Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #22 January 2016 | Page 12

barbarian king leading his men to glorious death,
or victory and honour. He takes care of us. The
dead are retrieved from battles, burnt on great pyres
deep in the gloomy pine heartlands while we toast
them with raw spirits. We have no single base, but
several, the largest even have saunas. Nothing is
better than that dark, sweat-slick heat after three or
four sleepless days of slush, snow and hunger.

working the cold bolts with manicured hands.
All the girls are barefoot. Their low-heeled
footwear, better suited to city life, forms a trail
behind them in the snow, one shoe here, another
there, one pair oddly, neatly, side by side.
“This one’s carelessly lost her foot too,” Elsa
says, pulling the white coat off the corpse.

Day 328
Yesterday we reduced all but two of the
defensive pockets formed by the broken convoy.
Last night the remaining troops tried to break out,
bravely charging from their cordon of burnt trucks
and immobilised armour, throwing their grenades
and firing small-arms as they came.

Hand on hip, Kosygyn minces across the
snow. “Imagine trying to run in those shoes.”
We all fall about.
Day 365
Everyone is laughing again, but not at
Kosygyn’s antics. Two days ago the seam of my boot
split while I was out on patrol. Snow got in, melted,
and refroze. By the time I got back I could not feel
my toes.

Now they lie where they fell. It is snowing
again, the only sound the creak of our boots on the
snow. The world is colourless, grey trunks fading
into the gloom all around, smoke drifting low and
flat across the trail. The blood of the fallen is freezedried, turning the snow solid, hanging in black
icicles from the corpses hanging out the vehicles
and across the crude barricades.

Elsa and Kosygyn helped me, soaking my
foot in iced water, massaging it, rubbing my calf,
old peasant remedies to get the blood flowing. I was
pretty worried. Frostbite is a court-martial offence,
losing a foot or a thumb too easy a way home,
too cheap a price to pay. The agony of returning
circulation, like splinters of glass under my skin, was
a kind of relief, and by yesterday I was limping up
and down in the medical tent in front of the surgeons.

“Over here.” Elsa is standing beside a group
of four well-dressed corpses sprawled on the icy
ridges of the churned trail.
One is a high-ranking middle-aged officer,
medals and ribbons on his chest, an empty pistol
still gripped in his mottled hand. Suzi searches him
for papers. His clothes are rigid with frozen blood,
the fibres splitting as she breaks open his pockets.

toes.

In the afternoon they amputated two of my

Today I’m back on duty, light guard work for
three days, then out on patrol.

The other three are young women, darkhaired secretaries from his administrative corps,
their long, glossy hair pinned in smart regulation
buns. Under expensive, fur-lined white leather coats
they are wearing dress uniforms: knee-length skirts,
white blouses and tight, double-breasted tailored
jackets with brass buttons.

“Two toes isn’t much,” Kosygyn says.
“You’ll still be able to do the bosanova.”
And he’s right. It could be worse. Some
people have lost all toes on both feet, fingers, ears,
even noses.

I imagine them trying to run through the
snow under fire, bullets buzzing around and through
them as they bravely lift their unfamiliar rifles,

“Now this,” Kosygyn says, holding up his
middle finger, which has lost the top joint, “this is a

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