God Within Us

The fire crackled loudly as Yesugei gingerly shifted it about with a stick before sitting back, wincing slightly as he did so.

Just across the fire, the girl whose name he learned to be Vasilisa heartily gorged herself on cheese, stale bread, and flaps of salted meat. Their food supplies were meagre - a far cry from the teas and sausages he had enjoyed just two days ago - but would last long enough that the prospect of starving out in the western plains seemed a distant prospect.

Kaveh’s exhausted stallion stood nearby, tied off to a dead tree. As Vasilisa gorged herself on food, so too did Kaveh’s old horse graze hungrily on a patch of dry grass that was so similar to that of the Hungry Steppe, yet so alien.

The memory of Kaveh felt like a knife twisting through his heart. Even now, it felt as though he were dreaming a dream of swirling feelings that clashed with one another in his tired mind.

The girl had robbed him of death - robbed him of the chance to see his mother, his grand-father, his brother again. She robbed him of an endless future roaming the infinite steppe of the heavens. She robbed him of the chance to let go of all of the fear, treachery, and hatred that consumed the world.

Yet, some part of him was also grateful - grateful for the second chance the girl had given him to correct at least one of the wrongs of the universe - the so-called Apostles. Where once his heart roared and tore at itself in black rage, there was now only a cold, resolute promise.

So long as he could enjoy this newfound unlife, he would wipe out every trace of the stone-skinned abominations, wherever they would appear. For other people, the oath would seem a folly. But the Khormchaks had laid a dozen civilizations and peoples to ruin - civilizations that once sneered at the backwards steppe nomads, and treated them as slaves. The Apostle was terrifyingly alien - with strange powers and influence that caused a shiver to run down Yesugei’s spine every time he thought back to the massacre at the outpost. But for as many as it had killed, the Apostle itself was now nothing more than a pile of ash to be swept away by the wind. It had screamed in agony in its last moments as much as any mortal.

Whatever the Apostles were, they were not gods - only monsters. Monsters that could be killed with shards of living darkness.

Yesugei’s fingers drifted unconsciously to the crystal embedded in his chest, feeling at the scarred flesh around the cold, twisting darkness. With the fear and apprehension of his newfound life gone, he could sense the contained enormity of the curse that lay inside the crystal. The roiling hatred of the Apostle’s farewell gift had been like a heavy stone weighing on his chest, suffocating the life out of him as it pressed harder and harder. Now, it was gone - but the memory still lingered like a phantom pain - a reminder of the life that was owed to fate, and snatched away at the last moment by the girl who sat across from him.

Vasilisa ate with a very human appetite - he had never heard of undead spirits who feasted so hungrily on stale bread and days-old salted meat. But more than that, the golden glow from her eyes had faded since she shouted at him with the Apostle’s ear-splitting tone of crushed glass. For a moment, it was as though some mask was pulled from her face, and he was staring into the angry, inhuman face of the Apostle once more. He suppressed a shiver at the sight, and instead directed his mind towards another oddity he had been pondering on since the two of them had made their tenuous peace.

“A talking snake?”

When they had set down their weapons, Vasilisa had explained to him her story as he began starting a fire. At first, she spoke slowly, uncertainly - as though unsure whether he would believe her. But the longer she spoke, the more and more her words seemed to flow until Yesugei’s head spun with her recollections: her lord father’s city, the crystal her mother had handed her, and long-haired man she called Chirlan, who stole her away from her home and brought her to his stone tomb. Through all that she had explained to him, and through all he had seen since, the serpent somehow stood out as too outlandish - even as the other part of his mind reminded him that just three days ago, he had been doubting Tseren’s own stories of dark spirits.

Vasilisa bristled at his question and spoke through a mouthful of bread, “It spoke! It did! I swear by the morning light of Xors!”

As the girl gestured out towards the morning sun, the five crystals that remained in her chest slipped into view. Vasilisa’s face turned red, and she quickly covered up her now-bandaged chest. Despite all she had done, she was almost as clueless as he was about the nature of the crystals - only knowing that it offered protection from the waves of miasma that rolled off of the Apostle's body, and that her mother Cirina had given one such shard before her kidnapping.

Cirina…The name was familiar, though Yesugei was hesitant to speak more about the adopted daughter of Jirghadai in front of the Quanli khan’s granddaughter. He had always heard that Jirghadai married Cirina off to some Klyazmite prince as a means of gaining the support of their shields and axes, but it had always just seemed a tale - a sign of Jirghadai’s desperation and weakness that he resorted to giving away his daughter to outsiders to shore up allies. But if Cirina knew of the crystals, or at least possessed one, then did Jirghadai-khan know of them as well?

His thought drifted to Nariman, gathering the rest of his siblings at the Khurvan mountains. He imagined another great, black crystal erupting from the mountains, eclipsing the sun and swallowing the entire kurultai in its terrible roiling shadows. Every single one of his siblings bore a crystal, enough for them to face the Apostles as he and Kaveh had. Enough for them to survive. Enough for them to flee. Nariman and the others had always scoffed at Tseren’s stories, and their father had never bothered to correct them and teach them to listen - Yesugei wished now more than ever that he had.

Harvest. That was the word Tseren had whispered in his horror at the crystal. He whispered it as though it was planned - or prophesied. Was that why his father had armed each of his children so, shrouding them with the invisible strength of the Modkhai crystals? The more he thought about the kurultai, about the crystals, and about his father’s hidden protection, the more the path ahead looked clear.

Yesugei stood up shakily, and readjusted his boots.

“I need to return to the steppes,” he muttered over the crackling of the flames. Vasilisa’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “If more of those demons were to appear at the kurultai, it would be a bloodbath of untold proportion. Nearly all of the steppe tribes are gathered there - the khans need to be warned, but more than that my father must be warned to seek out the Modkhai.

“The forest-dwellers have more of those crystals, and before he died Tseren had warned me and mine about his exiled kin and how they were trying to summon a dark spirit from their legends. I wager your Chirlan and those silver-helmed bastards worked alongside them to bring that abomination into being.”

“And what about my family?” Vasilisa rose up to meet him, her expression grim. “I brought you out west so you could help me warn Belnopyl - my people. You're the only one who actually killed one of those things - and to the princes and boyars, even the word of a foreign man is of more worth than a noblewoman's when it comes to fighting and killing.”

If it’s your family you seek, you would see them just as well out east, thought Yesugei. Your grandfather awaits at Khurvan, plotting against my kin.

“You’re also in no shape to travel alone,” continued Vasilisa as she pointed at his ragged, blood-stained clothes. “Qarakesek or not, you’d be easy prey for slavers out on the steppe. I hear they’re quick to take anyone, even nomad khans if they had the chance.”

The girl makes a good point. Though Qarakesek law had outlawed the enslavement of Khormchaks out on the steppe, many lesser and even greater tribes still took and sold their own kinsmen as slaves whenever they could without arousing suspicion - selling them south along the Eagle’s Sea to the Yllahanan slave-republics which were always in want of cheap laborers and chattel for their magic. Even under the White Khan’s banner, he and Kaveh had traveled with the keshiks precisely to ward off any slavers from trying their luck. Now he had no banner, and no allies - no-one to watch his back for bandits tracking him, nor take watch while he slept.

“I’m surprised a Klyazmite princess would know so much of the world,” Yesugei remarked. “I thought the western princes kept their women all locked up in stone towers and ignorant of the world.”

Vasilisa huffed. “My father wanted it to be so - my mother had other ideas.”

“A woman traveling alone out in the west isn’t free from danger either, mind you.” said Yesugei. “I might have never visited your lands, but rapers and slavers are a scourge across the entire world, not just the steppe.”

“Perhaps, but it’s a much longer trip to the steppes than it is to the nearest city,” Vasilisa shot back. Her wits were surprisingly sharp - though from her story of escaping Chirlan’s men, Yesugei supposed it was to be expected.

“If I travel west, I’d only be getting further and further away from the kurultai.”

“But if you go with me, you wouldn’t need to return to the steppes alone.” Vasilisa picked up a stick, and traced three circles in the dirt, followed by a long squiggle. “I know these lands, and my father is overlord to many loyal houses.”

She jabbed the stick at the largest of the circles. “My father rules from here, Belnopyl. If we are where I suspect we are, the city is a week's ride from here but-”

The stick carved a path from the squiggly line to one of the smaller circles. “-Gatchisk is only two days or so from the Devil Woods. The prince there is old and without sons…but he’s been true to my father for some twenty years. If we can make it there, he’ll see to it we’re clothed, fed, and set on our way with an escort from his druzhina guards.”

“The prince would have men to spare for the ride? It’s a long journey from here to Khurvan.”

“Prince Gvozden has two hundred armored riders in his guard,” said Vasilisa. “They’re new blood - risen to replace the old guards that died fighting your people - and raised on stories of adventures and battles in the steppe. Most of them would be tripping over themselves to help you if it meant a chance to wander foreign lands and fight eastern marauders. And of course, escorting a Qarakesek princeling would certainly bring some rewards, wouldn’t it?”

“Hunger for glory, or hunger for silver. They’d definitely get their fill of both.” Yesugei replied. The prospect of arriving at the kurultai later stung, but it would sting a lot more if he died on the way there, or was carried off by slavers to be made an Yllahanan’s personal blood supply.

He examined his torn robe. Beautiful blue silk decorated with cloth-of-gold was now completely caked and crusted with blood, dirt, and sweat from the days past. He smelled foul - like a corpse left to rot out beneath the summer sun.

Vasilisa’s words rang true - travelling west seemed the better option, at least for now. But there was one final matter that needed to be settled.

As he nodded along to her explanation, Yesugei reached across the fire and drew the hunting knife from its leather sheath. He saw Vasilisa shrink for a moment and then relax as she saw him take a bowl with his other hand and pour out the last of the arkhi wine. He pressed the knife tightly to his palm, and made the slightest draw against the fleshy part of his hand. A dull pain immediately sprung forth from his palm - he held his hand over the bowl and squeezed several droplets of blood from his clenched fist into the arkhi. Crimson swirls mixed with the off-white wine, then disappeared.

“I’m not sure what you are, but I owe you a blood-debt.” He flipped the knife around and presented the handle to Vasilisa, who looked at him with incredulity. “We’ll be traveling together for the time, and so I propose a blood-oath.”

“I thought only men could make such blood-oaths,” said Vasilisa. Still, she took the knife.

“Most of the time it’s men who do valorous deeds deserving of such an oath,” replied Yesugei. “But you’ve saved my life twice now, when others might have run away. Cut your own hand, and we can strike an oath - in honor of the blood spilled fighting the gray abomination, and to fight the golden-eyed bastards that did this to us.”

“This is ridiculous.”

“I insist. At the very least, a blood-oath means I’ll be cursed by the tengri if I were to bring harm to you.” He fixed her with a determined look, blood still dripping from the cut on his hand. “Won’t the threat of curse set your mind at ease, traveling with a Khormchak rogue?”

He saw the princess think on his proposal for a few moments, before she relented and brought the tip of the knife to her finger. With a small twist, she pricked out a few droplets of blood from her scarred right hand and let them fall into the arkhi.

Yesugei brought his legs up into a cross-legged seat, and Vasilisa sat in imitation of him as he lifted the bowl before the two of them, then drank.

The arkhi tasted sour as ever, and was tinged with the taste of iron. He drank heartily from the bowl, downing half of its contents before passing it to Vasilisa, who did the same. He saw the princess nearly gag as she took a careful first sip - then her resolve hardened, and she downed the rest of the foul-tasting drink. The taste of iron lingered strongly on his tongue - the taste of the blood bond, binding him and the foreign princess before the morning sky, and the watchful eyes of the White Spirits that dwelled in the western domains.

“Now we are bound, by blood and spirit.” He saw Vasilisa’s sour expression soften, then be replaced with one of solemn determination as they stood up. The air felt charged, the same way it felt days ago when lightning had scattered the Ardager's Quanli riders. The spirits of the land felt near, whispering at his back from within the swaying plains grasses - affirming the oath.

He gave small thanks to the presences he felt dwelling within the grasslands, then moved to snuff out the fire which had faded to a handful of embers. “We should begin moving as soon as we can - the day’s light will only carry us for so long.”

The road off to the side from their hastily-set camp grew wider as it stretched out to the west - towards Gatchisk, and further away from home. Yet it would be traveling west that he could make it home in one piece, if the western princes were as loyal and eager to please as Vasilisa claimed.

All the same, move swiftly, and with purpose.

For the first time in a while, his purpose had never seemed so clear.

***

They set off from the outskirts of the Devil Woods by noon beneath gray skies. Vasilisa shifted in the leather saddle, trying to prevent the Apostle’s blade from sliding off her back. Wrapped in the blood-stained bedroll, the flesh-and-bone cleaver made for a dreadfully cumbersome burden - and she already felt the leather strap beginning to cut into her shoulder.

To give the horse rest Yesugei elected to travel on foot, keeping slightly ahead of her as they traveled along the western road - a dirt path that cut through the high grasses on either side. The border plains stretched uninterrupted for miles north and south, ending only at the frigid taigas of Pemil and Wrangel, and the shores of Shipbreaker’s Tide to the south where the Band of Three and Yllahana fought wars of trade and ships. The Klyazmites feared the border plains - knowing them to be the domain of the nomads - yet the nomads of the east never claimed the borderlands for themselves for fear of placing their backs against the Devil Woods. As such, beyond the road formed from myriad crushing wagon wheels and horses’ hooves, there was no other sign of man’s despoiling of the natural countryside.

Soon they plunged into more forest, and the straight road began to wind every which way like a snake. Yesugei was completely lost - a foreigner accustomed to open skies and featureless steppe - and so it fell to her to try and distinguish the main road from the dozens of smaller hunting trails that dotted the woods. At some points the road seemed to disappear entirely - causing her to wonder whether they had gotten lost - before reappearing a mile or so further down, always reappearing just before she considered turning them around.

As they trundled along at a crawl, Vasilisa found her mind slowly wandering. It had felt like an age since she last stepped foot in Gatchisk lands. Back then, Prince Gvozden had still been strong, not yet bedridden.

Back then, he still had a son.

She still shuddered at the memory of the Young Griffon even six years later. He had been a handsome boy back then, one year her senior, with curly black hair and light green eyes like the seas of the south. With his skill at swordplay even at fifteen summers he was the envy of the other young boys in her father’s court, and the boyars’ daughters all clamored him to teach them how to dance in the fashion of the Yllahanans with whom he spent some time as a courtier. But what stuck with her the most still was the memory of how his eyes glinted wolf-like in the night - reflecting the candlelight as the high and noble Young Griffon climbed through her bedroom window to take her at dagger-point like a common raper. When she managed to get away and call Ilya to her side the prince’s son had tried to explain it away as a romantic gesture - a young and enamored prince seeking but a kiss from his love -but her father wasn’t fooled.

Prince Gvozden had always yearned for the years before the Khormchak yoke, when his city held dominion over the eastern principalities with its vast armies and fertile lands. After the sack of Gatchisk by the nomads, he picked up the pieces and struggled for years to intertwine his house with that of the Belnopyl nobility, who found themselves appointed overlords by the Khormchaks’ Great Khan. But a great prince’s daughter marrying a vassal's son was out of the question for her proud father, and it was no coincidence that the Young Griffon had snuck into her room to carry her off by force just the day after her father had refused Gvozden's betrothal offer. When Gvozden’s words and offered gifts failed, his son had meant to make her his by force, to despoil her at fourteen so her father would have no choice but to consent to their marriage. Igor had exiled the Young Griffon from the eastern principalities after the matter, and probably would have exiled his father as well had Cirina not cautioned him that starting a war was not in anyone’s interest - the lands were still recovering from the Khormchaks’ rampage, and most of the boyars’ sons were still green and too young to ride off to fight.

Surprisingly, Gvozden remained steadfastly loyal to her father even after his only son’s exile - perhaps relieved his own head wasn’t put on a chopping block for the crimes of his son. Now, six years on, the old prince had grown older, remained without issue, and, if talk was to be believed, could barely rise from his bed on account of gout.

Despite all that had occurred, she was sure Gvozden would assist them - without a son to marry off to her, he had nothing to gain by holding her up at Gatchisk should she arrive. If anything, he would likely send her back as quickly and well-dressed as possible in hopes of gaining some easy favor with Belnopyl - and perhaps assurances that his lands would at least pass on to some distant cousin or uncle rather than to one of her father’s courtiers once he died.

Horsed, bathed, dressed, and well-fed, Vasilisa thought. Her dress felt as though it were made of parchment - ruined by the blood and grime of the desperate, swirling nightmare of the last two days. The prospect of a warm bath had never seemed so appealing in her life - to wash herself would be to wash away at least some of the reminders of what had occurred.

Yet some still remain.

The bandaged hole in her chest continued to pain her, but it grew less and less worrisome as they settled into the rhythm of travel. Still, the crystals in her chest gave her pause - she wondered whether it might indeed have been a better idea to ride for Belnopyl directly, if only to avoid having her curse seen by Gvozden and his servants.

But the prospect of six more days of travel beneath the open sky - sharing a beleaguered horse with Yesugei and sickly with dirt and blood - seemed even more bleak than the prospect of her curse being discovered. No, food and shelter was the paramount issue - she could worry about concealing the crystals in her chest once they’d arrived to proper beds and food that wasn’t old meat and dry bread.

The forest soon gave way to farmland. Off in the distance, she spied vast fields of black, tilled earth separated by wooden fences and low stone walls. But something seemed off - it was midday, yet from where she sat the fields looked completely empty. No peasants were working the fields, no horses or oxen were pulling plows. Not a single soul could be seen.

Perhaps there’s a festival? She wondered. Peasants were wont to hold festivals and ceremonies during the summer to honor the gods - perhaps Simargl to protect their crops from pests, or Mokosh to bless their work with a bountiful harvest.

Or maybe the villagers are hosting their boyar.

“See the fields?” She pointed out to Yesugei, who squinted his eyes as he looked. “We should be nearing a village soon. When we do, let me do the talking - the people of Gatchisk don’t look too kindly upon those who burned their fields and killed their folk.”

Yesugei nodded in affirmation. “There should be some silver in the saddlebags - if we’re in need of it.”

“We needn’t stay too long - just long enough for some directions.”

“And perhaps a bucket of water,” Yesugei appraised his own sorry state, and then looked her up and down. “Or better yet, a tub. You look like shit. I look like shit.”

She spurred the Khormchak horse onwards, trailing slightly ahead of Yesugei to scout out the village.

Then she smelled it - the smell of smoke. The smell of burning wood. The smell of burning flesh.

As she drew closer, she realized the dark fields were blanketed in a layer of ash. Further up along the road, past a bridge spanning a small stream, she saw the village. Where the village had been.

The houses past the stream were blackened husks, the rising plumes of smoke from fading fires obscured by the canopy as they had approached. Charred desolation reigned for several miles on, house after burned house. The corpses of men and farm animals that dotted the fields looked nearly indistinguishable from one another - all were blackened by soot and covered by a living wave of carrion birds. She nearly startled when the wooden bridge creaked beneath the horse’s hooves, and slowed down past the stream to let Yesugei catch up to her.

When he did, she heard his hushed whisper from behind her, “Smoke is still rising - this was done recently. Perhaps even last night. Walk softly.”

She slid off the horse, tying the reins to a small tree that sat near the stream - the only thing that seemed to be spared from the fires that side of the water. Yesugei’s hunting knife came out, and Vasilisa placed one hand on the bone hilt of the cleaver that weighed on her back. Even if it was too heavy to pull quickly, much less swing, it gave her some comfort to hold something as she and Yesugei drew closer to the village.

The crows that swarmed over the dead nearby took to the skies in a squawking swarm as they slowly approached. Beneath the gray skies, the village that surrounded them was a mix of gray wood, black ash, and the occasional dull red from drifting embers or smoldering debris. Vasilisa breathed low and slowly, trying to steady her nerves and avoid breathing in the ugly poison of the ruined land.

“Who do you think did this?” she asked at Yesugei’s back. The nomad didn’t reply as he looked out past the village square towards a large manor sat atop a hill. The manor - the ruling boyar’s manor - was surrounded by a low stone wall and stood tall amidst the ruins all around.

“I don’t know.” Yesugei seemed to sense the other, unspoken question. Was it your people who did this? “It would make no sense to burn the place like this if it was just a simple raid. If it was just food and livestock they were looking for, they could have killed everyone with arrows and lances and moved on - not torched the entire damn place. Though I suppose it could have happened by accident - a dropped torch, a broken lantern.”

Silence lingered between the two of them as they peered into the burned houses nearest to them. Some seemed to have been abandoned before they collapsed. Others held the corpses of their former occupants - burnt to a crisp, their bodies curled up as if praying to the gods for a reprieve from the agonizing flames.

She felt a sickness rise up to her throat - the smell and sight somehow seemed worse than the fight at the outpost. Without the heart-pounding terror of combat, all that was left was the misery and disgust and invisible poison that hung over the entire village like a cloud - the lingering spirits of the village’s former occupants whispering with the breeze as it blew through the torched land.

They fetched the horse once they were certain the area ahead was abandoned, and Yesugei led them onwards and upwards towards the boyar’s manor - casting only a cursory look at the dozen other houses they passed by. When they were close to the manor’s gates, she saw they were left ajar - the wooden exterior splintered and mauled by axes.

When they slipped past the doors, she saw another corpse lying against a large wagon, its hands tied to one of the wheel spokes. The man was young, with a short, bloodstained beard and a shaved head - around the same age as Stavr and Pyotr, who guarded her father’s court. He wore a beaten shirt of mail, his ring-covered chest punctured by three long arrows. His eyes were thankfully closed - and Vasilisa gave a sigh of relief before she guided the horse to remain by the damaged gate.

Yesugei knelt close to the dead man - closer than she would have dared. Then he yanked out one of the feathered shafts from the man’s chest.

“These arrows don’t look like any I’ve seen the tribes use,” Yesugei mused as he studied the arrow. He then turned his attention to the dead man’s armor. “A waste of good mail. They could have stripped him, but didn’t.”

Before Vasilisa could protest, Yesugei untied the man’s hands and quickly shucked off the mail coat, letting the corpse fall to the side in the dirt.

“What are you doing?” she said instinctively, angrily setting the horse’s reins aside as she approached.

“What does it look like?” Yesugei barely acknowledged her as he shook some loose dirt from the shirt, then pulled it over his head. “He doesn’t need it anymore.”

“You’re no better than the crows, stealing from the dead like this!” Her face burned with anger as she looked at the dead man, now lying face-down in the muck. “He died protecting his people-”

“-and maybe if we find who did this, we can avenge him then,” Yesugei counseled, his voice even. “But it won’t do either of us any good if we’re dead before then.”

He rapped his knuckles against his armored chest - the shirt giving a jingle as the rings clashed against one another.

“Now, see if we can find a sword. Or better yet, a bow.”

A sudden slam caused both of them to jump away from the dead man, and Vasilisa’s hand flew to the handle of the over-heavy cleaver. Several ragged figures stepped out from the doorway of the boyar’s manor: four men caked in grimey clothes. Each of them held a different farming tool as a weapon, save for one who held a winged boar spear. Their eyes had the hollow look of desperate, destitute men - men ready to kill.

“Who are you?” called the largest of the four, a fat, sweaty man holding a rusty hand-plow.

She called to the men, “We’re lost - waylaid by bandits along the eastern road. We mean you no harm - we were just passing through.”

“There’s many a lost soul out in the country by now,” spat another man holding a pickaxe. “Few who look like your friend, though. What are you doing traveling with a Khormchak bastard?”

Yesugei adjusted his grip on the knife as she saw him weighing his odds against the four men.

“Like I said, we’re lost. We were both making our way to Gatchisk when we were attacked by some brigands. Might even have been the same men who destroyed your village.”

“Where were you headed from?”

Vasilisa struggled to come up with a place. She saw Yesugei take a step back, and the four men each took a careful step closer.

“I don’t think you’re telling us the truth,” said the man with the spear softy. “I think you and the Khormchak are just a bunch of filthy crows come to feast on the fallen - our fallen. Do you know what we do with crows that wear manskin?”

“Fucking hang ‘em.” came the reply from the smallest of the bunch, a stout man holding a sickle.

She eyed the horse behind them. The armed men were thirty paces away - if they turned and ran as fast as they could, they might just make it onto the horse before the men fell upon the two of them and hacked them to pieces.

“Maybe we’ll string them up on the gates - give the other crows something to gawk at so they leave us alone,” said the fat man as he adjusted his grip on the hand-plow.

“You’ll do no such thing.”

The deep voice called from behind the men, booming out from within the manor. In the shadows, Vasilisa saw two figures stir, followed by the sound of staggering, heavy footsteps.

The first person that appeared at the door was a young woman, her decorated dress covered in dirt and soot much like the armed men. She had an arm slung over her shoulder, and clumsily paused at the doorway before the fat man rushed over to help her.

Together, the woman and the fat one helped out a ragged man covered in blood, his short dark hair and one eye covered by hastily-applied bandages that needed changing ages ago. His bloodstained tunic displayed Gatchisk colors - white, gold, and blue - and stitched on one sleeve was the snarling blue griffon of the south. The man gave a wheezing cough, shaking so hard Vasilisa thought he would fall dead right then in the arms of the two that carried him, but he quickly stood upright and tall. His one good eye focused on her, studying her face.

“Yes…you’ll do no such thing, you fool.” The man repeated as he slowly hobbled down the manor steps, the woman and the fat man holding him steady. As he approached, the others set their weapons down.

“Don’t you see who you’re talking to?” laughed the injured man as he staggered closer, then slowed to a stop just in front of her - close enough for her to smell the scent of death and smoke that lingered on him and his companions. “This is Vasilisa Igorevna of Belnopyl, the Grand Prince’s daughter.”

The man nearly collapsed trying to kneel before her, and his two companions had to lift him back up to stand. When he stood tall once more, she saw his expression had changed to one of pity - and then he spoke.

“You’re a long way from home, my lady. And perhaps for the better. They say Belnopyl has fallen. They say Belnopyl burns.”