Chapter 10
Chapter 10
Shadow tracks the Greys trucks toward Kalynka in wolf form and finds a river bridge choke point, then reports the trucks have stopped two kilometers short of the village. Thorne and Cole push south and reach Shadow's position. From a ridge, they observe the trucks parked at a T-junction. Masovich is not visible, but his command car sits between the trucks—meaning the colonel linked up with the western detachment. Thorne realizes Masovich intends to lead the assault personally, making him vulnerable but also ensuring Kalynka will be hit harder. Shadow identifies the bridge as the only crossing within five kilometers; collapsing it would trap the trucks on the far bank, separating Masovich from Kalynka. Cole offers to bring down the bridge in bear form. Thorne agrees but conditions the plan on confirming Masovich's exact position—if the colonel is already across, they lose him. Shadow volunteers to cross downstream and scout the far side. The chapter ends as Shadow slips into the river to swim across, leaving Thorne and Cole watching the distant truck lights.
The fields south of the farmstead offered little in the way of concealment. Winter wheat stubble, brittle and frozen, lay flat against the earth. Patches of mud, slick with ice, were interspersed with the skeletal remains of fence lines, their wire long since looted or rotted away. Thorne and Cole moved parallel to the tire tracks, a deliberate fifty meters to the west of the most obvious path, a silent understanding passing between them. Their breath plumed in the frigid air, blooming white for a moment before vanishing into the encroaching twilight. No words were needed; their shared purpose was a language all its own.
Dawn arrived with agonizing slowness, the blackness of night bleeding into a dull, metallic iron. Shapes began to resolve from the gloom – the hunched forms of haystacks, the dark gashes of drainage ditches, a derelict barn that seemed to sigh as it leaned precariously on its own decaying timbers. The cold, which had been a persistent ache, now sharpened, biting at exposed skin and seeping through their worn fatigues.
Cole maintained Thorne’s pace with an ingrained discipline, his own movements economical and precise. Koval’s pack, heavy with their clandestine gear, rode his left shoulder, while his own pack, equally burdened, rested on his right. The stolen fatigues, a poor fit and poorly maintained, strained at every seam, the fabric groaning with the effort. A sheen of sweat had darkened the collar of Thorne’s shirt, a testament to the exertion despite the biting chill.
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