God Within Us

Vasilisa was roused from her sleep by a gentle hand on her shoulder.

When she woke, she found she was lying beneath a heavy blanket on the floor of the riverboat. Beyond the covered hold, she saw the gray of morning playing dim along the grassy river bank of the Cherech. Having broken free from the grasp of the Gravemarsh, Oleg took control of the rudder as they drifted lightly through the night, keeping close to the banks to guide them through the darkness. Demyan had stood on watch, and it was he who roused the rest of their company, bringing the oarsmen to wake bleary-eyed and sore.

“Gods above, my arms are killing me.” complained Doru as he tried to rub the soreness out. “Surely, we must be halfway to Belnopyl by now?”

That brought a small bark of laughter from the druzhinnik Kirill. “And just how far do you think we’ve traveled, stone-chipper?”

Only a vague mumble came in reply from Doru - twenty, thirty miles?

Oleg shook his head. “It’s a hundred-and-fifty miles to Belnopyl from Rovetshi - four days, as the fish swims, but we’re no fish. I say we’ve made ten miles through yesterday, and that’s me being hopeful. Might be we can make better time with our sail up, but the wind’s a fickle bitch. So you had best pray your arms don’t pop off, good mason, ‘cause we’ll be needing ‘em for a good long while.”

Doru and the freeholders soon returned to their labor with little complaint, and the dull grey hours passed without event. Soon the trees that ran along either side of the banks began to thin, and then eventually failed altogether. By noon, the land that splayed out before them on either side of the Cherech became flat, with the western side an expanse of vast grassy plains broken by distant woods, and the east a puzzle of tributaries and bogs. Their path along the river itself became difficult once more, as the Cherech fell apart into a messy braid of bars and islands with high stone bluffs.

The only blessing in the braids of the river was that the fickle wind turned at last in their favor. Polynkin and Austeja raised the sail - a gigantic square of stiff yellowed canvas, bearing no sigils. The wind bore them on steadily through the braids of the Cherech, and Oleg’s careful eye always seemed to find the channel.

With his maille-veiled helmet laid aside, Vasilisa saw the druzhinnik driving the rudder bore an ugly scar dealt by an ax across an already ugly, pox-scarred face. Of their troop, Oleg was most at home aboard a skiff, second only perhaps to Austeja. Before he found service with Boyar Hrabr, the warrior claimed to have fought against river-pirates on behalf of a dozen different merchants bringing goods up and down the Cherech, though none of the merchants’ names were known to any in their company. Still, his steady gait on deck and his skill at navigation suggested experience enough on river, and that sufficed.

With the gentle blowing of the wind the freeholders retired for a moment’s respite. Khavel yawned loudly as he stretched his arms. “Gods, let this wind last.”

Gastya leaned over the edge of the boat and splashed his face clean in the water, sighing loudly. When the peasant went for a second rinse however, his sigh turned into a cry. “C-corpses! Dead in the water!”

Polynkin and Kirill rushed to one side of the boat and peered over the edge, and Vasilisa saw them prodding with long poles what looked like a clump of brown flotsam. When they turned it over however, a visage that was pale as milk came up to face the gray sky, broken veins bulging thick with blood.

As the two druzhinniks gaped another call came up from Oleg who was squinting past a bend in the river. “Smoke - over there!”

A thin plume of gray twisted and curled up from a spot on the western bank. After a short while, Demyan ordered Oleg to guide them carefully within eyesight of where the smoke rose, and they came into view of a smoldering ruin, and a sullied Elder Tree. A swarm of crows cawed to one another amidst the branches of the great oak, taking their feast upon the bodies swaying from the boughs or those that were splayed out by the shores of the Cherech.

Austeja’s voice came first, hushed as though she might rouse the dead. “Who could have done this?”

“Does it matter?” grunted Demyan, his face a grim mask as his eyes flicked across the ruined settlement. If there were any survivors, none dared to rear their heads up from the husk of the building. “I see no dead warriors - it could have been Khormchaks, pirates…but most like, one of our own kin.”

The land choked with corpses and ash brought to mind the image of Yerkh, and Vasilisa sensed the same memory playing out in the minds of the freeholders as they looked on dispassionately. From the tower of Balai, the entire realm of Gatchisk had been burned and bled in such fashion. She nodded at Demyan’s words. “In the south, we heard from a renegade boyar that men all across my father’s realm were taking up arms to place a crown on Prince Svetopolk’s head. This was the work of men cut from the same treachery as Stribor, more like than not.”

To that, Demyan gave a grim shake of his head. “My lady…in war, horrors are dealt out by all.”

“Of course they are,” spoke Vasilisa. She opened her mouth to speak again, but then sensed the implication in Demyan’s words. “Surely, you aren’t saying-”

“I am not,” muttered the druzhinnik. “Not entirely. But if your father’s reign is being challenged, surely not all of his boyars would declare for the north. And if it is war…then both sides will need to forage.”

Forage. There was that word again, that clean, inconsequential word for burnt homes, blackened lands, and the feast of crows upon the innocent. She had never imagined men such as those who were in her father’s court to ever be capable of such things - loud and boisterous as they were.

But then, if this is the work of rebels…then some most certainly are, came the thoughts - almost reluctantly. And if some, then why not all?War turns men into beasts, and the men of Belnopyl are no different from those of Gatchisk, or Pemil.

Vasilisa tightened her jaw, pushing down the anger and confusion she felt bubbling up in her soul. Why? Why had this all come to pass?

She sat upon a bench and looked upon the smoking ruin, searching her mind. By the time the ruin had drifted long past them all and faded into the distance once more, the drifting souls received no answer, if they even cared to listen.

The foragers will hang high - this, I promise, she thought to herself bitterly, wondering if the dead could hear her pledge. But then another thought came. But then, who will remain to fight the Dreamers? They are so many, their followers even more, and you are alone, and weak, still.

The two voices in her mind waged a bitter war of soundless words, and Vasilisa turned her face to the gray skies, wondering where those she had turned for wisdom had gone. Mariana, Ilya, her father, her mother…why were they all gone, or so distantly far, when she needed them most?

Belnopyl. Belnoypl was where her destiny lay. She pulled her eyes away from the ever-distant plume of smoke, and turned her gaze north. She imagined the high stone walls, each layer towering above the last, and the keep which sat at the peak of the great hill, the Sacred Hollows. More than ever before, she felt her heart tearing apart in yearning for home.

Home. How strange the word sounded to her, suddenly. A word equally tender as it was frightening - what lay for her back home?

What remained?

They continued drifting on by the strength of the wind until the day was nearly done, and the company kept a careful lookout for signs of horsemen or warriors tracking them along the banks. But if there were any stalkers or spies, they could not be spotted even by the discerning eyes of Austeja. The night passed without further incident, but the hanging pall of the burnt settlement made sleep hard to find all throughout the dark hours.

Vasilisa found herself lying with her eyes open beneath the sky as the others slumbered in the hold. The night was dark as ever, but the stars could still be seen through the rolling clouds. As the hanging clouds slowly pulled away to the west, they revealed tiny pinpricks of glittering gold that peered hungrily down over the world. Great strength, and great terror lay within - she outstretched a hand towards the distant heavens, and for a brief moment of wonder felt as though she could truly pull one of the lights from the speckled canvas above.

Great strength lay in the rolling heavens - strength enough to turn back the Dreamers, perhaps. Strength enough to deal justice as she willed it. Strength enough to protect all that she loved. All she needed to do was reach out a little higher, and it would be in her grasp. Just a little higher, just a little farther - the little girl on the rooftop had now become a princess aboard a ship headed for a city whose light had died, and the heavens seemed to have grown closer, yet still out of reach…

Beneath the light of the stars above, sleep claimed Vasilisa’s mind quickly. When the morning arose, the weather remained gray and overcast, and the wind that blew from the east failed. The channels grew narrower and narrower as they continued through the braids of the Cherech, careful not to run aground against one of the many high-standing bluffs of the islands dotting the river. As they passed along the western bank of the largest of the islands on their path, Vasilisa saw a tall stone tower sat atop a bluff, its ascent ringed by a wooden wall.

The tower loomed over their passage as they went by, but all was silent within - no guards emerged to call to them, no peasants or fishermen greeted them along the lower banks. As they drew slightly on, Vasilisa saw the gates of the tower’s outer wall were swung ajar, and over the wooden threshold there swayed a figure whose clothes bore the emblem of Belnopyl’s white bear. A low gasp of surprise escaped her lips, but as she turned to face Demyan who stood by the prow there came a sound from the island.

The distant twang of bowstrings cut over the lapping of the waters, and several arrows whistled out from the tower and the bushes. Vasilisa felt herself shoved to the ground with a mailed hand as Demyan threw himself between her and the oncoming iron rain with his shield raised, and the arrows fell along the boat with loud thuds of iron arrowheads against wood. One arrow struck Polynkin in the arm, and another stuck in the deck just between the freeholder Marmun’s legs, causing him to jerk back with a loud cry. The rest of the hail passed overhead, striking the water with muted plops that were drowned out by shouting all around the boat.

As she blinked the stars from her eyes Vasilisa saw several dark figures running to and fro about the island. The archers called to each other in a strange, rough tongue - like none Vasilisa had heard before.

“Pirates!” shouted Oleg as he threw on a coat of maille and an iron cap before rushing to the rudder.

“Push, push, push, you dogs!” shouted Demyan as he cleaved apart the feathered shafts stuck in his shield. “Oleg! Turn us further from the island, if you can!”

The freeholders leaned into the oars with newfound strength, pushing for their lives as more arrows whined overhead. Austeja and Kirill dragged Polynkin under the cover of the hold, and Demyan stood defiant on the open deck, his shield raised above the heads of the oarsmen. The riverboat began to cut through the water faster, oars and sail working driving them on and on, but it was not fast enough. The arrows continued to fall like rain, and they grew more accurate with every passing moment.

One arrow slipped past Demyan’s shield and struck Gastya, sending him slumping over the edge of the boat with a shaft between his shoulders. The other freeholders screamed in alarm, and all thoughts of rowing bled away with the terror as they scrambled for cover. Demyan turned to shout for the freeholders to get back to their posts when another arrow whistled past and buried itself in his leg, causing him to collapse on his side with a cry.

The archers’ calls sounded across the water, unmistakably taunting as they prepared another volley. Vasilisa rushed out as she saw them pulling fresh arrows from their quivers - hands grasped out to pull her back inside the hold, but all she felt were fingers brushing against her back. She grabbed hold of the writhing druzhinnik just as the archers loosed their next volley. The hail of arrows rose into the air, rising higher and higher until for a brief moment they were still silhouettes against the gray skies. Then they came whistling down.

Vasilisa clenched her jaw, and her heart burned with familiar strength as she looked up at the arrows whose fall seemed to slow. Whispers came to her ears, and a feeling like a pair of strong, reassuring hands upon her shoulders guided her hand up towards the iron rain. She swiped her hand through the air and felt a force like an afterimage of her will trail behind her fingers, though it was strong, like a crashing boulder. The invisible hand that followed her own struck apart the falling feathered shafts, shattering them into myriad splinters that fell soundlessly into the water.

The archers that stood on the shore gaped stupidly at the woman across the water, and in their shock Kirill emerged from the hold with a long-limbed warbow in hand. As Vasilisa helped Demyan stagger to his feet the younger druzhinnik loosed three swift arrows towards the shore, and the distant archers scrambled back and deeper inland to safety.

“We are clear!” Vasilisa shouted to the druzhinniks and the freeholders as she saw the last of the archers disappear into the bushes once more. “Hurry! Take the oars and get us out of here!”

They made what haste they could, with Demyan taking up the free oar as they dragged Gastya into the hold, the freeholder’s life essence leaving a sticky crimson trail across the deck. Soon they were free from the reaches of the island - far beyond the range of any archers - only for Vasilisa’s blood to chill as she saw, floating up from the eastern shores of the island, a long, sleek ship with red sails.

“Gods burst my guts!” cried Oleg as he turned them to keep course with the channel. “Red…they mean to kill us all - that’s a Varyazhin ship! Men from across the sea!”

Vasilisa saw large decorated roundshields hanging from the side of the ship - a dozen shields to each side, and beneath them a dozen oars that churned relentlessly through the black waters. The longship seemed as though it had broken out from the pages of the old chronicles, when Raegnald and the ancestors of the Klayzmites had themselves conquered along the Cherech from such dread ships, though now the blood bonds between the Klyazmites and the men of distant Jomne had grown feeble. For what seemed a dreadful eternity, Oleg drove them to and fro along the channels, hoping to drive the northerners against a mudbank in their pursuit, but the captain knew the Cherech as well as the druzhinnik, and the sight of the longship only grew larger and larger as it closed the distance.

“Gods, there’s too many of them…” groaned Marmun. “Twenty-four raiders - at least! Gods above - my lady, what do we do?!”

Vasilisa sucked in the chilling air through her teeth, wondering much the same. She peered carefully about the stretch of the river they now drifted along. The waters turned sharply to the west several yards on, and as they came around the bend she saw there was another rocky isle that rose up from the Cherech, splitting the current down the middle with churning foam at its base. Sharp rocks thrust out from the sheer rocky bluffs like a row of spears.

She pointed towards the oncoming rapids, “Take us through the wider channel, and tie down whatever you can! We'll brave the rapids!”

Oleg squinted at the split in the Cherech, and muttered bitterly, “My lady, the channel there is wide enough for them to cut through as well.”

“That is what I hope.”

Stroke by stroke they drew closer towards the rapids, and behind them the red sails of the northern longship disappeared around the bend. It made little difference - the dragon's head that decorated the prow peeked around the corner just as their company had made it halfway towards the split in the waters, and Vasilisa saw the Varyazi meant to follow. As the failing wind carried them closer, Vasilisa felt a jerk beneath her feet as the roiling waters began to pull their boat in towards the rapids, sending water spraying up over the edge of the vessel.

Then the channel sucked them in, and she just barely heard Austeja's cry of warning before the roar of the Cherech drowned out all else. The boat rocked violently as roiling waters battered them to and fro, jerking it this way and that like dogs fighting over a bone. The hull screeched as the waves brought them up and furiously down upon dark rocks that sat invisible amidst the foam. Austeja's knuckles were white as they clasped around the edge of the riverboat, and just barely over the rapids' roaring Vasilisa could hear her hollering directions to Oleg as he steered them against the waters' pull.

The boat groaned and strained beneath the assault of rocks and waves, the freeholders called to one another as they rowed, and water smashed down on all of them in great heavy sheets, half-drowning them on deck. Her whole world was consumed by the surging waters all around, and for a moment Vasilisa feared the northerners would simply laugh as they watched their prey smash themselves apart against the rapids in their escape. But then, suddenly, the rocking ceased, and the endless spray of foam failed.

The riverboat found purchase on a stretch of calm waters past the rapids, and as they all looked up from their weariness the company saw they had conquered the crossing. Behind them, the red sails loomed, and Vasilisa heard more rough calls sounding from the distance as the raiders drifted on. The rapids might have tossed their smaller vessel about, but the northern longship was a different beast - it's bulk was enough to ward off the worst of the battering waters, and the rocks hidden in the foam would be like tiny pinpricks against their hull. Still, the teeth at the base of the island's bluffs were danger enough, and as the northerners drew closer to the rapids Vasilisa closed her eyes.

She tasted the fear, the trepidation of the souls around her - it was a taste like no other that she felt on the tip of her tongue, and she drank it in, feeling familiar strength renewed in her heart. Her eyes were closed, yet she suddenly saw the world beyond, cast in a flickering, pale light. The trees around were like towering white flames, and the waters a beautiful swirl of silver waves and pale bubbles that looked like shining pearls. She was looking out at the Cherech, and she felt the same strength as she had in the Gravemarshes, though it was already beginning to wax and wane.

The northerners aboard the ship looked like wraiths, formed of lashing gray fire as they grunted in unison at the oars. The ship was black as pitch, like the hide of a terrible beast - the carved eyes of the dragon's head on the prow seemed to follow her as she cast her sight out. With strong, unseen hands, she grasped the dragon's head and jerked it to the side, sending the hulking beast crashing into the waiting teeth of the island with a screech.

A raucous cry came up from her side, and Vasilisa jerked her eyes open to see the death of the longship. They had smashed against the rocks, and the great vessel was nearly impaled by the stone teeth which savaged huge holes in the hull. The longship keeled over to one side, and then there was a loud snap as the mast toppled, nearly smashing the vessel in half as it came down. Screams sounded just barely over the rapids' hungry roaring as the men aboard the ship fell into the waters - some poked their heads out from the current, but most did not reappear, drowned or dashed against the hidden rocks.

When the longship surrendered to the waters and began to crumble at last, Vasilisa joined the cheering of the druzhinniks and the freeholders, and she felt Oleg nearly lift her into the air with a bear hug. The druzhinnik set her down after a moment, suddenly remembering his station, but he looked to her with awe all the same. “How? How did you know?”

Vasilisa gave no reply, unsure of what to say. Instead, she cast her eyes back to the waters, where she saw several of the Varyazi bobbing up and down along the surface of the Cherech past the rapids. One man was still alive, still fighting to keep his head up and gulping down air and water in equal measure. Vasilisa pointed the raider out to the others. “One still lives, and we need answers. Take him - if he and his were ravaging up and down the Cherech, then they must have some idea of what has come to pass in our land.”

Reluctantly, Demyan extended an oar out to the flailing northerner as Oleg pulled them closer, and the raider instantly clutched for the offered wood. With a great heave the druzhinnik captain pulled the sopping wet northerner to the deck. But before the raider could even get on all fours to retch out water, Kirill strode on and kicked the bearded man in the side, sending him sprawling onto his back. Austeja's spear - a short, ugly shaft of wood securing a leaf of iron - came out to lightly prick the northerner's throat as he sputtered and tried to rise.

Soaked to the bone and shivering, the Varyazi raider did not look so frightening.

“Who are you?” she demanded of the raider, setting aside Austeja’s spear. She slipped into the Jomnian tongue, recalling Mariana’s lessons. “Raider. Who are you?”

“Harald.” replied the Varyazhin, his voice slurred.

“Varyazi have not struck this deep into our lands since Raegnald,” Vasilisa spoke as she crouched to meet the raider’s bloodshot eyes. “Why have your people come?”

“Gold.” spoke Harald. “My jarl…we received gold, from some prince across the Shivering Seas. Some cousin or such to my jarl - he gave us gold just to bring our ships across.”

Vasilisa cursed under her breath, and the Varyazhin grinned at her. “Where did the prince call for you to strike?”

“Hvítsborg,” the raider smiled. “Raegnald’s own seat. The prince wants to become a king, and where better than the seat of the conqueror’s blood?”

“I am of the conqueror’s blood.” Vasilisa muttered as she rose up. “How many? How many does he have - Svetopolk?”

The raider kept his mouth shut. Vasilisa took Austeja’s spear, and thrust it into the bearded man’s leg, punching through and through until he was pinned to the deck. The northman howled in anguish as blood gushed from his wound, and then Vasilisa asked again.

This time, his tongue found new life. “Thousands!” the raider sobbed, his hands clenching feebly towards the spear. “Ten- fifteen! Many! We were supposed to meet with lords from the south, and march on Hvítsborg from two sides! Please….”

A cold knife of dread was twisting through her gut. So many thousands…they could not have been marshalled since she disappeared. How long had Svetopolk been planning to grant himself a crown?

“One final question,” she spoke through clenched teeth. “We passed by a settlement downriver, with an Elder Tree - an oak. It was burned. Was that your doing?”

“N-no…no…no, it was not us.” gurgled the Varyazhin. Suddenly, his eyes lit up. “Wait! Please! I know who it was! Some champion, an ulfhedinn from Hvítsborg - burning everything he could not carry back to the city!”

“What was his name?”

“I heard them speak of Ilya - that is all! Stop this pain, mercy-”

Vasilisa ripped the spear from the man’s leg, and drove it down into his lying throat. When the northerner ceased his squirming, she let go of the shaft and turned to the druzhinniks, who stood in grim silence.

“Hvítsborg…that is the northerners’ name for Belnopyl…” she managed, slipping back into the Klyazmite tongue. “An army marches on the city, thousands of men. Svetopolk wishes to take the city for his own, crown himself there.”

Vasilisa stepped away from the dead man, and looked north. The walls were ever far - too far. And somewhere, there would be war drums, banners, and marching feet to shake the world. Starving wolves falling upon the wounded bear from all directions - and they were still two days from the city.

“We cannot afford to linger any longer,” she spoke. Turning to Demyan, she beckoned him, “Set a rotation, we cannot afford rest. If we make good time through the night, we might be able to reach the walls before whatever armies Svetopolk has sent are able to cut us off.”

“What happens then?” came the druzhinnik’s reply.

“Then we fight,” she spoke, summoning iron to her voice. “Death or ruin - that was your oath.”

Demyan gave her a crooked-toothed smile. “From now until the end of days, by Heaven and Mother-Earth.”

The sails began to flutter once more in the wind, and soon they were off once again, cutting fast through the waters. Sailing ever on, and ever home.