Enchantment (49 page)

Get away, yes, but not back to Taina, for that would be Baba Yaga’s land, and the women would be given to her followers. Any man found there after a defeat would be killed or enslaved and sold far away. To Constantinople, perhaps, where they might live as Christians despite their slavery, to weep the remainder of their days, remembering their wives and daughters, now belonging to other, crueler men; remembering their sons and brothers who were lucky enough to die in battle rather than living out their lives in such despair.

None of this was said aloud. But all of them knew what lay ahead, if the day was lost. But what made it possible for them to fight was the knowledge that if they did not struggle against Baba Yaga, the outcome would be the same, except that all the men would be sold as slaves, and without even the comfort of knowing that they fought for their families, their God, and their king.

The battle would be fought where it had to be fought—the selfsame meadow that was large enough to land a plane. Baba Yaga’s army hovered in the shelter of the trees on the eastern side of the meadow, with the morning sun at their backs. King Matfei emerged from the wood and arrayed his army almost exactly as Baba Yaga’s men were organized—peasants to the left and right, the druzhina in the middle, to guard the king and lead the push into battle.

The same, but with two important differences. Baba Yaga’s army was larger, at least double the size of King Matfei’s. And as the armies moved forward, ready to collide, young boys darted out from among the men of Taina, carrying something burning in their hands. Were they such fools as to think that they could set such a green meadow on fire?

Then they threw their canisters, some of which burst open in midair with terrifying noise, right above the heads of the peasants. Tiny shards of metal were flung out at such speeds that they could cut open a man’s face or throat as he raised his head to see what this strange weaponry could be. Many fell; the rest, seeing the hideous wounds on their comrades and deafened by the booming noise, cried out in panic and ran away.

In three minutes of chaos, Baba Yaga’s army became nothing but her druzhina and a handful of peasants, who now bunched up as close to the knights as they could manage. In moments they were underfoot, the druzhinniks screaming at them to get out of the way, and finally lashing out at their own peasant soldiers to get clear of them.

Again the boys ran forward with fire in their hands, but this time Baba Yaga’s knights only laughed, for they had seen how the shrapnel from the grenades did not penetrate their helms and mail and heavy leather garments. These loud noises might scare away peasants, but there were still three knights of Baba Yaga for every knight of Taina.

Then the little pots of alcohol began to strike them in their armor and burst into flames. The well-oiled leather under their mail took to the flame and burned merrily; faces, too, caught fire, and men flung down their weapons and ran screaming from the field.

Baba Yaga, from her vantage point on donkey-back at the forest edge, struggled to find what spell of fire was being used so she could quell it with a counterspell. But there was no magic in it, not that she could detect. Her knights, too, were being defeated, and while she hurled curses at the matchboys, tripping them or blinding them, other boys took up their matches and the flames continued to fly.

“Attack!” cried Baba Yaga. “They can’t throw flame on you if you’re close to their own knights!”

Fully half her knights remained, and hearing her command—for they all wore charms that attuned them to her voice—they saw the wisdom of what she said, and plunged forward, hacking at the boys to get them out of the way. It was the knights, it was the king of Taina that they wanted, whose blood they had to shed. The boys could taste the pain of fiery vengeance later.

And in the meantime, Baba Yaga saw, to her fury, who it was who gave commands to these fire-bearing urchins. Ivan. The man who should have died at his mother’s house, who was now defeating her spell-protected army with a troop of boys.

Well, Ivan Smetski, I have your measure. You will cease to cause this havoc.

As the knights at last came together and the clang of sword on sword rang across the field, Baba Yaga herself rode onto the field. “Ivan Smetski!” she cried. “Ivan Smetski, why do you send boys out to be killed!”

As far as she knew, not one of his boys had yet been harmed, but all she wanted was his attention, so his ears would hear her voice. What she wanted, she received: Ivan turned to look at her, his face alight with triumph as the peasant army of Taina swirled around him, rushing forward to pick at the Widow’s knights with their javelins and pitchforks, distracting them, knocking them down so King Matfei’s knights could slaughter them.

Look at me. Yes.

She called out to him again, but this time it was another name she used, and it was her voice of command, her hands moving in a spell of binding. “Itzak Shlomo! Thou art mine today, and mine always! Obey!”

She felt the connection between them form, and now she made the handsigns of command. Ivan stood helpless, motionless.

“Watch this, Itzak Shlomo. See the price of mercy.”

She turned toward the main body of knights, and waved her arms over her head. At once her appearance changed, to the face that she had worn in Dimitri’s dreams. “Now!” she cried. “Now is the time to strike the cowards and the weaklings down, so Taina can be strong again!”

Dimitri heard the command and smiled. He tipped his head back and cried out the agreed-upon command. Only a half-dozen knights were with him now, but they would be enough, for in the heat of battle they had all maneuvered to be closest to the king. They turned as one, their backs to the enemy—but Baba Yaga’s command stayed their enemies from killing them as they raised their swords to strike against the king.

In that moment, Father Lukas, grasping at once the treachery at hand, stepped forward between the king and his would-be assassins. Holding his testament before him, he cried out, “In the name of Christ, forbear!”

Dimitri’s answer was to sweep Father Lukas’s head from his shoulders with a single blow of his sword against the unarmed man.

King Matfei stood alone, except for the cripple Sergei, who held his pathetic little fire-in-a-box. Dimitri laughed and held up his bloody sword. “You dared to shame me by giving me this sword from that girl-man’s hands! See what happens to you now!”

Beside the king, Sergei held six fuses into the flame at once. They all caught. Sergei flung the match away. “Matfei, fall to the ground right now or die!” he cried. Then he tossed the grenades under the feet of the circle of treacherous knights and leapt back himself. The bombs exploded, some in the air, some on the ground; some before Sergei had fallen atop the king, and some after. The grenades that exploded at their feet tore their groins apart or shredded legs. Those who faced a bomb in midair were blinded and deafened. Either way, they had no chance to resist the true knights who struck them down at once, then turned again to face the witch’s men.

Having seen the traitors torn apart, the foe had no more taste for this affray. Baba Yaga’s screams to kill, kill, went unanswered now, for fear of the bombs was stronger than the fear of the witch. The battle was lost to her.

She saw it as the last of her army melted away, turned into individual frightened men fleeing across the meadow, trying to outrun each other so the following swords would not hack them down. The only man who stood still on all the field of battle was Ivan, who was still frozen in his place by her command.

She thought of killing him on the spot, but had a better idea. At the far end of the meadow stood her house-that-flies. She kicked at her donkey and raced for it; at the same moment, Ivan, obeying her will, also ran—faster than her mount, so he arrived before her and mounted the ladder into the metal structure. Leaving her donkey on the ground, she clambered after him, then pulled the ladder up from the inside.

Ivan stood helpless inside the airplane, watching as the witch climbed up, then dragged the ladder in. He wanted to move, to speak—more than anything, he longed to push her as she leaned over the edge, so she could break her neck on the ground outside.

But he did nothing, for his body did not respond to his will.

“Close the door!” she commanded him.

Now he
could
move, but only to comply. He tried to resist, but his efforts didn’t even slow him down. He had seen the flight attendants as they tried to close the door with him inside; he had little trouble doing what they had done, and closed the door.

Maybe there was someone outside who could figure out a way to break into the airplane. But he doubted it. He was alone here with Baba Yaga, unable to raise a hand or speak a word to defend himself. Whatever Mother’s spells were supposed to do, they were useless against this spell of binding she had cast upon him.

“Face me,” she said.

He turned and looked at her. She was hideous—not just old, but her face deformed by the malice that had driven her for years. And now her face burned with hatred for the defeat he had just inflicted on her.

“You think you beat me?” she said. “This army is nothing. I’ll have Taina tied in knots, husband slaying wife, mother killing babies, till no one is left alive, except the ones who wish that they were dead. All because of you and what you did today, with your vile magic from your terrible, mechanical land.”

Of course he could not answer.

“Ah, he wants to speak, he longs to speak. But I don’t want to hear your voice just yet.” She walked around him in a slow circle, looking him up and down. “You’re not much. What does she want with you?” Then she laughed mirthlessly. “Oh, that’s right, she didn’t choose you. Who did? That’s the question, isn’t it? Who chose you?”

Ivan wanted to answer defiantly, to utter some witticism that would prove his courage and give her something to remember and resent after he was dead. But then again, if he
could
speak, chances were his voice would tremble and betray his fear, giving her something else to mock.

“Don’t be frightened,” she whispered. He could feel her breath as she pulled herself up to get her mouth closer to his ear. “Don’t be so afraid that you piss on yourself like a baby.”

At her command, he felt his bladder release his pent-up urine down his leg.

Do you think this bothers me, Baba Yaga? It’s no worse than what happened to poor Sergei. Besides, it isn’t me doing it, it’s you.

“Whoever chose you knew how to send you to where the little bitch was napping.
I
couldn’t go there, not even with all the power of Bear. Was it that walking windstorm, that fart in a bottle, Mikola? I don’t think so. He knew, he
sensed
, he stayed near the place, but no, he didn’t find you, did he. Someone else. Someone who could look past the frailty of your body and see something useful. Something that could un- . . . do . . . my . . . army.” Her fingers clenched tightly on his arm.

“There
is
muscle there, after all. Not a swordsman’s muscles. Not even a peasant’s. But lithe. You throw things. Like those boys. You throw things.”

She was in front of him now. She slapped his face. Again. Again. Each blow staggered him, but he suddenly had enough volition, enough reflexive control, to regain his erect posture before losing control to her again. His face stung from the blows, and under the stinging on his skin, he felt a throbbing ache in his nose, around his eye. Thus it begins.

And thus it ended. She leaned back against the flight attendants’ station and contemplated him. “Finally rutted with her, did you? I heard you. I was listening, just across the street, in the house of the woman whose beloved puppy died. You were humping like bunnies. If there’s a baby inside her, I’ll show it to her before she dies.” She leaned closer, a little more alert. “That bothered you, didn’t it. You see, there’s pain . . . and there’s pain. But your pain is nothing to me. You were a tool all along. But not
my
tool. And whatever it was that whoever-it-was saw in you, I don’t see it, and I don’t have a use for you. So I don’t care what happens to you.”

He felt a relaxing in his throat. He could speak. But the words she just said gave him hope that she might let him go. And if she let him go, he might find some way to help Katerina. With that hope came silence—he didn’t want to say anything that would damage whatever chances he might have.

Of course she knew that, counted on it. She was just toying with him, of course she was. But
maybe
there was a chance.

She laughed. “You can speak, and yet you say nothing.”

All at once he felt the need to speak well up in him; he was going to say something. Anything. So to keep from saying what was in his heart, he said the first thing that came to mind. “You’ll never get this thing to fly again.”

She was interested in that. “What do you mean?”

“It needs fuel to fly. It hasn’t got much left.”

“The man who thought he was in charge said that before I let Bear eat him. Keep talking.”

“The meadow isn’t long enough. It will crash into the trees before it gets into the sky.”

“What makes you think my powers won’t be enough to make it fly? I can send it straight up in the air if I want.”

“If you could,” said Ivan, “you already would have.”

“Shut up!” she shouted. “I’m not accountable to you. I can make this house do anything I want. Do you doubt me?”

Suddenly the plane moved under him. Unable to control his body, he lurched to the floor, swiping his head against the metal face of the attendants’ station as he fell.

“Careful,” said Baba Yaga. “It’s dangerous to be standing up when this thing moves.”

The plane turned, moving this way and that, yawing left and right like a ship with a madman at the tiller. Which was more or less the way things were.

“Into the air!” she cried.

The plane sped up, but the wheels were still bouncing along the ground.

She waved her arms, again, again, each time making the movements more flamboyant.

“Careful you don’t bump into the trees,” he said.