by E. P. Clark
They’re coming right for me! Dasha thought. She backed up against the tree she was currently clutching, and tried to climb up into it, but its branches were both thin and closely set, and all she managed to do was scrape her hands and get covered with needles and sticky sap. There was a loud whuffling noise behind her. Slowly, her head and her feet moving as if belonging to separate bodies, she turned around.
A large round shaggy head was peering into the clearing, topped by small round ears that that were incongruously toy-like. Seeing Dasha’s gaze upon him, the rest of the bear came shambling into the clearing on all fours, and then stopped and sat back on his hind paws. His head rose well over two yards above the ground, taller than a tall man. His thick brown coat, along with his round head and ears, made him look almost comical and cuddly, but each of his claws was as long as Dasha’s hand.
“Wh-what do you want?” Dasha asked, her voice quavering. “What do you want from me?”
The bear cocked his head but did nothing.
“Are you hunting me?” Dasha asked.
The bear continued to do nothing. Dasha took this as a good sign.
“Are you trying to help me?” Dasha asked.
The bear whuffed at her, and came back down onto all fours, his muscles moving predatorily under his heavy coat. In this position he had large hump between his shoulders, which rolled back and forth, his skin and muscles rippling, as he began to pace towards Dasha. His pigeon-toed, rolling gate should have been funny, but this close, with nothing holding him back, nothing between them, it only made him threatening. Dasha looked desperately once more up at the tree she had tried and failed to climb, and then stepped forward.
“Hello, little brother,” she said. The bear whuffed again and stopped, contemplating her. Then he reared back and roared.
Dasha dropped down to her knees. “I didn’t mean to frighten you, little brother,” she said, looking at the moss beneath her.
The bear huffed as if to say that she couldn’t possibly frighten him.
“You’re protecting me, aren’t you?” Dasha asked. “You’re not hunting me, you’re protecting me while I’m out here alone, aren’t you?”
There was another huffing sound, and then more heavy footsteps. A warm wet tongue slid roughly across Dasha’s forehead, wiping away all the sweat and grime that had accumulated there.
“Thank you for your blessing, brother,” Dasha whispered, keeping her eyes firmly fixed on the ground, not daring to look up.
The bear sniffed at her, and then shambled past, buffeting her with his side as he passed and knocking her back onto her heels before moving heavily off into the trees, heading South. After a moment Dasha scrambled to her feet and followed him.
She moved as fast as she could, but the sound of his footsteps soon fell silent. She continued walking in the same direction, though, ignoring her thirst, the pain in her belly, the cramps in her muscles, the ache in her head, the soreness in her feet.
Keep going, she told herself. Keep going, keep going, keep going. The bear came to you for a reason! Keep going. The sky above her turned from blue to red to gray, and she was stumbling as much as she was walking.
Keep going! she told herself. Don’t stop until you can’t take another step! She tripped over a fallen branch and went down on one knee. Don’t stop! she repeated to herself. Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop! She used the branches of a nearby tree to pull herself upright, and took two more steps. On the third step, her foot stepped out over empty air, and before she could pull it back, the knee of her other leg buckled, and she went crashing and sliding down a bank, landing, not in the water as she expected, but on hard flat ground. She had found the road.
Chapter Three
Even with the quarter-moon sailing above her in the sky, it was too dark for her to know what road she was on, except that it was narrow and in the deep woods. It could have been the road leading from the main Severnolesnaya road to the sanctuary, or it could have been some other side road: there was no way for her to tell, nor was there any way for her to tell where she was in relation to the main road or any settlements.
Stay the night here, or keep walking? she asked herself. She looked up and down the road. Lying in the middle of it held no appeal. She could attempt to take shelter under the overhanging banks on either side, but that was hardly any better, and meant a full night with no food or water. Her legs ached at the thought of more walking, but her back ached even more at the thought of another night lying on the ground, and the hunger that had receded during her recent adventures flared suddenly back to life.
Keep walking, she decided. At least for a few more versts. And maybe luck will be with me, and I’ll come across a settlement. There had been a small waystation at the crossroads where the road to the sanctuary turned off from the main road: if the gods were with her, then perhaps that was the road she was on, and she would reach that waystation, or some other waystation, before too long. She straightened herself up resolutely and set off in what she could feel was a Westerly direction.
She had many happy fantasies of stumbling upon a waystation, a village, a cabin, a friendly group of travelers, anything, just around the next turn, and the next, and the next, but every time she came around a corner or over a rise, all she saw before her was more empty road. Blisters were beginning to form on her toes, and more than once she stumbled over some unseen obstacle and went down on one knee. She wished she hadn’t dropped the stick she had used to get across the stream. She wished she hadn’t run away from her companions, and then again from the domovaya. Tears of self-pity gathered in her nose and throat and threatened to spill over into her eyes as she thought about how she could be asleep in a warm bed right now…a warm bed lined with deer hides, perhaps, the skins of her sisters, or stuffed with the down of dead birds. Her self-pity over her current state seemed pretty pathetic in comparison. And if she had stayed with the domovaya, was there any guarantee that she would be in a warm bed now? Domoviye were house-spirits, but she hadn’t seen any sign of a house anywhere around where the domovaya had taken her. The gods alone knew what the domovaya had had in store for her, other than a firm intention to tell her what to do for her own good. At least this way she was free to make her own decisions.
At the moment those decisions seemed to be mostly about in what matter she would choose to starve, but at least no one was telling her what to do! At least she wasn’t being twisted into conforming to someone else’s idea of what she should be! At least…she was sniffling again from the pain in her feet and the ache in her head and her belly and her back and her legs, and there was no sign of any kind of habitation anywhere in sight. Maybe she was versts and versts and versts from any other human being, and she had no hope of reaching safety and shelter in time! Maybe she was doomed to die out here, all alone, frightened and in pain, and no one would ever know of her suffering. Her mother would pine and fret, praying for her safe return, but with less and less hope with each passing week, until eventually she became as miserable and bitter as Lisochka…that horrid vision filled Dasha’s thoughts so completely that she forgot to pay attention to the road beneath her feet, and tripped over an exposed root and fell to both knees. When she got up, she discovered that her trousers were torn, and so, judging by the searing pain, was her skin. She touched her knees with her hands and brought them to her face: they were wet and sticky, and smelled strongly of blood.
That should bring on the wolves, she thought, and started to sniffle again. She considered curling up in a ball in the middle of the road and never getting up again. It was a tempting idea.
Just a few more steps, she told herself. Just a few more steps. Find a better place to curl up and die, and then do it. She took a wobbly step, and then another, and another. She was still sniffling and she could feel the blood running down her legs like a second set of tears, but she was walking faster and faster, and dying no longer seemed quite so attractive.
Something moved on the edge of her vision. She froze
. A prickling spread across her scalp as if she were about to have a fit, and the hair rose on the back of her neck. It’s a wolf, she thought. A wolf is stalking me. A wolf is stalking me, a wolf is stalking me, oh gods, a wolf is stalking me…much as she had wanted to give up and die a moment ago, she was now acutely aware, with a knowledge so clear it was like a pain in her stomach, that she didn’t want to be killed and eaten by a wolf, her throat slashed, spine severed, entrails pulled out before she had even lost consciousness…a scream rose up in her throat at that vision. She choked it back, and with it, the vomit that was threatening to spew forth. Was this it? Had she made it this far just to die now, when she’d already gotten to the road? Was this her last step? Was this? Was this?
Something moved on the edge of her vision again, and then slipped around behind her. Oh gods, it’s behind me, it’s behind me, it’s behind me, what do I do, do I turn and face it, or run? Turn and face it, or run? I can’t outfight it and I can’t outrun it, oh gods, it’s stalking me, I can feel it creeping up behind me, I can feel it creeping up behind me, oh gods, oh gods…she caught a whiff of an unexpected yet familiar scent, making her stop dead in shock—and then break into a stumbling run, tripping and half-falling and pulling herself back upright again, sobbing, expecting to feel claws and teeth on her back at any moment, but running, running as best she could towards the scent of woodsmoke in the air. The air seemed lighter and emptier ahead. She came around a corner. The road opened up before her into a crossroads. On the other side was a waystation.
Something moved in the edge of her vision again, coming around from behind her to shadow by her side. A lean form with a broad triangular face came out into the moonlight, looked her directly in the eye, and then began trotting towards the waystation.
“You want me to go there?” Dasha asked. The wolf sat down on her haunches and looked at Dasha, her expression stern. Dasha took a hesitant step in her direction. The wolf remained motionless. Dasha took another step, and another. Light spilled out from the open windows of the waystation’s main room, and smoke was rising from its chimney. In the stable, the horses were whickering and neighing restlessly, no doubt made uneasy by the presence of the wolf.
“What’s all that noise?” someone called from the main room. “What’s gotten into those horses?” The front door banged open, and a large form appeared in the doorway, silhouetted against the lanternlight filling the inn. “Is that a wolf? Yarya! Yarya, there’s a wolf right there in the middle of the road! Yarya, go get your bow!” The figure disappeared back into the inn, the door slamming behind her.
“You’d better go now,” Dasha told the wolf. But she continued to sit there, gazing sternly at Dasha, until Dasha crossed the road and entered the waystation’s front yard. Only then did the wolf rise and slip off into the woods. Dasha thought she might have winked at her as she went past.
The front door banged open again, revealing a large man with a bow in his hands.
“Don’t shoot!” cried Dasha, stumbling forward into the pool of light stretching out from the doorway.
“Milochka!” shouted the man back into the inn. “You’re blind as a bat, my sunshine, and no mistake! That’s no wolf out there, it’s a girl! What are you doing out here at night all alone, my dove?” he asked Dasha.
“I got lost,” Dasha told him, climbing up onto the porch to join him by the door. He could be all kinds of horrible things, and probably to some people he was, but she sensed no threat from him to her, and after coming so close to so many other dangers, what did she have to fear from one man? Quite a lot, she told herself, but when he dropped his bow and put his arm around her shoulders, she burst into tears and let him half-lead, half-carry her into the main room anyway.
“Milochka!” called the man. “Milochka, my heart, this little lost dove’s just come stumbling up to our door. It’s all right, my dove,” he told Dasha, setting her down on a bench. “You’re safe now. How’d you get lost?”
“I got separated from my companions,” she sniffled, wiping her face off with her sleeve. Not very elegant, but she was so filthy, elegance seemed a long-lost cause anyway. “I was traveling with my father and my sister, and I got separated from them, and I spent all day looking for them and the road, and I ended up here.” It was close enough to the truth to sound convincing, and Yarya appeared to have no doubts in the veracity of her statement.
“You poor little thing,” he said, as the woman Dasha had first seen in the doorway came bustling up. She was large, near as big as Yarya, who seemed about the size of a bear, and she had a capacious bosom that nearly smothered Dasha when she embraced her. “Dry your eyes, little dove,” said the woman, releasing Dasha. “I’m Aunty Daromila, and this is my husband, Uncle Yaropolk. You poor, poor thing! Look at the state of you! Covered in dirt, and your knees all tore up. Come on, my sweet little thing, let’s get you cleaned up. You can spend the night with us tonight, and in the morning we’ll go looking for the rest of your companions. Are they lost too?”
“Only if they got lost looking for me,” Dasha said. Despite the lateness of the hour, there were still a few other people in the room, who were gathering around her with drunken interest.
“I see,” said Aunty Daromila. “Where were you when you got separated?”
Dasha didn’t have a good story ready for that question, so she decided to use the truth, well-leavened with evasion if it should prove necessary. “The sanctuary,” she said.
“Which sanctuary would that be, my dove?” asked Aunty Daromila.
“The castrates’ sanctuary,” Dasha told her.
Daromila and Yaropolk shared a look and a grimace of distaste, and one of the men in the back of the group that had gathered around her spat on the floor. Daromila gave him a disapproving look, and then asked, “Was your father trying to force you to join, my dove?”
“No…someone else in our group wanted to, but…”
“Say no more, my sweet,” said Daromila. “I’d’ve ran away too, if I was in your shoes. Those castrates’ll stop at nothing to force decent, normal people to join ‘em! But that’s four days away on foot at least. You said you was only walking for a day.”
“It was a very long day,” said Dasha.
“I’m sure it was, my dove, I’m sure it was.” Daromila gave her a pat on the shoulder. “Well, we’ll get you cleaned up, and you can spend the night here with us, and then in the morning we’ll get you all sorted out.”
Dasha felt in her pocket, and found the coinpurse she’d somehow managed to hold onto, still laced into her trousers. “I have coin,” she said. “I can pay.”
“We’ll worry about that in the morning, my pet,” said Daromila, giving her another pat. “Come, let’s get you to the bathhouse and get you cleaned up, and then feed you. You must be starving, poor thing. And the rest of you can go to bed!” she said to the others, raising her voice to a near shout. “You’ve all been up far too late, and drunk far too much. Go get some sleep, and be ready to go searching in the morning if we call on you!”
There was some grumbling about that, and some complaints that they were honest travelers who had places to go and couldn’t go looking for people who consorted with castrates, but Daromila shooed them away till they shuffled off to their bedchambers, with promises to look out for “the little lost girl” in the morning.
Daromila picked up a lantern and led Dasha out the main room to the bathhouse behind the building. It was cold and dark, but Daromila lit the fire, saying that would give Dasha some light and warmth while she fetched water and clean clothes.
“I don’t want to stay here alone,” Dasha said in alarm.
“Oh, you poor sweet thing.” Daromila patted the top of her head. “‘Course you don’t, after all you’ve been through, but I’ll only be a jiffy, and nothing’ll get you here. No wolves’ll get in here! By the way, was that a wolf I saw? It was, wasn’t it? My eyes weren’t playing tricks on me, were they?”
“It was a wolf,” Dasha confirmed. “B
ut I don’t think she meant any harm. She was just…shadowing me.”
Daromila shuddered. “Stalking you, more like. Wolves is horrid creatures! I tell my Yarya to shoot ‘em every chance he gets. We’ll wrap you up in a nice warm wolf pelt when we’re done here, and you’ll feel so much better, you will.”
Dasha smiled wanly. “I don’t think she meant me any harm, nor you either,” she said, but Daromila was already bustling out of the bathhouse, telling Dasha to stay put and rest her tired feet till she got back.
The flickering fire in the stove cast very little light and long moving shadows. Dasha drew close to it, trying not to look in the corners. Surely after she’d run away like that, the domoviye would leave her alone, surely, surely…
“Hello, little Tsarinovna.” Something tugged at her trouser leg. Dasha thought she would scream and jump, but instead she looked down with reluctant slowness.
It was the young domovaya, the one who had come to her in her cell at the sanctuary, as best she could tell. She was grasping Dasha’s trouser leg with her little paws and looking up at her with her shiny dark eyes.
“What do you want?” Dasha asked.
“What do we want? Why, you, of course, Tsarinovna,” said the domovaya.
“But I ran away!”
“Tchah! As if we would abandon you over a little thing like that!”
“So you’re just going to drag me off again? Take me against my will?”
“As I recall, Tsarinovna, it wasn’t against your will. You asked to come.”
“You weren’t even there! How do you know?”
The domovaya let go of Dasha’s trouser leg to tap the side of her nose. “We have ways of knowing, young Tsarinovna. We are not like women, with our knowledge locked inside our own heads and no way to share it.”
“We can share knowledge too! We do it all the time!”