The snow had been trampled in the survivors’ flight, all dappled and spotted with blood. Solovey had quieted but he was nothing like calm; he would not walk, but went sideways instead, almost cantering in place, with swiveling ears.
Their pace was not the swiftest, to spare the weary horses, and the day dragged on. They trotted from clearing to shadow and back again, and they all grew colder and colder.
At last Dmitrii’s warriors rode down a single wounded bandit. “Where are the others?” the Grand Prince demanded, while Kasyan held the man jerking in the snow.
The man said something in his own tongue, eyes wide.
“Sasha,” said Dmitrii.
Sasha slid down Tuman’s shoulder and spoke, to Vasya’s surprise, in the same language.
The man shook his head frantically and poured out a stream of syllables.
“He says they have a camp just to the north. A verst, no more,” said Sasha in his measured voice.
“For that,” said Dmitrii to the bandit, stepping back, “I will kill you quickly. Here, Vasya, you have earned it.”
“No, Dmitrii Ivanovich,” Vasya choked, when Dmitrii offered her his own weapon, and gestured, grandly, to where Kasyan held the bandit. She feared she would be sick; Solovey was on the edge of bolting. “I cannot.”
The bandit must have caught the sense of the words, for he bent his head, lips moving in prayer. He was no monster now, no child-thief, but a man afraid, taking his last breaths.
Sasha, though he stood steadily, had gone gray with his wound. He drew breath to speak, but Kasyan spoke first. “Vasilii is only a reedy boy, Dmitrii Ivanovich,” he said, still gripping his captive. “Perhaps he would miss his stroke, and the men have had enough to do today without hearing a man scream and die, gutted.”
Vasya swallowed hard, and the look on her face seemed to convince the prince, for he thrust the blade through the man’s throat, petulantly. He stood an instant with heaving shoulders, recovered his good humor, wiped off the splatter, and said, “All well and good. But we will feed you properly in Moscow, Vasilii Petrovich, and you will be spearing boars at a stroke before long.”
THE BANDITS’ CAMP WAS A SMALL, crude thing. Huts to keep out the cold, and pens for the beasts, but little more. No wall or ditch or palisade; the bandits had not feared attack.
There was no sound and no movement. No smoke from cook-fires, and the whole effect was of chill stillness, grim and sad.
Kasyan spat. “They are gone, I think, Dmitrii Ivanovich. Those that survived.”
“Search everywhere,” said Dmitrii.
In and out of each hut Dmitrii’s men went, searching through the grime and darkness and reek of those men’s lives. Vasya’s hatred began to flake away, leaving only a faint sickness behind.
“Nothing,” said Dmitrii, when the last place was searched. “They are dead or fled.”
“It was well fought, Gosudar,” said Kasyan. He took off his hat and ran a hand through his matted hair. “I do not think they will trouble us again.” Unexpectedly he turned to Vasya. “Why so troubled, Vasilii Petrovich?”
“We never found their leader,” Vasya said. She cast her gaze once more about the squalid encampment. “The man who commanded them in the forest, when I stole the children back.”
Kasyan looked taken aback. “What sort of man is this leader?”
Vasya described him. “I looked for him in the battle, and among the dead,” she concluded. “I could not easily forget his face. But where is he?”
“Fled,” said Kasyan promptly. “Lost in the forest, and hungry already, if he is not dead. Do not worry, boy. We will set fire to this place. Even if this captain lives, he will not easily find more men to go adventuring in the wild. It is over.”
Vasya nodded slowly, not quite agreeing, and then she said, “What of their captives? Where have they taken them?”
Dmitrii was giving orders that fires be built and meat be shared out for the comfort of them all. “What of them?” the Grand Prince asked. “We have killed the bandits; there will be no more burnt villages.”
“But all those stolen children!”
“What of them? Be reasonable,” said Dmitrii. “If the girls are not here, then they are dead, or far away. I cannot go galloping through the thickets with weary horses to look for peasants.”
Vasya had her mouth open on an angry retort, when Kasyan’s hand fell heavily on her shoulder. She bit her tongue and whirled on him.
Dmitrii had already walked away, calling more orders.