That was not right. Nothing was right about these creatures.
“Let him down!” Pyetr yelled at it, waving the sword to attract its attention. “Damn it, you’re hurting him! Let him go!”
It paid no heed. It began to move, striding through the thorns, bending and breaking them, Sasha’s coat snagging, the god only knew about his face and hands.
Volkhi was not moving, spell-bound as he was. Pyetr pulled his head around and waked him with a kick, rode after the leshy that had Sasha—straight on into branches that raked him off Volkhi’s back and caught him up and up in a painful grip.
“Misighi!” he yelled. It was all there was left to do, as it snatched him along. “Misighi, dammit, help!”
Twigs wrapped him about, the sky and the ground exchanged positions more than once, and his ribs were creaking.
“Misighi! —Sasha! Let go, damn you!”
Maybe it listened. At least the grip let up, and it handed him on to another and another, a confusing wrapping and unwrapping of twiggy grips about his body and his face, until one took him painfully by both arms and held him in front of its huge, moss-green eye.
“This one,” it said, in a voice like rolling stones. “Yes.”
It let him go. He flailed out, hit the ground on his feet, and staggered into Sasha’s steadying hands. “What in hell—” he said, and caught sight of the stone and the sleeping man beyond Sasha’s shoulder.
Then he knew beyond a doubt where they were.
“Promises,” a leshy said, and the murmur from the lot of them was like the sound of stones in a river.
“Killing the trees,” another said.
And another: “Trust no wizards. Break bones, crack limbs.”
Twigs reached toward them, quivering, grasped them both and drew them close, folding about them.
“Misighi!” Pyetr yelled; and the one who had them rumbled, above the other voices:
“Stone and brine, young wizard, fail the root, fail the leaf, fail the tree. Foolish, foolish wizards.”
“Is it Misighi?” Sasha asked.
“Misighi, yes.” Brushy arms extended, rustling in the hush that had fallen, and set them safely back on the ground. “This root goes deep, deeper than leshys drink, young wizard.” Twigs felt them over, twigs grasped and curled and faced them both about, toward the sleeper on the stone.
“What do we do?” Sasha asked, turning about again; and Pyetr turned, seeing nothing but a grove of trees.
“Misighi?”
Nothing stirred. There was nothing but the grove, the thorn hedges around them—the young wizard lying pale and still.
“God,” Pyetr said, catching a breath. “Is he asleep?”
“He certainly seems that way,” Sasha said, and walked closer to that stone, and to Chernevog.
Pyetr overtook Sasha and caught his arm. “Close enough. Don’t touch him.”
Rain glistened on Chernevog’s pale face and hands, soaked his dark hair and his clothing. Like wax, he seemed—but he breathed. His clothes—white shirt, black breeches—were weathered and scattered with bits of twigs and leaves. That seemed to Pyetr the most disconcerting sight—that cloth should have faded, while Kavi Chernevog remained so apparently alive.
This creature—who had murdered ’Veshka once, and caused so much harm—slept like nothing so dangerous or evil. He looked so young and so incapable of the things he had done.
“So we’re here,” Pyetr said, with a breath. He looked around the circle of leshys, that looked like nothing so much as aged, weathered trees. “Here before she is, I hope to the god. — Misighi, where’s Eveshka? At least tell us that!”
Not a branch moved, not an eye opened anywhere around the grove.
Sasha said, “The way the river bends—it’s entirely possible we’ve beaten her here.”
“I don’t like this, damn, I don’t like this at all. What’s the matter with the leshys? What in the god’s name are we going to do with him? What do they expect?”
“I don’t know,” Sasha said.
Pyetr shoved his cap back and raked his hair out of his eyes, set it again and looked at Chernevog, thinking how in his impoverished, cellar-pilfering boyhood he had killed a rat once; he had even pinked a rascal in a duel once, and he could, not enthusiastically, behead a fish; but that dreadful thump that had put finish to the rat resounded in his dreams; and the god knew he had never killed another.
So here he was contemplating killing a sleeping man—even if it was Chernevog and even if he deserved a hundred times over to die.
“I think you should go get the baggage,” he said to Sasha.
“It’ll be—” Sasha looked at him suddenly as if he did understand. “Pyetr,—”
“I’ll take care of things. My business. Something we should have done long since. Go on.”
Sasha walked off slowly, shaking his head—stopped then and said, “Pyetr, I’m not sure about this.”
“I’m hard to wish. You aren’t. Get out of here!”
“The leshys could have killed him: they don’t mind killing trespassers, they’ve no conscience at all about it—”
“So maybe they figure it’s our job. Fair enough. I’ll accept that. Go on. Go.”
“Just—”
“Sasha, go see to the horses, dammit!” That Sasha lingered to argue frightened him and something shook his conviction. There were wishes loose, he was sure that there were, wishes to make them make mistakes, doubts to bring them to disaster and to set this creature free again. He clenched his hand tighter on his sword. He waved at Sasha, insisting he leave.
“Pyetr!”
He saw alarm flash into Sasha’s eyes, turned as an owl glided to a landing at Chernevog’s feet.
“So he does have a heart.”
“Be careful of it!”
“Damned careful! —Which should I go for, him or the bird?”
“Not the owl—not the owl! It can’t die while he’s alive.”
“Just stay back!” He shook the sheath free, walking toward
Chernevog, to spite him; but the owl spread its wings and launched itself at his face.
“Look out!” Sasha cried.
He cut at the creature—but the owl evaded his blade and flung itself at his face. “Damn!” he yelled, swung and tried to fling it off, but it clung to his sword hand with its talons, beating at him with its huge wings and tearing at his hand with its beak as Sasha struck at it barehanded to distract it.
It flew up again. Pyetr cut at it with a wild effort, hit it to his own dismay, and slung it to the ground off the edge of his blade.
“Pyetr!” Sasha cried.
A leaden blaze of daylight and a net of thorns—pain stabbed deep across arm and shoulder, settled in the heart—and in that pain, Chernevog flung himself off his bed and ran… wished sight, wished warmth, wished strength from the woods around him—
But it resisted him, and the hunters were close behind.
He was the boy again, fleeing the house, Draga’s wolves loping on his track, sharp-toothed and yellow-eyed. Thorns tore his hands as he fended brush aside. He ran free a moment, always a moment to think he might get away—but a thorn hedge loomed up in front of him, thorns hemmed him in on every side, and when he turned, his back to the thorns, the hunters were the riders from his dream, closing in to kill him.
He wanted to live, truly wanted to live, but the power failed him, and he could not remember where he was, or why the wolves had shifted into human shape. He was shivering so he held to the barbed branches to keep himself on his feet. He remembered names: Sasha, Uulamets’ student: that was the one he most feared, though it was Pyetr Kochevikov who had the sword, it was Pyetr who would kill him and send him back to Draga’s bed again, Draga saying, Young fool, did you ever think you could escape me?