4. Four

Ryurikov sat upright and watched in detachment as two children rolled off him and crashed to the ground. Three of the shits had successfully joined him, and he hadn’t even noticed. Children, ugh. This was exactly why he didn’t trust them, they were too damned sneaky.

He tugged his cloak out from under the one still snoozing, swung his legs off the bed, stepped over the two now crying, and walked out of the hut.

It was dawn, the crow of the rooster betraying his departure.

“Sir?”

His foot barely lifted to take the first step away. “What is it?”

“Where are you headed?” asked Andrew behind him.

“To find me a witch.” Foot still raised, Ryurikov pivoted to face him. “Don’t suppose you’ve seen the Jezibaba?”

Those eyes widened. “She steals children and eats them.”

“I know. Any of yours gone missing?”

“No, sir. We see treetops moving and we run to hide.”

So, Jezibaba could be spotted even from here. He lowered his foot. “How often?”

“Once every fortnight.” Andrew stepped closer, his look admiring. “Are you going to hunt her down?”

Ryurikov backed away. He didn’t have the patience to deal with fawning. “When’s the last time you saw her?”

“A little over a week ago, sir.”

“Good to know.” That meant he wouldn’t have time to head for the nearest town to liberate a few fine folks of their weapons. Fuck. “Good-day.”

In a whirl of his cloak, Ryurikov walked off, back to the forest. He moved through the trees, his footfalls silent, passed by the gaudy carriage now abandoned, the horses gone and two bodies still there.

Not a frequented road, then.

It had taken him a long time to learn the signs of Jezibaba’s whereabouts. Subtle dustings of dirt and concentrations of worms and glittering beetles, sprinkled down from uprooted trees serving as the hut’s foundation. The tree-legs left no other traces, somehow broke nothing in their path, and it could only be heard when a coin-toss away. If what Andrew said was true, then it would be another few days until she showed herself.

Ryurikov made do with berries and edible mushrooms found along the way, drank from brooks and stopped only to catch his breath. He’d put too much into finding Jezibaba the first time to let up now.

The sun passed him overhead. Dipped low again, and nightfall came. He didn’t bother with a fire, slept in the hollow of a tree while ignoring the odd sense of being watched. He got up before daybreak and carried on. Three days passed in quick succession without so much as a trace of the hag.

Ryurikov took refuge in a deep gully, back resting against cool stone overgrown by moss and tiny white flowers attracting glowants. He lowered his hood to wipe damp hair from his forehead, taking a moment to breathe. With the dawn of summer, the days grew ever warmer.

His eyes closed, and his mind drifted to long flowy hair. Coppery like his own, a smile much like his own, and eyes hazel the way his used to be. He reached out to hold a pale hand, looked into a hazy field of freckles—so much like his own.

The smile was sweet. It blossomed into pure happiness, then kept curling up. Until it twisted into a massive grin, stretching past the blurred face. Fiery hair churned, morphing with the grin into a monstrous, featherless bird, opening its elongated, bone-like beak to reveal long, blood-stained teeth.

Ryurikov awoke with a start.

He was still in the gully, the sun had barely shifted, light dappling the otherwise shaded earth. A frown worked itself across his brows. His sleep was rarely troubled. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he had a nightmare. With a grunt, he pushed upright to dust off the green glowants wandering across his arm, and froze.

Down the gully’s other end stood Awimak.

Gigantic. Incredible coiled horns reaching well past the height of the earthy walls on either side, sunlight grazing the rough, bark-like texture. If Awimak had a face, a skull hid it. Deer, he thought, although it looked more sinister than that.

The demon was watching him.

Skin prickling with fear, Ryurikov took a step back. Awimak remained where he stood, yet there was a sound—an arrhythmic skreigh and crunch. A colossal shadow slipped over the demon, hiding him in full. Tree-legs trudged along the top edges of the gully, passed him over, and Ryurikov spun on his heel to catch up.

He scaled the walls, kicked up and latched onto a rough tree-leg, digging his fingers into the bark with enough force to hurt. Branches lashed him, a sharp pain along his cheek had him jerking away. His heart dropped out every time his boots slipped. He grabbed hold of yet more offshoots to climb. Back up the colossal trees, he jumped to reach the first of the steps, no more graceful than before.

Ryurikov stood facing Jezibaba’s hut. Slender trees made up its framework, walls of wattle and ancient daub, overgrown by leaves and ivy. It had at least four floors, stacked haphazardly atop the main structure, none of the windows alike.

Staring at the arched front door tucked under the porch, Ryurikov gave himself a moment to consider how he would approach the hag. A sword hadn’t saved him the first time, his dagger—an even shorter blade—would do nothing. With a click of his tongue, he lifted the hood back over his head and knocked, gently.

“You again?” asked the witch, her voice stentorian, all around him.

“Me again,” he confirmed.

“Adamant about that mirror.”

Ryurikov cocked his head. “Indeed.”

Astonishingly, the front door swung open with a drawn-out squeak, but there was no hag to greet him.

This was obviously a trap, but he hadn’t gotten this far by shying from danger.

He stepped inside.

His boots scuffed across old woven rugs, the hut’s interior cramped with bookcases, shelves riddled with dirty bottles, and bundles of herbs hung from beams. Ryurikov ducked around bone chimes and empty bird cages, sidestepped plants, making his way to the large hearth. Its fire roared hot, flames licking at a cauldron of what smelled like stew. Real stew.

“Hungry?”

His gaze flicked to the old woman whom he was fairly sure hadn’t been standing in the back of an untidy kitchenette before now. Sunlight pouring in through the paned window turned her silver hair yellow, stacked haphazardly atop her head with various braids, a thin, patterned scarf holding it all together. She hobbled closer. The red tunic wasn’t long enough to cover knobbly knees, let alone the grim feet with long blackened nails. Ryurikov stepped away, ankle knocking into the rocking chair nearby. Ouch.

“My name is Andrey.” Manners. They were everything, even if he was lying. They had gotten him inside, they might keep him alive, too.

“That wasn’t my question.” Jezibaba looked up at him with odd, inhuman eyes.

“I am hungry, but that’s not why I’m here.”

“Yes, yes, the mirror. Upstairs.”

Ryurikov squinted at her. “First you try to kill me because I want it, now you’re inviting me to take it?”

“I didn’t try.” She held out an old, gnarly hand and wiggled her fingers. Brown smoke wafted from the tips, swirling around her palm, growing ever more dense until it formed a solid, wooden bowl. “I did kill you.”

Ah. “Not very well, as you can see.”

He shimmied his hips for emphasis.

Jezibaba’s lizard eyes flicked back up to him. She hummed, filling the bowl with rich-smelling stew before holding it out to him. “You can look. That’s all you want, isn’t it? So look, if it’ll help sate your curiosity and get you out of my hair.”

Ryurikov would have pointed out that he was the least of her worries, when the hag had beetles crawling around her silvery hair, but chose not to. He took the bowl and failed not to jump when a wooden spoon materialised inside it. “Upstairs, you said?”

“Door to the left.”

He barely kept from running up the rickety staircase, taking the steps two at a time with ease. Past the bedimmed landing, he pushed into a room choked with lit candles, a cluttered desk and even more plants. A large, stained glass window featured an intricate image of three birds and trees, but it was the round mirror floating midair in the back that got all his attention. He set the bowl down on the desk among books and papers, and approached.

It was a simple enough mirror, its frame silver, repetitive details grimy. He supposed he didn’t have to steal it, when he could get his answer in this place as well as any other. Hesitantly, Ryurikov lowered his hood and pushed down the scarf. Ghostly eyes stared back, scouring his scarred image, waiting for the mirror to show him what he needed it to.

All Ryurikov saw, however, was himself, becoming visibly angry.

“Not who you were expecting?”

He swiftly concealed his face again before regarding the hag. “This is the wrong mirror.”

Jezibaba hobbled further into the room, grabbed the bowl of stew and held it out to him. “So you weren’t after the Mirror of the Lost?”

He frowned. “If this is it, then it’s not working. All I see is myself.”

The hag hummed again, wrinkles fanning her eyes while she peered up at him. “What could that possibly mean?”

Framed like a question, but it wasn’t.

He narrowed his eyes. “I’m not lost.”

“Eat.”

Ryurikov took the bowl and sat down in the chair by the desk with a frustrated sigh. He glanced down at the chunky pieces of vegetables swimming in a thick broth, but all hunger had vanished, replaced by a deep-seated resentment. It hadn’t occurred to him that the one thing he’d believed in would fail.

Jezibaba drew toward the mirror and stood on her toes to look into it. Then she tutted and turned, the teeth and bones strung around her neck rattling. She dug around an old chest on the floor nearby, filled with twill, rusty tools, and tiny cauldrons, and produced a pair of scissors along with a spool of blue thread.

“You…use the mirror to find things,” Ryurikov said flatly.

“My organised chaos is less organised than I’d prefer.” Jezibaba idly snipped the scissors. “What was it you were hoping to see?”

Ryurikov busied himself eating in response. Polishing off the stew took little time, the earthy flavours a welcome change from the tart berries he’d been surviving on. He didn’t let Jezibaba watching him eat bother him and set the bowl back down, a singular mushroom slice stuck against its side.

Another glance at the mirror.

“It’ll only show you the same thing.”

“It might not.”

Ryurikov stood, intending to look again, but his stomach cramping had him doubling over. He steadied himself with a hand on the desk, eyes widening in horror. Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck.

The unsteady thumps of his footfalls became hollow echoes as he staggered out of the room, cold sweat dampening his clothes. His foot caught on something. He hurtled face first down the stairs, knocked his elbow and head along the way, before reaching the bottom to roll across the floor and ending in a pathetic heap.

A stream of pink drool slipped from his mouth in his struggle to push back upright. His stomach twisted and clenched, the pain pulling an agonised moan out of him. In the distance, he heard the creak of stairs, the sound of bare feet walking past him, of Jezibaba opening the front door.

Ryurikov didn’t know why he was trying to escape, when he was dead either way. On his hands and knees he crawled outside, grabbed hold of the balustrade and hoisted himself up with pained grunts.

Swaying leaves became an unbearable racket, each crunch and crack of walking trees like a thunderclap. Over it all, the croak of Jezibaba’s voice.

Too loud, too clear, “Let this be the last time we meet, Ryurikov of the fallen Thuidal Kingdom.”

A foot connected with his back, sent him flying forward, and down to the forest floor.