Siberius (41 page)

             
Entering the clearing, Nick had no trouble finding the den. The rumbling noise the tank made had probably alerted the cats before he even left the gulag. A dozen of the beasts had congregated outside the den, awaiting his arrival. The biggest among them, the one that had dragged Talia from the gulag, stood guard at the mouth of the dark tunnel, while the rest fanned out to protect the hill. Nick had never seen such courage, if indeed animals could have courage. The mere sight of a tank often sent troops scrambling, yet the Smilodons held their ground.

             
He had aimed the first shell on the hillside away from the tunnel entrance. The ensuing explosion was huge and the cats scattered in all directions. Nick didn’t want to target the den itself, for he was sure Talia was inside and he didn’t want to risk burying her alive.

If she was still alive.

              The turret rotated to the right and Nick raised the gun mantlet a few degrees. He pulled away from the periscope, plugged his ears and depressed the foot pedal trigger. The tank lurched as another 76mm shell found its mark on the hillside, exploding in fire and snow and chunks of rock. He looked through the periscope and was shocked at what he saw next.

              Talia covered her head as the second explosion opened the cavern ceiling. Dust and soil mixed with snow as the day threw wide shafts of sunlight into the darkness. Cold wind rushed in and Talia found herself shielding her eyes from the brightness. She coughed and attempted to stand as the craggy ceiling split an irregular line from one end to the other, and small chunks of rock cascaded down.

Then, in one massive and catastrophic structural failure, the entire cavern roof disintegrated. The ensuing avalanche of earth and birch trees plummeted into the cave of corpses. With no where to run, Talia ducked and covered as tons of earth buried one of the most important archaeological finds of the century.

             
Through the periscope, Nick saw the entire hillside collapsed in on itself, revealing a massive cavern. A horrified expression twisted into his face. Was that the den? Had he just buried Talia alive? Without thought to his own safety, he unlocked and swung open the main hatch and climbed out. “Talia!” he screamed, but there was no answer.

Sliding down the hull to the snow, he called out again in desperation. A cloud of dust billowed from the hole, staining the air gray. “Talia.” Nick looked around the clearing and the woods beyond. The Smilodons were nowhere to be seen. The explosions had scared them off, Nick reasoned. In blind desperation, he ran toward the massive gouge in the earth.

Talia coughed as the cloud of rock dust swirled around her. She had no trouble negotiating the floor now, for it was solid with stone chunks and dirt. Half of the cavern dome was gone, too, exposing the inside to the unforgiving north-Asian climate. Looking back, Talia sighed at the loss of the buried corpses, but her sadness didn’t last long. The cave had been brought down by a series of explosions, and that meant one thing: there were people outside. Talia climbed up a jagged ridge of rock and left the cavern for good.

             
The destroyed cavern now resembled a rocky, earthen amphitheater, but as Nick ran toward it, he wasn’t thinking about plays or concerts or Bing Crosby. His thoughts were on one person, and to his utter shock, he saw her climbing from the rubble. “Talia!” he screamed, and she froze in her tracks.

             
“Nick?” she said in a disbelieving voice. “Nick!” They ran toward each other and embraced.

             
“Nick, Nick, Nick,” she repeated. It was all she could say.

             
“I love you,” he said, tearing his mouth away from hers long enough to speak. “Is that crazy or what?” She responded by kissing him deeper.

“
I love you,” she managed. They held each other tight, terrified to let go.

             
“I want you to come back to America with me,” he said. “I want to show you Cleveland and baseball and the Andrews Sisters.”

“
I want to meet Bing Crosby,” said Talia, sobbing.

“
Yeah,” said Nick between kisses. “Why the hell not?” They gazed at each other, tried to catch their breath. It was indeed a Hollywood ending and Nick was thankful for it.

The rapture of the moment was dashed by an all too familiar sound. The growl of monsters grabbed them and they both turned toward the tank. Clambering over the armored hull, the Smilodons sniffed and examined every inch of it. In their zeal for it all to be over, Talia Markovich and Nick Somerset had missed the opportunity to return to the one true safe haven within a hundred square miles. Without hesitation, Nick began pushing Talia through the snow in the opposite direction of the tank. The tree line stood less than 20 yards away, and he thought they could make it.

              “Come on,” he whispered, his eyes locked on the cats as they swarmed over the tank. If they had noticed him and Talia, they showed little interest. The tank was a bigger threat at the moment, and the cats were intent on figuring out the slumbering beast.

Nick and Talia turned to make a run for the forest. They managed three steps before another sound caught their attention. It was a roar, but unlike any roar either of them had ever heard. It sounded nothing like the roars of the Smilodons, for this roar shook the needles from the trees and sent roosting birds flying. Even the cats on the tank gave pause, hunkering down like cowering kittens.

              They scanned the trees, but neither Nick nor Talia saw anything that could command such a sound. It came again, deeper and more guttural than the last, a roar that challenged the very existence of nature.

“
What is it?” said Nick in a whisper, although he had no real reason to whisper other than fear.

Talia could not answer him, because she didn’t know. That lack of information lasted but a few seconds.

              As they searched the trees, they did not see the dirty white shape rise behind them. Raspy breathing betrayed its presence, and Nick and Talia turned to face it.

Perched atop the shattered crest of the hill, the alpha male loomed and stared with aged green eyes and a steaming maw. Ruffling in the breeze, its scraggly gray and white mane gave the already heavily-built beast a burly appearance. The alpha was as big as a horse, though no horse ever embodied brute savagery as this animal did. The mane stretched halfway down its forelimbs, themselves ending in paws as big as trash can lids. It was majestic, with symmetrical black marks across its face and muzzle. Most impressive of all, its curved saber-like tusks jutted down a full 20 inches, ending in lethal points.

              Nick and Talia watched the beast, too stunned to move. This time, Talia could not maintain scientific detachment, for the animal before her dwarfed any expectations she might have had about the patriarch of the pride. It was twice the size of the females, a sexual dimorphism gone awry. Through shear size alone, it was king of not only its own pride,
but of
Siberia itself
. The timidity of the pride atop the tank proved that beyond a doubt. Hunkered down, the rest of the cats watched the alpha, too intimidated, too frightened, to move.

             
Nick harbored no such feelings, and Talia was stunned to hear him yell, “Run!”

42

They took off for the wall of pines, a bold if not desperate move that startled the huge alpha. It roared again, an apparent signal to the rest of the pride. In an instant, the cats around the tank sprung to life and gave chase. The alpha slid down the hill, plowing the snow to the bottom before jumping into the fray. Its powerful limbs carried it in impressive bounds, covering huge swathes of ground in an instant. Nick and Talia dared not look back as they entered the forest. At once they saw that there were no trees easy enough to climb.

              “Keep going,” Nick said, and their pace quickened. The ground became rocky and treacherous, but they didn’t stop. Behind them, the alpha male blasted into the forest with the rest of the pride close behind. Its footfalls shook the ground with each step as it closed the gap.

             
Ahead, the terrified couple saw what looked like a break in the trees. Tall birch with clustered branches perfect for climbing towered a hundred feet. “There,” said Nick as they steered toward them. As they got closer, though, they could see that their trunks didn’t end at the ground, but at the bottom of a gully.

At a full run, Nick and Talia were now fast approaching a cliff.

“Jump!” said Nick, and they both launched themselves over the edge.

             
Talia crashed into the tree and slid down a few feet before landing in the crotch of a branch. The impact knocked the wind out of her and she struggled for a breath. Nick hit a different tree, but unlike the one Talia landed in, this one was dead and brittle. Grabbing an outstretched branch, Nick swung on it for a split second before it gave way with a resounding crack. He tumbled 10 feet until another branch broke his fall.

Looking up, he saw that he was now below the cliff edge, but still 30 feet above the gully floor.

“Talia, climb,” he yelled. Although she was higher than he was, she was still parallel with the edge of the cliff. “Climb, climb!”

             
Talia looked down and saw Nick a few trees away and some distance below her. When she looked back up, she yelped at the sight of the alpha male charging toward her. Scrambling up the trunk, she glanced over her shoulder to see the massive, graceful animal in a full skid. It’s weight plowed a trench into the the snow, sending an icy avalanche over the cliff edge as it came to a stop. Talia half expected it to jump on her, for the tree was close enough for it to do so without much effort. But the great cat was too big, and the trunk of the birch too narrow to latch on to. It huffed and snarled, then paced across the ledge, staring at her and roaring its impossible roar. She imagined that one swipe of it’s paw could tear the tree down.

             
“Are you okay?” Nick yelled up to her, and that caught the attention of the big male. It crouched, stared down at him, snorted.

             
“I’m okay,” she said. “What do we do?”

             
Before he could answer, the branch Nick was sitting on began to break. He looked for another limb to grab on to, but found none. Helpless, he watched as the dead wood succumbed to his weight. A muffled crack, and Nick crashed to the bottom of the gully.

             
“No,” Talia cried as she watched Nick hit the snow. The alpha male grunted, then dipped its head below the line of the cliff. Talia thought it was going to jump, but it didn’t. Instead, it paced along, looking for an easier route to the gully floor. “Get up, Nick,” she yelled, and then a chorus of roars forced her around. She was up high now, but she still felt vulnerable as the rest of the pride gathered at the ledge. They watched her, paced back and forth, knocked into one another in a frenzy. She turned back toward the gully bottom and her hopes swelled when Nick stood up.

             
“Talia,” he yelled as he looked up at her.

             
“I’m safe,” she yelled. “Nick, run.”

The alpha found a section of sloping cliff and began descending in a controlled fall. Nick looked around for another tree, but he didn’t like his options. The gully carved a downward grade, with the taller trees up higher than where he was now standing. Talia’s tree was uphill from him, too, and he knew he’d never make that. Downhill, there were fewer trees and all of them too small. But the gully narrowed and Nick thought he might find shelter there. He looked back at Talia up in the tree, and a sudden, sickening feeling overcame him. Like he would never see her again.
Sweetheart
, he thought. Sounds of the rock slide the alpha was creating as it descended brought Nick back to reality. He took off, letting the downward slope carry him.

             
Nick ran the length of the gully to its narrowest point and then was horrified to find it open up again in a wide, rocky box canyon. Tall limestone cliffs encrusted with ice and snow rose 40 feet above him, and he stopped at the farthest wall and looked up, helpless.

He had nowhere else to go.

              The sudden thud of muscle slamming into rock forced him around. Wedged in the gully’s bottleneck walls, the alpha male struggled and roared. Nick didn’t waste any time as he dug his boots into the cliff and began the climb of his life.

With a grunt and lunge, the beast freed itself and blasted into the enclosed canyon. It covered the distance between itself and the farthest wall in seconds, its mane brushing back like fire in a windstorm. Digging its paws into frozen ground, the big male catapulted toward its human prey.