She asked, “Can you carry me and three children?”
Solovey shook his mane dubiously. If they are none of them large, he replied. But even if I can carry them, what will you do then? These bandits will know where we’ve gone. What’s to prevent them from following?
“I don’t know,” Vasya admitted. “Let’s find them first.”
Brighter the coal glowed, as though to defy the darkness. It began to scorch her mitten, and Vasya was just thinking of scooping it into some snow to save her hand when Solovey skidded to a halt.
A fire twinkled between the trees.
Vasya swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. She dropped the coal and put a hand on the stallion’s neck. “Quietly,” she whispered, hoping she sounded braver than she felt.
The horse’s ears moved forward and back.
Vasya left Solovey in a stand of trees. Moving with all a forest-child’s care, she crept to the edge of a ring of firelight. Twelve men sat in the circle, talking. At first Vasya thought there was something wrong with her hearing. Then she realized that they were speaking in a tongue she did not know: the first time in all her life she’d heard one.
Their bound captives huddled in the middle. A stolen hen smoked and dripped over the flames, while a good-sized skin went back and forth. The men wore heavy quilted coats but had set aside their spiked helms. Leather caps lined in wool covered their heads; their well-kept weapons lay near to hand.
Vasya took a deep breath, thinking hard. They seemed like ordinary men, but what manner of bandit leaves no tracks? They might be even more dangerous than they looked.
It is hopeless, Vasya thought. There were too many of them. How had she ever imagined—? Her teeth sank into her lower lip.
The three children sat huddled together near the fire, dirty and frightened. The oldest was a girl of perhaps thirteen, the youngest little more than a baby, her cheeks tear-streaked. They were huddled close for warmth, but even from the undergrowth, Vasya could see them shiver.
Outside the ring of firelight, the trees swayed in the darkness. In the distance a wolf howled.
Vasya wriggled soundlessly away from the firelight and returned to Solovey. The stallion put his head around to nudge his nose against her chest. How to get the children away from the fire? Somewhere the wolves cried again. Solovey raised his head, hearing the distant yips, and Vasya was struck anew by the grace of his muscled neck, the lovely head and dark eye.
An idea came to her, wild and mad. Her breath caught, but she would not pause to think. “All right,” she said, breathless with terror and excitement. “I have a plan. Let’s go back to that yew tree.”
Solovey followed her to a great gnarled old yew they had passed near the trail. As he did, Vasya whispered into his ear.
THE MEN WERE EATING their stolen hen while the girls, spent, drooped against each other. Vasya had returned to her place in the undergrowth. She crouched in the snow, holding her breath.
Solovey, saddleless, stepped into the firelight. Muscle rippled in the stallion’s back and quarters; his barrel was deep as the vault of a church.
The men, as one, sprang to their feet.
The stallion slipped nearer the fire, ears pricked. Vasya hoped the bandits would think he was some boyar’s prize that had broken his rope and escaped.
Solovey tossed his head, playing the part. His ears swiveled toward the other horses. A mare neighed. He rumbled back.
One of the bandits had a little bread in his hand; he bent slowly, picked up a length of rope, and, making soothing noises, began walking toward the stallion. The other men fanned out to try to head the beast off.
Vasya bit back a laugh. The men were staring, enchanted as boys in springtime. Solovey was coy as any maiden. Twice a man got nearly close enough to lay a hand on the horse’s neck, but each time Solovey sidled away. Only a little way, though; never enough to make them give up hope.
Slowly, slowly the stallion was drawing the men away from the fire, from the captives, and from their horses.
Choosing her moment, Vasya crept noiselessly around to where the horses stood. She slipped among them, murmuring reassurance, hiding between their bodies. The eldest mare slanted a wary ear back at the newcomer.
“Wait,” Vasya whispered.
She bent with her knife and cut their picket. Two strokes, and the horses were all standing loose. Vasya darted back into the trees and loosed the long call of a hunting wolf.
Solovey reared with the others, shrilling in fright. In an instant the camp was a maelstrom of frightened beasts. Vasya yipped like a wolf-bitch and Solovey bolted. Most of the horses took off after him, and their fellows, reluctant to be left, followed. In an instant, they had all disappeared into the woods, and the camp was in an uproar. A man who was obviously the leader had to bellow to be heard over the din.
He roared out a word, and the shouting slowly died. Vasya lay flat in the snow, hidden in the bracken and the shadows, holding her breath. She had pulled the picket in that frantic moment of confusion, then ducked back into the woods. The horses’ hoofprints had obscured her footsteps. She was hoping no one would wonder how the horses had gotten loose so easily.
The leader snapped out a series of orders. The men murmured what sounded like assent, although one of them looked sour.
In five minutes, the camp was almost deserted, more easily than Vasya had been expecting. They are overconfident, she thought. Well they might be, since they leave no tracks.
One of the men—the sour one—had clearly been ordered to stay behind with the captives. He subsided sulkily onto a log.
Vasya wiped her sweating palms on her cloak and took a firmer grip on her dagger. Her stomach was a ball of ice. She had tried not to think about this part: what to do if there was a guard.
Rada’s face, hollow with grief, swam up before her eyes. Vasya set her jaw.
The lone bandit sat on a log with his back to her, throwing fir-cones into the fire. Vasya crept toward him.
The eldest of the captives saw her. The girl’s eyes widened, but Vasya had her finger on her lips and the girl bit back her cry. Three more steps, two— Not giving herself time to think, Vasya plunged the razor-sharp blade into the hollow at the base of the sentry’s skull.
Here, Morozko had said, putting an icy fingertip on her neck. Easier than cutting the throat, if you have a good blade.
It was easy. Her dagger slipped in like a sigh. The raider jerked once and then crumpled, blood leaking from the hole in his neck. Vasya pulled her dagger free and let him fall, a hand pressed to her mouth. She trembled in every limb. It was easy, she thought. It was…
For an instant a black-cloaked shadow seemed to pounce upon the corpse, but when she blinked it was gone, and there was only a body in the snow, and three terrified children gaping up at her. Her knife-hand was bloody; Vasya turned away and vomited, crouched in the trampled snow. She gave herself four breaths, then wiped her mouth and stood up, tasting bile. It was easy.
“It’s all right,” Vasya told the children, hearing her own voice ragged. “I’ll take you home. Just a moment.”
The men had left their bows by the fire. Vasya blessed her little ax, for it split their weapons like kindling. She spoiled everything she could see, then ripped their bundles open and flung the contents deep into the woods. Finally she threw snow on the fire and plunged the clearing into darkness.