The Winter of the Witch (Winternight Trilogy #3)(93)

At first, she thought it was one she could win. Her bones told her that midnight was not far off, and the mare had a good turn of speed.

But the camp was crowded and churning; unable to bull their way straight through, they had to dodge and turn. Sasha was holding on to her for all he was worth, his breath leaving him in a silent wheeze of pain with each fall of the horse’s hooves. The plucky little mare was already beginning to labor under the weight of two.

    Vasya breathed, and allowed the whole memory of the night of the burning in Moscow to come back to her. The terror and the power. Reality twisted, just as every campfire in the Tatar army sprang up into a triumphant column of flames.

Dizzy, struggling to keep a grip on herself, Vasya risked another look back, trying to see around her brother. Most of the men pursuing them had sheared off, their horses panicking. But a few had kept control of their horses, and Chelubey had not faltered. Her mare’s sprint was beginning to fade. No sign of Midnight.

Chelubey shouted at his horse. Now he was level with their bay mare’s flank. He had a sword in one hand. Vasya touched the mare and she sheared off, ears laid back, but it cost them more speed; Chelubey was herding them toward the camp once more, boxing them in. Sasha was heavy at her back. Now Chelubey was level with them again, his horse the faster. He lifted his sword a second time.

Before it could fall, Sasha heaved himself sideways, tackled the Tatar, threw him to the ground.

“Sasha!” she screamed. The mare’s pace freshened at once, the weight off her back, but Vasya was already wheeling the horse round. Her brother and Chelubey were fighting on the ground, but the Tatar had the upper hand. His fist snapped Sasha’s head back; she saw a glitter of blood in the fire. Then he was rising to his feet, leaving her brother where he lay. Chelubey called his horse, shouting at the other riders.

Sasha dragged himself to his knees. There was blood on his mouth. His lips formed a single word—Run.

She hesitated. The mare felt it and slowed.

Just then, a streak of flame shot across the heavens.

It was like a star falling: scarlet and blue and gold. The streak of flame dropped lower, lower, surged like a wave, and suddenly there was a tall golden mare, glowing in the grass, galloping alongside them.

Cries of rage and wonder from the Tatars.

“Pozhar,” Vasya whispered. The mare slanted an ear at the other horse, turned her other ear back to the men riding them down. Get on my back.

Vasya didn’t question it. She stood up, balancing on the bay mare’s back as she galloped. Pozhar had shortened her stride to pace the other horse and Vasya stepped sideways, lightly, and dropped to the mare’s golden withers. The mare’s skin was burning-hot between her knees.

    A few of the oncoming men had bows; an arrow whistled past her ear. They were just inside bowshot, angling back toward the place where her brother lay. What to do? Miraculously, she had Pozhar’s speed now, but her brother was on the ground. Another arrow whistled past her cheek just as she glimpsed the Midnight-road.

An idea came to her then, so reckless her breath caught. With the rage and terror in her heart, the limits of her knowledge and her skill so miserably evident, she could think of nothing else.

“We have to get back to this same midnight. We have to come back for him,” Vasya told the mare grimly. “But we need to get help first.”

You didn’t understand, Midnight had said.

The mare set foot on the Midnight-road and they were swallowed up by the night.



* * *





THEY WOULD GET BACK to the Tatar camp on the same midnight—she would not have left otherwise. But it felt hideously like she’d abandoned her brother to die, as she galloped through the wild darkness, trees lashing at her face. She sobbed into the mare’s neck for a stride or two, in horror, in fear for Sasha, in sheer disgust at her own blundering, at the limits of her skill.

The golden mare did not move like Solovey. Solovey was round through the barrel and easy to ride. Pozhar was faster, leaner, her withers a hard ridge, her stride a great heave and surge, like riding the crest of a flood.

After a few moments, Vasya raised her head and got control of herself. Could she do it? She couldn’t even have contemplated it, were her mind not full of the sight of her brother, bloody, surrounded by enemies. She tried to think of something else.

Anything.

She couldn’t.

So she concentrated on where she wished to go. That part was easy, and quick. Her blood knew the way; she scarcely needed to think of it.

    After only few minutes of galloping, they burst out of the black woods into a familiar field, hissing with wheat half-harvested. The sky was a river of stars. Vasya sat up. Pozhar slowed, dancing, wild.

A small village stood on a little rise, beyond the cleared fields. It was indistinct against the stars, but Vasya knew its every fold and curve. Longing closed her throat. It was midnight, in the village where she’d been born. Somewhere near, in his own house, was her brother Alyosha, her sister Irina.

But she wasn’t there for them. One day, she might go back—bring Marya back to meet her people, to eat good bread sitting in warm summer grass. But now she could not look for comfort here. She was on another errand.

“Pozhar,” said Vasya. “Why did you come back?”

Ded Grib, said the mare. He’s been getting news from all the mushrooms in Rus’, as self-important as you could wish, telling everyone he is your greatest ally. Today he came to me saying you were in danger again and that I was a great lump for not helping. I went to find you only to silence him, but then I saw the fires you made. They were good fires. The mare sounded almost approving. Besides, you don’t weigh very much. You aren’t even uncomfortable.