The Bear said nothing.

The Tatar army was out of sight, but still close enough to smell. Even bone-tired, irritable with damp, she was oppressed by the sheer weight of their numbers. She had promised Oleg magic, but she didn’t know if there was enough magic in the world to give Dmitrii his victory.

“Do you know what you are going to say to my brother, when the snow falls?” asked the Bear, still looking at the sky.

“What?” she said, jolted by the question.

“His power will be waxing now, as mine is waning. You can bind me with threats and promises, but soon”—the Bear sniffed the air—“very soon, you’re going to have to face the winter-king. Do you mean to threaten him?” The Bear smiled slowly. “I’d like to see you try. Oh, he will be so angry. I enjoy this world: the ugliness and the beauty, and meddling in the doings of men. Karachun does not.” The Bear winked at her. “For your sake he spent his strength, went into Moscow, fought me in summer, against his nature. But then you turned around and freed me. He will be very angry.”

“What I say to him is not your concern,” said Vasya coldly.

“It most certainly is,” said Medved. “But I can wait. I like surprises.”

She’d had no murmur of the winter-king since he left her in Moscow. Did Morozko know she’d set his brother free? Would he understand why? Did she? “I am going to sleep,” she said to the Bear. “You are not to betray me or draw attention to us or use someone else to draw attention to us, or awaken me, or touch me, or—”

The Bear laughed and lifted a hand. “Enough, girl, you’ve already exhausted my imagination. Go to sleep.”

She gave him one more narrow-eyed look, and then she turned over. The Bear reasonable, laughing, was much more dangerous than the beast in the clearing.

SHE WAS AWAKENED, a little before daybreak, by a scream. Heart hammering, she lurched to her feet. The Bear was peering through the trees, looking quite untroubled. “I was wondering when they were going to notice,” he said without looking round.

“Notice what?”

“That village there. I imagine most of the villagers took what they could and fled, with the army camped so close. But—someone didn’t. And your Tatars are tired of mare’s milk.”

Vasya, feeling sick, crossed to his vantage point.

It was only a tiny village, hidden in a fold of the land, sheltered by great trees. It probably would have gone unnoticed, had the Tatars not been roaming for food to fill their bellies. Even she hadn’t seen it.

She wondered if the Bear had.

But now it was afire in a dozen places.

Another scream, smaller and thinner now. “Pozhar,” said Vasya. The mare sidled up to her, huffing unhappily; for once she made no objection when Vasya vaulted to her back.