Sasha dragged himself to his knees. There was blood on his mouth. His lips formed a single word—Run.
She hesitated. The mare felt it and slowed.
Just then, a streak of flame shot across the heavens.
It was like a star falling: scarlet and blue and gold. The streak of flame dropped lower, lower, surged like a wave, and suddenly there was a tall golden mare, glowing in the grass, galloping alongside them.
Cries of rage and wonder from the Tatars.
“Pozhar,” Vasya whispered. The mare slanted an ear at the other horse, turned her other ear back to the men riding them down. Get on my back.
Vasya didn’t question it. She stood up, balancing on the bay mare’s back as she galloped. Pozhar had shortened her stride to pace the other horse and Vasya stepped sideways, lightly, and dropped to the mare’s golden withers. The mare’s skin was burning-hot between her knees.
A few of the oncoming men had bows; an arrow whistled past her ear. They were just inside bowshot, angling back toward the place where her brother lay. What to do? Miraculously, she had Pozhar’s speed now, but her brother was on the ground. Another arrow whistled past her cheek just as she glimpsed the Midnight-road.
An idea came to her then, so reckless her breath caught. With the rage and terror in her heart, the limits of her knowledge and her skill so miserably evident, she could think of nothing else.
“We have to get back to this same midnight. We have to come back for him,” Vasya told the mare grimly. “But we need to get help first.”
You didn’t understand, Midnight had said.
The mare set foot on the Midnight-road and they were swallowed up by the night.
* * *
THEY WOULD GET BACK to the Tatar camp on the same midnight—she would not have left otherwise. But it felt hideously like she’d abandoned her brother to die, as she galloped through the wild darkness, trees lashing at her face. She sobbed into the mare’s neck for a stride or two, in horror, in fear for Sasha, in sheer disgust at her own blundering, at the limits of her skill.
The golden mare did not move like Solovey. Solovey was round through the barrel and easy to ride. Pozhar was faster, leaner, her withers a hard ridge, her stride a great heave and surge, like riding the crest of a flood.
After a few moments, Vasya raised her head and got control of herself. Could she do it? She couldn’t even have contemplated it, were her mind not full of the sight of her brother, bloody, surrounded by enemies. She tried to think of something else.
Anything.
She couldn’t.
So she concentrated on where she wished to go. That part was easy, and quick. Her blood knew the way; she scarcely needed to think of it.
After only few minutes of galloping, they burst out of the black woods into a familiar field, hissing with wheat half-harvested. The sky was a river of stars. Vasya sat up. Pozhar slowed, dancing, wild.
A small village stood on a little rise, beyond the cleared fields. It was indistinct against the stars, but Vasya knew its every fold and curve. Longing closed her throat. It was midnight, in the village where she’d been born. Somewhere near, in his own house, was her brother Alyosha, her sister Irina.
But she wasn’t there for them. One day, she might go back—bring Marya back to meet her people, to eat good bread sitting in warm summer grass. But now she could not look for comfort here. She was on another errand.
“Pozhar,” said Vasya. “Why did you come back?”
Ded Grib, said the mare. He’s been getting news from all the mushrooms in Rus’, as self-important as you could wish, telling everyone he is your greatest ally. Today he came to me saying you were in danger again and that I was a great lump for not helping. I went to find you only to silence him, but then I saw the fires you made. They were good fires. The mare sounded almost approving. Besides, you don’t weigh very much. You aren’t even uncomfortable.
“Thank you,” said Vasya. “Will you carry me farther?”
That depends, said the horse. Are we going to do anything interesting?
Vasya thought of Morozko, far away in the white silence of his winter world. There was a welcome for her there, she knew. But not help. She might pull him, a shadow, out once more from winter, but to what end? He could not fight off an army of Tatars as he was, and save her brother.
She could only think of one who might be able to.
She said grimly, “More interesting than you might wish.” Once more, she wondered if she was being fatally rash.
But then she thought of Midnight. What had she meant when she said, We hoped that you were different.
Vasya thought she knew.
At her touch, Pozhar wheeled and galloped back through the trees.
29.
Between Winter and Spring
THERE IS A CLEARING ON the border between winter and spring. Once Vasya would have said that the cusp of spring was a moment. But now she knew that it was also a place, at the edge of the lands of winter.
At the center of the clearing stood an oak-tree. Its trunk was vast as a peasant’s hut, its branches spread like the roof-beams of a house, like the bars of a prison.
At the foot of the tree, leaning on the trunk, knees drawn up to his chest, sat Medved. It was still midnight. The clearing was dark; the moon had sunk below the horizon. There was only Pozhar’s light, echoed by the gleam of gold that bound the Bear’s wrists and throat. Utter silence in the forest all around, but Vasya had the distinct impression of unseen eyes, watching.
Medved didn’t move when he saw them, except his mouth quirked in an expression very far from a smile. “Come to gloat?” he asked.
Vasya slid off the mare’s back. The demon’s nostrils flared, taking in her disheveled appearance, the cut on her temple, feet caked with mud. Pozhar backed uneasily, ears locked on the Bear, remembering perhaps the teeth of his upyry in her flank.
Vasya stepped forward.
His unscarred brow lifted. “Or are you come to seduce me?” he asked. “My brother not enough for you?”
She said nothing. He couldn’t draw back, pressed against the tree, but the single eye opened wider. He was tense, bound tight by the gold. “No?” he said, still mocking. “Then why?”
“Did you mourn the priest?” she asked.
The Bear tilted his head and surprised her by saying simply, “Yes.”
“Why?”
“He was mine. He was beautiful. He could create and destroy with a word. He put his soul in his singing, in his writing of icons. He is gone. Of course, I mourn.”
“You shattered him,” she said.
“Perhaps. Though I did not make the cracks.”
Perhaps it was a fitting epitaph for Father Konstantin, to be regretted by a chaos-spirit. The Bear was leaning his head against the bole of the tree, as though untroubled, but the single eye was fixed on her. “Devushka, you are not here to lament Konstantin Nikonovich. Then why?”
“My brother is a prisoner of the Tatar general Mamai. And my brother-in-law with him,” she said.
The Bear snorted. “Kind of you to tell me. I hope they both die screaming.”
She said, “I cannot free them alone. I tried, and I failed.”
The eye took in her disheveled appearance again. “Did you?” His smile was almost whimsical. “What does that have to do with me?”
Vasya’s hands were shaking. “I mean to save them,” she said. “And after must save Rus’ from invasion. I cannot do it alone. I joined the war between you and your twin, when I helped Morozko bind you. But now I want you to join my war. Medved, will you help me?”
She had shocked him. The gray eye widened. But his voice was still light. “Help you?”
“I will make you a bargain.”
“What makes you think I’ll keep it?”
“Because,” she said, “I
don’t think you want to spend eternity under this tree.”
“Very well.” He leaned forward, as far as the gold would allow. The words were scarcely more than a breath against her ear. “What bargain, devushka?”
“I will undo this golden thing,” she said. She traced the line of the binding, throat to wrist to hand. The golden bridle wanted to hold on; it was a tool made to bend one creature to another’s will. It resisted her, but when she slipped a finger beneath and pulled it just a little away from his skin, it gave.
Medved shuddered.
She did not want to see hope in his eyes. She wanted him to be a monster.
But monsters were for children. He was powerful, in his own fashion, and for her brother’s sake, she needed him.
Thinking of that, she opened the skin of her thumb on her dagger. His hand reached out involuntarily, drawn to the virtue in her blood. She drew away before he could touch her.
“If I release you, then you will serve me as Midnight serves my great-grandmother,” said Vasya grimly. “You will fight my battles and connive at my victories; if I summon, you will answer. You will swear never to lie to me, but give true counsel. You will not betray me, but always keep faith. You will also swear never again to turn your plagues onto Rus’: no terror or fire or dead alive. Under those conditions, and those alone, will I free you.”
He laughed. “The effrontery,” he said. “Just because my brother abased himself for your ugly face? Tell me why I should be your dog?”
Vasya smiled. “Because the world is wide and very beautiful, and you are tired of this clearing. I saw how you looked at the stars the night by the lake. Because, as you have noticed, I am like a chaos-spirit myself, and where I go disorder goes too. You enjoy that sort of thing. Because the fight between you and your brother is over, for you are both joining my war. And—perhaps you will like serving me. It would be a battle of wits at least.”
He snorted, “Your wits, witch-girl?”
“They are improving,” said Vasya, and touched his face with the hand she’d cut on her knife-blade.
He jerked back, even as his flesh grew more solid beneath her fingers. His hands flexed under the golden binding.
He stared at her, breathing shallowly. “Oh, now I know why my brother wanted you,” he whispered. “Sea-maiden, witch’s daughter. But one day you will go mad with magic. Just like every witch, every sorcerer that ever lived. And then you will be mine. Perhaps I’ll just…wait.”
“One day,” said Vasya mildly, dropping her hand, “I will die. I will go into the darkness, into the wood between worlds where your brother guides the dead. But I will still be myself. If I am mad, I will not be yours. And dead I will not be his.”
He breathed out half a laugh, but the gray eye was sharp. “Perhaps,” he said. “Still, exchange prison for slavery? Wear the golden rope here, trapped by the priest’s blood? Or wear it elsewhere, a slave to your will? You haven’t offered me nearly enough to get me to help you.”
Pozhar squealed suddenly. Vasya did not look round, but somehow the sound gave her courage. She knew she’d never keep the mare’s loyalty if she took a slave—any slave—with the help of that golden thing.
She took a deep breath. “No, you will not wear the rope. I am not Kaschei the Deathless. I am going to take your oath. Will it bind you, Medved?”
He stared.
She went on, “I imagine it might, since your own twin took your word. Swear to me, and I will free you. Or would you prefer sitting here to fighting a war?”
Avid hunger in his face, there and gone. “A war,” he breathed.
She fought nerves, made herself speak calmly. “Between Mamai and Dmitrii,” she said. “You should know. You were the one that ensured the silver would be lost.”
He shrugged. “I only cast bread on the water, devushka. And see what comes up to eat it.”
“Well, war is kindled; Dmitrii had no choice. And you, lover of battles, can help us. Will you swear to me, and come into the night?” She rose and stepped back. “Or perhaps you prefer to stay; perhaps it is beneath your dignity to be a girl’s servant.”
He laughed and laughed, and then he said, “In a thousand lives of men, I have never been anyone’s servant.” He gave her another long look. “And it will enrage my brother.” She bit her lip. “You have my oath—Vasilisa Petrovna.” He put his bound wrist to his mouth and bit his hand suddenly, just where finger met thumb. Blood, clear and sulfur-smelling, welled out. He put out a thick-fingered hand.
“What does your blood do to someone who is not dead?” she asked.
“Karachun told you, did he?” he said. “It gives you life, wild girl. Haven’t I sworn not to harm you?”
She hesitated, and then clasped his hand, her blood sluggish on his skin, his blood stinging where it touched. She felt a jolt of unpleasant energy, burning away her weariness.
Pulling her hand away, she said, “If you are forsworn, then back to this tree you will go, tied hand and foot and throat with this golden thing. And I will put out your other eye and you may live in darkness.”
“You were such a sweet child, when I first met you by this very tree,” remarked the Bear. “What happened?” His voice was mocking, but she could feel the tension in him, when she began to undo the golden clasps.
“What happened? Love, betrayal, and time,” said Vasya. “What happens to anyone who grows to understand you, Medved? Living happens.” Her hands slid along the oily gold, working at the buckles. She wondered briefly how Kaschei had made it. Somewhere, perhaps, there was an answer, somewhere there were secrets of magic beyond the setting of fires, the seeing of chyerti.
One day, perhaps, she would learn them, in far countries, beneath wilder skies.
Then the gold slithered away, all in a rush. The Bear was very still, flexing his unbound hands with a disbelief he couldn’t quite conceal. She got to her feet. The gold was in two pieces: what had been the reins and the headstall of the bridle. She wrapped them around her wrists: a terrible prince’s ransom, shining.
The Bear rose, and stood beside her. His back was straight; his eye glittered. “Come then, mistress,” he said, half-mocking. “Where shall we go?”
“To my brother,” said Vasya grimly. “While it is still midnight, and he is still alive. But first—”
She turned, seeking, in the darkness. “Polunochnitsa,” she said.
She had no doubts of her guess, and indeed, the midnight-demon stepped at once into the clearing. Voron’s great hooves crunched the bracken at her back.
“You betrayed me,” said Vasya.
“But you understood at last,” said Polunochnitsa. “It was never your task to pick out the good from the wicked. Your task was to unite us. We are one people.” The rage was gone from her face.
Vasya stalked forward. “You could have told me. They tormented my brother.”
“It is not something you can be told,” said Polunochnitsa. “It is something you must come to understand.”
Her great-grandmother had said the same. Vasya could feel the Bear watching. He breathed out a laugh as she, wordless, unspooled the golden rope, snapped it out, caught Polunochnitsa around the throat. The midnight-demon tried to wrench back, but couldn’t, caught by the power in the gold. She made a single, shocked sound and stood still, wide-eyed.
Vasya said, “I do not like being betrayed, Polunochnitsa. You took no pity on me after the fire; you had no pity on my brother. Perhaps I should leave you tied to a tree.”
The black stallion reared, squealing. Vasya didn’t move, though the great hooves were a handsbreadth from her face. “I will take her with me, Voron, if you kill me.”
The horse subsided, and Vasya had to harden her heart. Midnight was looking at her with genuine fear. “Medved owes me allegiance now, and so do you, Polunochnitsa. You will not betray me again.”
&n
bsp; The midnight-demon was staring at her with horror and unwilling fascination. “You are Baba Yaga’s heir in truth now,” she said. “When you have finished with the dealings of men, go back to the lake. At midnight, the witch will be waiting.”
“I am not finished yet,” Vasya said grimly. “I am going to save my brother. You are going to swear an oath to me as well, Lady Midnight, and you are going to help me.”
“I am sworn to your great-grandmother.”
“And, as you said, I am her heir.”
Their eyes locked, a silent battle of wills. Midnight was the first to lower hers. “I swear then,” she said.
“What do you swear?”
“To serve you and to heed you, and never to betray you again.”
Vasya, with a snap, freed Polunochnitsa of the golden rope. “I swear to sustain you as I can,” she said. “With blood and with memory. We can no longer afford to fight amongst ourselves.”
The Bear said lightly, from behind, “I think I am going to enjoy this.”
30.
The Enemy of My Enemy
SASHA WAS ONLY VAGUELY AWARE of what happened, after he threw Chelubey from the saddle. He hadn’t been thinking clearly when he did it. Merely that there was a sword, and his sister’s vulnerable throat, and he hated the Tatar as he’d never hated anyone in his life. Hated his impersonal cruelties, his clever mind, his soft questions.
So, when the Tatar drew up alongside them, Sasha saw an opening and didn’t hesitate. But he was wounded, and Chelubey strong. A blow to his jaw shot sparks across his sight, and then Chelubey shouted over Sasha’s head, urging other men on. Sasha dragged himself to his knees, saw his sister, still mounted, wheeling her horse to come back for him.
Vasya, he tried to shout. Run.
Then the world went dark. When he came to, he was still lying on the ground. Chelubey stood over him. “She’s gone,” Sasha heard a voice say. “Disappeared.” He let out a breath of relief, just as Chelubey drew back and kicked him in the ribs. The bone cracked; Sasha doubled up, lacking the breath to scream.
The Winter of the Witch Page 29
