Кэтрин Арден - The Winter of the Witch

“We are here,” said Vasya, fierce with fear. “We see you. Help us.”

“We see you,” Marya echoed, whispering. Vasya took the child’s hand, held it tight. She had already reopened one of her innumerable cuts from the night before. She smeared a bloody hand on the hot brick in the oven-mouth.

The domovoi shivered and suddenly looked more like a living creature and less like a speaking shadow. “I can buy time,” he breathed. “A little time, but that is all.”

A little time? Vasya was still holding her niece’s hand. The women were massed at their backs, wearing various expressions of fright and condemnation.

“Black magic,” said one. “Olga Vladimirova, surely you see—”

“There is death in our fortunes tonight,” Vasya said to her sister, ignoring the others.

Olga’s face drew into grim lines. “Not if I can help it. Vasya, take the end of the bench; help Varvara bar the door—”

In Vasya’s head beat a swift litany: It is me they want.

Out in the dooryard, Solovey squealed. The gates shook. Varvara stood nearest the door, silent. Her eyes seemed to convey something. Vasya thought she knew what it was.

She knelt, stiffly, to look her niece in the face. “You must always take care of the domovoi,” she said to Marya. “Here—or wherever you are—you must do your best to make him strong, and he will protect the house.”

Marya nodded solemnly, and said, “But Vasochka, what about you? I don’t know enough—”

Vasya kissed her and stood. “You will learn,” she said. “I love you, Masha.” She turned to Olga. “Olya, she—soon, you must send her to Alyosha, at Lesnaya Zemlya. He will understand; he knew me, growing up. Masha cannot stay in this tower, not forever.”

“Vasya—” Olga began. Marya, puzzled, clutched at Vasya’s hand.

“For all of this,” said Vasya, “forgive me.” She let go of Marya’s hand and slipped out the door, which Varvara opened for her. For an instant, their eyes locked in a look of grim understanding.

SOLOVEY WAS WAITING FOR Vasya by the palace door, seemingly calm, save that a white rim showed about his eye. The dooryard was dark. The shouting had grown louder. A splintering crash came from the gate. The light of torches gleamed between the cracking timbers. Her mind was racing. What to do? Solovey, unmistakable, was in danger. They all were: herself, her horse, her family.

Could she and Solovey hide in the stable, the door barred? No—the maddened crowd would make straight for that vulnerable terem-door, for the children inside.

Give herself up? Walk up to them and surrender? Perhaps they would be satisfied, perhaps they would not break in at all.

But Solovey—what would they do to him? Her horse, standing stalwart at her side, would never leave her willingly.

“Come on,” she said. “We are going to hide in the stable.”

Better to run, said the horse. Better to open a gate and run.

“I am not opening any gate to that mob,” Vasya snapped. She made her voice coaxing. “We must buy all the time we can, so that my brother will come, with men from the Grand Prince. The gate will hold long enough. Come, we must hide.”

The horse, uneasy, followed her, while the shouting rose up all around them.

The great double door of the stable was made of heavy wood. Vasya opened it. The horse followed her, huffing uneasily into the dimness.

“Solovey,” Vasya said, drawing the door nearly to. “I love you.”

He nuzzled her hair, careful now of her burns, and said, Don’t be frightened. If they break the gate and come in here, we will just run away. No one will find us.

“Take care of Masha,” said Vasya. “Perhaps one day she will learn to speak to you.”

Vasya, said Solovey, throwing his head up in sudden alarm. But she had already pushed his head away from her, slipped out the narrow opening of the door and shut the stallion securely in the stable.

Behind her she heard the stallion’s furious squeal, heard also the splintering, barely audible over the shouting, of his hooves on the sturdy wood. But even Solovey could not break through the massive door.

She started making her awkward way to the gate, cold and terrified.

The cracks in the gates widened. A single voice soared up into the night, urging the crowd on. In answer, the shouting rose to a greater pitch.

A second time the same voice called, silken, half-singing, cutting through the noise with its purity of tone. The slow, stabbing ache in Vasya’s side worsened. The lamps had been put out in the terem above.

Behind her, Solovey squealed again.

“Witch!” called the powerful voice a third time. It was a summons; it was a threat. The gate was splintering faster by the instant.

This time she recognized the voice. Her breath seemed to leave her body. But when she answered, her voice didn’t shake. “I am here. What do you want?”

At that moment, two things happened. The gate gave way in a shower of splinters. And behind her, Solovey burst the stable door and came galloping through it.

THEY WERE NEARER HER THAN Solovey, but nothing was faster than the bay stallion. He was coming for her at full gallop. Vasya saw a final chance. Goad the mob into pursuit; lead it away from her sister’s door. And so, as Solovey flew past her, she timed his stride, running alongside him, and then leaped to his back.

Pain, weakness disappeared in the urgency of the moment. Solovey was charging straight toward the smashed gate. Vasya shouted as they went, drawing the mob’s eyes from the tower. Solovey lashed out with all of a war-stallion’s viciousness, tearing through the crowd. People clawed at them, only to be flung back and away.

Near the gate now. Her whole being was bent on escape. On open ground, nothing could outrace the bay stallion. She could draw them off, buy time, come back with Sasha, with Dmitrii’s guards.

Nothing could outrun Solovey.

Nothing.

She never saw what hit them. It might have been only a log meant for someone’s fireplace. All she heard was the hiss as it swung, and then she felt the shock, vibrating through the stallion’s flesh, as the blow landed . Solovey’s leg went sideways. He fell, a stride before the ruined gate.

The crowd shrieked. Vasya felt the crack like a wound herself. Instinct rolled her clear, then she was kneeling at the horse’s head.

“Solovey,” she whispered. “Solovey, get up.”

People pressed nearer; a hand seized her hair. She whipped round and bit it; the owner swore and fell back. The stallion struggled, kicking, but his hind leg lay at a terrible angle.

“Solovey,” Vasya whispered. “Solovey, please.”

The stallion breathed a soft, hay-scented breath into her face. He seemed to shudder, and the mane pouring over her hands felt spiky as feathers. As though his other, stranger nature, the bird she’d never seen, was going to fight free at last and take wing.

Then a blade came down.

It bit into the horse just where his head met his body. A howl went up.

Vasya felt the blade go through the stallion just as though it had cut her own throat, and she did not know she was screaming as she whirled like a wolf protecting her cub.

“Kill her!” cried someone in the crowd. “There she is—the unnatural bitch. Kill her.”

Vasya launched herself at them, heedless of anything, careless of her own life. Then a man’s fist fell on her, and another, until she could not feel them at all.

SHE WAS KNEELING IN a starlit forest. The world was black and white and quite still. A brown bird fluttered in the snow just out of reach. A figure, black-haired and bone-pale, knelt beside it, extending a cupped hand toward the creature.