“Why she read this none-sense? It’s got no pictures. Also, boring.”
Naganya the vintovnik rolled her eye. She had only one to roll, since her left eye was less an eye than a rifle scope, jutting out from her skull, made of bone and glassy thumbnail. Nevertheless, she wore half a pair of spectacles over the other eye, for she felt naked and embarrassed without some sort of lens to look through. The imp’s walnut skin gleamed from attentive polishing, though her blackened, ironwork sinews showed through in places: her elbows, her cheek, the backs of her knees.
“Don’t you pay attention? Likho gave it to her.” Naganya sniffed ostentatiously. She produced a grey handkerchief and wiped a trickle of black oil from her nose. “Still, I don’t approve. Histories are instruments of oppression. Writers of histories ought to be shot on sight.”
Zemlehyed snorted. “Who’s this Tsar of Life? Never met the man.”
“Who do you think, rock-brain? He’s not called Deathless for nothing.” Naganya peered at the book for a moment, clicking her tongue against her teeth. It made a horrid mechanical noise, like a gun cocking and uncocking. “You’re right, though. It is boring. Overwritten. I’m surprised you can read it at all.”
“Nor good to eat! Shit! Why not tear it up and bury it? Some nice tree have a good munch, eh?” Zemlehyed spat a glob of golden sap on their picnic blanket. Naganya grimaced.
“Why the tsarevna lets you blunder after her is a mystery to me. You’re disgusting. But if you want to wreck her things, be my guest. At least the evisceration will be amusing. What do leshiyi look like on the inside? All mud and sticks?”
“Paws off, gun-goblin! My insides; my property!”
“Property is theft!” snapped Naganya, her cheek-pistons clicking. “Therefore, just by sitting there you’re stealing from the People, Zemya! Bandit! Ring the alarms!”
Zemlehyed spat again.
“But Zemya,” she whined, “I’m bored! Why don’t I interrogate you again? It’ll be fun! I’ll leave my safety on this time, I promise.”
The leshy gnashed his stone teeth with their rime of muck. “Nasha, why you only bored when I’m around? Get bored with someone else!”
Through the bramble-thicket two horses exploded, their riders flattened against their backs. The black one raced ahead, a young woman shrieking laughter in her green enamel saddle, her dark hair streaming, braided wildly with garnets and rough sea amber, her hunting cloak a red sail. She darted expertly between the pale, bony birches, ducking boughs heavy with yellow leaves and thin, brown vines sagging with ruby-colored berries. Behind her leapt a white mare and a pale lady riding sidesaddle, every bit as keen and fierce as the black rider, the swan feathers in her snowy hair flying off in pale clouds. Their stamping hooves set up whirlwinds of old orange leaves as they galloped past.
“Did it come this way?” cried Marya Morevna, her eyes blazing, reining her dark horse in and circling impatiently.
“Who?” barked the leshy.
“My firebird! Got moss in your ears again, Zemya?”
“You’re too slow,” sighed Naganya. “It blew through here over an hour ago. Singed my hair, which naturally incinerated most of our lunch.” Naganya’s hair glistened, wet and dark with gun-oil, reeking of gasoline.
“Well, then,” said Madame Lebedeva, leaping lightly from her horse and adjusting her elegant white hat, which still had several of its swan plumes attached. At her throat, a pearly cameo gleamed, showing a perfect profile of herself. “I, for one, shall have a cup of tea and a rest. Firebirds are such frustrating quarry. One minute it’s all fiery tail feathers and red talons and the next, nothing but ash and a sore seat.” She knotted her mare to a larch tree and settled down on the slightly sappy picnic blanket, brushing invisible dust from her white jodhpurs and blazer.
Marya leaned her hunting rifle up against a fire-colored maple and fell in a heap onto the blanket. She hugged Zemya vigorously—which is the only way to do anything involving a leshy—and planted a kiss on his oak-bark cheek. The hunt had gotten her blood and her hungers up—she vibrated with excitement.
“What have we to eat?” Marya asked cheerfully, her jewel-strewn hair falling over one shoulder. She wore a smart black suit, half uniform, half hunting dress.
“Burnt toast, burnt pirozhki, onions both pickled and burnt. I believe even the tea has a distinct smoky flavor,” sighed the vintovnik.
“We can’t leave you alone for a second.” Madame Lebedeva scowled.
“Three hours, vila!” groused Zemlehyed, scratching his knees. “And she were interrogating me again. Look!” He displayed his hands, each of which had a neat bullet hole through the leafy palm. “The price of cronyism, she says!”
“Well, now, you have to admit, you do hew fairly close to the heels of the Tsar’s favorite.” Madame Lebedeva smiled.
“And you don’t? Where’s your price, eh?”
“I am very careful not to be alone with the zealous Nasha.” The vila sniffed. “This is the best way to avoid interrogations, I find.”
“Peace!” Marya Morevna laughed, holding up her hands. On each finger gleamed silver rings studded with rough, uncut malachites and rubies. “If you don’t behave, all of you, I shall not tell you any more stories about Petrograd!”
Naganya’s limpid eye filled with greasy black tears. “Oh, Masha, that’s not fair! How shall I further the Party’s interests in the hinterlands if you will not teach me about Marx and Papa Lenin?”
Zemya scowled, his mouth little more than a gap in the rock of his chin. “Who is Papa Lenin? Tfu! Zemlehyed has one Papa: Papa Koschei. He needs no nasty bald Papa Lenin!”
Marya Morevna’s face brightened and darkened all at once. She twisted the rings on her fingers. When she thought of Koschei, her blood boiled and froze all together. “Well, I’m sure that puts an end to the debate, Zem. Nasha?”