She knelt by the huddled children. The smallest girl was weeping. Vasya could only imagine what her own face looked like, hooded in the moonlight. The girls moaned when they saw Vasya’s bloody knife.
“No,” said Vasya, trying not to frighten them. “I am going to use my knife to cut these ropes”—she reached for the tied hands of the oldest girl; the cord parted easily—“and then my horse and I are going to take you home. Are you Katya?” she added to the elder girl. “Your mother is waiting for you.”
Katya hesitated. Then she said to the smallest, without taking her eyes from Vasya, “It’s all right, Anyushka. I think he means to help us.”
The child said nothing, but she kept very still when Vasya cut the cord from her tiny wrists. Once they were all freed, Vasya stood up and sheathed her dagger.
“Come on,” she said. “My horse is waiting.”
Without a word, Katya picked up Anyushka. Vasya bent and scooped up the other child. They all slipped into the woods. The girls were clumsy with fatigue. From deeper in the forest came the sounds of the bandits shouting for their horses.
The path to the yew tree was longer than Vasya remembered. They could not move fast in the heavy snow. Her nerves stretched thinner and thinner waiting for a man to burst out of the undergrowth or stumble back into camp and raise the alarm.
The steps ticked by, the breaths and the heartbeats. Had they missed their way? Vasya’s arms ached. The moon dipped nearer the treetops, and monstrous shadows striped the snow.
Suddenly they heard a crashing in the snow-crusted bracken. The girls huddled in the deepest dark they could find.
Great, crunching steps. Now even Katya was gasping out sobs.
“Hush,” said Vasya. “Be still.”
When an enormous creature tore itself from the undergrowth, they all screamed.
“No,” said Vasya, relieved. “No, that is my horse; that is Solovey.” She went at once to the stallion’s side, pulled off a mitten, and buried her shaking fingers in his mane.
“He is the horse that came into camp,” said Katya slowly.
“Yes,” said Vasya, stroking Solovey’s neck. “Our trick to win your freedom.” A little warmth crept back into her hands, buried beneath his mane.
Tiny Anyushka, who stood barely higher than Solovey’s knee, teetered suddenly forward, though Katya tried to grab her back. “The magic horse is silver-gold,” Anyushka informed Vasya unexpectedly, hands on hips. She looked Solovey up and down. “This one can’t be a magic horse.”
“No?” Vasya asked the child, gently.
“No,” returned Anyushka. But then she stretched out a small, trembling hand.
“Anyushka!” gasped Katya. “That beast will—”
Solovey lowered his head, ears pricked in a friendly way.
Anyushka sprang back, wide-eyed. Solovey’s head was nearly bigger than she was. Then, tentatively, when Solovey did not move again, she raised clumsy fingers to pat his velvet nose. “Look, Katya,” she whispered. “He likes me. Even if he isn’t a magic horse.”
Vasya knelt beside the girl. “In the tale of Vasilisa the Beautiful, there is a magic black horse—night’s guardian—that serves Baba Yaga,” she said. “Perhaps mine is a magic horse, or perhaps not. Would you like to ride him?”
Anyushka made no answer, but the other girls, emboldened, crept out into the moonlight. Vasya located her saddle and saddlebags and began rigging out Solovey.
But now they heard another creature moving in the undergrowth, this one two-footed. No—more than one, and those were the sounds of horses. The hairs on the back of Vasya’s neck rose. It was very dark now, except for a little fitful moonlight. Hurry, Vasya, Solovey said.
Vasya fumbled for the girth. The girls clustered around the horse, as though they could hide in his shadow. Vasya did up the girth not an instant too soon; the sounds of men shouting drew nearer and nearer.
For an instant Vasya’s throat seized in panic, remembering her last desperate flight. With trembling hands, she boosted the two littlest up onto Solovey’s withers. Nearer the voices came. She sprang up behind the children and reached an arm down for Katya. “Get up behind me,” Vasya said. “Hurry! And hold on.”
Katya took the proffered hand and half leaped, half scrambled up behind Vasya. Katya was still lying belly-down on the stallion’s haunch when the captain of the bandits loomed out of the dark, face gray in the moonlight, riding a tall mare bareback.
Under other circumstances Vasya would have laughed at the shock and outrage on his face.
The Tatar did not bother with words, but drove his mare forward, curved sword in one hand, teeth bared in startled rage. As he came, he shouted. Cries all around answered him. The captain’s sword caught the moonlight.
Solovey spun like a snapping wolf and launched himself away, just missing the downstroke of the sword. Vasya had a death-grip on the children; she leaned forward and trusted the horse. A second man loomed up, but the horse ran him down without slowing. Then they raced away into the darkness.
Vasya had often had cause to bless Solovey’s sure feet, but she had more cause than ever that night. The horse galloped into tree-filled darkness without swerve or hesitation. The sounds of pursuit fell behind. Vasya breathed again.
She drew the horse to a walk for a moment, to let them all breathe. “Get beneath my cloak, Katyusha,” Vasya said to the eldest girl. “You mustn’t freeze.”
Katya burrowed beneath Vasya’s wolfskin and clung, shivering.
Where to go? Where to go? Vasya had no notion now which way the village lay. Clouds had rolled in, cutting off the stars, and their headlong flight in the thick dark had confused even her. She asked the girls, but none of them had ever been so far from home.
“All right,” Vasya said. “We are going to have to go on—fast—for a few more hours, so that they can’t catch us. Then I will stop and build a fire. We’ll find your village tomorrow.”
None of the children objected; their teeth were chattering. Vasya unrolled her bedroll, wrapped the two smaller girls in it, and held them upright against her body. It wasn’t comfortable, for her or for Solovey, but it might keep them from freezing.
She gave them draughts of her precious honey-wine, a little bread, and some smoked fish. As they were eating, heavy hoofbeats sounded from the undergrowth, surprisingly near. “Solovey!” Vasya gasped.
Before the stallion could move, a black horse came out of the trees, bearing a pale-haired, star-eyed creature.
“You,” said Vasya, too taken aback to be polite. “Now?”
“Well met,” returned Midnight, as composedly as if they had met by chance at market. “This forest at midnight is no place for little girls. What have you been doing?”
Katya’s arms shook around Vasya’s waist. “Who are you talking to?” she whispered.
“Don’t be afraid,” Vasya murmured back, hoping she was telling the truth. “We are fleeing pursuit,” she added to Midnight, coldly. “Perhaps you noticed.”
Midnight was smiling. “Has the world run dry of warriors?” she asked. “All out of brave lords? Are they sending out maidens these days to do the work of heroes?”
“There were no heroes,” said Vasya between her teeth. “There was only me. And Solovey.” Her heart was beating like a rabbit’s; she strained to hear sounds of pursuit.
“Well, you are brave enough at least,” said Midnight. Her starry eyes looked Vasya up and down, two lights in the shadow of her skin. “What do you mean to do now? They are cleverer riders than you think, the lord Chelubey’s people, and there are many of them.”