Кэтрин Арден - The Girl in the Tower

“I go first,” his companion retorted, not taking his eyes from Vasya. “I found her.”

“Well, then, catch her, and don’t be all day about it,” said the second man. “We have that boy to find.”

Vasya bared her teeth, hands shaking, mind blank with panic.

“Come here, girl,” said the first man, wiggling his fingers as though she were a dog. “Come here. Relax. I’ll be good to you.”

Vasya was calculating chances, wondering whether, if she flung herself on the first man, he might fall against the oven. She had to get to Solovey. Her hair fell a little away from her throat and the jewel gleamed between her breasts. The first man’s eye fell on it, and he licked his lips. “Where’d you steal that?” he said. “Well, never mind, I’ll have it, too. Come here.” He took a step forward.

She tensed to spring. But she had forgotten the bannik.

A gush of hot water came flying out of nowhere and doused the man from head to heel. He fell back screaming, tripped on the red-hot oven, struck his head with a crack, and went limp, sizzling horribly.

The second man stared, dumbfounded, even as another gout of water slapped him across the face. He stumbled backward, shrieking, and was driven from the bathhouse, flogged by an invisible hand wielding a birch stick.

Vasya dashed into the outer room. She flung on leggings, shirt, boots, and tunic and slung her cloak around her shoulders. The clothes clung to her sweating skin. The bannik waited in the doorway, silent still, but smiling now, viciously. The shouting outside had risen to a furious pitch. Vasya paused an instant and bowed low.

The creature bowed back.

Vasya ran outside. Solovey had broken out of the stable. Three men stood around him, not daring to come too near. “Get his rope!” cried a man from the arch of the gate. “Hold fast! The others are coming.”

A fourth man, who had clearly attempted to seize the rope dangling from Solovey’s neck, lay motionless on the ground with a great, seeping dent in his skull.

Solovey saw Vasya and hurled himself toward her. The men dodged, shouting, and in that moment, Vasya vaulted to the horse’s back.

Outside, more shouts rang out, the crunch of running feet. More men ran into the inn-yard, stringing their bows.

All this for her? “Mother of God—” Vasya whispered.

The wind rose to a howl, piercing her clothes, and the inn-yard plunged into shadow as clouds shut off the sun. “Go!” Vasya shouted at Solovey, just as the first of the men put an arrow to his bow.

“Halt,” he cried, “or die!”

But Solovey was already running. The arrow whistled past. Vasya clung to the horse. What, thought some dim, detached part of Vasya’s mind, did I do to merit this? The rest of her was wondering how it felt to die with a dozen arrows in her breast. Solovey had his head down now, hooves clawing at the snow. Two leaps covered the distance between her and the street. There were men there— so many men, some part of her mind thought—but Solovey took them by surprise, plowed through and past them.

The street lay in dusky twilight now. Snow fell in blinding flakes, masking them from view.

Silent and intent, Solovey ran—galloping, sliding, far too fast, across the snow of those wooden-boarded streets. Vasya felt him lurch and recover, and fought to keep her balance, blinded by the snow. Hoofbeats thudded behind them, mingled with muffled shouts, but those were already falling back. No horse could outrun Solovey.

A black shape leaped up before them: a vast, solid thing in a world of whirling white. “The gate!” came the faint cry. “Close the gate!” The dim shapes of guards, two on either side, were urging the massive thing closed. The gap was narrowing. But Solovey put on a burst of speed and dashed through. A wrench as Vasya’s leg scraped wood. Then they were free. A burst of shouting broke from the wall-top, and the twang and hiss of another arrow. She hunched nearer Solovey’s neck and did not look back. The snow was falling thicker than ever.

No more than a bowshot from the city, the wind abruptly died and the sky cleared. Looking back, Vasya saw that a snowstorm, purple as a bruise, lay over the town, shielding her escape. But for how long?

The bells were ringing below. Would they come after her? She thought of the drawn bow, the whine as the arrow slid past her ear. It seemed to her that they would. Her heart was racing still. “L-let’s go,” she said to Solovey. It was only when she tried to speak that she realized that she was shaking, that her teeth clacked together, that her skin was wet, that already she was growing very cold. She turned him toward the hollow tree where she had hidden his saddle and saddlebags. “We must get away from here.”

A violet evening sky hung glowing overhead. Vasya’s skin was still wet from the bathhouse, and her hair, hidden in her hood, was damp. But she weighed the dangers of fire against the dangers of flight and pushed the horse on. Somewhere in her brain was an arrow, narrowing to a point, and a man with composed, inhuman eyes, taking aim.

Solovey galloped the rest of the evening and into the night, long after any ordinary horse would have staggered to a halt. Vasya made no attempt to check him: fear was a steady drumbeat in her throat. The last of the violet faded from the sky, and then the only light came from the stars on pristine snow. Still the horse galloped, sure as a night-flying bird.

They only stopped when a cold wolf moon rose above the black treetops. Vasya was shivering so violently that she could barely hold herself in the saddle. Solovey stumbled to a halt, winded. Vasya slid from the horse’s back, unfastened the saddle, untied her cloak, and threw it over Solovey’s steaming flanks. The cold night air pierced her sheepskin coat and found the damp shirt beneath.

“Walk,” Vasya told the horse. “Don’t you dare stop. Don’t bite at the snow. Wait until I have warmed water.”

Solovey’s head hung down; she slapped his flank with a hand she could barely feel. “ Walk, I said!” she snapped, fierce with her own fearful exhaustion.

With an effort, the horse jerked into the motion that would keep his muscles from knotting.

Vasya was shivering convulsively; her limbs would barely obey her. The moon had hovered a little, like a beggar at the door, but it was already setting. There was no sound but the creaking of trees in the frost. Her hands were stiff; she could not feel her fingertips. She gathered wood with gritted teeth and then pulled out her flints, fumbling. One strike, two, agony on her hands. She dropped one in the snow, and her hand would barely close when she tried to pick it up again.

The tinder flared and went out.

She had gnawed her lip bloody, but she couldn’t feel it. Tears had frozen on her face, but she couldn’t feel them either. Once more. Tap the flints. Wait. Blow, gently, on the flame through numb lips. This time the tinder caught and a little warmth drifted into the night.

Vasya almost sobbed with relief. She fed the fire carefully, adding sticks with near-useless hands. The fire steadied, strengthened. In a few moments she had a hot blaze and snow melting in a pot. She drank, and Solovey drank. The horse’s eyes brightened.

But though Vasya fed the fire, and dried her clothes as best she could; though she drank pot after pot of hot water, she could not really get warm. Sleep was a slow and fitful thing; her anxious ears turned every noise into the soft feet of pursuers. But she must have slept at last, for she awoke at daybreak, still cold. Solovey was standing stock-still above her, scenting the morning.

Horses, he said. Many horses, coming toward us, ridden by heavy men.