Visenna stepped from behind Nicholas’ back and stood next to the smith. She did not even reach his shoulder. The crowd began to murmur.
Nicholas again raised both hands. “The time has come”, he called, “that I no longer want to conceal that I have asked for help from the Circle of Druids since the castellan of Mayena would not supply it. I know very well that some of you eye me curiously because of that.”
The crowd slowly turned quieter, but was still in motion, whispering.
“This here is Lady Visenna”, Nicholas said slowly. “From the Mayena Circle. She answered our call for help. Those from Key are already acquainted with her, there she healed people, restored their health with her powers. Yes, men. She is a slight lady, but her power is immense. It goes beyond our understanding and scares us, but it serves as help in our fight.”
Visenna refrained from commenting, she did not say a word and made no gesture toward the assembled crowd. But the veiled power of the small, freckled sorceress was incredible. Korin felt, with surprise, how a strange enthusiasm filled him, how the fear of what waited at the pass, the fear of the unknown, shrank, vanished, became unimportant, as long as the bright jewel on Visenna’s forehead sparkled.
“So you see”, Nicholas continued, “that there is something we can do against the koshchey. We will not go alone, not defenseless. But before that we have to get rid of those bandits!”
“Nicholas is right!”, the bearded man from Sill called. “Magic or not, who cares! To the pass, people! To finish the koshchey’s thugs!”
The crowd yelled its agreement in unison, raised scythes, pikes, axes and pitchforks reflecting the flames of the campfires.
Korin squeezed through the rows of people near him toward the forest, found a kettle hanging over a fire, a bowl and a spoon. He scraped the burnt remains of pap with bacon off the bottom. He sat down, rested the bowl on his knees, ate slowly and spit out bits of barley. After a while he felt someone’s presence.
“Sit down, Visenna”, he said with his mouth full.
He kept eating while squinting at her profile, at the half-hidden cascade of hair that gleamed blood-red in the fire’s glow. Visenna remained silent, her gaze directed at the flames.
“Hey, Visenna, why do we sit here like two owls?” Korin set down the bowl. “I can’t stand that, it makes me sad and cold. Where did they hide the moonshine? There was a small barrel here just a minute ago; Devil take it. It’s dark like…”
The druid turned toward him. Her eyes glowed with a strange, greenish sparkle. Korin fell silent.
“Yes. True”, he said after a while and cleared his throat. “I’m a bandit. A mercenary. A robber. I got involved because I like fighting, no matter who. I know the price of jasper, jadeite and all the other stones there are in the mines of the Amell. I want loot. Profit. I don’t care how many of these people will lose their lives tomorrow. What else do you want to know? I will say it myself, you don’t need to use that sparkly thing you’re hiding under the snakeskin. I don’t intend to hide anything. You’re right, I fit neither you nor your noble mission. That’s it. Good night. I’m going to sleep.”
Despite his words he did not get up. He only took a stick and thrust at the burning logs.
“Korin”, Visenna said quietly.
“Yes?”
“Don’t leave.”
Korin lowered his head. From a chunk of birchwood in the fire erupted blue geysers of flame. He looked at her but could not bear the intensity of those eerily sparkling eyes. He turned his head toward the fire.
“Don’t ask too much of yourself”, Visenna said and wrapped herself in her cloak. “It is common for the unnatural to spark fear. And loathing.”
“Visenna…”
“Don’t interrupt me. Yes, Korin, the people need our help, they are thankful, oftentimes even honestly so, but they despise us, fear us, don’t look us in the eyes, spit behind our backs. The more intelligent, like you, are less honest. You are no exception, Korin. I have heard from many that they are unworthy of sitting at a fire with me. But it so happens that it is we who need the help of… normal folk. Or their company.”
Korin kept silent.
“I know”, Visenna continued, “that it would be easier for you if I had a gray beard reaching my belt and a hooked nose. Then the revulsion against my person would not cause such confusion in your mind. Yes, Korin, revulsion. This sparkly thing that I wear on my forehead is a chalcedony. To it, I owe a large portion of my magical abilities. You are right, with the help of the chalcedony I am easily able to read the more concrete thoughts. Yours are exceedingly plain. Do not ask me to perceive that as pleasing. I am a sorceress, a witch, but also a woman. I came because I wanted to sleep with you.”
“Visenna…”
“No. I no longer want to. Not now.”
They sat quietly. The colorful bird, sitting on a branch in the dark depth of the forest, felt fear. There were owls in the woods.
“You overdid it a little”, Korin finally sounded “with the revulsion. But I do admit that you cause in me some kind of… unrest. You shouldn’t have allowed me to watch that scene at the crossroads. The corpse, you know?”
“Korin”, the sorceress said calmly. “When you thrust your sword into the vran’s throat at the smithy, I almost vomited into the horse’s mane. But let us let our specialties rest. We should end the conversation that leads to nothing.”
“We should end it.”
The sorceress drew her cloak more tightly around herself. Korin threw a few pine cones into the fire.
“Korin?”
“Yes?”
“I wish you were no longer indifferent of how many lose their lives tomorrow. Humans and… and others. I count on your help.”
“I will help you.”
“That is not all. There is still the issue of the pass. I need to open the road across the Klamat.”
With the glowing end of a twig Korin pointed at the other campfires and the people who slept or talked quietly. “With our glorious army, that should be no problem.”
“Our army will vanish home once I stop clouding their heads with magic.” Visenna smiled sadly. “But I will not cloud them. I do not want any of them to die for an unfamiliar cause. And the koshchey is not their business, but that of the Circle. I need to go to the pass alone.”
“No. You’re not going alone”, Korin said. “We’ll go together. I, Visenna, have known from early childhood when to flee and when it’s still too early. I’ve perfected that knowledge in years of practice, and that’s why I’m currently considered brave. I don’t intend to do your opinion of me any harm. You don’t need to cloud me with magic. First, let’s see what that koshchey looks like. By the way, what do you think is this koshchey?”
Visenna lowered her head. “I’m afraid”, she whispered, “it is death.”
VI
The others did not let themselves be caught off-guard in the caves. They waited in the saddle, motionless, erect, their eyes directed at the rows of armed peasants coming from the forest. The wind tearing at their mantles made them look like haggard birds of prey with ruffled up plumage, threatening, inspiring awe and fear.
“Eighteen”, Korin counted standing in the stirrups. “All mounted. Six near horses. One cart. Nicholas!”
The smith rapidly changed his company’s formation. Those with pikes and spears kneeled at the edge of the brush, the ends of their weapons rammed into the ground. The archers took position behind the trees. The rest retreated into the thicket.
One of the riders came toward them. He stopped his horse, raise his hand above his head, called something.
“A feint”, Nicholas murmured. “I know them, those whoresons.”
“Let’s make sure”, Korin said and jumped from the saddle. “Come.”
Slowly, the two of them walked up to the mounted one. After a while Korin noticed Visenna following them.
The rider was a bobolak.
“I will be brief”, he called without
dismounting. His small, sparkling eyes glinted, halfway hidden by the fur that covered his face. “I am the current leader of the group that you see over there. Nine bobolaks, five humans, three vrans, one elf. The rest is dead. There was a difference of opinion. Our former leader, whose plans led us here, lies in that cave over there, bound. Do with him as you please. We want to ride off.”
“That really was brief”, Nicholas snorted. “You want to ride off. And we want to tear out your guts. What do you say?”
The bobolak flashed his pointed teeth, stretched his small form in the saddle. “Do you believe we fear you enough to be willing to make concessions? You, a band of cowards in bast shoes? Please, if you insist, we will ride over your paunches. That is our trade, peasant. I know that we’re taking a risk. Even if some of us fall, the others will make it through. That’s life.”
“The cart won’t make it through”, Korin said forcefully. “That’s life.”
“We are prepared for that.”
“What’s on the cart?”
The bobolak spit over his right shoulder. “A twentieth of what has remained in the cave. And just to be clear: if you ask us to leave the cart behind, we won’t agree. If we’re supposed to get out of this thing without a profit, then at least not without a fight. So, what is it? If we are to fight, then I’d rather do it now, in the morning, before the dear sun begins to burn.”
“You’re brave”, said Nicholas.
“So are all of my family.”
“We will let you go if you lower your weapons.”
The bobolak spit again, this time over his left shoulder, for a change.
“Not a chance”, he growled curtly.
Korin laughed. “That’s what’s bothering you. Without your weapons, you’re garbage!”
“And what are you without weapons?” the small one asked without emotion. “A prince? I see what you are. Do you think I’m blind?”
“With weapons you could be back tomorrow”, Nicholas said. “Let’s say, to get what’s left in the cave. To make more profit.”
The bobolak bared his teeth. “That was an option. But we dropped it after a short discussion.”
“Rightly so”, Visenna said suddenly, stepped from behind Korin’s back and stood closely in front of the mounted one. “It was right of you to drop it, Kehl.”
Korin felt as if the wind had suddenly grown stronger, it began howling between the rocks and grasses, assaulted it with cold.
Visenna continued in an unfamiliar, metallic voice. “Each of you who tires to return here will die. I see it and I am saying it in advance. Ride from here immediately. Now. Each who tries to return will die.”
The bobolak leaned forward and looked at the sorceress across the neck of his horse. He wasn’t young – his fur war almost ashen, streaked white.
“It is you? I thought so. I’m glad that… But enough of that. I told you I don’t intend to return here. We joined Fregenal to make a profit. That’s over. Now the Circle is breathing down our neck, and all the villages in the area, but Fregenal is babbling about world domination. We’ve had enough of him and that creature at the pass.”
He tore at the reins, turned his horse. “Why am I saying that? We are leaving. Farewell.”
Nobody answered. The bobolak hesitated, looked toward the edge of the forest, then let his gaze glide along the row of his motionless riders. Again he leaned forward in the saddle and looked Visenna in the eyes. “I was against the attack on you”, he said. “Now I see that I was right. If I tell you that the koshchey’s death, you will nevertheless go to the pass, won’t you?”
“True.”
Kehl straightened his back, called something to his horse, galloped to his people. Immediately, the mounted ones formed a convoy around the cart, moved off toward the road. Nicholas was already with his men, talking to them, calming the bearded man from Sill and others, who were demanding blood and revenge. Korin and Visenna silently regarded the company passing them. They rode slowly, looked straight ahead, showed calm and cold disdain. Only Kehl raised his hand in a parting gesture when he passed them, all the while watching Visenna with a strange expression. Then he abruptly spurred his horse, trotted past the head of the convoy, vanished between the trees.
VII
They found the first corpse right at the entrance to the caves, crushed, shoved between sacks of oat and a pile of brushwood. The path branched off, at the fork they saw the next two dead – one nearly headless from a blow with a mace or the back of an ax, the other covered in clotted blood from many wounds. All of them humans.
Visenna removed the headband from her forehead. A light radiated from the diadem, brighter than the fire of the torches, and lit the dark interior of the cave. The passage led into a bigger grotto. Korin emitted a soft whistle. Against the walls leaned crates, sacks and barrels, stacks of harnesses, balls of wool, weapons, equipment. A few crates were shattered and empty. Others were full. In passing, Korin saw a dull green pile of jasper, dark broken pieces of jadeite, agates, opals, chrysoprases and other jewels he didn’t know. On the stone floor, here and there glittering with golden, silver and copper coins, lay scattered bundles of fur – marmot, lynx, fox, wolverine.
Without stopping for even a moment, Visenna hurried into a more remote, small and dark cavern. Korin followed her.
“Here I am”, sounded a dark, indistinct shape lying on a stack of rags and furs covering the floor.
They walked closer. The bound man was squat, bald, obese. A large bruise covered half his face.
Visenna touched the diadem, for a moment the chalcedony flared up more brightly.
“That is unnecessary”, the bound man said. “I know you. I forget what you are called. I know what’s on your forehead. That is unnecessary, I say. They assaulted me in my sleep, took my ring, destroyed my staff. I am powerless.”
“Fregenal”, Visenna said. “You’ve changed.”
“Visenna”, the fat one murmured. “I remember. I thought it would be a man, that’s what I sent Manissa. My Manissa could have handled a man.”
“She couldn’t”, Korin blustered while looking around. “Still, one has to give the dead her due. She really made an effort.”
“Too bad.”
Visenna looked around the cave, walked into a corner with sure step, turned a stone over the with tip of her boot, removed a small clay pouch wrapped in leather from the hollow below it. With her golden sickle she cut a strap, pulled out a sheaf of parchment.
Fregenal watched with hostility. “Well, well”, he said, his voice quivering with hatred. “What a talent. It deserves praise. We can find hidden things. What else can we do? Divine from an oxen’s gut? Cure a heifer’s flatulence?”
Visenna looked at sheet after sheet without paying any attention to him.
“Interesting”, she said after a while. “Eleven years ago, when you were expelled from the Circle, certain pages vanished from forbidden books. It’s pleasing that they have been found, enriched with commentary, no less. To think you had the audacity to use the double cross of Alzur – now, now. I don’t think you forgot about the fate that befell Alzur. Some of his creatures supposedly still roam the world, among them his last, the vij who killed him and destroyed half of Maribor before fleeing into the woods of the river country.” She folded a few pages of parchment, slid them into a pocket in the puffy sleeve of her jacket. She unrolled the next pages.
“Aha”, she said and frowned. “The formula of tree root, slightly altered. And here, the triangle within a triangle, a method with which one can affect a sequence of mutations and cause enormous gain in body mass. And what, Fregenal, served as your creature of origin? Looks like a common spider. Fregenal, something is missing. I hope you know what I am talking about?”
“I’m glad you’ve noticed.” He wizard grinned. “A common spider, you say? Once that common spider descends from the pass, the world will turn mute with horror. For a moment. And then it will scream.”
“Yes, yes. Where are the mis
sing spells?”
“Nowhere. I didn’t want them to fall into the wrong hands. Especially not yours. I know that the whole Circle dreams of the power those spells can give, but no chance. You will never be capable of creating anything even half as terrible as a koshchey.”
“You seem to have been hit in the head, Fregenal”, Visenna said calmly. “Due to that, it seems, you have not yet regained your intellectual capabilities. Who talks of creation? Your creature needs to be destroyed, eradicated. Through the simple inversion of a binding spell, the mirror effect. The binding spell, of course, was tuned to the staff, so it needs to be retuned to my chalcedony.”
“Too much of ‘needs to be”, the fat man growled. “You can sit here until Judgment Day and ‘need to’, my clever miss. Where did you get the silly idea that I would give you the binding spell? You will get nothing from me, neither alive nor dead. I have a block. Don’t ogle me like that, or that stone will burn through your forehead. Hurry, unbind me, my limbs have already fallen asleep.”
“If you want, I can give you a few kicks.” Korin smiled. “That should get your circulation going. You don’t seem to grasp your situation, you bald swine. Any moment, the peasants are going to be here, the ones you’ve threatened, and they’ll quarter you with their horses. Have you ever seen how that’s done? The arms tear off first.”
Fregenal flexed his neck, his eyes bulging and tried to spit on Korin’s boots. But that was quite difficult from the position he was in, so he merely spat on his own chin.
“That’s”, he snorted, “that’s what I think of your threats! You will do nothing! You presume a great deal, vagrant! You’ve gotten in far over your head! Ask her why she’s here! Visenna! Enlighten him, he seems to take you for a noble liberator of the oppressed, a fighter for the good of the common people! But this is about money, you cretin! A lot of money!”
Visenna remained quiet. Fregenal straightened, the binds screaming, turned over onto his side by bending his legs at the knees.
“Is it not true”, he yelled, “that the Circle sent you to reopen the golden faucet which has run dry? For the Circle draws profit from the mining for jasper and jadeite, it imposes taxes on the merchants and caravans as payment for protective amulets which, as has been shown, do nothing against my koshchey!”