* Author : Anatoly Belilovsky

* Narrator : Tatiana Gomberg

* Host : Graeme Dunlop

* Audio Producer : Peter Wood

*

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Originally published in the Mammoth Book of Dieselpunk.

Rated PG

The Little Dog Ohori

by Anatoly Belilovsky

 

The young soldier jumps to his feet, snaps to attention.

“At ease, Corporal,” the officer says. “And please, sit down.” A white coat hangs off the officer’s shoulders; it hides her shoulder tabs, leaving visible only the caduceus in her lapel.

The soldier hesitates. The officer leans against the wall; her coat falls off one shoulder, revealing three small stars. The soldier’s eyes widen.

“Begging Comrade Colonel’s pardon,” he says, and sits down. The movement is slow and uncertain, as if his body fights the very thought of sitting while an officer stands.

“Sit,” the officer says, more firmly now. “This is an order.”

“Thank you, Comrade Colonel,” the soldier says, sees a small frown crease the officer’s face, and adds: “I mean, Doctor.”

The officer smiles and nods. A strand of graying hair escapes her knot and falls to her face; she sweeps it back with an impatient gesture.

“Carry on,” she says.

The soldier hesitates again.

“That’s an order, too,” she says and points to the caduceus in her lapel. “A medical order.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” the soldier says. “I only came to visit; I’m not here as a patient.”

“She is,” the doctor says and tilts her head at the hospital bed.

The soldier turns to face the dying woman in the bed, leans toward her, takes her hand, and whispers to her in a language the doctor does not understand.

Cold.

Lying on the riverbank in a puddle of blood and melting snow, she listens for the sounds of gunfire, the roar of engines, the clatter of tank tracks, anything to say she is not alone. She no longer feels her hands, though she can see her right hand on the trigger of her Tokarev-40, the index finger frozen into a hook. She no longer feels pain where the shell splinter tore into her belly, only cold. Cold comfort, too, in the bodies scattered on the ice beyond the riverbank, eleven black specks against relentless white, eleven fewer Waffen SS, eleven plus two hundred and three already in the killbook makes two hundred and three fewer who could threaten—

Her mind’s eye projects a glimpse of Selim’s face against the night, then all is dark again.

She listens, and hears a friendly sound.

The little dog Ohori is barking.

“Help…” From a throat parched raw through desiccated lips, one of the last small drops of strength drains into the word.

The barking stops, but silence does not return. There is a noise like leaves fluttering in the wind.

No, wait. It’s winter; a white cloak for camouflage in the snow. No grass to hide, no leaves to whisper.

Whisper.

“Is she?…”

A woman’s whisper, in Russian.

“I don’t know.”

Another voice, a woman, too, or a goddess.

“Please…” Another drop of strength, gone, but now she can see Selim again, him with his great happy crooked smile. She tries to touch it but it is out of reach. Could this be Ogushin, the taker of souls, or the nine-tailed were-fox Kumiho? She can no longer tell what is real and what is not. There is only strength enough to hope:

—Please, little dog Ohori who brings lost loves together—

—The darkness deepens—

—please, angel Oneuli who watches over orphans, please,