Koba did not rise.
He stayed seated on the cold ground, a small, still figure looking up at the giant before him. In strength, Pavel could have broken him like kindling. But this was not a contest of bodies. It was a battle of conviction—and here, Koba towered over him.
He folded the map with calm precision. Once. Twice. Again. His fingers smoothed each crease with mechanical care. The gesture was deliberate, wordless control—a signal clearer than any command: Your turmoil is irrelevant. You will wait until I am finished.
When the map was stowed away, Koba looked up. The moonlight made his face pale and expressionless.
"There is nothing to discuss, Pavel," he said, voice steady and flat. "A tactical decision was made. It succeeded. We have horses. We are alive. The variable has been removed."
Pavel's fists clenched at his sides, huge and trembling. "Variable?" His voice came out as a growl, deep and raw. "You call that boy a variable? They were farmers, Ioseb. They offered you bread." His voice cracked. "The woman called her son in for supper. The boy—he was playing with a toy horse. He was seven. Maybe younger."
He took a step closer, shadow swallowing Koba whole. "That wasn't war. That wasn't survival. That was murder."
Koba didn't move. The words hit him like wind against stone. The silence that followed was heavy enough to crush the air between them. Only the horses stirred, their breath white in the dark.
"Honor," Koba said at last, his tone like frost. "A story rich men tell before sending their sons to die. A word polished and sold to fools who can afford pretty graves. Honor is a luxury, Pavel. And we have no luxuries left."
He rose slightly, eyes glinting dark in the thin light. "We are being hunted by the full power of the Empire. Trains, engines, telegraphs—they move faster than fear. They fight with the speed of thought. And you want to meet them with a peasant's sword of honor?" He gave a quiet, mirthless laugh. "Tell me—how much is honor worth when your body swings from a gallows?"
Pavel stood silent, his rage faltering under the weight of that logic.
"You're a good man," Koba said, his tone softening into something that almost resembled kindness. "A good soldier. But you still believe in old boundaries—soldiers, civilians, sins, and virtues. That world never existed, Pavel. It was a story told to make cruelty seem noble."
He picked up a sharp stone and rolled it between his fingers. "In the real war—the only war that matters—there are no good men. There are only assets and threats. That's all the world is now."
He turned the stone once more, then dropped it into the snow. "The farmer was the greatest threat we've faced. Do you know why?"
Pavel didn't answer. He only stared, hollow-eyed.
"Because his bullet would never miss," Koba said quietly. "He was an honest man. An obedient subject. He would have gone straight to the authorities and told them everything—our faces, our rifles, our direction. His truth would have killed us faster than any weapon. His goodness was the perfect aim."
He paused. "The woman and the boy were witnesses. They would have confirmed every word. They were echoes of the same sound—and you silence echoes, Pavel. You don't leave them to carry through the air."
He lifted both hands, weighing invisible scales in the air between them. "Here," he said, "three lives. A man, a woman, a child—irrelevant to history. And here—" he gestured to the others, then touched his own chest "—our lives. Our cause. The one person I must reach to make all this worth it."
Inside, Jake Vance screamed.
Jake:You're using her. You're twisting what she means to justify murder.
Koba:Love is energy. All energy must be directed. I simply found its purpose.
Koba's voice remained steady. "The scales were never balanced. It wasn't a choice, Pavel. It was math."
The big man's strength drained from him like blood from a wound. His shoulders sagged. The fight bled out of his face. The truth was too sharp, too clean, too merciless to argue with. He despised it—but he could not refute it.
If the family had lived, they would already be dead. That was the arithmetic Koba demanded he accept. And Pavel did. Not in conviction, but in surrender.
"I… understand," he whispered. The words were ash in his mouth.
Koba rose at last. He stepped closer until they stood nearly chest to chest. Then he placed a gloved hand on Pavel's shoulder—not comfort, not fellowship, but ownership. A seal pressed into flesh.
"No," Koba said softly. "Not yet."
His fingers tightened. "But you will."
He let go, turning his back on the man he had broken. "Get some rest. The choices ahead will not be kinder."
The silence returned—colder, heavier than before. The fifth rider had not left. It simply waited.