Yuri Andrejevic passed the bottle of kvass around the fire. Nicolai Ivanovich merely stared angrily, arms tightly crossed over his belly.
“Oh, did we hurt your feelings, Nicolai?” bellowed the Colonel. “Well, I won’t apologize. Your story is ridiculous. A stone from the sky did all this!” He waved his gloved hand.
We’d been six days ridingĀ along the Tunguska river across thousands of versts of destruction, the great forest trees laid flat and burnt to charcoal, the rabbits and deer of the forest lying dead in their tracks with singed fur and blistered skins.
I drank the kvass, wondering.