IT WAS FULL NIGHT, well after moonrise, by the time Oleg’s Russians found their place in the host. Their horses were fresh, having enjoyed Vasya’s game greatly, but the men were sweating, sullen, sore.

Comments that sounded like good-natured abuse were hurled from all sides as the Russians straggled into camp in the moonlight.

The exhausted men snapped at their restless horses. Oleg had not taken his eyes off her, Vasya was sure, for the last hour of marching.

When they finally halted, he swung from the saddle and contemplated her grimly. “I must take you to Chelubey.”

A little cold tendril of fear wormed its way through her belly. But she managed to say, “Where? Where is my brother?”

“In Mamai’s ger.” He must have seen the involuntary fear in her eyes, for he added roughly, “I won’t leave you there, girl. Work on the most ignorant face you can manage. I must see the men settled first.”

She was left sitting on a log, with a guard nearby. Vasya looked up at the moon, tried to feel the hour in her bones. It was late, certainly.

Her clothes, sweat-soaked in the day’s heats, chilled her now. She drew in a deep breath. Close enough to midnight? It would have to be.

Her head was clear now, though she was very tired. The nausea was gone, the pain in her head. She tried to push aside her fear for her brother, and concentrate. Small things. Little magic that was not beyond her strength and would not send her mad. Sitting on the day-warm earth, she forgot that her bonds were tight.

And she felt the rope give. Just a little. She forced herself to relax.

The rope gave a little more, subtly. Now she could move her chafed wrists, turn them.

She looked round, caught the amiable eye of Oleg’s bay. The mare, obligingly, reared, squealing. All the Russian horses did.

Simultaneously, they went into a very ecstasy of fear, bucking, heaving wild-eyed on their pickets, thrashing against their hobbles.

All around, Vasya heard men cursing. They streamed over to the horse-lines, even Vasya’s guard. No one was looking at her. A twist, and she had yanked her wrists free. The chaos in the camp was spreading, as though the horses’ panic was infecting their fellows.

She didn’t know where Mamai’s tent lay. She ducked into the confusion of milling men and horses, put a hand on the good bay’s neck. The mare was still saddled; there was even a long knife attached to the saddlebag. “Will you carry me?” she whispered.

The bay tossed her head good-naturedly, and Vasya vaulted to her back. Suddenly she could see over the confusion. She nudged the

mare forward, glancing back over her shoulder.

She could have sworn she saw Oleg of Ryazan, watching her go and saying not a word.

28.

Pozhar

VASYA WHISPERED TO THEIR HORSES of fire and wolves and terrible things. Wherever she went, she left the encampment in chaos.

Campfires flared, throwing out sparks. Dozens of horses—more—

were panicking all at once. Some bolted outright, trampling men with their passage; others merely reared and bucked and thrashed against their ropes. Vasya rode the bay mare through a wave of maddened creatures. More than once she was glad of the horse’s steady feet and good sense. Danger was a fizz in her throat and stomach.

Darkness and chaos, she thought, were better allies even than magic.

Drawing nearer Mamai’s tent, Vasya slid from the mare’s back.

“Wait for me,” she said to the horse. The mare put her nose down obligingly. The horses here were bucking too; there were men everywhere, cursing. She gathered her courage and slipped inside Mamai’s tent, praying under her breath.

Her brother was there, alone. His arms were wrenched up and bound to the pole that held the tent. He was bare to the waist, his back raw with whip-marks; he had bruises on his face. She ran to him.

Sasha raised exhausted eyes to her face. He was missing two fingernails on his right hand. “Vasya,” he said. “Get out.”

“I will. With you,” she said. She had the knife from Oleg’s saddle; now with a single slash, she cut his bonds. “Come on.”

But Sasha was shaking his head dazedly. “They know,” he said.

“That you stirred up the horses. Chelubey—said something about a bay stallion, and a mare in Moscow. He knew it was you, as soon as the noise started. They—they planned for it.” Sweat had run down into his beard; it gleamed at his temples, on his bare tonsured head.

She whipped round.

They were standing in the opening of the tent: Mamai and Chelubey, watching, with men crowding behind them. Chelubey said something in his own tongue and Mamai answered. There was something avid in their stares.

Vasya, not taking her eyes off the two men, reached down to help her brother to his feet. He rose when she pulled, but it was obvious that every movement was agony.

“Step away from him. Slowly,” said Chelubey to her in Russian.

She could see her slow death in his eyes.

Vasya had had enough. She wasn’t dazed with a blow to the head now. She set the tent on fire.

Flames leaped from the tent flaps in a dozen places; both men sprang backward, with cries of alarm. Vasya seized her brother and pulled him, limping, to the other side of the tent, used the knife to slice through the felt.

Rather than go out, she waited, holding her breath against the smoke, and whistled once between her teeth. The good bay mare came, and even knelt when Vasya asked, despite smoke and gathering flame, so that Sasha could get onto her back.

He couldn’t stay on the horse by himself. Vasya had to get up in front of him, pull his arms about her waist. “Hold on,” she said. The mare bolted, just as a shout went up from behind. She risked a glance back. Chelubey had seized a horse, just as she broke out of the smoke. Half a dozen men had joined him; they were riding her down.

It was a race, to see if midnight would come or her pursuers catch her first.

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.