God Within Us

The halls of the Gravemarsh Keep were dark and still as Serhij’s militiamen escorted Vasilisa down to the boyar’s chambers. Even if the skies were not choked by clouds of ash the moon’s light would find little hold in the dreary keep which had been built as a fortress first, and a noble seat after the fact; windows were small and few throughout the keep, and the drowning darkness was only held at bay by dozens of lamps and candles that filled the air with the smell of wax.

Within the keep, she saw only a small handful of servants who bowed their heads as she approached - and gawked at the Kladenets as she passed them by. The belltower tolled the ninth hour of the evening as she approached the boyar’s door - where a bearded man dressed in the bloodied robes of a physician stood nearby. She only had to cast a single look upon his grave countenance to know what awaited her inside.

“My lady. It is an honor to meet you, though I wish it were not in such dark times…” The healer bowed his head before her, then opened the door.

“My lord, you have a visitor. Lady Vasilisa, Princess of Belnopyl.”

“Let her inside,” called a voice from within the chambers - hoarse and thick.

A great fire crackled loudly in the hearth of Boyar Hrabr’s chambers, filling the room with a red glow. As Vasilisa stepped inside, she felt the heat wash over her in a suffocating wave - and following it, the smell of smoke and death.

On the carpeted floors before her Vasilisa could still make out crusted mud and damp spots where the boyar’s men had dragged him to his bed. Nearby the bedpost a leather arming jacket lay on the floor - cut to ribbons - as well as a maille hauberk that bore a long, ugly cut across its front breast that split through the iron rings.

“My lady,” whispered the small, shrunken figure that lay beneath the blankets. A face drained of vigor and soul peeked out from underneath the sheets. “Is that you? Gods be good…”

She stepped as close as she dared, and gently lowered herself to sit at the boyar’s side. “Boyar Hrabr…it has been too long.”

Where she knew the boyars of her father’s court to be a raucous lot full of life and pride, the man that lay before her looked a sullen wretch - his hair was thin and white, and his eyes and cheeks so sunken the boyar resembled the dead of his marshes more than the living. The man of forty seemed twice his age, and the smell that rolled from his shivering form nearly made her eyes water.

“I stink, don’t I?” the boyar spoke through gritted teeth. “I stink of death - though you hide it well, my lady, far better than that lot outside.” He said as he weakly waved a hand towards the lingering guards outside the door.

Vasilisa took one edge of the bedsheet in hand, then looked to the physician for his assent. When he nodded, she lifted the sheet to look upon his wounds.

The physician’s hand was as fine as any other - a dozen smaller, shallow wounds lay sealed with expert sewing and slathered with a sweet-smelling balm, but it seemed all for naught. The cut that laid low the boyar ripped from him navel to breastbone, and the bandages that the physician had applied were already thick and foul with old blood.

“Would have been a wound for a thousand stories, if I were to live….” Hrabr managed to cough. His smile was terrible - glistening red with blood. “That cursed thing…but I- I forced it to run. Gods above, I made it run. None of them believe me…but I did it.”

“The spirit?” she asked gently, afraid that even raising her voice too loudly might sink the boyar deeper into the grave.

“No!” the boyar cried, and some of his old life seemed to flood back to his face - as well as his terror. “No, not a spirit, my lady. Spirits do not make a man shit himself with fear just from a sidelong glance - and I’ve never seen a spirit cut through maille and leather like it was water.

“I know what I saw-” He took a wheezing breath, then looked her dead in the eyes. “I saw a demon - a real one. Ones that hide in the shadows of shadows…ones that our grandmothers’ stories never speak of…”

“My lord is feverish, my lady,” gently advised the physician, who patiently stood at the corner of the room. “When his guards were able to pull him from the mob-”

“I know what I saw!” cried Hrabr, the sickly veins in his thin neck bulging as he sprayed spittle across the bed. “If all you’ve to do is make a fool of your lord, then away with you!”

The physician gave Vasilisa a sticken look as he hurriedly shuffled from the room, shaking his head to himself.

“My lady, you must believe me,” A few thin strands of hair fell across Hrabr’s eyes as he looked up at her, desperation glistening in his eyes. “It was more than a maddened mob…no, not even a mob. A mob is driven by its own base, selfish desires…but those savages…there was only one that reigned over them all. That demon…it had them all bound in its grasp - they were all its toys, to throw at my men by the hundreds as it pleased, damn their lives.”

Vasilisa shifted to sit on the bed by the boyar’s side. She cast a glance at the closed door, and saw no shadows lingered along the floor.

“I believe you, boyar,” she spoke, just loud enough for Hrabr to hear her words. “I’ve seen one of them myself…and I’ve claimed its sword, but at a terrible cost.”

She pointed to the Kladenets, and the boyar beamed with pride. “Of course…of course…a fine warrior-woman your mother raised you to be…like the stories of old…”

“My lord,” she murmured, trying to bring the boyar back to focus. “I must know - how did you stand against that demon? These beasts, these demons…they’ve claimed so many, yet you survived.”

“Barely,” Hrabr whispered. He tried to take a breath, then gritted his teeth as a spasm hit him. “Gods above…I…I almost did not. I was scared, like I never was before. Nearly dropped my sword in the mud…was like my first battle all over again…and it laughed at me. It laughed like it knew my mind.

“I tried to cut it, I did, but it was like trying to chop through stone. Gods…it was impossible. It watched me make a fool of myself…and then it cut me with its claws. Would have split me from belly to throat…but then it stopped, and it screamed…”

The boyar lifted one hand towards a shelf above the heart, his gesture feeble and shaky. “There…there…my lady, it’s there.”

She looked over to where the boyar pointed, and saw something golden shine on the shelf. When she went up to grab it, she saw it to be a large golden pendant made from shaped bands of gold…and within the pendant’s center glistened a smooth black crystal, darker than night. Within the crystal there swirled clouds of purple and gold, and Vasilisa’s breath caught in her throat as she brought the pendant to the boyar’s hands.

In the light of the fire, she saw the golden bands were crooked and misshapen, as though they had all collapsed in towards the crystal - crushing it ever tighter within the pendant’s bonds.

“Where did you find this?” she asked the boyar as he rubbed one thumb over the crystal’s smooth surface. “My lord-”

“A gift,” Hrabr croaked. “Your mother's…gave it to me years ago…told me things I did not believe. Saved me, she did - honed steel was only a tickle, but when its claws touched this…that thing went howling and screaming like he'd never felt pain before. Didn't even finish me off…!”

The boyar laughed, then winced again. For a moment his eyes became unfocused, enraptured by the swirling darkness within the smooth stone. Then suddenly Hrabr seemed to come to life once more, and he pressed the pendant tightly to her hands.

“Yes…my lady…” the boyar hissed, his eyes suddenly large and bulging as his strength returned. “My lady…Cirina…me and the others…the things you must know.”

The smell that rose from the boyar's flesh made her eyes water, but Vasilisa leaned her head in closer as she felt the boyar's voice beginning to fade. “What? What did my mother tell you?”

“Beneath the city…beneath the keep,” Hrabr's trembling voice sounded in her ear. “Far from the eyes of the gods…in the old passages. That's where she left it, a terrible thing.”

Beneath Belnopyl's foundation she knew there to be dozens of small tunnels - built by paranoid princes to hide from their enemies, or to spy on them whilst they stayed as honored guests within the keep. But the tunnels had seemed half-real, half-legend - some she had seen herself, but only the entrances, while others were filled with rocks and dirt a century ago to prevent the keep from collapsing in on itself, and even more she suspected, were only real in Mariana's stories.

“What did my mother leave?” She urged the boyar, squeezing his bony fingers in her hand as if she could keep his mind from slipping away with her grasp. “What was it?”

“A dagger.”

The word came as the slightest of whispers, but it echoed endlessly in her mind over the crackling of the fire and the whispers of the wind outside.

A dagger…a dagger…

The boyar swallowed, his look suddenly shameful, as though he had not been charged to speak those words. “There were more of us, my lady. Your mother…only bits and pieces for each of us…made us promise, made us swear not to tell your father…not to tell you, until the time was right.”

I need you to be strong, Vasilisa, spoke the voice in her mind from a lifetime come and gone. No, not gone - ripped away from her, stolen away and plunged into an endless, swirling nightmare from which she could never wake.

“The time is right, my lord,” she whispered back. “Ash blankets the world, men turn to starving dogs…and demons come from the stars above to consume us all. What was I to know?”

“The dagger…a special thing…a terrible thing. Your mother's, and meant to be yours when…when she is gone.” Suddenly, the boyar's eyes flicked to the window of his chambers, and his breathing grew shallow, quick.

“No…nononononononono…no…” whispered the boyar, and what life and courage he had managed to summon forth withered away until he was just an old, rambling man once more. “He's coming…he's coming back…”

A hissing noise rose from between them, and agony shot up along Vasilisa’s fingers as the pendant began to burn. She jerked away from the burning-hot gold, and she let her mother's gift clatter to the ground. The black crystal within the pendant hissed and smoked, and the golden bands screeched as they twisted ever tighter around the shrinking stone, crushing it harder and harder until cracks cut across the polished surface.

“Back…it’s coming back…” Hrabr whimpered, pulling the covers over his face.

The crystal shrank from the size of her thumb to half that in the blink of an eye, burning so hotly she saw the carpet begin to smolder and blacken from the heat. The golden bands wrapped around the smoking stone ever tighter until it was as small as a marble…and then from outside, there came a long, loud shriek that cut through her bones like a twisted knife.

She rushed to the boyar's window, where a flurry of torches swirled on the battlements below. She saw the red-haired Serhij pointing men this way and that, sending dozens of crossbowmen and pike-carriers to man the walls and gates.

“He's coming…he's coming…” she heard the boyar whimpering from under his covers, but his voice was growing fainter and fainter with the hissing of the crystal. “Lady Cirina…forgive me…forgive me…could not protect her…forgive me…”

A loud pop rang through the room as the crystal shattered from the crushing golden grip. And then Boyar Hrabr’s whispers were no more.

The dead boyar's hand fell limply to the side of the bed, flesh ghostly pale and marked with twisting black veins. Then a moment later, there came the pounding of armored footsteps rushing down the hall.

“They’re coming back! They’re coming back!” came shouting down the halls, and the boyar’s door exploded open to reveal a panting militiaman, his helmet askew and face soaked with sweat. “My lord-”

The soldier and Vasilisa froze - him in the doorway, his mouth agape as she sat holding Hrabr’s hand. Then another shriek ripped through the air, and the soldier stammered, “T-they’re c-c-coming back, my lady. Hundreds of ‘em- no, thousands. M-my lord needs his armor-”

“Your lord is dead.” she said slowly as she stood up, and the trembling soldier’s face grew even paler as her words dawned on him. “Where are they coming from?”

“Everywhere,” the soldier muttered, twisting his fingers around the shaft of his pike in a death grip. “They’re coming from everywhere - thousands of ‘em. We need to get you to safety, bar the gates to the keep and-”

“No.”

A terrible strength roiled from within the Kladenets as she stood to grab it - its heavy blade scraping against the stone floor as Vasilisa hoisted it to her shoulder. The cleaver sensed the coming bloodshed - it tasted the scent of fear and death that was to come.

No. No more running. No more fleeing.

She hefted the blade to her shoulder, and the soldier recoiled at the sight of it as she stepped past him into the hallway. In the distance, she heard the clamoring of the militiamen rushing with crossbows, axes, and pikes to stand for their town and people.

No…it was not just their town - but hers as well. From Denev to Rovetshi, it was her domain now, and it was her people that would die.

Below in the courtyard, the druzhinniks that once stood with Hrabr had gathered in a confused herd, waiting for orders that would never come as the town's militia rushed to the defense. They whispered and glanced at one another in bewilderment as she appeared to them over the balcony, and Vasilisa turned to the spearman that stood by her side.

“Who holds command of the defense? The magister?”

“N-no,” said the soldier. “Lord Hrabr…he was the one who led the troops. But the magister...”

He is afraid to fight, she knew. As are the men down below.

Glancing down at the gathered druzhina, she saw even the household guard were looking on at the walls with trembling trepidation - those who had sallied out to die with the boyar were the seniors, the veterans. The ones who remained now were half boys - perhaps still in training - wearing freshly-forged iron lamellar and helmets that they had yet to grow into to call their own.

Madness all around…but madness is better than death.

“Men!” she called down to the druzhina. “Form up by the gates and follow me!”

Her voice rang high over the clattering spears and shining helmets, and dozens of confused, pale faces looked up at her in disbelief. “Your boyar is injured - you are under my command, your liege lady and princess!”

Her words fell flat upon the druzhinniks - some chuckled nervously at being urged to fight by a woman, but most others stayed glumly silent as though they could just disappear if they stood still for long enough.

“Get me a coat of maille and a helm,” she spoke to the spearman at her side. The man ran to obey, disappearing down the stairs to the armory.

“Don’t leave those gates for your lord,” she shouted down to the soldiers. “Don’t leave those gates for me, or Belnopyl! You’ve seen what these savages will do, and they will not stop at sacking this town! Once they are done butchering the people you were sworn to protect, they will climb these walls and kill you all as well!"

That shook a few of them out of their terrified reverie - a handful of the men below craned their necks up to look at her, and in the faces of others she saw spirits hardening to steel.

"There won’t be any help coming, and the gods’ eyes are clouded by ash and darkness! So stand with me and do your duty as men, or die like dogs when the mob overruns the walls of this keep and drowns these marshes with your blood!”

She raised the Kladenets high, and saw that her words had shamed them enough into action - or perhaps driven them to desperation enough to stand strong. A raucous cry rose up from one man, and then others followed, raising their spears and axes and swords to her as they gave a long, wordless battle cry.

“Follow me! Follow me and kill these sons of bitches attacking your walls and your town!”