“Where is Sasha now?” Vasya demanded of Dmitrii.

“Gone to the monastery for Sergei, of course,” said the Grand Prince. “I sent him as soon as the priest went mad. A good thing too. Yon’s the work of holy men, not warriors; we’re going to die if we don’t get help.” He said this quite matter-of-factly: a general weighing his force’s chances. But then his narrow-eyed gaze found Konstantin, who was standing motionless beside the Bear’s hulking shadow. There was death in it. The dead took no notice of the priest.

“I knew the priest was up to something, the way he harped on my cousin’s wickedness,” said Dmitrii. He took off another dead thing’s head, speaking in grunts. “I had Sasha thrown in prison just to draw Konstantin out. When I went down to see him, Sasha told me everything. In the nick of time too. I thought the priest a bit of a charlatan. But I never would have thought—”

To Dmitrii, it looked as though Konstantin were doing it all himself, controlling the dead. He couldn’t see the Bear. Vasya knew better. She could see Konstantin’s face tormented in the flashes of lightning; she could see the Bear’s too, ferocious, joyful, indomitable.

Vasya said, “I must get to Konstantin. He is standing beside the devil that is causing all this. But I cannot cross the dooryard alive.”

Dmitrii pursed his lips. But he did not speak. After a brief pause, he nodded once, turned and began giving his men crisp orders.

“YOU HAVE NO POWER over the dead,” whispered the voice of the dvorovoi in Konstantin’s ear. Konstantin barely flinched at the sound, so lost was he in horror. “But you have power over him.”

Slowly, Konstantin turned. “Do I?”

“Your blood,” said the dvorovoi, “will bind the devil. You are not powerless.”

VASYA’S NOSE WAS FULL of the smell of earth and rot and dried blood. The air was full of hissing rain and shuffling footsteps. The whole scene was illuminated luridly by a flash of lightning. She could hear Olga, still protected by the ring of men, praying softly and continuously.

There was a terrible blaze of blue-white light in Morozko’s face, his hair plastered to his skull with the rain; he did not look human. She could see the stars of the forest beyond life reflected in his eyes. She seized his arm, as he passed near the ring of men. He rounded on her. For a moment, the full weight of his strange power, his endless years, looked out at her from his gaze. Then a little humanity bled back into his face.

“We have to get to the Bear,” said Vasya.

He nodded; she wasn’t sure he could speak.

Dmitrii was still giving orders. To Vasya he said, “I am splitting the men in two. Half will stay with the princess. The other half will form a wedge, and cut across the dooryard. Do what you can to help us.”