“If I don’t,” said Vasya, “and Vladimir Andreevich doesn’t, then your leader doesn’t either. Will you risk it?”

“Loose your arrows!” snapped Chelubey as Vasya gashed the general’s throat just hard enough to make him cry out. Copper-smelling blood ran over her hands. The bowmen hesitated.

Medved took advantage of the moment to come strolling out of the night: a vast shadow-bear. A hell-light of amusement shone in his good eye.

A single bowstring twanged, the shot wild. Then a terrified stillness fell.

Vasya spoke into the silence. “Free the Prince of Serpukhov, or I will set the whole camp afire and lame every horse. And he will eat what’s left.” She jerked her chin at the Bear. The beast obligingly bared his teeth.

Mamai croaked something. His men hurried. Next moment, the man from the river, her sister’s husband, was coming warily toward her.

He seemed unhurt. His eyes widened when he recognized the boy by the water. Vasya said, “Vladimir Andreevich.” He looked as though he thought the rescue might be worse than the captivity. She tried to reassure him. “Dmitrii Ivanovich sent me,” she said. “Are you all right? Can you ride?”

He dipped his chin in a wary nod, crossed himself. No one moved.

“Come with me,” said Vasya to her cousin. He did, still looking uncertain. She began to back up, still holding on to Mamai by the golden rope.

Oleg had not spoken, but he was watching her very intently. She took a deep breath.

“Now,” she said to the Bear.

Every fire in the encampment went out at once, every lamp and torch. The firebird was the only light, soaring overhead. Then Pozhar swooped low and the horses all plunged at their pickets again, neighing shrilly.

Over the din, in the darkness, Vasya whispered in the general’s ear,

“Continue on this course, and you will die. Rus’ will have no conquerors.” She thrust him into the arms of his men, caught her

cousin’s hand and pulled him into the shadows, just as three bows twanged. But she had already vanished into the night, and with her the Bear and Vladimir Andreevich.

The Bear was laughing as they ran. “They were so frightened, of a little skinny witch-girl. It was delicious. Oh, we will teach this whole land to fear, before the end.” He turned his good eye on her and added censoriously, “You should have cut the leader’s throat properly. He will live, none the worse.”

“They gave me my cousin. In honor, I could not—”

The Bear whooped unpleasantly. “Hear the girl! The Grand Prince of Moscow gives her a task and she decides on the spot that she’s a boyar, stuffed to the brim with the courtesies of war. How long will it take you to learn better, I wonder?”

Vasya said nothing. Instead she turned aside at a horse-line just at the edge of camp, cut a picket, said, “Here, Vladimir Andreevich.

Mount up.”

Vladimir didn’t move. His eyes were on the Bear. “What black devilry is this?”

Happily, the Bear said, “The worst kind.”

Vladimir made the sign of the cross with a hand that shook.

Someone shouted in Tatar. Vasya whipped round and saw that Medved, enjoying their terror, had made himself visible against the sky. Vladimir Andreevich was on the edge of fleeing back to his enemies.

Furious, Vasya uncoiled a golden rope, and said, “Are we allies or no, Medved? I am getting tired of you.”

“Oh, I do not like that thing,” said the Bear. But his mouth closed; he seemed to shrink. Men were coming nearer.

“Get on the horse,” Vasya said to Vladimir.

There was no saddle or bridle, but the Prince of Serpukhov heaved himself to the gelding’s back, just as Vasya vaulted onto a piebald mare.

“Who are you?” whispered Vladimir, his voice cold with fright.

“I am Olga’s younger sister,” said Vasya. “Go!” She slapped the haunch of Vladimir’s mount, and then they were away, over the grass, dodging between sparse trees, seeking the dark, and leaving the Tatars at last behind them.

The Bear laughed at her as they galloped away. “Now, don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy that,” he said.

Answering laughter rose in her: the giddy joy of striking fear in her enemies’ hearts. She tamped it down, but not before her eyes met the gaze of the king of chaos, and she saw her own reckless delight reflected there.

SASHA AND MIDNIGHT WERE just where Vasya had left them, double-mounted on Voron. Pozhar met them there too, in the form of a horse. Her every footfall made sparks; her eye was molten.

Vasya felt a surge of relief at the sight of them.

“Brother Aleksandr,” said Vladimir, still sputtering. “Can it be—”

“Vladimir Andreevich,” said Sasha. “Vasya.” And to her surprise, Sasha slid down Voron’s back just as she got off her Tatar mare. They embraced.

“Sasha,” she said. “How—” His back had been bound, and his hand. He moved stiffly, but not in a haze of pain.

He glanced back at Polunochnitsa. “We rode into the dark,” he said, frowning as though it were hard to remember. “I was barely conscious. There was the sound of water on rock. A house that smelled of honey and garlic. And an old woman there who bound my back. She said—she said she preferred daughters, but that I would do. Would I like to stay? I don’t know what I answered. I slept. I don’t know how long. But every time I woke, it was still midnight.

Then Polunochnitsa came and said I had slept long enough, and she brought me back. I almost—it seems like the old woman called after us, sadly, but I might have dreamed it.”

Vasya raised an eyebrow at Polunochnitsa. “You took him to the lake? How long was he there?”

“Long enough,” said Midnight, unrepentant.

“You didn’t think it would send him mad?” Vasya asked, with an edge.

“No,” said Polunochnitsa. “He was asleep, mostly. And also, he is very like you.” She gave Sasha a proprietary look. “Besides he couldn’t sit upright and reeked of blood, and that irritated me. It was easier to let the witch fix him. She regrets Tamara, you know, as much as she is angry.”

Vasya said, “It was kind then, my friend,” to the midnight-demon.

Polunochnitsa looked simultaneously suspicious and pleased.

“You have met our great-grandmother,” Vasya added to her brother. “She is a madwoman who lives in Midnight. She is cruel and lonely, and sometimes kind.”

“The old woman?” said Sasha. “I—no. Surely not. Our great-grandmother must be dead.”

“She is,” said Vasya. “But that doesn’t matter, in Midnight.”

Sasha looked thoughtful. “I would go back. When this is over.