact, he chose him for the very reason that an attack on this boy would act as more of a shock to the others and restrain them for longer. When two men made a grab at him, Ruslan outwitted them, slipped between their legs and hurled himself at his victim.

Ruslan leaped, his long body fully stretched, his bare-fanged, bloodstained muzzle thrusting ahead with ears flattened. But even while he was in the air he sensed that he was going to miss his target. Because he could now only see with one eye, the other being covered with blood, he had misjudged the distance and jumped too soon. The boy gave a wild, inhuman shriek, and an instantaneous, purely animal instinct made him double up his body. Ruslan brushed him
with his stomach, somersaulted over his head and crashed to the ground. Immediately, before he had time to get up, he was thumped on the head by two fence posts, and another man, running up unseen, took a swing with all his strength and brought down a heavy trunk with metal-reinforced corners onto Ruslan’s back.

After a blow like that, what power could lift a stricken animal to his feet? Fear of being hit again? But they had stopped hitting him, and he sensed that if he stayed lying down they would not touch him again. The urge to protect his young would have made him get up, but Ruslan had no offspring and he had never known that feeling. He did, however, know another feeling, one that had been taught to him by man: duty—which we, who hardly know the meaning of the word ourselves, had imprinted on his consciousness—and it was duty that obliged Ruslan to raise himself up.

His mouth was full of dust. Nearly choking, he spat it out, then with an incredible effort straightened out his forelegs and sat up. He could do no more, and it was not this fact in itself that horrified him, but the thought that the Enemy might guess that he was helpless. They had moved in quite close now, near enough for him to get at them, but he did not move and only shook his head, growling hoarsely.

“Leave the poor devil alone, boys; don’t tease him anymore,” said the soldier. He was still sitting on the ground, tearing at his sleeve and binding up his elbow. “He’s only doing his duty.”

“Who’s teasing him?” said the boy indignantly. “You call
that
doing his duty? Filthy beast!”

“He is nothing of the sort,” said the soldier. “That’s what he was trained to do, so he does it. If only everyone did their duty half as well. You and I can learn a lesson from him.” He
grinned though wincing with pain. “And I wouldn’t mind having a dog like that myself.”

“But he’s just attacked you …”

“That’s exactly why I’d like to have him. Don’t go near him! You’re not his master.”

The soldier began tying his torn sleeve into a knot with the aid of his teeth. The boy came up to him.

“Can I help you? They’ve called for a truck. There are about twenty people wounded.”

“Well, if a truck’s on the way someone will help me anyway, so you needn’t bother. As for the number of people wounded, my friend, you don’t go around broadcasting it to all and sundry. You just say: ‘Casualties were sustained.’ ”

His head drooping, Ruslan kept himself in a sitting position by exerting all his strength on his forepaws. Now and again he gave a growl to remind people that he had not capitulated, but he could not understand what was holding them back—didn’t they realize that he could not get up?

This was how the Shabby Man found Ruslan: sitting in the dust, bloodstained, wretched yet terrible. His flanks rose and fell, steaming. His hind legs were splayed out on either side in such an absurd, unnatural attitude, and his spine was bent in such an odd curve that it convinced the Shabby Man that the dog’s backbone must be broken. In this the Shabby Man was wrong, and the mistake was to prove fatal for Ruslan.

“What did you have to break his back for?” asked the Shabby Man. “You didn’t need to do that. Ah, you young people—love a fight, don’t you? And it has to be to the death.”

“Yes, they did get a bit excited,” said the soldier.

“You can’t talk!” said the boy to the Shabby Man, his indignation flaring up again. “You didn’t see what happened!”

“No matter what happened,” said the Shabby Man, “I know for sure that you didn’t have to smash that dog’s spine.”

“We both know that,” said the soldier.

As the Shabby Man approached Ruslan, wanting to stroke him, that terrible head was raised, the lips were curled back and the teeth bared. Usually this was sufficient warning to induce a human to understand and retreat; besides, the Shabby Man needed reminding that never for one moment had he ever been Ruslan’s master.

The Shabby Man needed no such reminder. He stepped back into the ranks as quickly as he could—or rather, into the place where the ranks had once been.

“I see you haven’t forgotten,” said the soldier with a grin. “You remember the rules, don’t you? Only one other thing—hands behind your back!”

The Shabby Man did not answer him.

The boy, looking sad and thoughtful, also seemed to understand the situation.

“Well, what’s to be done with him?” he asked, glancing around in perplexity. “We can’t just leave him like this. He must be taken to a vet.”

“You’re joking,” said the Shabby Man. “What vet can mend a broken spine?”

“This is a job for the weight lifter,” said the soldier. “Hey, weight lifter!” he called out to the squat man. “You still feeling mad at this dog? Get a spade and finish him off. It’s got to be done, see? Orders are orders.”

The squat man gave Ruslan a swift glance from his puffy little eyes and walked over to the fence. At once the woman obediently handed him her spade and turned away, but through the big holes that had been torn in her fence she could still see everything that was happening.

The squat man turned the spade this way and that. It looked like a toy in his huge, muscular hands, but he had no doubt never had to kill before; he was clearly unwilling, and not sure how to do it.

“Why must it be done like that?” asked the boy. “Doesn’t anyone here have a gun?”

“No,” said the Shabby Man. “No one in this town ever had a gun. It was forbidden.”

The crowd made way for the squat man. Ruslan was no longer growling and had hung his head again. He saw the legs in their dusty boots planted wide, the shadow of the spade flickered past him as it was raised, and suddenly Ruslan was seized with fury—this time, though, the fury was his own, and not a response bred by human conditioning. He knew that there was no one to restrain him now, and he knew that he was beaten. But an animal will always fight for its life to the bitter end; no animal ever licks the boots of his executioner. Thrusting out his head, Ruslan lunged toward the spade and caught the iron in his teeth.

Although the pain was terrible, he had the satisfaction of seeing the squat man’s face turn pale, his eyes fill with terror and confusion.

“Hey, he’s a tough one!” said the squat man, wrenching the spade free and smiling guiltily—no doubt in the same way that he smiled when one of his weight-lifting exercises failed at the first attempt. “What the hell am I to do with him?”

“Well, whatever you’re going to do—do it,” said the Shabby Man. “You’ve got to finish him off. He can’t live—he’s a goner.”

Flushing red in the face, the squat man raised the spade again. He approached from Ruslan’s blind side, and let out
a hoarse grunt as he brought the spade down in a slantwise blow. Turning his head at the sound of the grunt, Ruslan just caught sight of the flashing metal—dull and cold, like the bottom of an aluminum feeding bowl that has been licked clean.…