She nodded.
“Then you must come with us,” said Sasha. “God knows we have had no other luck. But you will stay close to me. You will not speak more than you can help. If you have any more idea of heroics, forget it. You are going to tell me the whole story as soon as we get back. You are also not to be killed.” He paused. “Or wounded. Or captured.” The absurdity struck him again, and he added, almost pleading, “In God’s name, Vasya, how came you here?”
“You sound like Father,” Vasya said ruefully. But she could not say more. Dmitrii was already on his horse. The stallion, overexcited, cavorted in the snow and squealed at Solovey. The prince shouted, “Come, cousin! Come, Vasilii Petrovich! Let us ride!”
Vasya laughed at that, a little wildly. “Let us ride,” she echoed. She turned a mad grin on Sasha, said, “We will have no more burnt villages,” and leaped to her horse’s back with perfect grace and a complete lack of modesty. Solovey still wore no bridle. He reared. The men around them raised a cheer. Vasya sat his back like a hero, fey-eyed and pale.
Sasha, torn between outrage and grudging admiration, went to find his own mare.
The hinges of the monastery-gate, rigid with cold, gave a dying wail and then the way was open. Dmitrii spurred his horse. Vasya leaned forward and followed him.
IT IS NOT EASY TO FOLLOW the track of a cantering horse through the snow, not when a few hours of flurrying have half-filled the marks. But Vasya led them on steadily, brow furrowed in concentration. “I remember that old rock—it looked like a dog by night,” she would say. Or, “There—that stand of pines. This way.”
Dmitrii followed at Vasya’s heel with the look of a wolf on a hunt. Sasha rode behind him, keeping a brooding eye on his sister.
The fine, dry powder came to the horses’ bellies, and fell sparkling from the treetops. It had stopped snowing; the sun broke through the clouds, and all about them was golden light and virgin snow. Still they saw no tracks of bandits, only the marks of Solovey’s hooves, faint but definite, like a trail of breadcrumbs. Vasya led them steadily on. At midday they drank mead without slackening their pace.
An hour passed, then another. The trail grew fainter, and Vasya’s memory less certain. This was the part she had ridden in deep darkness, and the hoofprints had had more time to fade. But still they went, foot by foot.
Toward midafternoon, the forest thinned, and Vasya paused, casting here and there. “We are close now,” she said, “I think. This way.”
The tracks were wholly gone by then, even to Sasha’s eye; his sister was keeping the trail by the memory of trees that she had seen in the dark. Sasha was unwillingly impressed.
“That is a clever boy, your brother,” Dmitrii said to Sasha thoughtfully, watching Vasya. “He rides well. And has a good horse. The beast went all night, and yet he bears the boy easily today. Even though Vasilii is only a slip of a thing—too thin, your brother. We will feed him handsomely. I have a mind to bring him to Moscow myself.” Dmitrii broke off and raised his voice. “Vasilii Petrovich—”
Vasya cut him off. “Someone is here,” she said. Her face was taut with listening. From nowhere, and everywhere, a bitter wind began to blow. “Someone—”
Next moment the wind rose to a shriek, but not loud enough to mask the howl and thump of an arrow, or the cry from a man behind them. Suddenly strong men on stocky horses were riding down on them from every side, blades flashing in the low winter sun.
“AMBUSH!” SHOUTED SASHA, just as Dmitrii roared, “Attack!” The horses reared, startled by the first rush, and more arrows fell. The wind was blowing furiously now—tricky conditions for archery—and Sasha blessed their good fortune. Steppe-archers are deadly.
The men drew together at once, surrounding the Grand Prince. No one panicked. All the men were veterans who had ridden with Dmitrii in his wars.
The dense trees limited lines of sight. The wind was shrieking now. The bandits, howling, galloped down onto the Grand Prince’s men. The two groups met body to body, and then the swords rang out—swords? Expensive things for bandits to carry—
But Sasha had no time to think. In a moment, the melee had broken into a cluster of individual contests, stirrup to stirrup, and Dmitrii’s band was hard-pressed. Sasha blocked a spear-thrust, splintered the shaft with a downstroke, and cut down viciously, felling the first man who tried him. Tuman reared, lashing out with her forefeet, and three more attackers, riding smaller horses, drew back. “Vasya!” Sasha snapped. “Get out! Don’t—” But his unarmed sister bared her teeth, not quite laughing, and hung doggedly at the prince’s flank. Her eyes had grown very cold at the sight of the bandits. She had no sword or spear, which she surely did not know how to use, nor did she draw the knife at her side, which was too short for fighting on horseback.
No, she had her stallion: a weapon worth five men. Vasya had only to cling to his back and direct the beast to each new victim. Solovey’s kicks sent bandits flying; his hooves caved in their skulls. Girl and horse clung determinedly close to Dmitrii’s side, keeping the raiders off with the stallion’s weight. Vasya’s face was dead-white now, her mouth set stiff and unflinching. Sasha guarded his sister’s other side and prayed she wouldn’t fall off the horse. Once in the chaos, he could have sworn he saw a tall white horse beside the bay stallion, whose rider kept the bandits’ blades from finding the girl. But then Sasha realized it was only a cloud of flying snow.
Dmitrii laid about him with an ax, roaring his joy.
After the first frenzy of charge, it was all close work, in deadly earnest. Sasha took a sword-stroke to the forearm that he did not feel, and beheaded the man who gave it to him. “How many bandits can there be?” Vasya shouted, her eyes aglitter with fearful battle-lust. The stallion kicked out, breaking a man’s leg and sending his horse crashing to the snow. Sasha gutted another and booted him out of the saddle, as Tuman shifted to stay beneath him.
One of Dmitrii’s men fell, and a second, and then the battle grew desperate.
“Vasya!” snapped Sasha. “If I fall, or if the Grand Prince does, you must flee. You must go back to the monastery; do not—”
Vasya wasn’t listening. Uncanny how the big bay stallion protected his rider, and none of the Tatars now would bring his horse in range of the beast’s hooves. And yet a single spear-stroke could take him down. They had not managed it yet, but—
Suddenly Dmitrii shouted. A group of men broke out of the wood, churning up bloody snow beneath the strong hooves of their horses. These men were no bandits, but bright-helmed warriors, many warriors, armed with boar-spears. A tall, red-haired man was leading them.
The bandits looked palely on this new arrival, flung their weapons down, and fled.
11.
We Are Not All Born Lords’ Sons
“Well met, Kasyan Lutovich!” called Dmitrii. “We looked for you sooner.” A careless scarlet splatter covered one cheek and crusted in his yellow beard; there was blood on his ax and on the neck of his horse. His eyes were very bright.
Kasyan smiled back and sheathed his sword. “I beg you will forgive me, Dmitrii Ivanovich.”
“This time,” retorted the Grand Prince, and they laughed. Of the bandits, only the dead and the badly wounded lay huddled in the snow; the rest had fled. Kasyan’s men were already cutting the wounded men’s throats. Vasya, shaken, did not watch; she concentrated on her hands, binding up her brother’s forearm. The cold breeze still whispered through the clearing. Right before the bandits appeared, she could have sworn she heard Morozko’s voice. Vasya, he had said. Vasya. And then the wind had come screaming, the wind that turned the bandits’ arrows. Vasya even thought she had seen the white mare, with the frost-demon on her back, turning the blades that came nearest to touching her.