Ykraina

CONTENTS

Part 1 Dniester      3

Part 2 Don      194

Part 3 Dnipro   400

DNIESTER

Part One

I

Epileptic Warning: enter at own risk

You heard it before you saw it – that creaky sign at the mercy of the ghost wind that blew through the abandoned industrial park on the outskirts of Odesa. Krark-Krark-Krark... as it dangled above a fireproof door. Ignored by everyone. Including the four people who arrived at midnight and skipped the queue of western wannabes desperate to get past the gatekeeper from hell.

What were you saying? Lilya lost track of the conversation when she began counting how many goons were phoning Arkady to let him know she had arrived with two randoms and her brother. The Klub was on the bucket list for foreign media crews heading to Chornobyl. By the time she escorted them to the deadland most were able to deconstruct the mythic conceit. But the two Australians looked dangerously out of their depth.

Kulak the cage-fighter was quickest to the draw despite several broken fingers, followed by Vadym a veteran from Azov, third came Natasha the new girl behind the bar, keen to impress the boss...

Desire has like six categories, Roxi obliged in that cocky aussie way that reduced everything to one syllable, famepowermoneylovesex.

Oleksii was using his covid mask to defog his glasses. He always managed to look awkward and tonight the new puffer jacket was causing him to sweat more than normal. That’s only five, he said.

Lilya reminded herself to be more sympathetic but faking gratitude was excruciating. Although not as excruciating as translating Australian into English. Apart from her brother, she couldn’t think of anyone who could manage it let alone find meaning in the mangling.

Punching above their weight, a couple of cosplay Cossacks dreaming about the glory days refused to be outgunned...

Beauty is the sixth, pitched Lars, that’s a no-brainer, mate.

Lars – what to make of the other Australian?

If Roxi was a surfie chic channeling gender fluidity in designer beachwear teamed with flipflops in contradiction of the strict dress code and regardless of it being winter in Odesa; Lars was a beachbum dressed in mismatched stuff that he’d slept in for a week; greasy blond mane loosely tethered to maintain a certain shiftless vibe. Wildlife photographer and intrepid backpacker – he was probably considered cultured by optimistic Australian standards.

A trio of neo-nazis conceded defeat and retreated to the bar...

Oleksii replaced his glasses and made it obvious by his constant scrolling that he wished to be someplace else. Lilya admonished herself for not being more grateful. Her sudden appearance in his shabby flat caused him to forget how much he hated this - how did he put it? - industrial black hole on the point of gravitational collapse. He was pretending to check his messages to avoid eye-contact with Vadym who was sure to ask after Svetlana. Everyone expected the lovebirds to marry after they graduated from university but Vadym followed his brother to Donbas. Eight years later he was still there. Sevtlana joined the army for a few years then dropped out.

What about happiness? suggested Oleksii, pocketing his covid mask.

A troika of influencers conceded defeat and retreated to TikTok...

Happiness? Lilya stopped counting when she spotted Dmytro the bare-chested DJ larping sharovary reaching for his phone. With inevitable cinematic grace she slid into the red velvet banquette reserved for her and her entourage, acutely aware that every camera would immortalise the act. "What would you know about Happiness?"

Lars picked up on the snark and offered to buy the first round. He’d already read the room, checked out the talent, and noted the lack of table service. Who wants what poison - my shout?

Brandishing a corporate credit card like a light-sabre cutting through holographic BS, Lars had lost count of how many toxic watering-holes he’d lived to brag about, but this killbox divaricated by nine coigns of vantage aligned to nine circles of surveillance hell streaming scattershots of tortured light in a godless dance of death left the rest for dead. Taking the shortest route to the bar, he copped an elbow to the ribs, another to the kidneys, and a jab below the belt from a trifecta of skinheads tattooed in swastikas who stepped into his path. Deliberately. To show there were no hard feelings the skinheads offered to buy him a drink. No not being an option, Lars opted for top shelf because he was feeling reckless with other people’s money and some framelagging shit warning him that he’d been there, done that, even though he knew he hadn’t.

The hot barmaid resembled a supermodel moonlighting as a stripper. Drinks on the house for Lilya’s table. I’m Natasha and I’ll be looking after you tonight. Welcome to Ukraine.

II

A grey owl swooped out of the forest and swept low toward six horsemen galloping across the grassland of Triptolemus which provided a fertile hunting ground for nocturnal predators. Sacred sentinel? Or evil omen? The riders searched for a sign but the ghost bird swung wide over the steppe before vanishing into their slipstream.

All would have been familiar with the ancient tale of Triptolemus who was called upon to scatter seed where it would grow best. Triptolemus chose the land of shapeshifting wolves known as Neuri as the place best suited to bring agriculture to the world and in the process was almost slain by Lyncus a Scythian warlord who desired the seed for himself. But Lyncus was transformed into a lynx by the goddess Demeter searching for the Gate to Hell in a desperate bid to rescue her daughter from the clutches of Hades. And the steppe was transformed into a wheatfield.

Many still held the tale to be true and Norse outlaws used the werewolf legend to advantage when they made winter camp in the forest of silver birches where every totemic tree was possessed of the soul of an ancestor.

After pausing to refresh their horses at the curling stream, the fifth horseman lagged a little behind the others, gripping his own reins plus those of the riderless sixth steed as if his life depended on it, not only because it now carried a precious carpet of Ghiordian provenance but because of what the precious cargo hid.

Woodsmoke alerted the riders to the fact they would soon stumble upon Norse outlaws. Warning signs were all around them. The shoom of the Pagan god of the wood mourning the heroes of the steppe, the sickly croak of vodniks, and the fear of being stalked by something unseen. Fears multiplied as fears do, so it came as a relief when a Norse wolf stepped out of the withering darkness wielding a Hrunting blade. A brief frisson, then a second man-wolf emerged, this one flashing a bludgeon spiked with iron nails that bristled like a ferrous hedgehog caught in strings of moonlight. The third came with twin battle axes glinting, wolfish features flecktarned by bronzy bracken to lessen the shock when he stretched upwards of six feet and growled low in his throat.

Steeling himself, the lead horseman squared his round shoulders, ran his tongue over dry lips, and addressed the blade-wielder. Greetings, Viking, he larded in greasy tones, desperate to get the sordid business done, steadying the black stallion sensing danger behind every totemic trunk, I come in friendship.

So, tell me, friend, mocked the other, what draws you into a forest of shapeshifting wolves without an army at your back?

I seek the one called Skarsgaard.

State your business. If I deem it worthy, I will relay your message.

Barbarian oaf, I come bearing a gift.

Wolken eyes had already noted the cargo. It pulsed. It breathed. It twitched. The Viking had once heard a story from a Greek trader that magic carpets existed in the mystical east; that some carpets could fly like birds. He was tempted to put this one to the test but he was not prone to rash action. A rarity among Norse raiders – Trygg was a man of sober temperament and few words who considered the consequences of his deeds before the event, not after, and who therefore harboured few regrets. Follow me and mind how you go.

They kept to a snaking watercourse wherein strange ballybog things dwelled, brimmed with supernatural shadows that vexed the eye and conjured up a cast of wilis that shimmered behind the ghost trees, deeper and deeper, until they came upon a clearing where they found a drunken Viking party huddled around a hissing fire, keen to see what the myrk-ridden night had disgorged.

Skarsgaard was not the largest of the Norsemen. That honour fell to Olaf the ax-wielder, grotesque in size with flame-red hair and fiery beard to match. But Skarsgaard’s strength lay in predatory instincts where thought and motion were one with him, and since all men resemble an animal in some way, he resembled the largest of the canids with sharpish nose and watchful eyes, and because he cloaked himself in grey wolf so that you never knew where the grey hair ended and the fur started. Every man in the camp would have followed him into the jaws of Hel. Some thought they already had. Most had been with him fifteen winters, venturing south to Miklagard, navigating the Volkhov, Lovat, Dnipro, shouldering their boats overland between rivers until they reached the Black Sea. Many places claimed to be at the crossroads of cultures, creeds, and civilizations, but only one stood on the edge of everywhere and was rightly named Y-kraï-na: the land betwixt and between the Christians to the west, Pagans to the north, Shamanistic-Jews to the east, and Musulmen to the south.

Skarsgaard could read fear at fifty paces and false expressions at twenty. By way of firelight, he studied the lead horseman draped in astrakhan and the curved sword – a worthy prize but no match for his. The four lesser horsemen were wearing plain woollen mantles and their swords were not worth stealing. Nevertheless, several Vikings slipped behind the leprous ghosts to ensure this rendezvous was not a prescurser to an ambush.

Greetings, Skarsgaard. I bring a gift crafted from Ghiordes knots.

I have walked barefoot across the taiga, returned Skarsgaard, playing to the amusement of his pack, grinning like werewolves scenting wounded prey. I have no call for a Ghiordes mat.

This is no ordinary mat but a prize for which men would kill.

The horseman manoeuvred the stallion into position and gave the carpet a hefty kick. It landed at Skarsgaard’s feet with a heavy thump. The Viking chief heard a moan that told him all he needed to know. One whore would bring more discord than he cared for and they would never get the camp fortified before the first snowfall.

Let it not be said that Skarsgaard treats guests inhospitably. You and your men will be served kvass then be on your way and take your prize with you.

Be not so hasty! With a sense of rising panic, the horseman indicated for his vassals to unfurl the contents of the carpet.

Killworthy indeed. Not a brutalised peasant wench or worn-out whore but a woman of pampered rank. Hair like spun gold. Skin like candlewax. Schooled to keep herself in check, never degrading herself through course display, never demeaning herself through common spectacle, she made no attempt to cover her nakedness or beg for mercy, though she trembled visibly and kept her lids firmly gummed. Skarsgaard had witnessed noble stoicism in some proud-necked Frankish women and the haughty English ones. Who is this?

My wife.

And you are?

Prince Yezhov.

Flinching and catching the eye of his sober cousin, Skarsgaard circled the mat to better observe the woman from every angle. Why deliver her to us?

Encouraged by the effect the noble title had on the barbarian chief, the prince twirled a red tassel attached to a riding glove to brace for what must come next. The Sycorax has put a curse on me. I wish to be rid of her. And it is hearsay among serfs that you will soon be on the hunt for winter whores.

Skarsgaard held firm to the belief that curses were self-inflicted, and he was naturally suspicious of myrk-riders bearing gifts. What manner of curse?

The curse most feared by men.

Something visceral stirred. Not fire in the belly. That had flared the moment the prize appeared. No curse this Sycorax cast would affect the most faint-hearted prick here. Skarsgaard had an urge to prove it. But that’s what the prince wanted him to do. Rarely did he do what other men wanted. And never what they expected.

Feast your eyes! the prince invited in strident tones, emboldened by the tassels jigging up and down as he steered the black beast around the carpet. The Sycorax is yours!

And the curse?

I have warned you of the curse. I have acted in good faith. Do what you will and when you have done it sell the sorceress to the slavers.

Why not sell her yourself?

I dare not.

Why not?

She has a brother. Invoking the name was akin to summoning the devil, but surely lawless raiders on the qui vive for winter whores would jump at the chance to violate the sister of a vainglorious warmonger who controlled everything from the Dniester to the Don and the White Sea to the Black. The Blond Bear.

III

Everyone was twitchy. Lilya could feel it. Russian troops massing on the border. War or clickbait? Besides, the new barmaid was Kulak’s new plaything and sharing toys was not a virtue among cage-fighters. Besides, besides, Arkady would show up any minute. In anticipation of something unpleasant about to happen soon, she decided to rescue Lars.

Anxious to avoid the three sweatlords and any other gimps who might want to buy him a drink, Lars decided to follow Lilya back to the banquette taking the long route around the dancefloor, dodging the neo-nazi corroboree of Berlin punk bands doing House Tribal. Every camera zoomed in for the money shot. No mystery. The go-to girl for western media was Wonder Woman in Louboutins. Which made the ecocidal sidekick Astro-bro lite. It was like starring in his very own unscripted Marvel movie and if jetlag didn’t knock him out first, he might just be up for a bit of improvised roleplay later in the night.

All that Absolut is like going to my head, groaned Roxi.

Oleksii thought it went to her head an hour ago. Time to swap that vodka for something non-alcoholic, he said, annoyed at all the work hours he was sacrificing after agreeing to step in for the environmental biologist at the biolab who went into premature labour with twins. See that wargonzo juggling his phone. Don’t even dream of taking his photo while I’m at the bar.

Roxi perked up. He’s cute.

He’s a psychopath.

A cute psychopath. Introduce me.

Stay here till I get back.

Oleksii returned to find the banquette vacant and Roxi gone. The psychopath had also gone. The dancefloor was jumping. Someone tapped him on the shoulder and he jumped too. Jumpy all day and getting jumpier. Two more colleagues had bitten the bullet and joined the National Guard.

Like thanks for the diet coke. Roxi slipped past him into the seat that almost swallowed her whole. Everyone in Odesa must be trans. Five queers were in the loo sharing lipgloss. I could have sworn one was that comedian turned prez.

Just when Oleksii thought his night couldn’t get worse, diet coke dribbled down the corrugations of his new puffer jacket.

Lilya returned to the vampiric banquette with the Australian safely in tow, plucked a corona from a Fendi purse to save making conversation, ignored the no smoking sign, and lit up. She told herself she smoked because it calmed her nerves. She told everyone else she enjoyed the aroma. Commotion on the dancefloor caused her to stiffen. Oh, just Zelenskyy with the usual hangers-on.

I didn’t claim love is abstract, protested Oleksii, mopping his crotch with his covid mask. How the hell did he let his sister talk him into this? He hated that she smoked. He hated that it made her look like a high-class hooker. Most of all he hated that she got away with it.

I heard you use love and abstract in like the same sentence, argued Roxi.

Lilya sent an aromatic cloud into the epileptic ether. "Love is a chemical hit to the brain. The high lasts two years, three at most, just long enough to see a newborn through to infancy. And what would you know about love? she vented at her brother. Your only girlfriend experience is with a porn star."

Svetlana has a degree in engineering, he reminded, "which is more than can be said for your only boyfriend experience."

Arkady is rich and self-made.

Rich being the key word for an oligarch.

A rich generalisation from someone who worships logic, who puts his faith in facts, who measures his life by carbon footprints. Her boobs aren’t even real. Just bloated bags of -

Shut up! Like both of you! Roxi wondered if her drink had been spiked. My head feels like a pinata and you’re spoiling our first night in Odesa.

Lilya dunked her cigar in a flute of French bubbly. Well, Oleksii shouldn’t have made that stupid comment about abstract love.

"I never said abstract love. I said love is an abstract noun. All the best things in life are abstract nouns: Courage, Respect, Joy, Honour," Oleksii rattled off, feeling the strain of making small talk with the two Australians.

In that case, snapped big sister; sharply logical brain catching on, so are all the worst things: Misery, Hate, Evil, Despair.

Welcome to Ukraine – fuck this – the deathmatch that had started at dinner but had probably been going for years made Lars want to punch something. Maybe not the neo-nazis. Maybe not the bloke nursing the knuckle-duster. Maybe not the military dude packing something lethal in his combat fatigues. Maybe he should just punch himself.

*****

Kicking as if his pants were on fire, desperately clutching himself, the prince jack-knifed and ejaculated. The crunch came as he smacked to the ground and a tassel snapped off and flew into the fire.

Secure the four weasels so that they cannot escape. Wrap this troll-tsap in the mat and dump it by the woodstack. Add the curved sword to the booty and the stallion to the herd. We accept both as compensation for having our sleep disturbed.

Rape was everyman’s birthright but to rape the sister of the Blond Bear was a deathwish. There was only one man in the camp Skarsgaard could trust not to violate her and thus far only one habitable hut. Bring me the astrakhan cloak, he directed at his wolken-eyed cousin. The woman will need some covering in the morning. Bring the wolf pelts to my hut too.

The hair on the neck of every man-wolf bristled as Skarsgaard scooped up the prize and stepped over the dead body. Trygg voiced what all were thinking.

Have you forgotten the name of the brother?

Have I not just demonstrated that I am not forgetful?

Trygg caught up to his cousin a few moments later and tossed the cloak over a broad shoulder. Do you want me to bring you some kvass?

The cloak slipped down Skarsgaard’s arm and draped itself over one breast but not the other. Strange how one breast could bewitch a man more than two. Not kvass, bring mead, not for me, for the woman. If she dies of thirst while under our protection, we will indeed be cursed.

Skarsgaard lowered her onto the wolf skins then used the cloak to cover her, fur facing downward because he thought it would be warmer against her skin which was like the first snowfall – pure, pristine, and icy cold. She continued to shiver, or perhaps shudder. You can stop shaking. You will come to no harm. My cousin will bring mead.

Is my husband dead?

Her face took on a pained expression and he wondered if she cared for the constipated orc. You regret his death? he asked out of curiosity, unhooking the fibula that secured his cloak. He decided not to remove his breeches. The sight of a Viking slug-horn might cause her to die of fright.

I regret what his death means.

Trygg delivered mead in a silver cup engraved with runic script, booty from a Saxon burial site. The cousins exchanged glances. Skarsgaard’s was wry, as if to say: See, I am on my wolf skin and she is on hers. Trygg’s was serious, as if to say: Curse or no curse, she will be trouble.

The princess sipped daintily. Skarsgaard had never seen such pretty manners. The women he met tipped jugs down their throats, let the contents dribble down their chins and over their breasts then invited him to mop it up with his tongue. He tried to imagine what it might be like to mop mead from her breasts but she had tucked the cloak carefully under her arms, though she turned it the other way and pressed the cold red silk lining against her skin.

What means his death?

My brother will find me a husband worse than Yezhov because Yezhov was worse than Ambrosius and Ambrosius was worse than Bogdan.

The Viking chief was not easily surprised but the woman looked too young to have outlived three husbands. Perhaps she was a sorceress after all.

Did you not care for any of your husbands? Skarsgaard couldn’t believe he was asking, but neither could he believe the sister of the Blond Bear was lying naked on wolf pelts in his hut and he was not ravishing her like a wolf.

I cared little and loved less. I do not believe such a thing is in my destiny. And you?

Me?

Have you ever loved?

A strange question but this was a strange night. He began picturing all the winter whores. There had been a special one several winters ago. But then came the thaw and he knew he would go back to sleeping alone. He tried to recall her name.

No, he said when the name eluded him.

Not in your destiny either.

Prediction or curse? Sorcery all the same because he had lately started pondering that thing called Destiny as men do when they reach a certain age. Twenty-five winters had passed since he set forth on his first raid, manning a longship sacking the English coast where he lost his virginity aged seventeen with a mazy-haired girl in a cornfield and raped so many wenches he hardly slept. That’s where he found the gold pin that secured his cloak, a Roman fibula decorated with fossilised black wood, and a second fibula minus the gem of jet which he gifted to his young cousin.

*****

Roxi decided to put all those free dance lessons at Pole Princess to good use but no sooner had she clambered onto the ministage than a hand clamped her ankle and she backflipped like a surfie having a seizure. Crikey! Now she was in her element! Crowdsurfing the mopshit!

When the Australian landed in the arms of Kulak, Oleksii decided to call time on the shit-hole where cage-dancers were left to swing inside golden gibbets while the torturer took a toilet break and he looked like a schoolboy who’d pee’d his pants and was about to get a private lesson in public humiliation from a professional pulverizer with fists the size of tectonic plates. Let’s go. I’ll see you back to your hotel.

*****

The princess watched him shed his wolf pelt. Still a wolf, she thought. Dirty, hulking, brutish, the Viking stank of woodsmoke and mansweat and feral things. She had almost wet herself when his hard-knuckled hands had latched onto Yezhov’s throat and squeezed the life out of him. Yezhov loved the song about the Kyiv-Rus princess raped by an entire army then tossed into the river. It had been his favourite song when drunk. And lately he had been humming it more and more. A quick slap when she failed to please him, then he would sweep out of her bedchamber and find a serving girl to punish. But when he instructed her to dress for riding as darkness fell and she noticed he was still sober, instinct warned her he was about to seek revenge for that laugh. She knew better than to laugh at a husband but the sight of him with one hand under his tunic, clutching himself, working up the courage to deliver a second slap... and she thought he was making a joke. She would sooner have licked his piss-pot than his flaccid member. Everything about him reminded her of suet stuffed into sausage skin. Especially that part. When they halted by the curling stream and he ordered her to dismount and make herself naked, foreboding turned to dread. She watched him toss her raiments into the purling water and expected to have a dagger thrust through her heart before being tossed in too, but when he instructed her to unbraid her hair and lie on the rug he had dragged from her bedchamber, she did as she was bid and understood he had something worse than death in mind.

*****

What happened to your flip-flops? Oleksii harnessed the power of anti-gravity to avoid being sucked back down to hell and facing-off against the fifth force of the universe as he tackled the stairs with the tipsy Australian in tow.

Listen up and I’ll like give you a crash course in aussie-lingo. The things that are not there are called thongs. They must have gone walkabout while I was cloud-surfing. Lucky I packed like three more pairs. Crikey! I just got an electromagnetic shock from that dark flash moving at the speed of light against the arrow in reverse. Everyone leapt out of the way as if their life depended on it.

Electrostatic and mind how you go. Oleksii exhaled a lungful of poisonous pheromones that burned his throat as he hit the event horizon and made it out alive, one hand firmly under her elbow when it became clear she was legless, shoeless, and off her face. She reminded him of a baby giraffe learning to walk for the first time. He removed his puffer jacket, exposing the beetroot stain to his skivvy which he’d been trying to hide all night – thanks to his sister dropping in on him while he was stirring a pot of borshch - and placed it over Roxi’s shoulders before she froze to death and Lilya blamed him, then hailed a taxi which pulled up sharp, sending a plume of ditchwater in the direction of the vibrating sex dolls taking selfies.

Hotel Ikon, he directed at the driver reeking of samahonka, brother of Vadym but with one eye missing, hence the leather eye-patch over the left eye.

Krark-Krark-Krark went the creaky sign everyone ignored.

IV

Skarsgaard woke at first light. Trygg was right when he cast that look. If he let the woman leave with the four horsemen, he could not be certain the vassals would see her safely home. If he attempted to return her personally, he could not be certain slavers roaming the countryside would not slay him and snatch her for themselves. To keep her for the winter was out of the question. As soon as the Blond Bear discovered his sister’s disappearance, he would go hunting for her. And there was Yezhov’s death. He was guilty of that. Besides, one woman in the camp would be like a doe in a pen full of rutting stags. Besides, besides, doing nothing put off the need to act decisively and he was not usually a ditherer.

He strode down to the deepest pool where an ice bath took the edge off a hugely umbrageous erection. After he’d tortured himself sufficiently, he shook himself, jerked on his breeches and boots, fastened his wylie-coat, secured his wolf cloak, and returned to camp to find Trygg crouching by a fyrze fire, heaping lumpy grey gruel into a wooden bowl. His handsome, strapping, blond cousin was wearing an idiot look that confirmed he was enjoying attending to the noble wench.

After the men have gone hunting take the woman to the pool behind the sarsen stones and guard her closely if she chooses to bathe.

Guard her from Vodyanik? Trygg alluded to the evil creature dripping green slime said to lurk in ponds and rivers, a man-frog covered in black scales who dragged victims to his underwater slave kingdom.

You no more believe that Vodyanik shit than I do. Guard her from... on second thoughts, you go after that red stag you spotted yesterday. I will guard the woman if she chooses to bathe.

*****

Why’s it called Klub Kyiv when it’s like in Odesa? Roxi leaned into the Cossack killjoy to save banging her head against the door of the taxi as it trundled through backstreets that always looked more exciting on travel shows.

The first nightclub opened in Kyiv so the owner decided to stick with the brand. Everyone mistakes it for irony. Irony is the new dumb. If you do anything grotesque, burlesque, or criminal while you’re in Ukraine, just claim you were being ironic and everyone will act cool since no-one wants to look unironic.

Do you believe in déjà vu?

No, it’s a memory malfunction.

I’m sure we’ve like met. Did you ever catch a wave at Bondi or Bells?

Oleksii began checking his messages to take his mind off his soggy crotch. Memory is unreliable, he said, dropping his shoulder to accommodate her pinata. Short term memory. Long term memory. Subconscious memory. Selective memory. Repressed memory. Inherited memory. Collective memory. False memory. No memory...

Shapeshifting fog drifting in from the Black Sea encouraged Roxi to drift off. She recalled Mr – network executive – Bigdick who informed her she had a voice like the squeal of rubber about to lose its grip, meaning she would never be anything more than a research assistant, the day before he begged her to go to Ukraine when hotshot Gryff Griffen tested positive for covid and his foreign affairs team went into quarantine and everyone else was tied up with urgent network projects. Karma would be her triumphant return to Australia with the best story ever. Not Chornobyl. That had been done to death. She had something else in mind.

... and I have never travelled outside Ukraine.

*****

Limned in liquid gold and haloed in morning mist, the princess emerged naked from the bathing pool prompting Skarsgaard to recall his first kill. There was the same pounding in his chest, the same throbbing in his loins, the same bloodlust empowering his limbs. Penetration was akin to killing and feeling more-than-mortal. Ejaculation was akin to dying yet remaining immortal. It was a divine moment: Death and resurrection in one. Blood shot straight to his slug-horn.

*****

Blood sizzling like a shitload of nuked coronas in Cuban Crisis. Flashbacks to Mexico making him feel fragged. Nerves shot to hypercharged hell. Lars decided to overcompensate. He butted out the cancer stick the salty glamazon had just lit, took her heroically by the hand, led her onto the dancefloor overarched by a vaulted space pimping a galaxy of mirror moons, and started to defrag his shitty life by losing himself in a vortex of dark star energy in demented motion shooting squillions of pixels into parallel worlds that created the illusion of an accelerating universe.

*****

Cousin! Trygg’s call came like a war cry from the other side of the bathing pool. Slavers just crossed the curling stream. Six cages on wheels and a wagon load of children. Olaf and Sven are tracking them to see which way they travel. I will catch them up and add my sword in case it is needed.

Skarsgaard nodded his approval. I will take the woman back to camp and guard her until the men return.

*****

I’ll like find some ice for your hand. Roxi was breathless after three flights of stairs which Oleksii helped her negotiate since the lift, a relic of soviet industrialization, of the Hotel Ikon, a relic of soviet ugliness, was closed for repairs. And you can tell me more about the Dniester Nature Reserve.

Oleksii used her key card to gain entry to her room, no easy feat considering his hand was throbbing after being slammed in a taxi door.

Big mistake having the first vodka like on an empty stomach, she bleated, trying not to be sick as she swayed against the peeling wallpaper.

You can sleep it off.

Yeah, nah, I don’t feel sleepy. Jetlag does that to you. She wondered if Oleksii was an AI experiment in need of a few more tweaks as she checked the mini bar, found it empty, and heard something ping.

Don’t worry about that ice, he said, pocketing his phone before reversing to the door like an autistic robot suffering a memory malfunction.

*****

Prowling the perimeter of the encampment like a wolf scenting danger, Skarsgaard knew that scouts would be scouring the birchwood for signs. Slavers were cunning. Mercenaries were ruthless. Winter whores belonging to Viking outlaws were considered rich bounty. Helgrom’s raiders were ambushed five winters ago. Every man slaughtered. Every whore enslaved. Helgrom escaped with his life only because the mercenaries assumed he was already dead.

Go to the hut, he instructed the woman. Cover yourself with the wolf pelts and stay put until I come for you.

Sword and seax at the ready, Skarsgaard tucked a small axe into his leather belt and a small knife into the cross-gartering of his boots. Bracken provided camouflage and he didn’t need to wait long before he heard a telltale rustle in the undergrowth. Slowing his breathing to calm his pulse, he lay low until he could ascertain how many scouts he would up against.

The first was a young buck, puny, not a hardened warrior. The second was older, malnourished, possibly a serf desperate to earn some coin. He waited to see if there was a third while the pair ransacked the camp, looking to steal what they could pocket, paying no heed to the four trussed and gagged vassals cowering by the woodstack or the rug concealing Yezhov’s body. When he was sure there was just the two, he moved fast, drove his seax into the serf, and was preparing to do the same to the other when the serf gave a dying groan and the young buck took off like the wind. Skarsgaard gave chase but the lad was fleet of foot. In a short space of time, they covered a lengthy distance which at this pace would only grow lengthier, drawing him further and further away from camp. At the top of a ridge, Skarsgaard halted, steadied, took aim with the axe, and nailed the scout between the shoulder blades.

Weapons were too valuable to toss away, so Skarsgaard retrieved the axe then sprinted back to camp to do the same with his seax. As he was congratulating himself something caught his eye. A third scout creeping into his hut. A rush of blood sent him hurtling across the clearing, sword unsheathed, heart pumping furiously, muscles corded for action. Alert to danger, the scout met the attack with equal force, and this one was a battle-hardened Numidian, years of warfare honing his swordhand.

A clash of steel rang through the clearing as the two warriors lunged and slashed and hacked, pressing forward, falling back, twisting, turning, tripping, rolling, narrowly dodging the lethal blade that would have sliced off a limb but for the whim of the gods. Both men were fighting for their lives but Skarsgaard was also fighting for the lives of his men should the scout report the whereabouts of the Viking camp to the slavers. More at stake meant more determination, an extra surge of aggression that added power to every thrust. He was also fighting for the sister of the Blond Bear and it spurred him in ways unexpected, never imagined, and eventually to victory. A jab to the swordarm and the scout’s weapon clattered to the ground. Skarsgaard finished the job with a vicious stab to the throat. A hot gush of blood hit him between the eyes. Breathing hard, almost choking on a glut of gore, he vomited, fell to his knees, and remained that way until strength returned and hunters began trickling back with their kills and Trygg returned with news the slavers had travelled south toward the river that would take them to the coast. Bodies were quickly buried in shallow graves. The Viking chief washed his face and hands and weapons, stripped, leaving just his breeches, then returned to his hut to find the woman waiting for him.

His voice was edgy though the threat had passed. If I let you leave with the four vassals, he stated without preamble, will they deliver you safely home?

She looked alarmed. They are greedy cowards. That is why Yezhov chose them to accompany him during this treachery. They will take turns with me then deliver me to the first slave ship they meet.

If I deliver you to your brother personally what will happen?

She looked even more alarmed. My brother will torture you and hang you. Not that he held much affection for Yezhov but family honour is at stake. And your raiding mocks the law of the land. A mockery my brother takes personally.

What if I keep you for myself?

As your winter whore?

Yes.

She blushed beautifully, running her eye over the body armoured with muscle then began shaking her head. My brother will track you down then torture you and hang you.

Your famous brother seems overly fond of torture and hanging. What solution is there?

Odesa, she said, as if the answer had been waiting for the question. Yezhov and I were journeying from our hunting dacha near the moscovian marsh to our seaside dacha in Chersonesus. To break the journey, we stay for two months in Kyiv and four months in Bereza – an estate granted to me for my lifetime by my brother - and then for a week in Odesa while we organise passage on a ship. In Odesa there is an abbey run by an abbess. The abbey is autonomous, not aligned to a religious order, unlike abbeys in the west. If you escort me to the abbey, I will be safe until my brother comes and I explain everything. If you escort me yourself, we will not draw attention to ourselves with a large party.

*****

It was like that game of musical chairs where the music stops and everyone scrambles for a seat. The music stopped and everyone scrammed.

"Dobryy vechir, Lilya."

"Dobryy vechir, Arkady."

With nerves of steel, a face that betrayed no emotion, and a heart connected to a ganglion of clotted nightmares and twisted memories, the man who owned the night watched everything via a screen in his private cockpit as through a warped lens darkly. Why don’t you introduce me to your new friend.

Lars struggled to draw air into his lungs. Vital organs were being squeezed by some invisible fifth force. There was something dangerously chill about the voice of the man standing directly behind him. Every word pierced his brain like an icepick. The icy atonality made life sound like death, light sound like darkness, and a question sound like a statement.

Arkady, Lars; Lars, Arkady, said Lilya as the music restarted.

*****

The Odesa plan had merit. He could leave Trygg to set up the winter camp. He still thought of his young cousin as young but Trygg was nearly thirty. Brave, strong, full of vigour – he could easily keep the rowdy ones in line. I can dispatch the four vassals to Kyiv at the same time. They can take Yezhov’s carcass wrapped in the carpet on the back of your horse. That will confirm your story.

What if they lead my brother back here to attack you?

Your brother will want to see you with his own eyes. When you speak to him you can explain your husband’s treachery. Your famous brother may even reward me richly for preserving family honour. He was preparing to exit the hut when he paused. Your name, he insisted, what is it?

Paraskovia.

Repeating the silvery syllables to himself, he went to find his cousin. Maybe he would remember it in the years to come.

*****

G’day, mate. Lars had been picturing the boyfriend experience as a billionaire with manboobs. But Arkady was no Putin proxy with a combover. He was more like a Hollywood A-lister. Bad boy noir schtick being his signature style, he was dressed in black. When they shook hands, Lars noticed a gold ring and a Rolex Submariner - the classy brand of choice for men with money to burn. That’s probably why he chose a geodesic goddess instead of the usual blow-up dolls: balloon breasts, botox brains, bottle blonde. Lilya was a sucker punch to a cynical heart: ravenesque hair; real tits, legs no magician with a scalpel could manufacture – an asset on the arm of any bloke scaling up. She had a no-nonsense voice sharpened by sexy Slavic vocals that did interesting things to his innards. Drinks were on the house compliments of Arkady who owned the Klub. So were the women. Arkady offered him the blondinka of his choice, but he was massively pissed that he couldn’t have Lilya and mumbled something about jet-lag. Later that night, when he woke to the bump and grind of the two steam trains on the other side of the paper-thin walls of the Hotel Ikon, he jerked-off picturing Lilya in the arms of the prince of darkness.

*****

There was no point running. The Blond Bear would follow. There was no point hiding. The Blond Bear would flush them out. Marketplace gossip was all about Yaroslav the Wise and how he had married his four daughters into four royal houses: Viking, Frank, Magyar, and English. And how three sons had taken wives from the Germanic, Polsky, and Byzantine courts. Any man linked to Yaroslav could take them captive and deliver them in chains to the Blond Bear.

*****

Oleksii used his teeth to rip open the packet Svetlana fished out of the bottom of her handbag. Porn stars had to be careful. It wasn’t just Aids. It was about making the most of a short shelf life. Svetlana could earn more in one year of porn than a lifetime as an unemployed civil engineer. She had a disabled sister to support and a mother with cancer. Her father did a runner before she was born. A string of stepfathers did the same whenever things got too hard.

How’s Ivan? He pretended to be interested in the douchebag as he climbed into bed and tried not to put pressure on his hand. Did he hook any new investors while he was in Sochi?

Right now, I don’t want to talk about Ivan. I want to have sex with a man who won’t ejaculate in my face. It’s like spitting in a woman’s eye after kissing her.

They always made love at his place and the one-room flat always smelled of fried onion, boiled cabbage, and salted herring, but at least they had privacy.

*****

Skarsgaard had convinced himself that the Blond Bear, grateful to have his sister back unharmed, would overlook their raiding, thank them for killing the troll-tsap, and reward them for keeping his sister safe. But family honour had nothing to do with family or honour. I acted without thinking, he confided to Trygg while the other men were boasting of their kills and getting drunk around the campfire. I should have let the Blond Bear deal with Yezhov.

Do not flay yourself, cousin. You did what every man in the camp wished to do. The mutilated bride still visits me in my sleep. Last night she came in a dream. What have you decided to do with the woman?

I will escort her to Odesa.

Alone?

Yes.

Will you return before the first snowfall? Trygg stared at the stag roasting over the fire to avoid looking at his cousin who was avoiding looking at him.

I will be back before the harvest moon, promised Skarsgaard.

*****

That was hard and fast, Svetlana declared happily, glad to push thoughts of war to the back of her mind. Ads for Viagra make me lol. As if women want hours of crappy grunting. A woman either knows how to orgasm or she doesn’t. Did you meet the Australians doing that doco on Chornobyl?

Lilya and I took them to Klub Kyiv.

I suppose Arkady was there. He gives me the creeps. Describe them.

*****

Paraskovia traced her finger along the length of the double-sided steel, admiring the watering that gave Viking swords strength and temper, and noted the pommel like a half-moon to counterweight the blade. Yezhov’s sword had a quillon encrusted with cabochons that sparkled as he strutted about, and a curved blade like that of the legendary Frank who vanquished the Pagan Saxons and was declared Holy Roman Emperor. Her brother’s sword was different again. A sparthion plain and true, though twice the length of bygone days, sharp iron blade defined by a blood-gutter, crossbar to protect the hand, counterweight like a full moon engraved with a spiralling triskele, and a rigid handle for a tight, firm, two-fisted grip.

*****

The cameraman, Oleksii decided to start with the male, usually works freelance. His early wildlife stuff got rave reviews and he took some awesome shots inside the Hadron Collider. But last year he did a nature doco for some hipster greenie group that set climate change debate back ten years. He claims to be a citizen of the world but travels on an Australian passport and calls everyone mate. He goes by the name of Lars and fancies himself as poster boy for Thor the neverending sequel. He’d be good in one of your videos.

Is he hung like a horse?

That’s your department, but he ticks all the boxes: blond ponytail, blue eyes, brick jaw, low hanging brows, and dumb as dogshit.

Too much testosterone fucks the male brain. What’s wrong with your hand? You keep rubbing it.

It’s nothing, he dismissed. A bit of stiffness from the cold.

What about the other one? Is he another george-bernard-shaw?

She, he corrected. She dressed for Klub Kyiv like was she was going to Club Med. Her rainbow hair is like a radioactive mop modelled on the Noodle Effect and her teeth glow in the dark. The guy they were going to send came down with covid so they sent her because she was the only one who tested negative to the virus. She was a research assistant investigating woke western shit like categories of Desire and how influencers use it to flog brands of tooth whitener. She thinks Kafka is a city, Putin is Peskov, and the Euromaidan is like Australia Day without the barbecue. She’s never heard of Solzhenitsyn. She’s like a try-hard teenager on work experience.

*****

Different swords; different men. That night Paraskovia discovered that Norse mastery was no exaggeration. Skarsgaard wielded his weapon with consummate skill and she quickly got the hang of it. After the first brutal stab, he conquered her body, after the second, he claimed her heart, thereafter he possessed her soul.

Body. Heart. Soul.

The curse was cast.

V

Destiny was a woman. Or three to be exact: Clotho the Spinner, Lachesis the Allotter, and Atropos the Inflexible. Together they were known as Clothes (meaning Spinners) and later as Moirai (meaning Allotments) and later still as Fate: fatum, fata, fee, fey, fairies. There are no happy accidents in semantics. Every word is a palimpsest layered with logos and overlayed with mythos. The meaning is in the logos, the emotion is in the mythos. Understanding falls between the meaning and the emotion...

Roxi killed the telly then barfed up a hundred dollars worth of black caviar. Why was she watching this crapfest of crusty old dons debating some crapshit she couldn’t begin to get her pinata around? Trying to follow English sub-titles wasn’t helping to take her brainbox off the snoring trains, the freight dogs, Lars barking his head off in the next room, and the cute Cossack with the wet patch.

*****

Princess Paraskovia emerged from the hut wearing the peasant clothes allotted to her by Fate – raiments Olaf had set aside for his winter whore – with Yezhov’s astrakhan draped over the top, though it sickened her to drape herself in fetal lambs. Thirty lambs had been killed in utero to make up the fur mantle; others skinned within minutes of being born. She could still hear the pitiful bleating of the mothers. An amethyst clasp fastened the astrakhan at the right shoulder. Amethysts were said to ward off drunkenness and Yezhov had chosen the clasp specifically for its protective qualities. A notion she found ironically amusing. Trygg bade her sit on a log rimed with frost which he first covered with his mangy wolf pelt.

It would honour me greatly if you would accept these, he said, plucking a pair of embroidered red slippers out of thin air. It is said the Empress of Miklagard wears slippers such as these.

Decorated with cheap river pearls and quite common in eastern bazaars, such slippers were favoured by hetarae rather than empresses. But they fit perfectly and she would not spoil his fantasy.

Skarsgaard noted the peasant clothes and red slippers with a quirk of bushy grey brows as Trygg retreated. Lucky you are leaving today or the men will have nothing left for their winter whores.

Do you have nothing, she retorted, "for your winter whore?"

Give me a moment, I will find a trinket for you to remember me.

*****

Arkady and Lilya were