The Winter of the Witch (Winternight Trilogy 3)

Instead he fell to his knees.

The Bear laughed. Vasya screamed. She did not know such a sound was in her. She leaned forward; Pozhar shot forward, raced across the open field toward Sasha, outstripping the converging armies. The Bear followed her; faintly she could hear the voices of the chyerti of Rus’, running with the Russians.

But Vasya had stopped thinking of victory. On either side the armies were rushing up, but in the middle of the field there was nothing but Tuman, wild with fright, and Chelubey dead, facedown in the mud and water. Vasya had no thought to spare for either, for her brother was still kneeling in the mud but shaking violently now, the blood spilling from his lips. He looked up. “Vasya,” he said.

“Shh,” she told him. “Don’t talk.”

“I am sorry. I meant to live. I did.”

Pozhar silently knelt in the mud for them. “You’re going to live anyway. Get on the horse,” Vasya said.

She had no notion of how it must have hurt him to obey her. The ground shook from the thunder of two armies. He could not sit upright, but slumped, deadweight.

“He is going to die,” said Medved at her side. “Better to take vengeance.”

Without a word, Vasya gashed her hand on her brother’s sword. Blood poured over her fingers. She smeared it across the Bear’s face, putting all she had of will in it.

“Take vengeance for me,” she said flatly.

The Bear shuddered with strength. His eye blazed up, brighter than Pozhar at midnight. Watching her, he snatched Sasha’s helm off the muddy ground and bit deep into his own hand. Blood poured down, clear as water but acrid with the smell of sulfur, pooling in the cupped bronze.

“I give you my power in exchange,” he said, and his glance was sly. “To make the dead rise.”

Then he was gone, disappearing into the fray, terror his weapon. Vasya, balancing the helmet, got up onto Pozhar behind her brother. The mare, ears pinned, stood up despite her double burden, mud on her legs and belly. Fast as a star she galloped away, while all around them the battle was joined.

35.

The Starlit Road

VASYA COULD FEEL EVERY STRIKE of Pozhar’s hooves, as though she were the one mortally wounded. The mare twisted and turned, avoiding armies and chyerti both; once she jumped clean over a dead horse. All the while, Vasya gripped her brother, gripped the helmet with its strange burden. And she prayed.

At last they broke clear of the battle, and left the omnipresent roar behind them, concealing themselves in the trees that lined the river. They found a space of quiet in a little copse. They were not terribly far from the battle; the roaring seemed to shred the earth and sky. Vasya thought she could hear the Bear laughing.

The copse was a little higher than the marsh; Vasya slid from Pozhar’s back just in time to catch her brother as he fell. He almost sent her sprawling into the water. It took all her strength to halt him, and lay him on the soft earth. His lips were blue, his hands cold.

She stared at the water in the helm. Make the dead alive. But he isn’t dead. Morozko—Morozko where are you?

Sasha’s eyes looked up, but they did not see her. Perhaps he saw a road beneath a starry sky: a road from which there is no turning back. “Vasya?” he asked. His voice was little more than a breath now.

She had nothing but her two hands: with her fur cloak she wiped the blood and earth from her brother’s face, held his head in her lap.

“I am here,” she said. Tears unbidden spilled from her eyes. “You have won. The army is sure of its victory.”

His eyes brightened. “I am glad,” he said. “I am—”

He turned his head a little; his stare became fixed. Vasya turned to follow his gaze, and there was the death-god, waiting. He was on foot; his horse a faint shape, pale as mist at his back. She looked at him long, and there were no words between them. Once she had begged, once she had railed at him, for coming to claim those she loved. Now she only looked, and saw her glance go through him like a sword.

“Could you have saved his life?” she whispered.

His answer was the merest shake of his head. But he came, still wordless, and knelt beside her. Frowning, he cupped his hands. Water, clear and clean, gathered in his palms, and he let it trickle out onto her brother’s face. Where the water touched, the cuts, bruises, the grime vanished, as though washed away. Vasya, not speaking either, helped him. They worked slowly and steadily. Vasya pulled aside the stained and broken armor, and Morozko let the water run. In the end, her brother’s face and torso were clean and unmarked; he looked asleep, peaceful, unwounded.

But he did not stir back to life.

She reached for the helmet.

Morozko’s troubled glance followed the movement. Hope was beating in her throat, a fragile, burning thing. “Can this bring him to life in truth?”

Morozko looked reluctant. “Yes,” he said.

Vasya lifted the helmet, tipped it toward her brother’s lips.

Morozko put out a hand to stay her. “Come with me first.”

She did not know what he meant. But when he offered her his hand, she took it; their fingers met, clasped, and she found herself in the place beyond life: the forest with its road, its net of stars.

Her brother was waiting for her there, upright, a little pale, starlight in his eyes. “Sasha,” she said.

“Little sister,” he said. “I didn’t say goodbye, did I?”

She ran forward and embraced him, but he felt icy cold, distant in her arms. Morozko watched them.

“Sasha,” Vasya said eagerly. “I have something that will bring you back. You can live on, come back to us, to Dmitrii.”

Sasha was looking out into the distance, down the star-strewn road as though with longing. Hastily, she said, “This,” holding out the dented helmet. “Drink it,” she said. “And you will live again.”

“But I am dead,” he said.

She shook her head. “You need not be.”

He was backing up. “I have seen the dead return. I will have no part in it.”

“No!” she said. “It is different this way—it is—it is like Ivan, in the fairy tale.”

But her brother was still shaking his head. “This is not a fairy tale, Vasya. I will not risk my immortal soul, returning to life when I have left it.”

She stared at him. His face was quiet, sad, immovable. “Sasha,” she whispered. “Sasha, please. You can live again. You can go back to Sergei, and Dmitrii and Olga. Please.”

“No,” he said. “I—I fought. I yielded my life and I was glad to give it. It is for others to make it matter. My death is Dmitrii’s now—and—and yours. Guard this land. Make it whole.”