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.
But perhaps she was mistaken.
The breeze died. The tree-shadows seemed to thicken. Vasya turned her head, and he was there.
Barely. A faint, black-and-bone presence stepped softly into the clearing, its eyes disconcertingly familiar.
Morozko stilled beneath her glance. This was not the frost-demon, this was his other, older self, black-cloaked, pale, long-fingered. He was here for the dead. Suddenly the sunlight seemed muted. She felt his presence in the blood on the earth, in the touch of the cold air on his face, old and still and strong.
She drew a deep breath.
He inclined his head slowly.
“Thank you,” she whispered into the cold morning, too low for anyone to hear.
But he heard. His eyes found hers, and for an instant he looked—almost—real. Then he turned away, and there was no man there at all, but only the cold shadow.
Biting her lip, Vasya finished binding her brother’s arm. When she looked back, Morozko had gone. The dead men lay in their blood, and the sun shone gaily down.
A clear voice was speaking. “Who is that boy,” asked Kasyan, “who looks so much like Brother Aleksandr?”
“Why, this is our young hero,” returned Dmitrii, raising his voice. “Vasya!”
Vasya touched Sasha’s arm, said, “This must be cleaned later, with hot water, and bound with honey,” and then turned.