Vasilisa snatched up the revolver and pointed it at her.
That would be perfect, Billi thought. If Vasilisa blew my brains out. She smiled at the irony of it. She could take the gun from the girl, but she needed Vasilisa to trust her.
“You’re right to be angry, to not trust me, Vasilisa,” Billi said. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Ivan limping toward them. “But you can either come with me, or go with them to Baba Yaga. The choice is yours.”
With a sob, Vasilisa dropped the gun. “Why, Billi? Why would you want to hurt me?”
There was no answer except that Billi was a Templar and that meant making life-and-death decisions. Maybe, if they survived this, Vasilisa would understand, once she too was a Templar.
Billi took Vasilisa in her arms and helped her out of the car. Ivan grabbed the gun and then shot one bullet through the radio transmitter and one in the radiator.
Billi carried Vasilisa to the van.
They drove on down a side road and away from the forest, trying to put some distance between themselves and the rest of the convoy. Ivan was up front with Olga, Billi in the back with Vasilisa.
“They will come after the Spring Child. The Polenitsy and the goddess,” said Olga.
“That’s what I’m counting on.” Billi got out the statuette and handed it over to Olga. “This is part of the meteor that struck Tunguska in 1908.”
One hand on the steering wheel, Olga inspected the small rock. “Yes. It was from this element that Baba Yaga was sent into a coma.”
“Sowe can use this against her. I just need to turn it into a weapon of some sort. A knife or something.”
Olga stopped the van. “I have something better.” She checked that the road was empty, then got out and climbed onto the roof and began unbuckling the straps holding the luggage on the roof rack.
Ivan and Billi came out and watched her.
“Vasilisa is bait,” said Ivan. “But that’s what you’re counting on, isn’t it?” He glanced back through the window at Vasilisa. The girl was under a blanket, staring out at the snowbound world.
Billi didn’t like the idea of using Vasilisa like that, but it was the only plan she had. “Yes. If anything happened to Vasilisa, Baba Yaga would just turn around. She’d send her Polenitsy after us, for revenge, but she wouldn’t come herself. This way”-she nodded in Vasilisa’s direction-“we force Baba Yaga to make a personal appearance. We want Vasilisa alive.”
Ivan looked up at the sky. “And tonight’s the full moon.”
“Help me,” Olga ordered. Together they lowered a heavy trunk to the ground. Billi and Ivan gathered around it as the old woman lifted it open.
“You like?” asked Olga.
Billi grinned. “Oh yes.”
Weapons lay neatly arranged in the trunk. Not guns or rifles, but swords, a bow and arrow, and suits of chain mail. All beautifully made and lovingly kept. It was like Christmas. Billi’s sort of Christmas.
First she took out the mail armor. The suit was knee length with sleeves that covered her to mid bicep. The links shimmered in the bright white light of the snow. The sword was a single-edged saber, an Ottoman cavalry sword. Billi peered at the Arabic lettering along its mirror-bright blade.
“What does it say?” asked Ivan.
Billi frowned. “Roughly translated, it says, ‘Eat this, you Christian,’ er, ‘seed-spiller.’ Or something.” She cleared her throat and slid the blade in to its scabbard. “It’s a religious reference. Genesis 38, I think.” Then she saw the Mongol bow.
It was black, made of wood and horn, and formed a curved C shape. Olga lifted it up and strung it.
“They called the Mongols the wolves from the east,” she said. “They ruled Russia for over two hundred years. The blood of the Mongols is strong in the Polenitsy.”
Billi lifted the quiver. The arrows were neatly arranged in two rows. Wide-barbed man-killers at the front, narrow-headed armor-piercing bodkins at the back; all with eagle fletching. Billi spotted a silver ring on a tassel off the side of the quiver. She put it on her right thumb. Olga handed her the bow, strung and ready.
The bow was a masterpiece.
“This will do,” said Billi.
They worked together to arm her. As Ivan laced up the mail shirt, Billi tucked in the sword and a long knife. Finally she threw the quiver over her shoulder and notched her first arrow, hooking the bowstring around her thumb, then pulling back, slowly letting her back muscles do the heavy work alongside her arms. The draw was powerful. They’d use the figurine to make arrowheads. She’d have no problem puttinga meteor-tipped arrow through Baba Yaga’s thick skull.
Olga stepped back and straightened Billi’s armor. “Maybe some Mongol blood runs in you, child. You are more wolf than you know.”
Ivan gave a low admiring whistle. “Now you are beautiful,” he said. He’d taken a mail shirt of his own and a plain, straight sword. But he seemed happiest with Olga’s big revolver and a fistful of bullets. “They will have the advantage out here,” he said, surveying the wild landscape. “They’ll come at us from all around. We need a better battlefield.”
“We’ll find one,” replied Billi. She took one of the mobiles they’d confiscated, and checked it. Barely any reception.
“Dad? Where are you?”
“Billi? Billi?”
“Dad, we’ve got Vasilisa.”
“Billi? Where are you?”
“We’ve got Vasilisa!” Billi shouted. Her dad sounded like he was shouting from the other side of the world. “Where are you?” Damn it! Billi stared around the road. To one side was a fenced-off stretch of woodland, picketed with spindly trees. Signs hung every thirty feet along the fence. They were all a trisected black circle on a yellow background: the international warning symbol for radiation.
“Where are you?”
Somewhere made of concrete and choked with pollution, a place where Baba Yaga would be weakest. Billi read the dented road sign up ahead.
“Chernobyl, Dad.”
39
THEY DROVE THE REST OF THE DAY, STOPPING ONLY to snack on dried meat, hard bread, and water. Olga said nothing, but each time she stopped, she spent the meal searching the horizon. But nobody came.
Using the toolbox, Billi disassembled the arrows. She cut the heads out and then, holding the Venus figurine between her boots, smashed it with a hammer. Vasilisa sat silently beside her as she chipped the shards of polished black stone into something that resembled arrowheads.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
Billi handed her a rough triangle of meteoric stone.
“This is the meteoric rock from Tunguska I told you about. Your great-grandmother knew that it had injured Baba Yaga before.”
Vasilisa inspected the stone. “You think this will kill Baba Yaga?” Her voice betrayed her doubts.
“Bloody hope so.”
By the time they’d finished their meal, Billi had three decent stone-tipped arrows. She used up a tube of superglue to hold them into the shafts; they weren’t particularly well made and she would have liked to try shooting with them, to get an idea of how they flew, but time was too short; they needed to move.
The late afternoon sun hung low on the horizon, bathing the landscape with pinks and oranges. Sparse woodland gave way to overgrown and abandoned fields, dotted with crumbling old farmhouses and empty villages. The signs of humanity increased as the day wore on. They’d reached the outskirts of Chernobyl.
Chernobyl had been the site of the worst nuclear disaster in history. Back in the 1980s, a nuclear reactor had exploded and launched a huge radioactive cloud over most of south Russia and Ukraine. Tens of thousands of people had been evacuated overnight, taking only what they could carry. They’d never returned. It seemed like ancient history, but the town itself looked as though it could have been emptied yesterday. The cars, the buildings, parks, and gardens all remained. Not demolished, as they would have been in a war-just empty. Only the humans had left.
; So this was the world Baba Yaga wanted.
Silent, gray tower blocks stood like titans guarding a city of the dead. A flock of crows launched themselves into a cloud of black feathers, cawing angrily at their arrival, their cries sharp and keen. Otherwise the streets were eerily empty. The snow-laden boughs of the trees lining the road sagged over them, their branches scratching the van’s roof. Roots had broken through the tarmac, and pond-sized potholes pockmarked the road, each glistening with dark ice. Cars sat abandoned, rusting. Their hoods had been thrown open, and engines, tires, and seats were all stripped out.
The van stopped. A large shadow loomed over the front windshield, and the air rumbled with a curious, threatening growl.
A huge black bear with beady brown eyes stood in the center of the road. Olga left the engine running and stepped out of the van. The bear dropped down onto all fours, and even then was still taller than the woman. It lumbered closer and raised its head to sniff her.
Olga just stood, watching it.
The bear rose onto its hind legs, towering over her. It threw back its head and bellowed.
Billi glanced at Ivan. He’d been in the back inspecting the weapons, while Vasilisa had moved up front. He raised his eyebrows.
“Well?” he whispered. He moved forward and rested the pistol barrel on the back of the seat, pointing it at the windshield. Vasilisa was squeezed next to Billi. The girl reached out and touched the glass, mouth open as she gazed in awe at the giant creature.
“Olga knows what she’s doing. I think.”
Then the bear dropped back down onto all fours and wandered off into the woods. Billi stepped out and joined Olga.
“What was that all about?” said Billi after her heartbeat had returned to normal. “He’s the king here. He just wanted to make sure we knew,” Vasilisa said from out of the car window.
Ivan hopped out of the back and waved his pistol. “We could have scared him off with this. It would have been safer.”
Olga scowled. “Just what a human would think.”
They drove on for another fifteen minutes, slowly rolling along the silent roads.
“Where are we?” asked Billi.
“One of the outlying towns.” Olga pointed ahead. “The reactor’s a few miles that way.”
Billi checked the surroundings. The town wasn’t hugely built up, and each residential block had plenty of space around it. No matter which direction the attack came from, she’d see it coming.
“Stop here,” Billi said. Olga drew up at the side of the road. Ahead stood a set of tall iron gates, beyond which was a simple amusement park.
Billi wandered around the park. The yellow carts of the Ferris wheel were filled with snow. Crystalline ivy covered the rusty steel legs of the main support, and the steel creaked in the wind. A bit farther were the bumper cars. The roof had collapsed, and long strips of plastic cloth and wood were scattered over the cars.
Opposite the park was a school building. It was about eight stories tall, and would give them a good vantage point over the surrounding land. Vasilisa joined Billi as they went in to explore. The windows and doors were gone, so they stepped over the low threshold straight into a classroom. The paint on the walls and the desks had faded and blistered. There were posters of old Soviet leaders, a large framed map of the USSR in faded red, and drawings that had been made by children, mainly of rockets and cosmonauts. Small rubber gas masks hung on the coat hooks.
They walked past the nurse’s office, still filled with first-aid posters and old cots, and found the steps that led upstairs. Billi stopped dead as a shadow marked the wall. She tugged Vasilisa behind her.
The silhouette of a small girl with pigtails had been painted on to the wall like the shadow left by an atomic explosion. She had been caught forever reaching up to the light switch.
They reached the flat roof and looked out over Chernobyl. The town was a cluster of concrete apartment blocks. Trees broke the outline as the woods had encroached from all directions. Billi saw branches poking out of the upper floors of some buildings, and thick roots rippled over abandoned cars on the roadside.
“Didn’t take long,” Billi said. Not long at all before nature stole back all that was once hers.
The chimneys of the nuclear plant stood up on the horizon. Three slim towers beside the curved shell of the reactor. The silence was deafening. The abandoned town echoed with the sighs of ghosts.
They weren’t here. The Templars hadn’t made it. If her dad had hit Kiev that morning, when she’d called, he would have been herebynow. Billi spent the next ten minutes scanning the streets and rooftops, hoping for some movement or light off armor or blade, but the snowfall made it difficult to see anything clearly. Maybe last night’s storm had cost Arthur and the others an extra day. Maybe he never got to Kiev. And now they were out of days.
“Looks like this is it, then,” said Billi.
Vasilisa stood beside her. Billi held out her hand, but she retreated. Billi put her hand down. Friendships were hard to come by in Billi’s line of work. “She’s close,” said Vasilisa. She scratched her head and frowned. The henna covered her arms up to her elbows. She turned her palms over, staring at the strange patterns, then looked at the reactor in the distance. “Look at what we’ve done. We made the Earth so sick.”
“Sounds like you agree with her,” said Billi. Their eyes met.
“She’s old and tired, Billi. She thinks she’s the only one who cares about the Earth. She hoped mankind would learn, but we haven’t. That’s why she won’t die: she thinks no one else will look after it when she’s gone. So she’s trapped in winter, and it’s always cold.” Tears ran down her cheeks.
The sky was turning red. Billi watched the sun sink lower on the horizon. For now the moon was a weak indistinct circle. But it was full and perfectly round. Her skin itched and she loosened her collar, trying to let the heat out.
“Not yet, not yet,” she promised herself.
The thin birch trees were rustling when the first howl rippled across the snowbound town. Another joined it, then another, until the distant woods erupted with the chorus of hunters’ songs. Olga waved at her from below, and Billi ran down, Vasilisa a few steps behind.
They gathered in front of the amusement park gates. Olga had stripped down to a thin T-shirt and shorts. Her bare legs and arms bristled with gray hair, and already her nails had transformed into claws.
“How long do we have?” Billi asked.
“Five, six minutes,” growled Old Gray, listening hard to the sound of the oncoming army. She snapped her teeth as they grew in length and sharpness.
“We need to give ourselves some space.” Billi searched around: three roads led from this park, giving them options. “Keep the engine running in case we need a quick getaway.”
Olga laughed. “We are not getting away, young Templar. This is where we die.”
“Maybe, but let’s take the old witch with us.” Billi pulled out a stone-tipped arrow. “I just need Baba Yaga out in the open and close, that’s all.”
Old Gray growled as steel scraped across steel. Billi spun around, arrow drawn, as a figure emerged from behind them.
Arthur drew the Templar Sword from his scabbard as he approached. He wore his own mail, covered with a patched-up leather coat. Snowflakes sprinkled his black beard, and his scars were paler than normal, stark white in the frosty, weak sunlight. Gareth joined him, fingers in his composite bow. He saw Billi’s own bow and nodded with approval. He had his quiver strapped to his belt, all the fletching made up of black eagle feathers.
“Hope we’re not too late,” said Arthur.
Mordred, the tall, elegant Ethiopian, stood nearby, his hands eager and anxious around his spear shaft. Hanging from his hip was a quiver, and slung over his back a longbow. He’d wrapped a scarf around his face and had his woolen cap pulled low so only his deep brown eyes showed. With him were Gwaine and Lance. They’d survived, thank God.
Gwaine had taken a battering: there was
a clean bandage across his forehead, and his mouth, usually so thin and grim, turned slightly. It could have been a smile, the first Billi had from the old warrior. On his back was a bow and quiver of arrows. In his hands he held a hefty battle-ax and hada dented steel breast plate strapped on. A crude red cross had been painted high on the left of it. A Templar to the last.
“Bonjour, Bilqis,” said Lance as he smoothed out his long brown mustache and bowed. The Frenchman had found a knee-length mail hauberk, older and heavier than Billi’s, and on his left hip he had a longsword. He carried a shield, white with a black band across the top: the argent field and sable fess. The battle banner of the Templars. He looked like he’d stepped out of the Crusades.
Billi’s throat was tight, clogged with relief. She wet her dry lips. “About bloody time.”
40
LANCE KISSED HER ON BOTH CHEEKS.
Billi grinned. “You made it. How?”
Lance looked surprised. “Why would we not make it?” Mordred shook her hand. “You look ready to cause trouble,” he said.
Billi laughed. She had her quiver and bow on her back, a suit of fine chain mail, and a sword and dagger tucked into her belt. “Trouble’s coming,” she said.
Gwaine stopped and looked down at Vasilisa. “She still alive?” He spoke as though she weren’t there. “Why haven’t you killed her?”
Billi drew Vasilisa close beside her. “I’ve found a way to kill Baba Yaga. But I need her close. If we hang on to Vasilisa, she’ll come close enough to give us a chance to be rid of the old witch once and for all.”
“She’s bait, then?” Gwaine said.
Vasilisa flinched as he said it. She pushed Billi’s hand away and stepped back, gazing at the Templars. Billi bent down and faced her.
“Vasilisa, we’re here to protect you, I swear it. But you’ll need to play along.” She looked over at her dad, who watched impassively. “When Baba Yaga comes, we will destroy her.”
“And if you don’t?” asked the Spring Child. “Then we will have done our best.” Billi touched Vasilisa’s cheek.
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