Dazzle The Complete Unabridged Trilogy by Judith Gould Read Free Book Online

because of a stupid sprained ankle. If she didn't hurry, she would be too late.
    She took a deep breath. Well, she wouldn't let it slow her down. Not if what Schmarya feared was true. What was her pain compared with the lives of so many?
    She forced herself to race ahead, closing her mind to the splinters of fire shooting through her leg. Mustn't think of the pain, she told herself over and over. It's nothing compared with—
    — the pogrom.
    She picked up speed now, her hair flying in the wind. She was just about to catch up with Schmarya, and could see that he had nearly reached the edge of the forest. The hoofbeats rang out much louder now, a steady, resounding bass pounding off the earth. She forced herself to speed up, as Schmarya was doing, for the final homestretch, and just as she reached the extreme edge of the forest, Schmarya instinctively stopped in his tracks. Senda was about to shoot past him, but his right arm shot out, slammed into her breasts, and sent her flying backward through the air. She let out a cry, half in anger, half in pain, as she landed heavily on the ground. 'What the—'
    But Schmarya dived to the ground and clapped a hand over her mouth.
    The Cossacks burst past, sabres and rifles glinting evilly, their sweating steeds throwing off glistening drops of hot sweat, their powerful hooves tossing up clumps of dirt. They were very near, but the heavy forest underbrush completely concealed Senda and Schmarya from the Cossacks while offer ing them a bird's-eye view of the village.
    The life seemed to drain out of Schmarya. His face was contorted in agony. 'We're too late,' he wept softly, covering his face with his hands.
    As they watched in horror, wholesale slaughter began; it was as if the gates of hell had suddenly flung open, and bizarre demons and devils were unleashed upon the earth.
    The Cossacks wielded whips, guns, and sabres in their black-leather-gloved hands, their huge fur hats pressing down over their brows. They split into two groups, taking opposite ends of the village and working bloody paths toward the centre.
    What came was no battle. It was a massacre, pure and simple—the systematic butchering of peaceful, unarmed vil lagers by a horde of ruthless, bloodthirsty savages.
    The first victims were Gilda Meyerov and her children. With the Cossacks' arrival, Senda had seen Gilda rush out of the nearest cottage, protectively gather up her three children who had been playing outside, and herd them into the deceptive safety of the cottage, slamming and bolting the door behind them. When the cottage was set on fire, it was a matter of minutes before Gilda and the children stumbled back out, gasping and coughing. The children were shot, and Gilda Meyerov, frozen in horror, never saw the powerful arc of the sabre that decapitated her. Her severed head flew through the air and landed on the ground, bouncing twice before rolling away like an obscene ball.
    The tranquil village became a sea of blood. No one and nothing was spared, whether human or otherwise. Senda had heard accounts of pogroms in the past, but they had always seemed distant, only stories—something that happened to other people. Nothing had prepared her for the horrors of the reality. She witnessed her father being shot in the chest and crumpling to the ground, then saw her screaming mother throw herself atop his lifeless body, wailing and sobbing as she held his head in her hands, only to have her back hacked open lengthwise by a Cossack leaning over his mount.
    The slaughter took only a few minutes, but to Senda the massacre seemed to last a lifetime. No matter in which direc tion she looked, horror after unspeakable horror piled up before her eyes.
    She saw a gangly woman take flight from one of the burning cottages, fleeing toward a shed which stood halfway between her cottage and the forest. Her escape was cut off by two Cossacks who galloped around her in ever-narrowing concen tric circles until she fell and was