God Within Us

The apple presented to her was dark and red, and heavy with juice and flesh. It was slightly overripe, in truth, but Vasilisa savored it all the same - biting into it as a proper lady should not, and letting the juices dribble down her chin.

In the ruins of her keep, the surviving souls of Belnopyl were being moved, overseen by Demyan and her druzhina. Those who had survived the shattering, she learned, had made their small, hidden camp in the ruins of the orchards and the artisans’ halls to the north of the city, abandoning all else. When she went down to them, tents and lean-tos were erected all about the plaza and the garden, cobbled from debris and stained canvas - and each shelter was packed full with men and women huddled tight and shivering in the bleak cold of the sunless day. But more than a few had crept out from their hovels to greet Stavr, and more than a few had cheered when the druzhinnik emerged from the fog with their princess and a band of warriors in tow.

But still, though she was home, there remained little to smile about. Her father was dead, and her city seemed one foot in the grave with him. She had only a precious moment to grieve, to be just Vasilisa, not Vasilisa of Belnopyl, but the city called to her, duty, wretched as it was, called to her.

I need you to be strong, Vasilisa, rang her mother’s words. There will come a time when you will be without us, and I need you to be strong in our stead.

Though she was now Grand Princess, she did not even have a crown - her father’s had been lost during the chaos of the battle in the Great Hall, where it might have fallen into the Cherech along with all else she loved - her dresses, her books, her own chambers, even, which had crumbled and fallen away. But crown or not, it was her hour now - Vasilisa of Belnopyl, the last of her line, ruled alone over those who remained.

The White City’s walls once held twenty-thousand souls within its bounds - and another thirty in the hinterlands. After the shattering that came upon the Great Hall, and the ravaging flood which swept away half of the city’s homes, there remained less than ten thousand who could be accounted for in total - and of them, only two thousand now remained within the walls, determined to die with their city. The rest had fled to seek shelter in the nearby holds and the countryside, though safety was no certain thing even there.

She took another bite from the apple as Stavr entered her tent - his tent, really - and set down his helmet onto his knee. The young man who she had last seen standing guard by the Great Hall looked older than his years - his boyish curly locks were thin and brittle, and his face was weathered and scarred by harsh living. He was as the city itself - broken, ruined, but nonetheless alive.

“Fruit, fish, and water,” he said, rubbing the faint stubble on his chin. “The gods are kind to us in this way, at least. But it will not last.”

Vasilisa sighed, and turned to look out from the tentflap. Outside and below the stair upon which they sat, her company from Rovetshi were busy fending off the grasping hands of the refugees as Stavr’s men handed out stale bread and apples. Any food that found its way into the crowd disappeared in an instant, and those who were able to snatch up a morsel quickly skittered out from the crying throng like insects from under a rock. Below, the desperation was almost palpable - like a thousand small needles prickling, twisting at all times to drive men mad.

In truth, many of those who had lived were already maddened by the bell, the call home. Day and night the bell of the great keep had rung, in strokes of three always, but at intervals that confounded them all. Sometimes the bell rang all throughout the day - sometimes it would be silent for a long while, only to break out into feverish clangor at random times from the small hours of the day to noon. The tolling had remained a constant, but it could never be shut out of anyone’s mind - it commanded attention, and woke even the deepest sleepers from their rest. That was the source of the madness, more than the city’s dance upon the edge of starvation, more than the loved ones and children that were left unburied, more than anything else.

But now the bell was silenced, and by her hand, it was said. Already, there were whispers of her nascent legend - the savior of the city, Vasilisa the Fair who brought with her peace of mind and food to ease the strangling hunger. In truth, both peace and food were in short supply - and the darkness of the future promised ever less of both. She sifted through the many parchments that were laid out on the table in Stavr’s tent - maps of the city, an old census taken three summers ago, and a water-stained map of the Principality of Belnopyl whose settlements were marked with the shields and glyphs of their boyars. From the pile, she withdrew the one paper that concerned her the most - she had read it half a dozen times already, and Stavr did not bother to try dissuading her from reading it a seventh time now.

The wolves circle around the wounded bear.

The cracked wax seal hung on by a thread to the paper as she unfurled it, and read the dry black words the seventh time - searching for some detail that she might have missed as a thousand small needles pricked her brain and her skin crawled.

Belnopyl the Great, and all his subjects,

The house of Igor the Weak has been broken, and the reign of the White Bear is at its end. This is the will of the gods, and their justice for the traitor who has sold his lands and people into the nomad yoke, and taken one of their kind for wife to sully the native blood.

And for the justice of enslaved brothers, for raped sisters, and for murdered children, we lords true and loyal to the legacy of our fathers arise. In the fallen traitor’s place shall be our council, to heal the land and bring freedom to the Klyazmite folk again.

Those who swear to the new and bright reign of our Council shall find our hand is merciful, our rewards and lands bountiful, and our wisdom greater than that of the tyrant's who led his land astray.

But to those who remain loyal to the traitor’s house and cause, only the hand of death shall find you - whether by noose, ax, lance, or sword.

Belnopyl the Great - open your gates to our arrival, and you shall find healing and mercy. Leave them shut, and be declared traitors all.

Beneath the writing there were four crests - the nine stars of Korlen, the stag horns of Torch, and tower of Rylsk, and the sturgeon of Denev. North, west, east, and south were the houses of the four lords.

All around, her city was beset by the usurpers and vengeful souls.

“How long ago did this filth arrive?” she asked, casting the paper back onto the table. “How long, Stavr?”

“Five days ago,” he replied. “I showed it to no one else, save Ilya and Pyotr. They struck out from the city to gather more men not long after, but I have heard naught else since then.”

Five days… She turned to the map of the principality. The four declarant houses surrounded Belnopyl, but so too were they separated, and by no small distances at that. If they had sent their declaration whilst already rallied and together, then she and her company should have passed through siege lines and bloody war, not the abject silence of the ruins. Perhaps there was some hope, then.

Perhaps they still had time.

“They went alone?” she asked, tracing a finger across the map. Five days…where could they have gone in five days?

"They each went with five men, and a bag of silver and gold coins to hire whatever freeriders they could find."

She traced her finger along one of the many roads leading from the White City - the great junction between the east and west. Through forests and hills...through plains and riverlands...her finger absent-mindedly wandered along the road south, retracing her own journey along the Cherech. Her finger came to a stop over a little settlement - marked by a small scrawled manor...and an Elder Tree.

I heard them speak of Ilya - that is all!

No...that was a black lie - or some gallivanting brigand named Ilya. Men with such names were not in short supply. She looked to Stavr, who had risen up to study the map by her side. Her nose wrinkled at the stench of sweat and death that rose off of him. "All this water around, and you have not once thought to bathe?"

Stavr grinned. "The water's too cold - and you aren't one to talk either, my lady."

Vasilisa looked at her own clothes - the looted Solarian rags Stribor's men had given her. The roughspun tunic was stiff from soakings in brackish water, sweat, and blood; the white suns on her hood had turned gray from the filth of life in exile. She herself had not thought to clean herself in full since...

Yesugei.

The memory came rushing back to her, and sudden dread seized at her heart. Yesugei - they had shared Lord Hrabr's bath, though it had seemed a lifetime ago since then, and another lifetime since she had seen him last, pinned beneath his horse. Why was she thinking of him now? She looked back to the map, and wondered where he was - in the land of the Baskords, whose gifted plains lay beyond the confines of ink and paper? Or did he find freedom, flying from them as he did from Stribor? Was he somewhere beyond the fog, moving towards the city, towards safety? She imagined him as a tiny dot on the map - smaller than a fly, for the lands of the principality were vast, with even her father's cartographers leaving some stretches blank. Or was he dead, killed by the Baskords or worse, and buried in a ditch like Vratislav?

No, she was certain that he was alive - the jagged wound in her chest where she had given him new life whispered to her so. He promised me, with a Khormchak oath of blood, he promised me.

But how could her own side of the oath be kept? How could the House of Belnopyl send a Khormchak princeling home if its greatest city was destroyed, and its stoutest warriors scattered to the winds, or on a desperate hunt for bodies to fill their ranks? And all the while, an army was bearing down on them, somewhere beyond the fog. No - she needed to survive, the city needed to survive, otherwise she would have nothing, and she would be only Vasilisa the abomination, not Vasilisa of Belnopyl. A princess without a principality.

She set aside the map of her father's lands - her lands - and placed the map of the city before herself and Stavr. Belnopyl had once been guarded by high wooden palisades and stout timber watchtowers as was the Klyazmite way, but those defenses were crushed and burnt within days by the Khormchaks - who had brought with them the ways of catapults and siege engines such as they had never known before. In twenty years' time however, much had changed - three rings of masoned stone now encircled Belnopyl, and she could recall having seen four of the seven towers erected in her lifetime, brick-by-brick.

The outer gate was ravaged by the doom of storms and flood, its riverine side along the south shattered by the waters - however, any entry into the city by land remained barred by double iron gates, and the outer watchtowers were still whole and sturdy. The second ring of walls defended the inner city - the artisans' districts, and the plaza of the gods where the Elder Tree sat - though those walls too had been breached. The third ring encircled the Great Hall and the keep itself, though in its present manner the walls served more to keep the corruption of the vines within, rather than invaders out.

The greatest city of the north...with Father, none could have assailed us at our prime, thought Vasilisa as she studied over the city. But we are not at our prime, we are fading, and fading fast.

If Ilya and Pyotr did not return - and on their swift return Vasilisa counted little - the city's defenders were less than a tenth of the total number that could once have been called up to defend, numbering some one hundred men, not counting her paltry company. Of those who were present and able to wield arms in the city's defense, there was only a precious handful survivors from her father's druzhina - and most of those were juniors even less tested than the likes of Polynkin, Kirill, and all the others from Rovetshi who had at least been tempered by battle. The dregs of her father’s druzhina were saved only by virtue of not being part of the elites who were called up by her father to greet the posol in the Great Hall.

Still, they were all that was left. And she did not mean to let the city pass into the hands of the usurpers.

Vasilisa pointed a finger to the riverine portcullis. “This is our greatest weakness - our company sailed right up the Cherech all the way into the heart of the city. If we can do it, so can a barge packed full of swords and spears. Fill it. Take the strongest men and women you can find, as many as you need, and pack it with stone and earth.”

Stavr nodded gravely. From his counsel with Demyan and the rest, she knew he was entertaining the idea of retreat from the city just as the druzhinniks were. But to do so now would mean to leave the two thousand who still remained in the city to be butchered, or taken as slaves. No, it would not happen again - this she swore, and thus it would be.

Stavr jabbed a finger at the map, pointing to the Gods’ Gate - the southernmost entry into the city. “If this Council is smart, they’ll strike against the Gods’ Gate. Our south is like an open belly, even if we pack the river.”

It was the truth - when the city was being rebuilt, her father had rightly seen a greater foe in Pemil than Gatchisk, whose lands were separated anyways by the Gravemarsh. It was this anticipation of treachery which saw the northern walls made thicker and taller, and all the gates there doubly-reinforced with iron to withstand all but the strongest of battering rams. But in the south, where an enemy would normally have to pass through the Gravemarsh or the God’s Spine mountains and emerge from them ragged, the defenses were less stout: the gates were maintained poorly, and the guardhouses left manned by nary a skeleton crew. Yet now it was there the first blow would be struck.

“I agree,” said Vasilisa. She motioned out of the tent. “Have Demyan oversee the work to fill the passage. How good is your aim with a bow?”

“Better than anyone else we have.” grinned Stavr. “Don’t you remember that time with-”

“-Pyotr?” she interrupted. Ten summers ago, was it? It had been too long since they were allowed to be young. The memory now pained her - the memory of how she had taken peace and family for granted back then. “I remember having to help you pull an arrow out of his behind. It doesn’t matter - you and Kirill will hold the Gods’ Gate, and take twenty sharpshooters with you. Crossbowmen, archers, it does not matter. If they can shoot, then they will suffice.”

“What about the other passes?”

She studied the map again, looking keenly. “The hardest souls are the ones I’ve brought with me from Rovetshi. Demyan and Polynkin, they will shore up the Night Gate with another twenty men, and be ready to aid you if your gate should fall. The Golden Pass…Austeja and I shall stand there with all those who remain.”

Stavr furrowed his brows, and then shook his head. “Still, I do not like this. None of this. Korlen, Torch, Rylsk, and Denev - they can bring up two thousand spears between them. We are one hundred - even if every man on the walls counts for ten below…”

“We will still bloody them,” Vasilisa spoke firmly. “And all we must do, in truth, is hold - these usurpers might not know we are gathering an army of our own, and they can be caught unawares, they may break. Fear and surprise is what broke our fathers’ armies at Ongainur Field, remember?”

“And what if they do not arrive?” asked Stavr. “What if we are alone?”

“Then we die.” came her blunt reply. I have died, once. To die again would be simply setting things right - but not now, not yet.

She gave Stavr a grim smile, and squeezed his gauntleted hand. “But if death comes upon us at every turn, then best to meet it with sword in hand, right?”

***

"Come, countrymen, come!" came the call from the magister of Chernogorsk as the gates were raised before Ilya's arrival. Yesugei and the others passed beneath the gatehouse swiftly and to curious looks from the guards, but were not stopped. Unukalhai drew whispers and curses from the spearmen at the gate, but by Ilya's strict order even the Apostle was allowed past.

Already as the warriors went into the centre of the town, there was a great commotion of the heralds crying their return, and of horns being blown to summon the ranks of the militia to attention. For the news had already gone ahead of the Belnopyl column that they were to march soon, and to the banner of Belnopyl and Chernogorsk there flocked many volunteers in addition to the men already gathered from other holds. Ilya's riders dismounted and set off to their camps about the town square, but Yesugei and his company went with Ilya himself to the town hall.

Within the town hall the magister awaited, greeting Ilya and all his company with a sword sheathed in his belt. At the sight of the Apostle who ducked their head beneath the doorframe, the magister cried to Ilya, "What sort of demon have you brought into the house of the gods, Ilya?"

"This demon does not hide behind the face of man, at least," spoke Ilya gruffly as he took a seat at the council table. "I have it on the word of Yesugei, a son of the Qarakesek tribe, that this one bears no ill intent upon Chernogorsk or its people."

Magister Pasha, a hard man with hard, cold eyes, looked over Yesugei up and down. His gloved hand itched, but he did not dare to show the magister his claws - one cursed soul was more than enough for most who believed little in such things. At length, the magister sniffed, "The word of a Khormchak - still stinking of horseflesh. I trust him little, Ilya."

"Mistrust him as you may," Ilya spoke through gritted teeth. "But for now, he and his companions have agreed to stand by us in these troubled times. How many of your own are willing to come down from the mountains?"

"A good number. The House of Belnopyl has always been kind to the folk of Chernogorsk, and many still remember and love little the lawless days before Prince Igor. Chernogorsk can give you one hundred men - hale and hardy, and no strangers to a fight against the savages from the peaks. We've helms, spears, and shields aplenty for their arms, but to rally them I need time."

"How long?"

"A day, perhaps," reported the magister. "They will need supplies and baggage still as well, unless you mean to live off the land."

Yesugei knew what that meant - Stribor's own had 'lived off the land' in such manner as the magister spoke of. Ilya stroked his drooping whiskers in thought to the prospect, but shook his head, "No, I've stripped bare what lands I could - and Belnopyl is in grave need of supplies as well. Many hungry mouths, and ever more defenders."

"Such things aside," interjected Yesugei, thinking of his own father's campaigns. An army of horsemen moved far swifter than men on foot, but their movements echoed in Ilya's plans as he gestured over a map upon the table, and like his father's noyans against the Quanli, they were scrambling to strike before their foe could gather his strength. "From what I have seen in the yard, your men have too few horses to carry all of them, and a slow march is not our friend - not whilst Belnopyl is weak and your enemies are gathering their own greater strength. Whatever men are strong riders should go in the vanguard and strike ahead with us to the city. Everyone else should go behind on foot with the baggage, and unite with your countrymen wherever they are headed."

"When last Pyotr and I spoke, we agreed to meet by the Leaden Fork by the turn of the moon." Ilya recalled. "Combined, we will number close to five hundred spears, and half that number in archers. Let the usurpers and northerners scoff at that."

Kargasha came forward, one hand on the hilt of his sword. "If it is by the turn of the moon, then Yesugei is all the more right - you will need to move swiftly. If you go by tonight down along the Ashenmark Road, you will reach your comrades pressed little for time."

The magister and his men gave a cry of surprise as the Klyazmite warrior stepped forward, nearly as great as when they laid eyes upon Unukalhai, but the poison in their glares was far worse. Three of the magister's men stepped before Kargasha with their hands upon their own swords loose in their sheaths. Ilya rose up in surprise at the outcry, and Yesugei clutched instinctively for the hunting knife in his belt.

"A disheveled, bloody crow comes with you," muttered the magister, contempt heavy in his every word. "Kargasha - why have you come back?"

"The realm is in need of swords," replied the Klyazmite. "Mine is as good as any other."

There came a sudden snarl from one of the men by the magister's side - a bearded fellow with a scar across his cheek. "Pfah! Your sword is sullied by drink and brother's blood! Ilya, you should not keep counsel with this one - how can you trust one who would turn his sword against his brother?"

Ilya's fist came slamming down onto the table with a boom that shook the hall. "Enough of your baying!" He turned with a suspicious look to, Kargasha whose head was bowed in sudden shame. "Crow, do these men speak the truth? Do I have such a dishonorable man in my company?"

The Klyazmite warrior did not reply, and no others came to speak up in his name. At length, he murmured, "I...they do not lie, I struck a terrible blow against Lavr, out of stupidity, out of rage - the anger of an elder brother passed for a claim by the younger. But I have made amends - I make amends now, I pray, with every breath I take - and I have found forgiveness in Lavr's eyes."

Kargasha brought his hand lower, to the second hilt secured to his belt in a beaten leather sheath. The magister's guards gave a start, but stayed their hand when the warrior drew his old sword to reveal its melted blade protruding three inches from the hilt. "The sword that drew my brother's blade is broken, destroyed. My sin cannot be broken in the same way, but I have changed - I have! If you will have me, Lord Ilya, I will prove to you my change with bravery and valor - not hatred and drunkenness."

Ilya said nothing, his eyes narrowed in scrutiny.

"Boyar Lavr is kind of heart to forgive you," interrupted Pasha. "For the quality of his lordship's mercy, I am grateful. Yet remember that you were spared the noose only on your father's word - but in the eyes of the law you remain an exile, even if you have wormed your way into some station of importance by the side of your betters."

"He did not worm his way into our favor!" said Tuyaara, her face flushed with anger. "This one whom you insult stood by us - plain strangers to him and Bykov - when we were attacked along the road by wolves and demons, and then again against the hill tribes! A common brigand would have tried to rob us in the night, or lead us astray along the mountain trails, but he has shown naught but good honor in our travels at every turn."

The shaman turned her face up with pride, declaring, "If such is the honor of Klyazmite crows, then I would rather ride into battle with a black flock than a warband."

The magister looked to Ilya, who shrugged and gave a chuckle. “With such passion, how can I turn him away? She speaks with the same fire as a certain princess I know well, and for that…it shall be on your word, shaman.”

The warrior then turned to Kargasha, who did not shrink away from his discerning gaze. “So it is true, then? Of the Ashenmark Road?” Kargasha nodded. “Very well - the Khormchaks and the abomination will go with me, and we will strike ahead for Pyotr's band. Crow - you will prove your worth in this manner: you will march with the footmen, and walk with the scouts to lead them to the Leaden Fork. Do not disappoint me, or once I am done with the usurpers I will deal with you as I have already dealt with their dogs.”

No further words were spoken concerning Kargasha's service, at least whilst Ilya remained in the town hall. The day grew long, and in the shelter of Chernogorsk the travellers down from the Stonesnake Trail were able to find some rest and respite. As Ilya and the magister occupied themselves with talk of the baggage train, Yesugei found a seat in the town hall and began re-stringing his bow; Tuyaara propped her head up against a pillar and slipped quickly into a dead sleep. Nearby, sticking to the hanging shadows of the hall, Unukalhai continued to mouth their silent prayer, and resumed threading the starlit chain through their clawed fingers.

“You pray to the Star-Eater?” Yesugei asked, taking a seat by the towering Apostle. The abomination did not speak for a time - seeming to hear Yesugei only when the last link of the chain was in its grasp. “I sing. The song is silent to the world below, but to the kin above who yet sleep it is a lullaby.”

“You speak of the stars.”

“They are dreaming, even now,” said Unukalhai. “You have felt their gaze in the realm of dream - though your own eyes cannot see it. It is beautiful, but it is also pale and cold…so, so cold…”

The Apostle’s voice trailed off, and Yesugei sensed a shudder in their words. “I cannot return there - it is a torture like no other. No, none of us may return there. One does not draw away the cup just as the sweetness has been tasted. The Twelve will fight as they have never fought before, for they will not be denied a second time.”

“They must be denied,” muttered Yesugei bitterly. He felt the scar over his heart, and flexed the fingers of his gloved hand with which he had loosed a thousand arrows. “Do your kind die, then? Did any fall when Khariija made her defiance?”

“No, not then,” said Unukalhai sadly. “Though one far greater had perished at her hands. The last Vessel - he had arisen from the folk of the Mother Woods, and the prophecies and signs were in his favor. All that remained was for the Heralds to give themselves to the gods, but their time away from the stars had changed them - Khariija the most. She forged three black blades away from the eyes of the Majesties, in a place of darkest sin, and with them she denied the prophecy and struck down the Vessel. I do not know where the blades are now - they are hidden even from the Sight of those blessed by the Star-Eater. But our kind will try to search for them - unless they have already been found.”

Yesugei searched his memory; his father had given all his children gifts of black crystals, but a blade? He supposed many of them carried gifted blades - but none with such importance as a blade to kill an Apostle. But where, then? His frustration mounted - no, there remained only one person who could know, who must know.

“Belnopyl calls to us,” he spoke. “The White City - Aysen saw it in his dreams. If Vasilisa is Khariija's daughter, then perhaps-”

“-she knows,” interrupted Unukalhai. “Even if she herself might not know the importance of such things. Khariija loves her daughter more than anyone else - she is the only one Khariija truly loves. Everything else is a façade. Our path remains the same - if we are to go east, we must first go west. If we must go forward, we must first go back.”

“Again, you speak riddles,” sighed Yesugei. “Did the Modkhai learn their twisted manner of speaking from your kind?”

Something resembling a smile came to Unukalhai's mask-like face - the cracks that ran along their cheeks shifted as the corners of their mouth tilted upwards. Then the Apostle's eyes flickered to Ilya, who roused their company from rest to stand by his side. At the opening of the town hall's doors there awaited the gathered host from a dozen loyal houses, and their ranks had grown more with light riders, bowmen, and spear-carriers. They loudly hailed Ilya's emergence from the town hall, and already their commander's horse was held ready for their departure. Tuyaara looked upon the gathered army with uneasy wonder - their display of armor and weapons was greater than any the Baskords had, yet in this well-armed company she would travel ever further west whilst her own tribe went east, towards the flames and smoke that rose from the steppes whilst she chased answers to distant prophecies.

Yesugei could offer no words of comfort - only a reassuring nod when the shaman turned to look at him. Then, descending from the steps of the town hall with Ilya, their company took up the saddle and reins along with the rest of the vanguard. Only Kargasha remained behind, but before their departure the Klyazmite hastily came up to Yesugei as if having remembered something at the last. He unbuckled the beaten leather sheath from his belt, and gave to Yesugei his broken sword.

“This blade has done more good in your hands than it ever has in mine,” said Kargasha as passed the blade into his hands. “It should be yours - kill some more demons with it, why don't you?”

Yesugei stuck the sheath into his own belt, beside his hunting knife. A broken blade, wielded by the prince of a broken tribe bound for a broken city. This whole world is breaking apart at the seams.

He clasped and shook Kargasha's hands, and then Ilya's company set out on the march, riding out of Chernogorsk's gates towards the rays of the westering sun.