Дмитрий Мансуров - Invasion

This led to far-reaching delusions of grandeur.

“I’ll create an interplanetary commission to intervene in the internal affairs of this planet,” he decided. “A grandiose interplanetary scandal is coming!”

He’d receive a lot of money that he could use to buy a new, cutting-edge spacecraft.

The captain was enthusiastically pulling the high-quality wool over his own eyes, forgetting that his ship was hanging on the branches of old trees, ready to fall with the first strong gust of wind.

Time flew like a bullet on normal days, but Yaga was eagerly awaiting nightfall and the passing hours mockingly stretched to infinity. Yet the laws of physics couldn’t be argued with, so the time allotted for waiting eventually came to an end.

“Finally!” Yaga exclaimed as the last ray of sunlight disappeared in the darkness of the night. The flying broom rushed toward its target, nearly breaking the sound barrier. Yaga stopped at Babak’s house and looked in the window. As expected, the princes sat surrounded by half of the village, sharing the latest gossip that covered ten years of capital life. Yaga giggled. How little the people needed to feel happy! She flew to the window of the attic that Babak had rebuilt into a room. Ivan was sleeping quietly on the bed there, having no idea who had come to interrupt his dreams.

It was extremely easy to open the closed window. Yaga bent down to avoid hitting her head on the frame and approached the bed with a goat. The linen bag opened its mouth in a warm welcome and in a second, Ivan was inside. Yaga abruptly turned around and her broom kicked the wooden toys from the shelves. Not on purpose but solely because of the tightness and darkness reigning in this room. The figurines of animals, people, and birds dropped to the floor and went silent. Alena spoke then,

“Ivan, why aren’t you sleeping?” Footsteps could be heard coming up the stairs.

Cursing the universal law of meanness and no longer caring about staying quiet, Yaga rushed to the window and heard the frightened cry of the girl. The broom went sideways from a sharp turn. Something else fell from the shelves and broke. Yaga hurt her forehead by colliding with the window. Ivan woke up and began yelling so loudly that even the cockroaches behind the stove felt sick. The princes with the swords burst into the room suspiciously quickly, as if they’d been dreaming of leaving the crowd of grateful listeners for a while. Yaga flew out into the street and gained height so abruptly that she almost fell off the broom, nearly dropping the bag in the process.

“She stole him! She stole my brother!” Alena shouted somewhere from below. She and the princes watched as Yaga swept past the moon, rubbing her bruised forehead.

“That hag!” Yaroslav muttered. Artem gritted his teeth.

“Who is that witch?” he asked angrily.

“Baba Yaga,” Alena said.

“Who is that Baba Yaga?” Artem corrected himself. Alena looked at the prince.

“I don’t use insults for anyone,” she explained. “This was the real Baba Yaga.”

“I’ll chop her legs off!” Artem threatened without looking at anyone. “That’ll teach her a lesson!”

“Too late,” said Babak, who had just entered the room. The peasants poured out into the yard and were now watching Yaga’s flight under the starry sky. “Her leg has already been chopped off,” Babak added.

“Then the other leg!” Artem said stubbornly.

Sobbing, Alena ran to Babak and buried her face in his shoulder. Artem quickly went down to the first floor and put on a helmet and his chain mail.

“Yar, stay here in case she comes back!” he said and turned to the peasants. “How can I find her? Does she come here often?”

“She won’t come back,” Yaroslav said. “She took what she needed already. I’ll come with you.”

“It’s dangerous!” the peasants warned, before gladly explaining how to find the hut in a dense forest and how not to get lost. So many events, and all of them in just one day! The memories would be enough for the next three hundred years, for them, their grandchildren, and their great-grandchildren as well.

“And what if she needs someone else, not just Ivan?” Artem said. “Maybe this was a feint, and her main goal is to kidnap Alena?”

“Too deep,” Yaroslav replied. “Strategic objectives of any enemy primarily concern bringing as much panic as possible and pushing the thoughts of the enemy in the wrong direction.”

The peasants kept thoughtfully silent. Then they looked at each other and nodded their heads. The prince had a point… probably.

“Nevertheless, I beg you to stay!” Artem looked at his brother intently, and when Yaroslav realized what was happening, a barely noticeable smile stretched the corners of his lips.

“Be careful!” he warned. “I don’t want two families to be missing a brother.”

“Do you know where to go?” he asked the villagers

The peasants first described the place where Yaga was sent during her raids, but they quickly realized that this address was too blurred in space and time. After that, they pointed out a more or less accurate place, and the prince rushed off to rescue Ivan.

When the prince rode away into the darkness of the night, the peasants slowly went home.

“This is strange,” Babak said thoughtfully. “Yaga has never touched children before. What’s gotten into her?”

“So she doesn’t eat them?” Yaroslav asked in a whisper, cautiously glancing at the stairs.

“Do you think she lacks food in the woods?” Babak replied in the same low voice, glancing in the same direction. “No, it’s something else… The prince won’t get killed alone, will he?”

“What could Yaga possibly do to him?” Yaroslav waved this concern away dismissively. “He’s a better warrior than I am. He’s like an animal when in a battle.”

“I was like this, too,” Babak nodded. “A long time ago.”

“You were a warrior?”

“I was everything,” the old man chuckled. “Are you interested in legends? Then sit down. I’ll tell you a lot of interesting things. The sleepiness is gone anyway.”

“Babak, why are you called this way?” the prince asked suddenly. “You don’t look like a decrepit, grumpy old man.”

Babak smiled.

“I was quite vicious when I was young. It’s difficult to attack bears while being gallant and all. So people used me as a scarecrow. They told their children that I would come for them one dark night, with a bag on my shoulder, and that I’d take the disobedient ones to a dark, very dark forest. To frighten the children even more, they called me Baba Yag, and then shortened the name to Babak. That’s how I got my nickname. Babak. And what you said about being an old man, it’s just horror stories. I’m like a children’s version of Kashchey. He’s a thousand and I’m a hundred years old.”

So the legendary children’s “Kashchey” began to tell stories from his life, one more terrible and exciting than the other. The bearskins that filled the hut convincingly proved that Babak could do more than simply talk. Yaroslav looked at him and thought, ‘ No wonder children are afraid of his name. Such a person can fight an entire army and win.’

‘But where did he get such strength and knowledge about military affairs, if he’s a great commander?!’ the prince thought. ‘ I know all the generals, but I’ve never heard about Babak!’

The old man went on speaking, and his slightly sly look vaguely revealed that Yaroslav’s unsuccessful attempts to figure out his origins didn’t go unnoticed. But he wasn’t going to reveal his secret.

The clock owl announced that it was three when a scream came from upstairs, interrupting Babak’s stories. Alena emerged.