The Girl in the Tower (The Winternight Trilogy, #2)(33)

An idea came to her, wild and mad. Her breath caught, but she would not pause to think. “All right,” she said, breathless with terror and excitement. “I have a plan. Let’s go back to that yew tree.”

Solovey followed her to a great gnarled old yew they had passed near the trail. As he did, Vasya whispered into his ear.



THE MEN WERE EATING their stolen hen while the girls, spent, drooped against each other. Vasya had returned to her place in the undergrowth. She crouched in the snow, holding her breath.

Solovey, saddleless, stepped into the firelight. Muscle rippled in the stallion’s back and quarters; his barrel was deep as the vault of a church.

The men, as one, sprang to their feet.

The stallion slipped nearer the fire, ears pricked. Vasya hoped the bandits would think he was some boyar’s prize that had broken his rope and escaped.

Solovey tossed his head, playing the part. His ears swiveled toward the other horses. A mare neighed. He rumbled back.

One of the bandits had a little bread in his hand; he bent slowly, picked up a length of rope, and, making soothing noises, began walking toward the stallion. The other men fanned out to try to head the beast off.

Vasya bit back a laugh. The men were staring, enchanted as boys in springtime. Solovey was coy as any maiden. Twice a man got nearly close enough to lay a hand on the horse’s neck, but each time Solovey sidled away. Only a little way, though; never enough to make them give up hope.

Slowly, slowly the stallion was drawing the men away from the fire, from the captives, and from their horses.

Choosing her moment, Vasya crept noiselessly around to where the horses stood. She slipped among them, murmuring reassurance, hiding between their bodies. The eldest mare slanted a wary ear back at the newcomer.

“Wait,” Vasya whispered.

She bent with her knife and cut their picket. Two strokes, and the horses were all standing loose. Vasya darted back into the trees and loosed the long call of a hunting wolf.

Solovey reared with the others, shrilling in fright. In an instant the camp was a maelstrom of frightened beasts. Vasya yipped like a wolf-bitch and Solovey bolted. Most of the horses took off after him, and their fellows, reluctant to be left, followed. In an instant, they had all disappeared into the woods, and the camp was in an uproar. A man who was obviously the leader had to bellow to be heard over the din.

He roared out a word, and the shouting slowly died. Vasya lay flat in the snow, hidden in the bracken and the shadows, holding her breath. She had pulled the picket in that frantic moment of confusion, then ducked back into the woods. The horses’ hoofprints had obscured her footsteps. She was hoping no one would wonder how the horses had gotten loose so easily.

The leader snapped out a series of orders. The men murmured what sounded like assent, although one of them looked sour.

In five minutes, the camp was almost deserted, more easily than Vasya had been expecting. They are overconfident, she thought. Well they might be, since they leave no tracks.

One of the men—the sour one—had clearly been ordered to stay behind with the captives. He subsided sulkily onto a log.

Vasya wiped her sweating palms on her cloak and took a firmer grip on her dagger. Her stomach was a ball of ice. She had tried not to think about this part: what to do if there was a guard.

Rada’s face, hollow with grief, swam up before her eyes. Vasya set her jaw.

The lone bandit sat on a log with his back to her, throwing fir-cones into the fire. Vasya crept toward him.

The eldest of the captives saw her. The girl’s eyes widened, but Vasya had her finger on her lips and the girl bit back her cry. Three more steps, two— Not giving herself time to think, Vasya plunged the razor-sharp blade into the hollow at the base of the sentry’s skull.

Here, Morozko had said, putting an icy fingertip on her neck. Easier than cutting the throat, if you have a good blade.

It was easy. Her dagger slipped in like a sigh. The raider jerked once and then crumpled, blood leaking from the hole in his neck. Vasya pulled her dagger free and let him fall, a hand pressed to her mouth. She trembled in every limb. It was easy, she thought. It was…

For an instant a black-cloaked shadow seemed to pounce upon the corpse, but when she blinked it was gone, and there was only a body in the snow, and three terrified children gaping up at her. Her knife-hand was bloody; Vasya turned away and vomited, crouched in the trampled snow. She gave herself four breaths, then wiped her mouth and stood up, tasting bile. It was easy.

“It’s all right,” Vasya told the children, hearing her own voice ragged. “I’ll take you home. Just a moment.”

The men had left their bows by the fire. Vasya blessed her little ax, for it split their weapons like kindling. She spoiled everything she could see, then ripped their bundles open and flung the contents deep into the woods. Finally she threw snow on the fire and plunged the clearing into darkness.

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.”