Flying the Storm

18.





Ashtarak Square

Tovmas was furious. As the dawn light broke over Ashtarak, three half-drunk militiamen had come into his home to arrest him and drag him before the council. Now the three men were dead. One of them couldn’t have been older than eighteen.

The bodies of the men still lay where they died: two on the kitchen floor and one across the table. Tovmas was pushing fresh rounds into his pistol magazine. He was staring out of his window, his face hard. Azarian had to have ordered it. Nothing else made sense.

“People will have heard the shots,” said Samvel. Tovmas nodded absently. He didn’t turn around. “We need to go, Tovmas. We need to gather the men loyal to you.”

“Azarian will pay,” muttered Tovmas. He slid the loaded magazine back into his pistol.

“Yes, Tovmas, he will. You can’t do it alone, though,” Samvel came forward, laying a hand on Tovmas shoulder. “You need your men.”

“There may have been more than three sent after me. I need you ready to fight,” said Tovmas, still facing the window and the rising sun.

“I know. I am ready.”

“Are you, Samvel?” Tovmas now turned to his younger friend. “We will kill Armenians today. Ashtarak folk. These three were just the beginning. Azarian will turn the people against me and pull them around him as a shield.”

“I am ready, Tovmas.”

Tovmas merely nodded, picked his assault rifle from the wall and swept out of the house through the open front door. Samvel followed at his heels, switching his rifle to auto.

Tovmas stopped in the middle of the street, his rifle shouldered. Samvel copied his stance, every muscle in his body tensed as he expected shots to begin lashing out at them. Nothing happened, and the street was quiet. Samvel eyed the houses to either side with distrust. Still nothing. He relaxed a little.


“Go and get the men,” ordered Tovmas. “Wait for me just short of the square.”

“Tovmas-” Samvel tried to protest.

“I have to go ahead, alone. Go.”

Samvel stared uncomprehending at Tovmas for a moment, before tipping his head slightly in acknowledgement and running back along the street, disappearing around a corner.

Tovmas closed his eyes for a moment, enjoying the quiet. It might be the last he’d ever hear. He thought of his daughter, safe at home in Ushi. If he didn’t make it through the day, at least there was that.

He set off walking towards the town centre, the sun beaming across his path between houses. There was no sign of Azarian’s militia. He must have only sent three. In a way, it was insulting.

The kilometre or so to the square passed quickly. Tovmas revelled in the sleeping town; it was his home, its people were his people. Here he had a sense of place. But he could make it better. He knew he could. It would taste glory, if it would let him. But Azarian would try to stop him. The old fool couldn’t see that without sacrifice, there could be no gain.

Tovmas slipped into an alley just short of the square, behind a half-reconstructed three-storey building. It had been a block of apartments before the war: some ambitious and well-meaning soul had attempted to rebuild it some years ago, before losing sight of the point and abandoning it. Now it was a shell of brick walls and scaffolding walkways that roughly adhered to the separate stories. Tovmas silently climbed a ladder to the second floor.

Pressed up against the wall, breathing heavily, he peered through an opening where a window should have been. His stomach dropped.

In the wide town square were at least forty men. Most were just town militia, arrayed in a huddled crowd along the council hall side of the square; this Tovmas had expected. The rest, towards the steps of the hall, were soldiers. At least, the armour they wore was very similar to what had once been his uniform: infantry of the NAU. Tovmas’ mind reeled. It couldn’t have been… the union   had collapsed over twenty years ago.

Mercenaries. They had to have been. Mercenaries hired by Azarian to deal with Tovmas and his followers. Anger flared again in his core as he guessed at Azarian’s plan.

Tovmas could see it now. The soldiers, though they stood casually, were prepared for something. They were too still, each one focused on an entrance to the town square. Unlike the militiamen, the soldiers stood close to cover. The militiamen instead looked on towards the street openings as an excited crowd, unsure of what to expect, but obviously eager to find out. No doubt Azarian had spun his lies to them, painting him as a traitor and a criminal. They probably expected Tovmas to be dragged into the square in chains, with grins on the faces of his three triumphant captors. They expected drama and spectacle: something the militia didn’t often see. Whatever their anticipations, they clearly didn’t expect a fight.

Somehow, he had to convince them that he wasn’t their enemy. He had to show them that he could lead them; that he could bring Ashtarak glory; that Armenia could be unified once more. He had to show them Azarian’s spinelessness. But how on earth was he supposed to do that, when a heavily armed band of mercenaries was standing ready to shoot him on sight?

Tovmas leaned back in and rested his head against the wall, gazing skywards as he struggled for a solution. His shoulders sagged. He could think of nothing that didn’t result in the deaths of Ashtarak men. Perhaps he should just hand himself in, to avoid the bloodshed.

Hand himself in, forsake Ashtarak’s hope for glory; forsake Armenia. Yes, a few lives might be spared today, but Tovmas knew the fate awaiting a broken Armenia would be far worse. It would be consumed by raiders and barbarians; its people slaughtered or taken as slaves just as his daughter was. He couldn’t- he wouldn’t allow it. He had to overcome Azarian. He had to prove his cause.

“Azarian!” came a bellow from the square below. Tovmas peered around the wall once more. To his horror, he saw Samvel striding towards the council hall, his assault rifle levelled. Streaming into the square behind him was a small crowd of bleary-eyed militiamen. Some of them had gone with Tovmas to Kakavaberd and Baku; the rest were friends of Samvel and him: men he could trust. Men he knew would follow him.

“Azarian!” shouted Samvel once more. “What have you done with Tovmas?”

Tovmas could see the militiamen bristle at the threatening tone. Smiles had disappeared, excitement turned to tension. Weapons were gripped more tightly. Safety catches were switched off. The soldiers too, though facially impossible to read, had shifted their stances slightly. All were staring at the young Armenian who had boldly marched into the square.

Some movement caught Tovmas’ eye. In an open third-floor window of the council hall, a curtain had twitched. Now it was drawn back slightly, revealing the unmistakeable muzzle of a light machinegun. It was pointed at Tovmas’ men. They hadn’t seen it.

“Azarian! I know you hear me!” Samvel shouted, oblivious to the danger he was in. “Show your face, old man!”

Tovmas knew he had to break silence. He had to let his men know that he hadn’t been captured. He had to stop them from doing something even stupider.

Even as he drew breath to call out, he heard the creak of the council hall door opening across the silent square. Holding his shout, he looked out once more. Azarian had emerged from the council hall, now standing at the top of the steps, illuminated by the slanting dawn light. A smartly-dressed man Tovmas didn’t recognise stood at his shoulder with another pair of mercenaries. They faced Tovmas’ men, squinting across the square at their shadowed forms: the sun was behind Samvel. It might be the only thing that could save him.

“Tovmas is not here,” said Azarian.

Samvel lowered his rifle slightly. Tovmas could see the doubt spring on the young man’s face. Confidence was visibly seeping from him. The only sensible thing to do now would be turn and flee. But pride wouldn’t let him.

“You tried to arrest him! You tried to have him killed!” Samvel cried, desperation in his words. He raised his rifle again, pointing it at Azarian. Azarian’s men and the mercenaries all had their weapons trained on Samvel and his followers now. Run, you stupid boy!

“You dare threaten me?” said Azarian, his raven-like face twisting in anger. “The man you follow is a traitor and a war-monger! He would see us all die for his foolish ambitions!”

Tovmas’ choler rose at this. His grip tightened on his rifle. Hatred burned within him for the old councillor. The short-sighted coward.

“Put down your weapon, Samvel,” Azarian’s tone was calmer now. “You and your men can still go home. You do not have to be a part of this. It is your last chance.”

Take the offer, Samvel, willed Tovmas. But he knew that the young man’s pride wouldn’t let him.

Samvel hesitated. “You’re lying,” he said, his rifle shaking. “You’ll kill us anyway.”

Azarian’s face twisted once more. “Fine,” he said. “Have it your way. Kill them.”

The square erupted with gunfire. Samvel was cut down instantly. Men fell on both sides, pierced and punctured. Tovmas screamed with anger.

He swung round and sent an automatic burst through the curtained window where the machine-gunner was. The protruding barrel ceased firing and swung skywards, before the bipod slipped and the weapon fell backwards into the room, its operator dead. Then, seeing no sign of Azarian himself, Tovmas opened fire on the fast-dispersing crowd of his men, drawing grim satisfaction as some fell, screaming and jerking. He held the trigger until the rifle was empty.


Magazine changed, Tovmas once again leaned out of cover. The square was a mess of bodies, in the middle of which ran a clear divide where only Samvel’s broken form lay. The fighting was brutal. It was friend versus friend, kin against kin. Both sides fought with fury, neither pausing to think. Only the mercenaries fired with discipline, well positioned and dug in, showing only their helmets and armoured pauldrons to Tovmas’ men. The two militias, on the other hand, had retreated to opposite ends of the town square, huddled behind what little cover they could find. Slowly, Tovmas’ men were being picked off by the accurate shots from the mercenaries. Tovmas growled and drew a bead on them.

He chose one of the mercenaries closest to him, who though still fifty metres away, had his side exposed as he crouched behind the end of a low wall. Tovmas placed the sight post just under the man’s right armpit, where he knew there was no armour. Letting out his breath, he squeezed the trigger.

The shot hit where he’d aimed it. Apart from a slight twitch in the mercenary’s clothing and a sudden spasm, there was no visible evidence of the hit. It was a clean kill. The man fell limply backwards, lying unmoving next to his oblivious comrade who was still shooting at Tovmas’ men. The noise of the battle had covered the shot.

Tovmas adjusted the rifle. The second mercenary’s vulnerable side was hidden by the wall, so he carefully took aim at the man’s exposed face. He fired, but the round was low, clipping the top of the mercenary’s rifle and spraying shards of bullet into his face. The mercenary leapt back from the wall, screaming, his hands clutching at his wound. Tovmas fired again twice, but lower, at the unarmoured groin. Blood spurted from the bullet holes and the mercenary went down, but not without attracting the attention of his comrades. One of them pointed at Tovmas’ window. Shit.

Even as Tovmas dropped to the wooden decking, bullets were cracking through the window. He could hear more smacking into the brick wall next to him like the blows of a sledgehammer, punching deeper with every hit. He crawled forwards to the next window, and as he reached it the shots penetrated the last layer of bricks, blowing gaping holes in the wall right where he would have been lying. Dust billowed from the impacts and little chips of debris peppered and stung him. He held his rifle tightly to his chest and waited for it to stop.

Eventually they stopped shooting at him. Hesitantly, Tovmas rose to a crouch and shuffled to the ladder, which he slid down as fast as he could let himself. He surprised himself by how nimbly he landed, and how pain-free it had been, considering his age. Briefly he supposed that adrenaline was a wonderful thing, before running to the open doorway of the apartment block and slipping out into the side street.

Three of his loyal militia were pressed against the corner of the building that met the square, taking cover from the vicious fire fight that still raged across it. Tovmas shouted a greeting to them, and they spun round, fearful and panicked. When they recognised him they relaxed; relief on their dusty faces.

“We thought they had caught you!” shouted the nearest man, over the echoing din.

“Not yet, my friend!” replied Tovmas, slapping him on the shoulder. His own voice sounded strange and muffled. The loud gunfire had dulled his hearing.

“Where have you been?” shouted another of the three: a man with a bleeding gash across his cheek.

“I have been in there,” Tovmas slapped the wall, “killing mercenaries! I was hiding there when that damned fool Samvel wandered out!”

The man nodded gravely, before returning his attention to the square with his rifle held ready. Tovmas looked out at the remainder of his men pinned down in the square, their dwindling numbers and plummeting morale pushing them closer and closer to breaking point. Soon they would either run and be routed, or surrender themselves to the mercy of Azarian. Tovmas had to do something.

He turned, looking back up the street behind him. Then he grabbed the attention of the three men.

“We’re going to flank around behind Azarian’s militia! I need to persuade them to help us!”

The three looked at him blankly for a moment; their reactions were clear on their faces. The other militiamen were the enemy. They’d been shooting at them. They’d been ordered by Azarian to kill them. How on Earth did Tovmas plan to bring them round?

Tovmas took a deep breath. “Trust me,” he said. And they did.

It was time to find out whether Azarian’s men were truly Azarian’s men.