“Vasya, tell Dmitrii you must pull back,” said Morozko. “There is no time.”
“Dmitrii Ivanovich, we must get into the palace,” said Vasya. “Now.”
“A witch indeed,” said Dmitrii coldly to Vasya. “Back to the fire you will go, I will stake my reign on it. We do not suffer witches to live. Holy Father,” he said to Konstantin. “Please. Both these women will face the harshest justice. But it must be justice before all the people, not in the mud of the dooryard.”
Konstantin hesitated.
The Bear snarled suddenly. “Lies; he is lying. He knows. The monk told him.”
The gate shook. Screams sounded from the city. Thunder flashed in the streaming heavens. “Back!” snapped Morozko suddenly. This time the men heard him. Heads turned uneasily, wondering who had spoken. There was horror in his face. “Back now behind walls or you’ll all be dead by moonrise.”
There was a smell riding the wind that lifted every hair on her body. More screams came from the city. In a flash of lightning, the dvorovoi could be seen now with both hands against the shaking gate. “Batyushka, I beg you,” she said to Konstantin, and threw herself in supplication in the mud at his feet.
The priest’s eyes followed her down, just for a moment, but it was enough. Dmitrii leaped for Olga, dragged her away from the priest just as the gate flew open. Konstantin’s knife caught in Olga’s veil, tore it away from her chin on one side, but Olga was unwounded, and Vasya was on her feet once more and scrambling back.
The dead came into the dooryard of the Grand Prince of Moscow.
* * *
THE PLAGUE HAD NOT been as bad as it could have been, that summer. Not as bad as ten years before; it only sputtered among the poor of Moscow like tinder that refused to catch completely.
But the dead had died in fear and those were the ones the Bear could use. Now the result of the summer’s work came through the gate. Some wore their grave-clothes, some were naked, their bodies marked with the blackened swellings that had killed them. Worst of all, in their eyes was still that fear. They were still afraid, seeking in the darkness for anything familiar.
One of Dmitrii’s guards cried out, staring, “Holy Father, save us!”
Konstantin made not a sound; he was standing frozen, the knife still in his hand. Vasya wanted to kill him, as she’d never wanted to kill anyone in her life. She wanted to bury that knife in his heart.
But there was no time. Her family meant more than her own sorrow.
Faced with Konstantin’s silence, the guards were backing up, their nerve wavering. Dmitrii was still supporting Olga; unexpectedly he spoke to Vasya, his voice clear and calm. “Can those things be slain like men, Vasya?”
Vasya spoke Morozko’s answer, as he said it into her ear. “No. Fire will slow them, and injury, but that is all.”
Dmitrii shot the sky an irritated glance. It was still pouring rain. “Not fire. Injury then,” he said and raised his voice to call concise orders.
Dmitrii had not Konstantin’s control, the liquid beauty of tone, but his voice was loud and brisk, even cheerful, encouraging his men. Suddenly they were no longer a knot of frightened men, backing away from something horrible. Suddenly they were warriors, massed to face a foe.
Just in time. Their blades steadied just as the dead things ran for them, openmouthed. More and more dead things were coming through the gate. A dozen—more.
“Morozko!” Vasya snapped. “Can you—?”
“I can put them down if I touch them,” he said. “But I cannot command them all.”
“We have to get into the palace,” Vasya said. She was supporting Olga now; her sister, used to the smooth floors of her own terem, was clumsy in the sloppy dooryard. Dmitrii had gone forward with his men and Olga’s; they had formed a hollow square, bristling with weapons, about the women, all of them backing up together toward the door of the palace.
Konstantin stood still in the rain, as though frozen. The Bear stood beside him, eyes alight, shouting his army on, joyful.
The first upyry collided with Dmitrii’s guards. A man screamed. Konstantin flinched. Little more than a boy, the man was already on the ground, his throat torn away.
Morozko’s touch was gentle, but his face was savage as he sent that upyr back down into death, whipped round to do the same to two others.
Vasya knew that she and Olga weren’t going to reach the door. More and more upyry were flowing into the lightning-lit dooryard. The guards’ hollow square was surrounded, and only their frail bodies stood between Olga and…
They had to bind the Bear. They had to.
Vasya squeezed her sister’s hand. “I have to help them, Olya,” she said.
“I’ll be all right,” said Olga firmly. “God go with you.” Her hands clasped in prayer.
Vasya let go her sister’s hand and came up beside Dmitrii Ivanovich, in line with his men.
The men were holding the dead things off with spears, looks of sick terror on their faces, but Dmitrii had to step forward to behead one, and another ran up, taking advantage of the break in the line.
Vasya shut her fists and forgot that the dead thing was not burning.
The creature caught like a torch, then another, a third. They didn’t burn long; the rain put out the fire and the dead things were still coming, blackened and moaning.
But Dmitrii saw. As the nearest dead thing caught fire, his sword sheared through water and flame, glittering, and cut off the thing’s head.
He shot Vasya a grin of unfeigned delight. There was blood on his cheek. “I knew you had unclean powers,” he said.
“Be grateful, cousin,” Vasya retorted.
“Oh, I am,” said the Grand Prince of Moscow, and his smile put heart in her, despite the drenching rain, the dooryard packed with nightmarish things. He surveyed the dooryard. “But I hope you have better than little fires—cousin.”
She found herself smiling at the acknowledged kinship, even as Dmitrii buried his sword in another upyr, leaping back to the protection of his men’s spears at the last moment. She set three more alight, horribly, only for the rain to douse them again. The dead things were wary now of the men’s blades, and deathly afraid of Morozko’s hands. But the death-god was only a wraith in the rain, a black shape remote and terrible, and already six living men were down, not moving.
The Bear had grown gigantic, fatted with summer’s heat, with sickness and suffering, and to Vasya his voice seemed louder than the thunder, urging his army on. Medved did not look like a man anymore; he wore the shape of a bear, shoulders broad enough to blot out the stars.