Dancing With Bears - Michael Swanwick [124]
“Sir.Yes, sir,” Yevgeny said, vastly relieved. But then something perverse within him caused him to add, “But what of the mob, sir? Their treasonous slogans?”
“This is no time for you to be engaging in political activities.” Chortenko whipped off his glasses, revealing his buggish eyes. “You have your orders. Will you obey them?”
“I am a soldier in the service of Muscovy, sir,” Yevgeny said, feeling almost as offended as he did relieved.
“Answer the question! Yes or no?”
Yevgeny could not trust himself to speak. So, instead, he clenched his teeth and nodded.
“Then get to work.” Chortenko looked up at the servile. “Take me to the Alexander Garden and then, after you have dropped me off, return to the coach house and rub down the horses.”
The carriage left. Yevgeny stared after it in astonishment. Then he turned back to his crew. “Well? Get a move on. We’ve got a fire to fight.”
They did.
Arkady was trudging down a narrow and lightless street, hoping against hope that it would soon open into a road that would take him to the Kremlin, when he realized he was not alone. There were footsteps matching his, stride for stride.
He broke into a trot. So did the second set of footsteps. He started to run. So did they. And then—disaster! The doorless and windowless wall of a brick building loomed up before him. He had come to the blind end of a cul-de-sac.
As Arkady stumbled to a stop, the other footsteps did the same. An echo? He almost laughed. Of course. It could be nothing else. Arkady’s heart was pounding so hard he feared it would rip free of his chest. He found himself gasping for air. In the darkness, somebody matched him wheeze for wheeze.
“It’s just an echo,” he said aloud to reassure himself. “Nothing more.”
“. . . just an echo. Nothing more.” The voice came from directly behind him. “Or is it?”
He shrieked, and was seized from behind. Arms and legs wrapped themselves about his arms and chest, rendering him helpless. Arkady’s knees almost buckled under the weight of a human body. “Sssssso!” a witchy voice whispered into his ear. “You’re not afraid of the dark, are you? Not afraid of the ancient thing from the graveyard, don’t believe in the night hag, think you can’t be ridden, eh?” Crisp teeth nipped his earlobe. It stung so sharply that Arkady knew the bite had drawn blood. “You know for a fact that your flesh is too bitter for my taste? You find it hard to believe that I’d like to break open your skull and eat your brains?” The hag’s limbs tightened about Arkady like the coils of an anaconda. “You’re absolutely sure I wouldn’t crush you dead if you disobeyed my orders?”
He couldn’t breathe! Arkady found himself panicking. Then the hag loosened her grip. “Breathe in, boy. Savor the air. That’s Baba Yaga’s gift to you. Now thank me for it, as politely as you know how.”
Arkady gulped in the air, genuinely grateful, absolutely terrified. “Thank you, Baba Yaga. For letting me breathe.”
But wasn’t Baba Yaga a fairy-tale creature? A figure out of myth? Of course she was. So what was this thing on his back?
“Tonight you are my steed,” Baba Yaga said. “Don’t try to escape me.” (As if he could!) “If you turn around to look at my face, I’ll gouge out your eyes and suck their juices.” (As if he wanted to see her!) “Now run. Run like the wind, and if we don’t get where we’re going fast enough…well, the horse that can’t run can always be rendered down for glue.”
Bony heels dug into his flanks.
Arkady couldn’t actually run, but he did manage to achieve a trot, which seemed to satisfy the madwoman on his back for the nonce. “Where are we going?” he asked fearfully.
“To our destination.”
“And where’s that?”
Baba Yaga laughed wildly. Then she seized a mouthful of Arkady’s hair with her teeth and ripped it out by the roots.
He screamed and ran.
The crowds exploded into sheer noise when the troika entered the Alexander Garden before the west wall of the Kremlin.