“What do they say, Topin?”
“They say that when the koshchey’s angry, he will descend from the pass, come to us into the valleys.”
Visenna rose abruptly, her face had changed. Korin felt a shiver run down his spine.
“Topin”, the sorceress said. “Where is the closest smithy? My horse lost a shoe on the road.”
“A little ways behind the village, near the forest. There’s a smithy and a barn.”
“Good. Go now, and ask if anyone is sick or wounded.”
“Thank you, merciful benefactress.”
“Visenna”, Korin said as soon as the door had closed behind Topin. The druid turned around and looked at him.
“All of your horse’s shoes are in perfect order.”
Visenna remained silent.
“Hornstone is obviously jasper, greenstone jadeite, for which the Amell’s mines are famous”, Korin continued. “And to get to the Amell, you need to travel the Klamat, over the pass. The road with no return. What did the dead woman at the crossroads say? Why did she want to kill me?”
Visenna didn’t answer.
“You’re silent? Never mind. It is all becoming clear so nicely. The wench at the crossroads was waiting for someone to stop at the stupid sign that forbids you to go east. That was the first test: if the newcomer can read. Then the wench verified again: who, if not a good Samaritan from the Circle of druids, would help a hungry old woman these days? Everybody else, I bet, would’ve even taken the stick from her. So the cunning wench investigates further, starts talking of poor, unhappy people who need help. The traveler, instead of thanking her with a kick and a curse, as any average resident of these parts would, listens closely. Yes, the wench thinks, this is him. The druid who’s here to clear out the bandits terrorizing the neighborhood. And since she herself was doubtlessly sent by said bandits, she draws a knife. Ha! Visenna! Am I not a paragon of intelligence?”
Visenna didn’t answer. She stood facing the window. Outside she saw – the semi-transparent membranes of air bladder were no obstacle to her sight – the bird with the colorful plumage sitting in a small cherry tree.
“Visenna?”
“Yes.”
“What’s a koshchey?”
“Korin”, Visenna said sharply and turned to face him. “Why are you getting involved in matters which are none of your concern?”
“Listen” – Korin didn’t care about her tone of voice -, “I am already, as you say, involved in your matters. As it turns out, I was to be murdered in your stead.”
“By chance.”
“I thought sorceresses didn’t believe in chance, only in magical attraction, chain of events and such. Look, we’re sitting on the same horse. Literally and figuratively. In short… I offer you my help with the mission, whose purpose I can very well imagine. A refusal I will take as a sign of arrogance. They told me that you from the Circle look down upon ordinary mortals.”
“That’s a lie.”
“All the better.” Korin flashed his teeth. “So let’s not lose any time. Let’s ride to the smithy.”
IV
Nicholas grabbed the rod more tightly with the pliers and turned it in the embers. “Step on it, Bung!” he ordered.
The journeyman grabbed the handle of the bellows. His chubby face shone with sweat. In spite of the door being wide open, the smithy was unbearably hot. Nicholas lifted the rod onto the anvil, flattened the end with a few mighty blows of his hammer.
The wheelwright Radim, sitting on a rough block of birchwood, was sweating heavily as well. He unbuttoned his overall and pulled the shirt out of his pants. “It’s easy for you to say, Nicholas”, he said. “You know all about fighting. Everybody knows that you haven’t been standing in the smithy all your life. Back then, they say, you smashed heads instead of iron.”
“Then be glad to have one like that on your side,” the smith responded. “I’m telling you again, I will no longer crawl to them. Or slave away for them. If you’re not coming with me, then I’ll go alone, or with anyone who has blood running in their veins, not small beer. We will go into the woods and finish them off one by one if we catch them. How many are they? Thirty? Perhaps not even that many. And how many villages are there on this side? Strong lads? Step on it, Bung!”
“I am!”
“More!”
The hammer beat the anvil rhythmically, almost melodically. Bung pulled the bellows.
Radim snorted into his hand and wiped it on the shaft of his boot. “Easy for you to say”, he repeated. “And how many will join us from Key?”
The smith lowered the hammer, remained silent.
“That’s what I thought”, the wheelwright said. “Nobody will come.”
“Key is a small village. You should have asked in Sill and Stalk.”
“I did. I told you how it is. Without warriors from Mayena, the people won’t move a muscle. Some say: Those bobolaks and vrans, them we can take on one, two, three with our pitchforks, but what do we do if the koshchey descends on us? Flee into the woods. And the huts, our belongings? We can’t carry them on our backs. And we are powerless against the koshchey itself, you know that.”
“How should I know? Has anybody seen it?” the smith yelled. “Maybe there is no koshchey? Maybe they just want to scare you peasants? Has anybody seen it?”
“Don’t talk, Nicholas.” Radim cocked his head. “You know that among the merchants’ escort there were veritable murderers, hung with iron. And did one of them return from the pass? Not a single one. No, Nicholas. We must wait, I tell you. If the castellan of Mayena sends help, then that’s a different story.”
Nicholas put down the hammer and placed the rod in the oven once more. “Mayena’s military will not come”, he said morosely. “The lords are squabbling among themselves. Mayena against Raswan.”
“Why?”
“Who understands the why and what for when the noble Lords are fighting? If you ask me – because of boredom, haughtiness!” the smith yelled. “I saw him, that castellan! Why do we even pay the bastard taxes?”
He tore the rod from the embers so that the sparks flew and gesticulated wildly. Bung jumped aside. Nicholas grabbed the hammer, hit once, twice, thrice. “When the castellan chased my boy off, I sent him to the Circle to ask for help. To the druids.”
“To the sorcerers?” the wheelwright asked in disbelief. “Nicholas?”
“To those. But the boy hasn’t come back yet.”
Radim shook his head, stood up and adjusted his pants. “I don’t know, Nicholas, I don’t know. That’s too much for me. But still it amounts to the same thing. We must wait. Finish your work, they will come soon, I must…”
In front of the smithy, a horse neighed.
The smith froze, his hammer raised above the anvil. The wheelwright’s teeth began to chatter, he blanched. Nicholas noticed his hands shivering; he involuntarily wiped them on his leather apron. It didn’t help. He swallowed and went to the door opening, from which the silhouettes of riders could be seen. Radim and Bung followed, stayed very close behind him. As he went out, the smith leaned the rod against the wall next to the door.
He saw six figures, all on horseback, wearing leather-studded vests, hauberks, leather helmets with nose protection made of steel which ran as a straight line of metal between huge ruby eyes taking up half the face. They sat on their horses without moving, as if careless. Nicholas, who let his gaze sweep from one to the other, saw their weapons: short spears with broad blades. Swords with strangely forged crossguards. Broadaxes. Serrated glaives.
Two of them stood opposite the entrance. A tall vran on a gray mold, wearing a cloak, a sun emblem on his helmet. And the other…
“Mother”, Bung whispered behind the smith’s back. And started to sob.
The other rider was a human. He wore a dark vran cloak, but from behind the beak-shaped helmet, pale blue eyes watched them, no red ones. In those eyes lay such cold, indifferent violence that Nicholas felt a terrible fear course t
hrough him, chilling his innards, causing nausea, a tickling in his behind. It was still quiet. The smith heard the flies humming above the manure pile behind the fence.
The human with the beak-shaped helmet was the first to speak. “Who of you is the smith?”
The question was senseless, the leather apron and his posture gave away Nicholas at first glance. The smith remained silent. From the corner of his eye he noticed the pale-eyed man making a small gesture to one of the vrans. The vran leaned forward in the saddle and gave a wide swing of the glaive he was holding by the middle of its shaft. Nicholas bent, instinctively ducked and covered his head and shoulders. The blow, however, was not meant for him. The wide blade hit Bung in the neck and entered at an angle, deep, shattering a collarbone and vertebra. The young man reeled backwards against the wall of the smithy, tumbled against the door post and dropped to the ground right at the entrance.
“I asked you a question”, the man with the beak-shaped helmet reminded them without taking his eyes off Nicholas. His gloved hand touched the ax fastened to the saddle. The vrans standing the farthest away lit a fire, ignited links and passed them on to the others. Calmly, unhurriedly they surrounded the smithy, held the torches to the thatched roof.
Radim could bear it no longer. He pressed his face into his hands, started to sob and ran straight ahead between two horses. When he was on the level of a tall vran, the latter jauntily rammed a spear into his stomach. The wheelwright howled, fell, violently twitched twice and spread his legs. He moved no more.
“So, what is it, Nicholas, or whatever you are called”, Pale-eyes said. “You alone remain. And for what? To rally the people to the send help? And to think we would not learn of it? You are stupid. In the villages, there are those who denounce others to get in our good books.”
The thatched roof of the smithy crackled, cracked, emitted a yellowish smoke, finally flared up, blazed, blew sparks, exuded a mighty stream of embers.
“We caught your journeyman, he babbled about where you sent him. We are also waiting for the one who is to come from Mayena”, the man with the beak-shaped helmet continued. “Yes, Nicholas. You stuck your dirty nose where it doesn’t belong. For that you will now have to suffer severe inconveniences. I think it will pay to put you on the pole. Is there a decent pole in this area? Or better yet: We hang you by your feet, in a barn door, and peel off your skin like we would with an eel.”
“Well, enough talk”, the tall vran with the sun on his helmet said while throwing his torch through the open door of the smithy. “Soon the whole village will gather here. Let’s finish him, get the horses from the stables and ride off. Why does making others suffer please you humans so? Especially when doing so needlessly? Go, finish him.”
Pale-eyes didn’t turn to the vran. He bent forward in his saddle, ushered the horse toward the smith. “Go inside”, he said. A lust for murder shone in his pale eyes. “Into the house. I don’t have the time to properly execute you. But I can at least fry you.”
Nicholas took a step back. On his back he felt the heat of the burning smithy, inside which ceiling beams were crashing thunderously to the floor. One more step. He stumbled over Bung’s body and the rod, which the boy had thrown over in his fall.
The rod.
The smith bent over fast as lightning, took hold of the heavy iron and without straightening himself, from down low, rammed it into Pale-eyes’ chest with all the strength his hatred gave him. The chisel-shaped tip penetrated the chain mail. Nicholas didn’t wait for the man to fall off his horse. He ran across the yard. Behind him yelling, the stamping of hooves. He reached the woodshed, clutched the stake leaning against the wall with his fingers and hit immediately, in mid-spin, blindly. The blow struck the muzzle of the gray mold with the green covering. The horse reared, bucked off the vran with the sun on his helmet and sent him into the dust of the yard. Nicholas ducked, a short spear shot into the wall of the shed, became stuck, quivering. A second vran drew his sword and spurred his horse to evade the whistling stroke of the stake. Three others galloped closer, yelled, wildly gesticulated with their weapons. Nicholas groaned, while he defended himself with the heavy wood. He hit something, another horse, which neighed and started to dance on its hind legs. The vran remained in the saddle.
Over the fence, from the direction of the forest, hurtled a horse, clashed with the gray mold with the green covering. The gray balked, tore at the reins, toppled the tall vran who was trying to get back into the saddle. Nicholas couldn’t believe his eyes as he saw how the newly arrived rider split into two – a weakling in a hood who leaned over the horse’s neck, and a fair-haired man with a sword, who sat in the back.
The long narrow blade drew two semi-circles, two thunderbolts. Two vrans were blown from their saddles, they tumbled to the ground, veiled in clouds of dust. The third, who had almost made it to the woodshed, turned to the peculiar pair and took a thrust under the beard, barely above the steel chest plate. The blade glinted as it stuck out of the throat for a moment. The fair-haired man slid off his horse and ran across the yard to get the tall vran off his horse. The vran drew the blade.
In the middle of the yard, the fifth vran was trying to regain control over his dancing horse, which balked at the burning smithy. His broadax raised, he looked around, hesitated. Finally, he yelled, spurred the horse and rushed toward the weakling clinging to the horse’s neck. Nicholas watched as the small one threw back his hood and tore a band from his forehead, and he realized how deeply he had erred. The girl shook her strawberry blond shock of hair and yelled something incomprehensible, while stretching her hands out towards the vran. A thin thread of light, bright as quicksilver, sprang from her fingers. The vran was hurled from the saddle in a high arc and crashed into the sand. His clothes were smoldering. The horse, hitting the ground with all four hooves, neighed, threw its head back and forth.
The tall vran with the sun on his helmet slowly backed away from the fair-haired man, towards the burning shed, ducking, both hands – a sword in his right – stretched forward. The fair-haired one jumped forward, they exchange a few blows. The vran’s sword flew off to the side, yet he himself was stuck on the blade that had impaled him. The fair-haired man stepped back, removed the sword with a quick jerk. The vran fell onto his knees, toppled over, his face in the sand.
The rider who had been thrown from his saddle by the strawberry-blonde’s flashes got up on all fours, groping around for a weapon. Nicholas had recovered from the surprise; he took two steps, picked up the stake and let it crash down onto the neck of the fallen one. Bones cracked.
“That was not necessary”, he heard somebody say right beside him.
The girl in the man’s clothing had freckles and green eyes. On her forehead shone a strange jewel.
“That was not necessary”, she repeated.
“My lady…”, the smith began to stammer and held his rod like a guardsman would his halberd. “They… burned the smithy. Beat the boy to death. And Radim. Beaten to death, those murderers. My lady…”
The fair-haired man used his foot to turn over the body of the tall vran, inspected him, then came closer and sheathed his sword.
“Well, Visenna”, he said. “Now I’ve gotten involved quite a bit. The only thing that makes me uneasy is whether I took down the right people.”
Visenna raised her eyes. “You’re the smith, Nicholas?”, she asked.
“Yes. And you, Masters, are from the Circle of Druids? From Mayena?”
Visenna didn’t answer. She looked toward the edge of the forest, at the crowd of people hurrying closer.
“Those are our people”, the smith explained. “From Key.”
V
“We got three!” boasted the black-bearded leader of the group from Sill and shook the scythe set straight onto the shaft. “Three, Nicholas! They pursued the girls into the fields, and there, we… One of them managed to get away, reached a horse, that whoreson!”
His people, crowded around the circle of campfires in
the clearing, which studded the sable night sky with spots of flying embers, yelled, clamored, shook their weapons. Nicholas raised both his hands, demanded quiet to be able to hear the ensuing reports.
“Four came riding to us last night”, said the old, bony sheriff of Stalk. “Whatever. Someone must have spilled that I’m involved with you, smith. I barely made it onto the drying loft of the barn, pulled up the ladder, fork in hand, ‘come’, I yell, ‘scoundrels, who wants some’, I yell. They were about to set fire to the barn, that would have been the end of me, but our people didn’t stand by and watch, they all pounced on them. They had horses, managed to cut through. Some of ours fell, but we pulled one of them from his saddle.”
“Does he live?” Nicholas inquired. “I told you to catch one alive.”
“Well.” The thin one waved dismissively. “That we didn’t manage. The wenches used boiling water, they got to him first…”
“I’ve always said they’ve got hot wenches in Stalk”, the smith murmured and scratched the back of his neck. “And the snitch?”
“Found him”, the bony man said briefly, without getting lost in detail.
“Good. And now, people, listen. We already know where they are. At the mountainside, next to the shepherds’ huts, there are caves in the rock. That’s where the bandits have holed up, and that’s where we will catch them. We’ll take hay and brushwood on the carts, smoke them out like badgers. We’ll block the way with an abates so they don’t escape. That’s what I’ve consulted about with this knight here by the name of Korin. And I myself, as you are aware, do know a little something about fighting as well. During the war I went against the vrans with General Grosim, before I settled down in Key.”
From among the crowd warlike cries rang once more, but were swiftly quieted by words which spoken lowly and insecurely at first. Then became louder. Finally, silence fell.