Dancing With Bears - Michael Swanwick [133]
Even for her, however, doing so was a prodigious feat. When at last Baba Yaga topped the wall, she was gasping with exertion and sweat rolled freely down her face.
She was mopping her forehead with the bandanna when a man’s voice said, “One of your creatures has arrived, demon.”
“Not one of mine,” a machine-voice replied.
“Should I kill her, then?”
“You are a zealot and your delusional beliefs would make her death mean nothing to you. The pleasure of this woman’s death is mine.”
Even as they spoke, however, Baba Yaga was pulling the cork from her bottle and cramming the bandanna deep down its neck. “I am terror and Old Night,” she said. A box of matches appeared magically in the palm of one hand. “I am the fear you cannot name. I am she who cannot be placated. If you think you can kill me, you are welcome to try.”
“All things are possible with God’s help.” The first speaker held a klashny, but he did not raise it to his shoulder. Not yet. Baba Yaga recognized him by his clothing. He was a strannik, a worshipper of the White Christ, and doubtless the one she sought. The White Christ did not frighten Baba Yaga any more than did the Red Odin or even the Black Baal. She was old, old beyond human reckoning, older than language and older than fire. She had coalesced in the darkness that came before the gods. When the first sacrifice had been laid upon the first altar she had been there to snatch it away from its intended recipient. When first ape-man had been killed by an envious brother, it was she who had guided the murderer’s hand.
The strannik stood watching, doing nothing. The real danger came from the machine-creature crouched at his feet. It launched itself at her in a silver blur.
Baba Yaga set fire to the rag stuck in the bottle. She had time to do so, she reckoned. It would take a good three-quarters of a second for the demon to reach her.
When it did, she side-stepped the creature and smashed the bottle on its back.
The underlord went up in flames.
Burning, it spun about and tried to seize her in its arms and metal jaws. But Baba Yaga knew a trick worth two of that. She reached into the flames and, grabbing the man-wolf by its ankles, flipped it over.
The underlord would have fallen on its back had the fight not occurred at the very lip of the rampart. Instead, it fell with a long electronic wail down the side of the Kremlin, burning all the way to the ground. When it hit the stones of Red Square, its screech stopped abruptly. Though it continued to burn, it did not move.
Baba Yaga turned to the man in black. “You are a strannik,” she said. “There were three of you.”
“There still are.”
“You think so?” From one pocket, Baba Yaga drew a gobbet of flesh. She threw it at Koschei’s feet. “I tore that from the one called Chernobog.” She dipped her hand into another pocket. “Him I ran into by chance and oh but he was hard to kill! So hard that I simply had to have more. Before he died, he told me where I could find Svarožič.” A second hunk of meat joined the first with a wet thud. “He also was great fun. And he, in turn, told me where I could find you.”
“Lying bitch!” Koschei said. “Svarožič cut into his own brain to ensure that he would never break his vow of silence.”
Baba Yaga laughed and laughed. “You’d be surprised how much information can be conveyed by gestures, given the proper motivation.”
Koschei got off one shot before Baba Yaga tore the klashny from his hands and threw it over the side, after the underlord. He tried to punch her in the stomach, but she ducked his blow and yanked his feet out from under him. He fell flat upon his back.
“Show some spunk, pilgrim! Get up and fight.” BabaYaga stamped down three times, hard, where Koschei’s face had been,