SNAFU: Hunters

“Only a few have been detected so far, that’s true, but who’s to say there won’t be more? We have no way of knowing how many will show up each winter.”

“I know.”

Kravchenko sighed. “Why did Moscow send us a new detachment commander who has no experience in these operations? It’s bad enough we’re undermanned.”

“We have our orders.”

“Understood, Comrade Lieutenant. Did the major at least say something about the planes that were requested?”

“No, and I wouldn’t count on any either. Supporting our comrades fighting at Stalingrad is Moscow’s top priority right now.”

They returned to the forest. The dead villagers were left where they lay. Others would come later to dispose of them. The hamlet itself would be abandoned. No one would want to live here now.

Three soldiers in a nearby gully held the team’s horses, the animals’ foggy breath rising from frosted muzzles. Much of Siberia was still primordial wilderness, impassable for motorized transport. These beasts were small, shaggy Yakutians, a hardy breed that thrived in this brutal climate and subsisted largely on wild grass.

The team slung weapons, saddled up, and rode off in the direction from which the ghouls had come. Tracks led down the bank and over the flat, slate surface of the frozen river, swept by a whistling southwest breeze. This time of year the ice was thick enough to easily support horsemen. Upon reaching the opposite bank they plunged into the forest.

Okhchen scouted ahead, his dark, almond-shaped eyes picking out signs of the ghouls’ passage – broken twigs, scuffed lichen, footprints in the snow. But no droppings. Ghouls left no excrement. The team took care to ride single file alongside the trail, not over it, so as not to obliterate any clues. It was easy to follow: their quarry had made no effort to conceal it.

Zakharov considered himself lucky to be assigned to Spetsgruppa X. The nature of its operations necessitated giving commanders in the field more freedom of initiative than was usual in the Red Army. This comparative independence had increased with the recent demotion of the Communist Party political commissars. Reduced to an advisory role, they no longer held dual command with military officers.

Keeping one’s command still depended on results though. Failure was never an option in the USSR. Even if you were a marshal it could mean a sentence to a penal battalion or the Gulag, the NKVD’s network of prisons and forced-labor camps. Or a firing squad.

Not that results guaranteed safety. Thousands had been imprisoned or shot during the purges. To meet the quotas of enemies demanded by Stalin’s insatiable paranoia the secret police could arrest anyone for any reason – or no reason at all. Arbitrary terror maintained his iron rule.

Every division had an NKVD Special Department attached. Fortunately the head of this unit in Spetsgruppa X was an alcoholic whose wife had an eye for bourgeois luxuries. The commanding general prudently supplied plenty of vodka and furs to ensure glowing weekly reports.

The team followed the tracks through the bleak taiga. Larches stood gray and skeletal, having shed their needles last autumn. The forest floor had little underbrush, tufts of brown grass poking up through the snow in clearings. Siberia was not only very cold, but also very dry. Many parts actually received little snowfall, although what snow did fall would remain on the ground for at least six months out of the year. The only signs of humanity were small deadfall traps; winter was the hunting season for sable.

This time of year the days were very short, a blue twilight only lasting about four hours. The golden sun did not come up until late morning and struggled to rise just above the horizon before setting again by mid-afternoon.

At one point the team heard a long wail far in the distance. The shrill cry resembled nothing uttered by human or animal. They heard it again from time to time, coming from different directions. The soldiers exchanged anxious, knowing looks.

“Ghouls,” Kravchenko muttered.

Zakharov raised his hand to signal a halt. He glanced around at the trees. One nearly fifty meters tall towered above the rest. Handing his binoculars to Okhchen, he said, “Get up there and see if you can locate them.”

Okhchen strapped spikes to his boots and shinnied up the trunk until he could reach the lowest branches, then climbed up through the boughs. Sitting in a crook near the top, he slowly scanned in all directions before quickly clambering back down.

“Comrade Lieutenant, twelve are two kilometers northeast moving down the trail towards us,” he said. “Ten more are a kilometer and a half southwest, following us and coming fast. The second group is probably the pack that attacked the hamlet. They must have discovered our tracks.”

“They’re hunting us now,” said Zakharov. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “We could dig in and summon the other teams.”