“Not at present,” said Vasya coldly. “It’s just food.” She gave him a scowl and resumed chewing.

“Why?” he asked.

She had no answer. She hated his wantonness, his cruelty, his laughter, and hated it even more because something of her own nature called out in answer. Perhaps that was why. She could not hate him, for to do so would be to risk hating herself. “You have not betrayed me yet,” said Vasya at last.

“As you say,” said the Bear. But he still sounded puzzled. Holding her gaze, he ate. Then he shook himself and smiled down chillingly at the sleeping encampment, licking his fingers. Vasya, reluctantly, rose and went to join him. “I don’t know about mold, little mushroom,” said the Bear to Ded Grib. “But fear leaps between men like sickness. Their numbers won’t help with that. Come, let us begin.”

Ded Grib gave the Bear a frightened look. He had put his bread away; now he said tremulously to Vasya, “What do you want me to do?”

She brushed the crumbs from her shirt. A little food had restored her, but now a fearful night’s work loomed.

“If you can—blight their bread,” said Vasya, and turned away from the Bear’s grin. “I want them hungry.”

Down they went into the sleeping encampment, foot by foot. Vasya had wrapped rags around the faint shimmer of gold on her arms. Her knife or the Bear’s claws tore the boxes and bags of the army’s food, and where Ded Grib plunged his hands, the flour and meat began to soften and stink.

When Ded Grib seemed to have the idea, she left him and the Bear to creep unseen among the tents of Mamai, spreading terror and rot in their wake. For her part, she slipped down to the river to call the vodianoy of the Don.

“The chyerti have made an alliance with the Grand Prince of Moscow,” she told him, low. When she had related all her tale, she then persuaded him to raise the river so that the Tatars would not sleep dry.

THREE NIGHTS LATER THE TATAR army was in disarray along its length, and Vasya hated herself anyway.

“You can’t kill any of them asleep,” she told the Bear, when he sniffed, grinning, at a man who thrashed in the grip of a nightmare. “Even if they can’t see us, it’s not…” She trailed off, with no words for her revulsion. Medved surprised her by shrugging and stepping back.

“Of course not,” he said. “That is not the way. An assassin in the dark can be fought, can be found, and killed. Fear is more potent still, and people fear what they can’t see, and don’t understand. I will show you.”

God help her, he had. Like some foul apprenticeship, she walked with the Bear through the Tatar camp and together they spread terror in their wake. She set fires in wagons and tents, made men scream at half-glimpsed shadows. She terrified their horses, though it hurt her to see them wild-eyed and running.