God Within Us

The rest of the night passed without further treachery from the usurpers - even under the cover of darkness, none dared to try and brave the field to retrieve the corpses that lay strewn about the approach to the Gods’ Gate. Yesugei kept his watch through the night, sleeping only in small bursts when the heaviness of his eyes became too much to bear, and awakening with fits and starts from dreamless slumber. When morning came at last, so too came a light fog that blanketed the bodies of the broken and the slain in a gray shroud, leaving visible only the great carcasses of their destriers and broken lances that jutted out from the surface of the fog like saplings adorned with silk.

Beyond the walls however, Yesugei saw the ranks of the rebel lords’ armies arrayed in all the splendor of Klyazmite war. Their ranks were a patchwork of different colorful sigils and clothes, and dozens of war-banners flapped above their heads, marked with house sigils and foreign religious icons. He had never seen so many spears - packed as thick as the brambles of a hedge. The mass of soldiers stretched as far as the eye could see, a teeming sea of humanity that moved and shifted like waves under a dreary sky that hung low and heavy overhead.

With the first light, the Gods’ Gate rumbled open, and under Vasilisa’s watch several men went out to fetch the dead from the field, piling freeriders and druzhinniks into separate carts - those of common and noble blood, separated even in death. In the darkness he had thought the riders to have lost several dozen from their trickery, but the light of day and their searching turned up only ten. Yet of those ten, one was worth more than all the others combined. Urvan of Rylsk might have cut a fierce figure in life, but lying glassy-eyed and dead beneath his horse, he seemed more like an oversized fish than anything else. The men pulled five arrows from the back of the dead boyar, but it was just as likely he had perished from being crushed against the gates by the full weight of his own cavalrymen - yet Yesugei did not bother mentioning the possibility of the latter to his archers who fell into arguing over whose arrow was the one that had slain the boyar.

Once the dead were gathered, Vasilisa called him down from the tower, where she, Ilya, and three horses awaited. In the distance, he saw three riders emerge from the camp of the usurpers - they came to a halt at the middle ground, and waited. At Vasilisa’s call the three of them set out from Belnopyl’s walls, and behind them went two guards, each leading a donkey that bore the dead.

Yesugei rode with a tension in his shoulders that had not abated since the previous night’s skirmish. The fog clung to them as they rode, obscuring the ground and muting the sounds of their horses’ hooves. Vasilisa’s eyes were hard, her mouth set in a thin line as they approached the waiting boyars. Zinoviy, Vsevolod, and Milomir watched them with expressions ranging from curiosity to barely concealed contempt. When they saw the bodies borne on the donkeys however, their faces darkened.

Ahead, Vasilisa rode with her back straight and her head held high as she slowed to a stop before the boyars.

“I give you the dead,” said Vasilisa after a moment of silence. “Those who perished trying to carry out your treachery. Shame on you, all of you - you gave me your word that Belnopyl would have had until dawn, and yet you set Urvan to butcher my folk in the dead of night.”

Vsevolod’s face tightened. “Spare us your indignation. We both know you did not consider surrender even for a moment. Such is your father’s echo - you’d hold on to your crown until the very bitter end, wouldn’t you?”

Vasilisa's eyes blazed. "I would not need to choose between my crown and my people if you had not chosen treachery. Look to your own sins, all of you! How many lives are you willing to toss away for this ruin of a city, and your own crowns?”

A sudden bark of laughter from Zinoviy cut through Vasilisa’s words, and the boyar of Denev trotted his horse forth. “Enough of this prattle. The She-Bear of Belnopyl is nothing more than a snake with false fangs, hissing to stall us all when we are strong and she is weak.

“And the best way to deal with a snake,” spoke the boyar, his eyes suddenly alight with a dangerous gleam. “Cut off its head.”

Yesugei's heart lurched. He reached for his own sword, but Zinoviy was already moving, his horse charging towards Vasilisa. In a fluid motion, Zinoviy drew his sword as he bore down on the princess. The blade seemed to be consumed by black fire, spreading a terrible cold in its wake. The sword arced through the air, and at the last moment Yesugei’s own blade cleared its scabbard.

The Hearteater and his saber clashed with a high metallic shriek, drowning Yesugei's own cry as he felt a bolt of chilling cold run down his scarred arm. Smoke rose off the edge of his blade as he parried away the Hearteater, and he slashed at the boyar, causing his horse to rear.

The other boyars began to shout, but their voices sounded muffled and endlessly far - all he could hear was the ragged sound of his own breathing, and the ringing echo of the clash of steel.

“Ride! Ride!” Yesugei shouted, his own voice sounding slurred as he swiveled his horse about. Vasilisa had already turned, and Ilya rode behind her reluctantly.

Behind him Yesugei heard the thundering of hooves, and he saw the boyar of Denev riding hard after them, standing in the stirrup with his sword raised high above his head. Yesugei reached back to grasp a bow that was not there, and he cursed under his breath as he turned to the rapidly approaching walls of Belnopyl.

“Khormchak scum!” came the boyar’s shout, and Yesugei ducked beneath another arcing slash that passed by so closely he could feel the black flames raking over his robe.

Before another blow could come there sounded the distant twang of a bowstring, and then a hissing arrow bit into the ground just in front of the boyar’s horse. Zinoviy drew to a sudden stop before the walls, and then Tuyaara drew back her bow and loosed another shot that nearly struck the boyar from his horse. With a rasping cry, the boyar of Denev retreated as Yesugei passed beneath the raised Gods’ Gate.

“I’ll have your head on a spike!” shouted the boyar as he rode away. “Your princess has doomed you all!”

Yesugei felt his legs shaking as he dismounted from his horse and called for his bow and arrow. When he turned to Vasilisa, he saw she was already speaking to the other druzhinniks and their men.

“Abominable, to draw a blade against a woman during peace talks!” muttered Demyan with a shake of his head.

“The Stag-Lord resorts to treachery because he fears us,” spoke Vasilisa. “Without Urvan, the allegiance of his sworn men is in doubt - some might even decide to leave, perchance.”

Ilya sighed. “They still outnumber us, even without Rylsk and Urvan’s magisters. Denev makes up the greatest part of their strength, and Zinoviy will brook no retreat, I fear.”

The echoing blast of a warhorn sounded suddenly over the battlements, and then calls came down from the Gods’ Tower.

“They are marching!” came the cries. “The enemy is at hand!”

Vasilisa cast a look to Yesugei, and he nodded in the wordless exchange before rushing up the Gods’ Tower. As he passed by, he took stock of the men at every floor, crouched behind the crenels with enough arrows, bolts, and darts to fell fifty times their number, if their aim was true. But most that readied themselves for battle were not warriors by trade - for every druzhinnik that Ilya had stationed in the tower, there were five men who had never seen war, and never known a siege or battle in their lives.

And for some, it might be their first and last, he thought to himself as he went up the stairs to the top, where Tuyaara offered a hand to help him up the final climb.

The wind that whipped about the top of the Gods’ Tower stung his eyes, and as Yesugei drew up to the embrasures his hand felt suddenly stiff - his mouth suddenly dry. He had known the feeling once before - the dread before the coming battle. Skirmishes were one thing - the violence came quickly, and it passed just as fast - but a pitched battle was another. He had only held command once before at the White Pinch, leading his father’s men to clear up the last of the Quanli. But this time was different - he was not surrounded by veteran baghatur and keshiks of the Qarakesek. These were men who had never known battle before - and they were scared, more than he.

The hush over the Gods’ Tower, and the city, sent a shiver through the nomad princeling. He could make out the murmuring of countless voices, the sound of men coughing and horses bickering, and the faint clatter of arms and armor as men shifted about. It was as though the city was savoring one last moment of silence before the deafening cry of war was upon its walls.

“We will hold this tower for as long as we can,” said Yesugei, calling to the men that stood before and beside him. “Their numbers are many, and ours are few. But we’ll make them bleed for every inch they take, won't we, boys?”

Calls and shouts rang up from down below, shouts of, “Death! Death! Death!”

“Good!” Yesugei shouted in reply. “Those men out there are just as scared as any of us - some of them even more! But they've marched from all across the land to test your strength, and test your city! Hate them if you can, but never fear them, no matter what happens! You may take a wound, you may piss yourself and you will scream, and you may drop your spear or your sword and wish you were somewhere far away, but no matter what happens, pick yourself back up, and keep fighting!”

He untied the great silver-banded horn from the flagpole of the Gods’ Tower, and handed it to Tuyaara, who looked at him with surprise. Before she could object, he called out to the others, “Listen for the horn! Three blasts will sound the retreat, and we will make our way for the keep! Let the usurpers give chase over the bodies of their own dead and wounded - we will be safe behind the curtain walls, and give them the same song and dance once more!”

One of Ilya’s druzhinniks, a man by the name of Orest, pounded his armored chest with a mailed fist. “Do all Khormchaks fight by retreating? Why give up these towers? If we hold fast-”

“Then we will be surrounded, and be cut down to a man,” Yesugei interrupted. “If you insist on holding others back, feel free to jump from this tower before we fight. The enemy loves nothing more than a fool who gets his friends killed.”

Orest bristled, but his anger quickly bled away before the sound of a horn's blast. The signal came from the Night’s Gate, where Yesugei saw the green boy Polynkin standing with one foot upon the embrasures, sounding the Night Tower’s challenge. The Golden Pass gave its own call, and the rotund figure that wielded its horn could only have been the graybeard Ilya. Yesugei turned to Tuyaara.

“Enough of this. Show them we are ready. If the enemy wants our tower and our walls, let them come.”

The shaman raised her horn high to the south, and gave the Gods’ Gate’s challenge. At last the usurpers answered, not with one horn but a dozen, and the sound of marching drums and pipes rolled across the plains with them, along with the distant shouts and jeers of the enemy soldiers that stood before the walls. It was all a show and dance - a final game of wills to steel their resolve. How glorious was war, with its silken banners, its trumpet calls, and the promise of loot and riches!

How glorious indeed.

Then the trumpets of the usurpers sounded, and their hosts came forth. Dozens of battle standards flapped wildly in the wind, guiding streams of footmen, spear-carriers, and hulking armored druzhinniks with two-handed axes. Some of the enemy’s archers loosed arrows towards the walls from afar, but their shots fell laughably short.

“Let them waste their arrows,” Yesugei yelled. “Hold, and wait for my command! Any man who wastes an arrow will fetch it back for me! Do you hear me, men of Belnopyl!”

“Yes!” shouted the defenders on either side of him. Divisions of Klyazmite and Khormchak were gone - now they looked to him solely as their commander.

“Very good!” Yesugei laughed, and his laughter rolled nervously through the ranks as he looked on. The warriors of the usurpers did not lack for ferocity as they charged but Klyazmite discipline, or lack thereof, had not changed since his father broke them at Ongainur - they had run only thirty feet, and their orderly battle line had already dissolved. Only the druzhinniks maintained their shieldwall, but they were far at the back of the line, and for that Yesugei gave them some credit.

“Draw!” the nomad princeling shouted as the usurpers came within range. He pulled the arrow to his ear, and felt the warm glow of Alnayyir’s stolen strength pulsing through the veins in his arm. The others followed suit - and the creaking of dozens of bow limbs being pulled was as sweet as music to his ears. Closer and closer the footmen drew, and then-

“Loose!”

Belnopyl’s answer came swiftly - a shower of arrows flew from the Gods’ Gate, and when it passed dozens of men lay dead upon the grass. Yesugei saw his arrow, flaming and bright, strike a pikeman whose padded jacket was set alight like a candle wick - the man stumbled and twisted as he fell to the ground, burning a black patch on the field. By the time the arrow left his bowstring, Yesugei was already fitting another into place, and screaming for the others to draw on his command. Again and again their arrows hissed from the walls, and soon the field was choked with the dead and dying - every inch gained paid dearly.

But the ranks of the usurpers were many - and the archers upon the walls were few. Those footmen who survived were pelted with a hail of stones as they crashed upon the walls with shields raised against the squall. His arrows, burning with bright pale light, seared through padded wool and leather, sundered iron plate, and cracked any shield that was raised in time to block the flaming missiles.

The hail caused several bands of men to break ranks and flee from the hard-gained walls, but behind them the armored druzhinniks of great houses rallied them. The footmen would waver, break, fall back, and then would be forced into the charge again - such was the first assault, led by the freeholders and mercenaries as arrow-fodder. But through it all, Yesugei saw enough men made it up against the walls of the Gods’ Gate for them to form a roof of shields. Then, coming up the center line, a dozen men rushed forward bearing the giant trunk of a tree, its end sharpened to a point and capped with iron.

A ram. It was hastily-cobbled, but still more than enough to batter down the timbered Gods’ Gate into splinters. He called for the archers on his side to turn and shoot down the men with the ram, but for every one they brought down, another sprang up to take his place. Archers dashed ahead of the rammers, shooting as they advanced to cover their comrades - they would run ten feet, shoot a cloud of black arrows against the battlements, and then rush forward again. Yesugei cursed loudly as he ducked behind the walls with each oncoming hail, and he saw his own men falling by the dozen - those too distracted or too green to recognize when to duck. The wooden soldiers stood firm and brave however, filled with dozens of bolts and long feathered shafts, and then an idea came to Yesugei as he stared at one - its straw face painted with a crude smile.

He set his bow aside, picked up the straw dummy from its frame, and held it over a crackling brazier until the heat was too much to bear. Then with a cry he hurled the flaming dummy over the walls, sending an explosion of burning straw and wood over the raised shields.

“Fire!” he called to those archers that remained, ducking from the squall of arrows overhead. “Give them fire!”

The others realized what was being done, and then a moment later dozens of Belnopyl’s most stalwart defenders were aflame and tumbling over the battlements, choking the men beneath the walls in a cloud of smoke and singing them with burning straw. All those upon the Gods’ Tower loosed arrows blindly into the roiling black cloud, and when the smoke cleared, Yesugei saw the men packed around the ram were either dead or fled - and the gate remained intact. Beneath the prick of their arrows, the rest of the men beneath the walls retreated like water falling away from rock, and soon only the dead were left before the God’s Gate.

For a moment it seemed there was a reprieve - but as Yesugei turned to look towards the other towers he saw the assault elsewhere raged on. Swarms of warriors that made it to the Night’s Gate were throwing grappling hooks over the walls faster than the men defending them could cut them down, and once they were secure, long, heavy ladders and climbing-poles followed. Any man who dared lean out from behind the wall to knock the ladders loose was brought down by bowmen who shot from below.

Yesugei looked about him, and then at the retreating ranks of those who had thrown themselves against the Gods’ Gate.

“Tuyaara,” he called. “You have the command over this gate.”

“Me?” sputtered the shaman, staring at him as if he had grown another head.

“Her?” muttered a few of the crossbowmen in turn, shaking their heads.

“Yes. If they try to strike for the gate again, shoot them. It’s rather easy, if you put your mind to it.”

Yesugei quickly left them to stew on the fine matters of defending the gate before anyone could raise their voice in protest. As he came down the stairs, he grabbed ten of the surest marksmen from their posts before rushing down from the tower towards where the battle was thickest. Arrows whined overhead and clattered against the embrasures, and he found himself ducking up and down like a pecking chicken as he went towards the Night’s Gate.

A chicken with a sword, he thought to himself with a small grin as he pulled free a long straight-sword from his belt.

Over the wall, climbing up along a dozen raised ladders, the enemy was still vulnerable even as they cheered their ascent. Before the first champion could make it over top of the Night’s Gate, Yesugei brought him down with a shaft to his exposed side while the rest of his men feathered those below. Upon the feet of the walls the dead and broken were piled high, but still the enemy came on.

The stars must be delighted to see us, Yesugei realized with a grim thought. We play their game. Mortal men falling before the blades and arrows of other mortal men. What folly! What black, mad folly!

Against the warriors gathered beneath the walls, Yesugei did not need to search for targets - the warriors’ ranks were crowded so thickly that all that mattered was how quickly he could shoot. As he took another quiver of arrows from a barrel, he looked to the Golden Pass, and in the distance heard a great clangor of crushing stone. Before his eyes - and his eyes only, it seemed - he saw a great hand cast from wisps of smoke smashing up and down upon the walls, crushing the enemy against the battlements. The hand seized one of the raised ladders - and all the men upon it - and sent them flying thirty yards back, flinging them like ants from a twig.

Vasilisa. He knew, yet he saw no sign of another who should have been standing by her side. Unukalhai.

Damned Apostles, damn them all to the blackest hell! He cursed the immortal and shook his head - what good was an immortal abomination if it did not fight for them when they needed an unkillable freak the most? Still, the Golden Pass was holding firm. He glimpsed flashes of a white cloak as Vasilisa moved about the walls, shouting orders inaudible over the roar of the battle.

We must have killed five, ten times our number by now, he thought as he took stock of the dead and wounded all around. If we hold them for a while longer, they will break. They must.

Suddenly, there came the blast of another trumpet - one that was not theirs. Yesugei leaned cautiously over the battlements, and saw a long banner bearing the horns of a stag being brought up along one of the ladders against the Night’s Gate.

And then he saw the man to whom that sigil belonged.

Zinoviy of Denev - clad in heavy maille and a steel breastplate with the symbol of his land - was the first man over the walls.

Yesugei watched as the boyar leaped onto the battlements. His armor deflected the haphazard sword cuts of the defenders, and then the boyar swung his own sword in a mighty arc, hewing down three men in a single stroke. Even from afar, Yesugei could feel the cold of the black flame, chilling his soul and gnawing at his courage. The defenders must have felt the same fear, for they all routed before Zinoviy of Denev, even if they did not seem to see the black flames that danced along the sword.

And just like that, the first line of their defense began to crumble. Before the Stag-Lord’s assault the freeholders were driven back, the gap widening and widening until the enemy had at last a firm foothold upon the walls. Men fought and fell as they were forced into retreat, relinquishing the corpse-littered battlements inch by inch.

At last, the dreaded sound of the horn blared. The call for retreat echoed from the Night’s Tower. Those who were already in flight called to the others, “Back! Back! To the keep! To the keep! We cannot stay here!”

Yesugei saw the men Vasilisa had appointed in command - Demyan and Polynkin - fighting at the rear of the retreat until they fully disappeared into the bowels of the city. He then looked to the Gods’ Gate, and saw the flash of the silvered horn against the sky as it was raised.

***

Vasilisa leaned heavily upon the Kladenets. Away and to the east the great roar of clashing hosts rose and fell, punctuated by the crashing and splintering of falling ladders and climbing-poles as the enemy struggled up the walls. The men fighting upon those blood-soaked walls seemed so small from a distance - she could only make out their arms and armor when they caught the morning light, glinting and shimmering amidst the carnage.

Before her however, the view was far less beautiful. The ground upon which she stood was slick with mud, piss, and blood, rivers of it, choking the cobblestones with a thousand tiny crimson streams. Men - all of them her subjects, even in treachery - lay piled high upon the embrasures, broken and bloodied, but over their corpses more attackers came, pressing ever on, driven by courage, greed, or fear of being cut down by the men behind them, she did not know. She dealt death to all of them the same.

One druzhinnik with a sturgeon for a helm crest came over the walls. She swung the Kladenets with a ragged cry, and the iron fish went sailing through the air, trailing a ribbon of blood. She felt drunk with the power as she never had before - whatever fear she might have had disappeared, replaced only by a strange, electrifying euphoria.

The next man before her leapt from the embrasures, but never hit the ground. With one outstretched hand she brought the unseen claw out from her mind, catching the spearman mid-air. He flailed, he screamed, and then she closed her fist.

The screaming man popped like an overripe fruit, spraying geysers from the spaces in his crumpled iron plate. Terrified screams of witch! and demon! erupted around her as she flung the corpse aside, barreling the dead man into three others who tried to charge her.

This is my hour! She thought to herself, raising her sword high. The power of the last daughter of Belnopyl! Let them kill me if they can!

Mortal men tried, closing in all around her, their weapons bared uselessly against the Star-Eater’s chosen. Her stone blade crunched through iron, flesh, and bone like cloth, toppling three, four invaders from the walls with every brazen swing. When a sword cut rang and scraped across her helmeted brow, she caught it with her gauntleted fist and twisted the blade out of shape by her new awakened strength.

She danced past the swords of others, their wielders so slow, so blundering. The banner of a spoked wheel and a mailed fist fluttered mockingly in her face, so she chopped the shaft in twain, and then the man bearing it. Crossbow bolts darkened the heavens, but she swiped the missiles from the air, flinging them back beyond the walls.

Let them kill me if they can!

A druzhinnik lay sprawled beneath her feet, a bleeding stump of a hand raised in surrender. He babbled of ransom and fealty to a deaf woman’s ears, and died with a scream on his lips when she slammed the Kladenets through his skull.

Suddenly, three long blasts came from the Night’s Tower, followed by three more from the God’s Tower, sounding over the screams. Armored footsteps clattered to her side, and whirled to see Ilya recoiling from her.

“What?” she shouted, her voice sounding slurred and muffled. “What?”

Ilya raised his mace to point to the east, and she followed its path to the walls, where she saw men in retreat, and others at their heels. A black sword bobbed up and down in the midst of the horde, but she saw no sign of Yesugei, nor the others amidst the teeming flood of men.

She wanted to scream, to shout for them to stand and fight, to stand and die if need be, but she caught herself. “Everyone, with me!” she shouted, waving the Kladenets over her head. “With me, men of Belnopyl!”

She led them down the walls, and then pounding down the cobblestone streets. Houses broken and ruined passed by in a gray blur, but their path was marked by bands of red cloth tied about small rocks and standing pillars - Demyan’s idea. She felt a harsh smack against the small of her back, and another in her side, and snapped off two feathered shafts. The archers were harrying her and her men, infuriatingly pricking them every step of the way. Those who were not so well-protected by iron plate crumpled in front of her and around her, felled by the evil shafts.

She turned to face the enemy in pursuit, wrapping the unseen hand about the pillars of a ruined house. With a scream of effort she brought the towering ruin down with a crash that shook the earth. When the dust settled, the street was piled high with brick and tile, and the invaders pursued no further.

The defenders of the city poured in front three different avenues towards the gates of the keep, pushing and shoving as they struggled to squeeze in with the enemy at their back. Vasilisa remained in the rear, and the sight of her with the giant Kladenets in her hand gave the enemy pause. The druzhinniks and freeholders lingered for a moment at the foot of the hill, and Vasilisa saw fear in their eyes.

“That’s the last of our men!” cried a voice from above the battlements. Behind her and atop the walls of the keep, Yesugei leaned out with his bow bent, ready to shoot whoever came up on the approach. “Come back! Come back!”

Vasilisa turned and ran up the ramp to the gates. Behind her, the warriors’ hesitancy melted away, and at once they came at her, yelling hoarsely. An arrow found the throat of one druzhinnik, and when she looked back Vasilisa saw the man consumed by fire and flailing wildly, sending his comrades scattering. The moment she cleared the gates their heavy doors were swung shut, and the iron bars fell with a resounding clang.

“Who else is here?” Vasilisa called to no-one, anyone, as she removed her helmet and wiped her face. When her hand came away bloody, she realized her nose and eyes were bleeding - whether from a blow to the head, or the strain of her powers, she did not know, and did not care.

The courtyard was littered with wounded, and Tuyaara, herself bloodied and worn, was already busy directing what knowledgeable healers they had to tend those that could be saved. There were still some warriors strong and able, and they were either catching their breath or sneaking morsels of bread and gulps of soup whilst fighting lulled.

She called out again to any who would listen. “How many do we have left?”

“Not enough.” A grim figure detached itself from the shadow of the walls - a tall man in plated maille. As Demyan approached her, Vasilisa saw part of the tattooed skin on his brow was sheared off, leaving half his face caked with dried blood.

Vasilisa faced him. "I do not see Polynkin - where is he?"

“Gone,” replied the druzhinnik with a dark look. “We were cut off at the Three Sisters' Lane. Last I saw him, he was trying to lead whatever men he still had across the bridge. It doesn't matter - we've lost half our men by my count, and there's still hundreds of those bastard sons out there. The battle is lost, my lady - now all we've left to do is die well.”

“What sort of talk is this?” Vasilisa hissed through her teeth. She strode up to Demyan and stared down the druzhinnik. “Why are you so eager to die, when we might yet live?”

“How?” replied Demyan, his voice pleading. “Look at us - look at yourself, my lady!”

Over the thick metallic scent of blood that hung over the courtyard, Vasilisa could smell the druzhinnik’s terror, clinging to him like a squeezing grasp. He is useless to us, spoke the voice in her mind. The terror that holds him in beyond a warrior’s fear of battle.

Is it the work of Hearteater? She wondered to herself, recalling the legend of the fabled sword. That’s why it’s called Hearteater - it devours the heart's courage long before it sups on flesh.

“The enemy is just as disheartened,” she spoke to Demyan. “Perhaps even more. We’ve left the walls choked with their dead and unlike us, they do not fight to protect their home, nor will they find any loot in the city to make this madness seem worthwhile.”

Her mind raced faster than she could speak. “The only thing keeping these men united are their lords, and Zinoviy most of all, for all men fear him, ours and theirs. If he is killed, then they may lose the will to fight.”

Demyan snorted as others came around to listen - Ilya, Yesugei, and Austeja. It dawned on her just how much her company had withered away, and for a moment she felt Demyan’s own fear clawing at her resolve. No - she could not afford to be afraid, to doubt herself.

“What, do you intend to challenge the boyar of Denev to a duel for the city?” laughed Demyan bitterly. “Do you think he is such a fool that he would stake so much when we are at our weakest?”

“No, I would not give him such a courtesy.” Vasilisa shook her head, then gave a small smile. “Austeja, you recall the stories you told me, of the Sacred Hollows?”

The tribeswoman nodded uncertainly, her eyes narrowed in curiosity.

“What if there was one who knew more than the stories - one who was actually there?”

Vasilisa looked to the doors of the great keep, and there stood Unukalhai - waiting patiently for her command. “I have found a path,” spoke the Apostle slowly. “Though it is not the one I had wished to search for.”

In the two days spent feverishly preparing for the arrival of the usurpers and their armies, she had sent the Apostle into the deepest bowels of the great keep in search of the underground tunnels. She had held out on some thin hope that one of them might have led out into the hinterlands, or some other escape route by which her folk could flee. Instead, however…

“Where does the path lead?” she asked.

“A mile to the south-west - it leads to an embankment,” reported Unukalhai. “The flood has served us well in this manner - in times before, the passage would have been wholly flooded.”

“South-west from the keep will lead us out into the merchants’ quarter,” said Ilya, stroking his frizzled whiskers in thought.

“If we move quickly, we can catch them unawares.” Vasilisa said at length. “They will be busy recovering and massing for an assault on the walls - and none of the boyars know of the tunnels.”

She adjusted her hold on the Kladenets, and rested it on her shoulder. “I will take only a few with me, else the keep will fall long before we reach Zinoviy. Yesugei, Ilya, Demyan, I leave you in command of the defense. Austeja, pick five who are unbloodied and have them assembled in the great hall. Bring your horn.”

Yesugei lingered, and looked back at Unukalhai once the others departed. “I do not like this,” he said, once he seemed certain the Apostle was not listening. “Didn’t Unukalhai wish for you to abandon your people to chase after this…prophecy? What certainty do you have that you won’t be led astray?”

“I do not,” she responded. “That is why I want you to do this: hold the keep for as long as you may, but if you hear no call of our horn within the hour, then make ready to abandon this place. The tunnels will be your escape, and make sure to take with you what remains of my father’s treasury and tribute-”

“I will not run again,” the nomad princeling insisted, his gaze locked with hers. “I will find you - gods true and false, I will find you.”

He stood close to her - close enough for her to feel his gentle breath on her skin, and the pulsating warmth from the glowing veins that snaked along his blackened arm. For a moment, Vasilisa felt as though her heart had leapt into her throat - Gods above, they had only found each other once more two days past…

“Then you must stay alive,” she whispered, her voice barely audible over the distant sounds of the besieging army. “Stay alive, above all else.”

Without another word, she leaned in, pressing her lips to his. It was a strange sensation - lips felt cold and bruised, but at the same time she felt a warmth briefly surge through her body, binding itself about her soul, making her feel whole in a way she had not known before. Was it the crystal in his heart that called to her? No, it was not.

She wanted to hold on to the feeling forever, to sprout wings and fly high and away from the ugliness of the world more than ever before. But then the moment passed - she pulled away, and her eyes lingered on Yesugei for a moment longer, committing his face to memory: every weathered line upon his worn face, his rough, prickly beard, and his eyes…

She saw only the trailing remnants of the light as it fled from his eyes, but it was there, for a brief moment. Gold, bright, glowing gold had been in his eyes.

No, neither of us may die, she thought to herself. Not yet. Not before the Question.

“We must go,” she said finally, her voice sounding breathless. “You must live, Yesugei-”

“Suffer and live,” replied the nomad princeling with a knowing. “That has been our lot since the start, hasn’t it?”