“Anyushka!” gasped Katya. “That beast will—”
Solovey lowered his head, ears pricked in a friendly way.
Anyushka sprang back, wide-eyed. Solovey’s head was nearly bigger than she was. Then, tentatively, when Solovey did not move again, she raised clumsy fingers to pat his velvet nose. “Look, Katya,” she whispered. “He likes me. Even if he isn’t a magic horse.”
Vasya knelt beside the girl. “In the tale of Vasilisa the Beautiful, there is a magic black horse—night’s guardian—that serves Baba Yaga,” she said. “Perhaps mine is a magic horse, or perhaps not. Would you like to ride him?”
Anyushka made no answer, but the other girls, emboldened, crept out into the moonlight. Vasya located her saddle and saddlebags and began rigging out Solovey.
But now they heard another creature moving in the undergrowth, this one two-footed. No—more than one, and those were the sounds of horses. The hairs on the back of Vasya’s neck rose. It was very dark now, except for a little fitful moonlight. Hurry, Vasya, Solovey said.
Vasya fumbled for the girth. The girls clustered around the horse, as though they could hide in his shadow. Vasya did up the girth not an instant too soon; the sounds of men shouting drew nearer and nearer.
For an instant Vasya’s throat seized in panic, remembering her last desperate flight. With trembling hands, she boosted the two littlest up onto Solovey’s withers. Nearer the voices came. She sprang up behind the children and reached an arm down for Katya. “Get up behind me,” Vasya said. “Hurry! And hold on.”
Katya took the proffered hand and half leaped, half scrambled up behind Vasya. Katya was still lying belly-down on the stallion’s haunch when the captain of the bandits loomed out of the dark, face gray in the moonlight, riding a tall mare bareback.
Under other circumstances Vasya would have laughed at the shock and outrage on his face.
The Tatar did not bother with words, but drove his mare forward, curved sword in one hand, teeth bared in startled rage. As he came, he shouted. Cries all around answered him. The captain’s sword caught the moonlight.
Solovey spun like a snapping wolf and launched himself away, just missing the downstroke of the sword. Vasya had a death-grip on the children; she leaned forward and trusted the horse. A second man loomed up, but the horse ran him down without slowing. Then they raced away into the darkness.
Vasya had often had cause to bless Solovey’s sure feet, but she had more cause than ever that night. The horse galloped into tree-filled darkness without swerve or hesitation. The sounds of pursuit fell behind. Vasya breathed again.
She drew the horse to a walk for a moment, to let them all breathe. “Get beneath my cloak, Katyusha,” Vasya said to the eldest girl. “You mustn’t freeze.”
Katya burrowed beneath Vasya’s wolfskin and clung, shivering.
Where to go? Where to go? Vasya had no notion now which way the village lay. Clouds had rolled in, cutting off the stars, and their headlong flight in the thick dark had confused even her. She asked the girls, but none of them had ever been so far from home.
“All right,” Vasya said. “We are going to have to go on—fast—for a few more hours, so that they can’t catch us. Then I will stop and build a fire. We’ll find your village tomorrow.”
None of the children objected; their teeth were chattering. Vasya unrolled her bedroll, wrapped the two smaller girls in it, and held them upright against her body. It wasn’t comfortable, for her or for Solovey, but it might keep them from freezing.
She gave them draughts of her precious honey-wine, a little bread, and some smoked fish. As they were eating, heavy hoofbeats sounded from the undergrowth, surprisingly near. “Solovey!” Vasya gasped.
Before the stallion could move, a black horse came out of the trees, bearing a pale-haired, star-eyed creature.
“You,” said Vasya, too taken aback to be polite. “Now?”
“Well met,” returned Midnight, as composedly as if they had met by chance at market. “This forest at midnight is no place for little girls. What have you been doing?”
Katya’s arms shook around Vasya’s waist. “Who are you talking to?” she whispered.
“Don’t be afraid,” Vasya murmured back, hoping she was telling the truth. “We are fleeing pursuit,” she added to Midnight, coldly. “Perhaps you noticed.”
Midnight was smiling. “Has the world run dry of warriors?” she asked. “All out of brave lords? Are they sending out maidens these days to do the work of heroes?”
“There were no heroes,” said Vasya between her teeth. “There was only me. And Solovey.” Her heart was beating like a rabbit’s; she strained to hear sounds of pursuit.
“Well, you are brave enough at least,” said Midnight. Her starry eyes looked Vasya up and down, two lights in the shadow of her skin. “What do you mean to do now? They are cleverer riders than you think, the lord Chelubey’s people, and there are many of them.”
Lord—? “Ride fast until moonset, find shelter, build a fire, wait until morning, and double back toward their village,” said Vasya. “Do you have any better ideas? And why are you here, truly?”
Midnight’s smile took on a hard edge. “I was sent, as I said, and I am bound to obey.” A wicked gleam came into her eyes. “But, against my orders, I will give you some advice. Ride straight until dawn, always into the west—” She pointed. “There you will find succor.”
Vasya considered the wide smile. The chyert tossed back hair like clouds that cross the moon, and bore the regard easily.
“Can I trust you?” Vasya asked.
“Not really,” said Midnight. “But I do not see you getting better counsel.” She said that rather loudly, a hint of malice in her voice, as though she were expecting the forest to answer.
All was quiet except for the girls’ frightened breaths.
Vasya gathered her manners and bowed, a little perfunctorily. “Then I thank you.”
“Ride fast,” said Midnight. “Don’t look back.”
She and the black horse were gone, and the four girls were alone.
“What was that?” Katya whispered. “Why were you speaking to the night?”
“I don’t know,” said Vasya with grim honesty.
SO ON THEY RODE, west by the stars, as Midnight had bidden them, and Vasya prayed it was not all folly. Dunya’s tales had little good to say of the midnight-demon.
The night wore on, cruelly cold, despite the clouds rolling in. Vasya found herself shouting at the children, to keep them talking, moving, kicking, anything to keep them from freezing to death there on Solovey’s back.
She was sure the day would never come. I should have built a fire, she thought. I should have—
Dawn broke when she had almost given it up: a paling sky, snow-filled, but it brought, impossibly, the sound of hoofbeats. One young immortal horse, carrying four, it appeared, was not quite a match for skilled men who had ridden all night. Solovey leaped forward when he heard the hooves, ears against his head, but even he was beginning to tire. Vasya held the girls in a death-grip, and urged the horse on, but she almost despaired.
The tops of the black trees showed sharply against the dawn-lit sky, and suddenly Solovey said, I smell smoke.
Another burnt village, Vasya thought first. Or perhaps…A tidy gray spiral, almost invisible against the sky—that was not the black and reeking stuff of destruction. Sanctuary? Maybe. Katya lolled against her shoulder, beyond cold. Vasya knew that she must take the chance.
“That way,” she said to the horse.
Solovey lengthened his stride. Was that a bell-tower, over the trees? The little girls slumped in her grip. Vasya felt Katya behind her beginning to slip.