The Shining Falcon

Chapter Xll Leshiye

You could only live with fear so long, thought Maria, whether it was fear of capture or of starvation, before it stopped being fear and changed to something else entirely. Hopelessness, perhaps. She glanced to her father, laboring behind Brownie with the plow, breaking up the newly thawed soil, his face as carefully empty of thought as any serfs. By now, they dared believe the winter had passed them by and left them alive. And it seemed pretty clear that even if Svyatoslav's men were still looking for them after so long, they weren't going to be found. But Danilo had never quite come back from the grim, hungry time, slipping little by little into his own dour world, a world as remote from reality as any of Vasilissa's wild fantasies of forest demons waiting to pounce. Maria sighed, looking down at her work-roughened hands without really seeing them. She'd hoped the dawning of spring would help Lissa. Instead, those demons were becoming more and more real to her; the young woman stumbled through the day as though shrouded in gloom, and there was seldom a night in which she didn't wake sobbing or screaming.

If only I could get through to her. Yes, and poor father, too.

But Maria sadly suspected that the only cure for them would be a return to their former life. And that seemed about as likely as an angel descending from Heaven.

Enough of this, Maria told herself. At least we've got a

house and a garden, and that's a good deal more than we might have had.

She bit her lip. If only she didn't always have to be the brave one! If only, just for a short time, there were someone else, someone on whom she could lean! A muffled oath from her father made Maria look up. He was wrestling with Brownie, trying to mend a snapped rein. Before Maria could move to try to help him, Vasilissa, who'd been hanging wash on an improvised line, gave a wail of anguish. Maria whirled to her, thinking her sister must have hurt herself. But no, Lissa, helpless as ever, had only managed to drop the end of the line into the dirt.

«Oh, Lissa," Maria scolded, «I just washed those clothes!» She stopped with a sigh. «Lissa, girl, stop crying. It's only an accident. Lissa, stop it!»

«If‑if only you'd help me…» her sister began plaintively.

«Never mind that!» Danilo cut in angrily. «Maria, come here and hold Brownie for me!»

Maria started forward, only to trip over the spilled basket of laundry. Vasilissa gave a new, despairing wail, Danilo uttered a short, sharp oath, and Maria, who'd found herself standing in one place, turning from father to sister to father again, gave a sudden wild cry of despair.

«Father, you know you can handle Brownie alone! Lissa, you just pick up that line and retie it yourself. I'm going to get us some water!»

She snatched up the buckets and fled.

Maria let out a slow sigh of relief. Ah, the quiet, the wonderful forest quiet. Nothing around her but tree rustlings and the stirrings of small animals and birds. Surrounded by new leaves and ancient, slow vegetable life, she sat on the trunk of a fallen tree, and sagged, letting the vast, nonhuman, impersonal forest peace sweep through her, flooding her till she felt drained of all petty human cares. That there was danger in the forest, Maria admitted, even without those nebulous demons her sister conjured‑danger from bandits or bears. But she wasn't going to worry about mat. The forest seemed to be one great living being, and if it wasn't actually welcoming her, at least it wasn't trying to drive her away. It asked nothing of her, nothing at all, and Maria sat where she sat and revelled in its simple… neutrality.

But, decided the young woman reluctantly, she supposed she'd better be getting back. Her father would start to worry if she was away too long.

Slowly she got to her feet, bending to pick up the wooden yoke with the two water buckets, then straightening, lingering a moment to breathe in the sharp, spicy greenness of the air.

And then a loud, harsh clang cut into the quiet. Maria froze in alarm, then winced as she realized it had been the cruel sound of a trap snapping shut. She didn't begrudge hunters their need to earn a living, but she couldn't help hoping that whatever was snared had been killed outright, mercifully.

But what was that faint, terrified sound like sobbing?

That's the voice of a child!

The thought of the cruel strength of those iron jaws made Maria fling down the yoke and go racing toward the frightened sobbing.

«Where are you? Little one, I'm coming to help you. Where are you?»

The sobbing had stopped abruptly, as though some little wild thing, trapped, was trying desperately not to attract attention to itself.

«Oh, please, please, don't be afraid of me! I'm not going to hurt you! I only want to help you, child. Let me know where you are.»

There, now, if she stood still, she could vaguely make out something, the faintest of muffled whimperings… Following that slight sound, Maria pushed through a tangle of bushes that somehow didn't seem to be hindering her— almost as though the forest knew she meant well. No, that's ridiculous!

But there before her was the savage shape of the hunter's trap, and firm in its shut jaws was a small, trembling bundle.

«Oh, poor little one! Let me see…» The small form pulled sharply away from her, one pudgy-fingered hand over its face in fright, but not before

Maria, falling back on her haunches in disbelief, had gotten a good look at the childish body and face. Childish, yes—but certainly not a human child! Slowly the stubby hand fell. Wild, dark eyes peered up at her, echoing the forest's own wildness, peered up out of a snub-nosed, triangular, green-furred face, not quite fox, not quite boy.

«Oh," said Maria. «Well. I, uh, I don't know who you are, child» — or what, she added silently — «but I still do mean to help you.»

The terrible iron jaws had miraculously not crushed the child between them. In fact, the child didn't seem to be more than bruised, protected from genuine harm by the way its baggy, furry caftan—fur over fur? thought Maria wildly—had chanced to bunch up to form a cushion.

«You were fortunate, ah… child. Wait, now. There's usually some sort of release lever to these things, a hunter showed me that once when he stopped at our house, and— ah! There we are!»

The child was up and away in a silent rush of motion. And Maria could have sworn she saw the bushes hastily part to let it pass.

«Oh, now, that's impossible!» she said aloud.

«Not so.»

It was a woman's voice. Or… almost a woman's voice. Maria spun wildly, trying to locate the sound. And then she stopped, staring. This time the bushes did part, of their own accord, and a figure moved silently forward to stop just before the young woman. And if the child had been only remotely akin to humanity, this being was so alien— No, here in the forest, she, Maria, was the alien, and this one was part of the forest's own wild soul. Small and lithe, her green-furred form covered by the folds of a loose animal-skin caftan, the being shifted her weight from foot to foot with the unconscious grace of a wild thing, watching Maria from a narrow face as keen of feature as that of a fox. She had the sharp, not unpleasant smell of a wild thing to her, too. And she had horns, neat little goat horns.

Suddenly Maria remembered one of the old tales she loved so well. Fantastic as it might seem, the tale had just come to life before her eyes!

«Leshiye!» she gasped. «That's it! You're one of the leshiye, the lords of the forest!»

Mischief flickered in the dark eyes. «I am lisunka," she corrected in a voice that sounded both human and animal. «My husband is the leshy‑lord of this forest.»

«I see.» Maria, remembering just how alien these odd folk were said to be, how full of strange humors and rages, began to wonder uneasily if her deed of goodwill was going to wind up being the end of her. But when she curtseyed politely to the lisunka, the being only laughed, the rustling of leaves in wind.

«No, human-girl, no. We have nothing to do with the narrow human ways you call courtesy.» She stirred herself, listening. «My husband comes. He is not so easy with human-folk as I. Stand, and watch, and say nothing.»

Maria had no intention of disobeying. She saw nothing but a deeper shadow among the forest shadow, she heard nothing for a time but a bewildering series of sounds that were like no language she'd even imagined. But then the leshy said, quite clearly, «You have saved our child. Human-girl, the forest is in your debt.»

That sounded so portentous that Maria could only stammer, «But I didn't—I mean, I'm glad I was able to help the little one, and I'm glad he—uh—she? — uh—wasn't hurt. But all I did was release a lever. Surely you could have — "

«We could not. The trap was of cruel, deadly iron. We could not touch it. And the child would have slowly died. The forest is in your debt, human-girl. We shall honor that debt someday, when most you need it.»

Suddenly, bewilderingly, the leshy laughed—and that sound wasn't even remotely human. «But now, human-girl, go home. Go home before the night comes! Go home!»

There was a wild rush of wind, a shaking and lashing of the, branches that made Maria shield her face with her arms—and the leshy was gone.

«Go home, eh?» Maria echoed. «Believe me, I intend to!»

But even through her fear and bewilderment, a sense of sheer, joyous wonder warmed her all through the rest of that day, and through the long, wearisome days that followed. The leshiye are real. Magic is still alive in the world!