YAGA | ✓

FOURTEEN

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AT THE SIGHT OF THE VILLAGE looming up on the horizon, Dimitri's heart did a strange flip inside his chest, a mixture of dread and joy, fear and reverence. It seemed strange returning to it like he had so many times before, with Ivko's hooves clip-clopping on the fallen leaves, their once-bright red and orange hues now reduced to a withered brown.

When they'd left, wives had prayed, the few men too old or weak to go murmuring wishes of luck and the gods' guidance.

But now, as they returned, they found no crowd awaiting them, no messengers in sleek furs running from house to house to let the villagers know. Salovo was empty, feeling more like the bones of a village than its heart and soul.

Dimitri shivered, knuckles white against his skin as Ivo drew closer to the gates. Just as he'd been readying himself for the moment that they finally entered, the horse froze, before raising his legs and neighing with alarm. His blood ran cold as he slipped off the saddle, landing with a slight thump on the hard ground.

He'd been the first out of them all to reach Salovo, the lone horseman.

Around the gates, there was a cluster of what seemed to be chickens, all motionless. Dimitri bit his lip, teeth grinding.

His heart raced.

A dark red line was across each of their throats, dripping steadily onto the wilted grass. Their open eyes were black, dead and soulless.

"Radko!" he recalled the name of his friend, who had been riding behind him. For a moment he waited, stomach churning, half-expecting for the corner to turn to reveal Radko's throat slit, too.

A rush of gratitude coursed through him as he realised this was not the case, Radko's familiar bulky figure emerging from the dense darkness of the pine trees around, the morning's bleak light illuminating the heavy crook of his nose.

Salovo was a secluded place, hidden by heavy forests on one side, with the other opening to typical Lyovan countryside - rolling green-grey hills, framed with craggy peaks and a sunless white sky.

Clouds blocked out the light, the heavy canopy of trees making it even dimmer as the two young men gingerly walked forward. Radko's tan skin was paled, whatever drunken laughter he'd had in his eyes before now replaced with vacancy and terror.

Yaga had been with them all the time - and those chickens certainly hadn't been there when they'd left. No, this couldn't have been the work of witches, which somehow made it worse. Dimitri desperately tried to think of another suspect, one that wouldn't jeopardise the slim line of protect that he'd established for the villagers.

He'd become somewhat of a leader, but shifting the blame onto one of them would only erase that trust and anger them further. He was supposed to keep them safe from the spirits of death that had soaked into the ground, but he'd failed.

Miserably so.

And so, every night as he lay in bed, whether it was with the hungry mouth of the forest engulfing him, or at home with nothing but the sound of glasses clinking and crickets chirping around him, a hauntingly familiar face would glare back from the darkness.

His father's presence, ever demanding and dominating, even in death. Even as his spirit barely lingered, Dimitri could feel the hate that his father radiated, for his son, for the witches that had snapped the spine of his beloved village.

The night of his death kept him awake at night, remembering the sickening bend of the trees as they'd collapsed, unnatural. All with the twitch of her fingers, as if they were just feeble sticks, snapped.

Along with a few dozen people's necks, so easily, as if it were nothing.

Almost everyone in Salovo was in mourning, for a husband or a daughter or a cousin, to nothing but blood and bone. In small towns like those, everyone knew everyone, and everyone had played some part in the witchhunts in some way or other. Their lives had all been stolen away by the wrong thief -- time was supposed to take them all, not Yaga.

Radko cleared his throat, plunging Dimitri back into the grim reality. The pupils in his friend's already dark eyes had dilated, making his eyes completely black pits. Dimitri shuddered once more, fist around one of the chicken's bodies as he inspected it.

"Just one slash each. Not too much blood." His voice was gravelly, desperately trying to keep it level. His bones rattled as he slowly placed the corpse back into the ground.

Radko rubbed his gloved palms together, heavy brows furrowed. "Is it possible there are more of them, undiscovered yet?"

Though he didn't use the word, Dimitri knew exactly what he meant. Them - the witches. He couldn't tell whether Radko was avoiding the word as if it might summon them, or whether it was out of respect for Yaga.

Either way, he was mirroring Dimitri's thoughts. He would never admit it, not to anyone here at least, but he kept wishing that he would wake up one day to find himself beneath the old willow in the field behind his house, his father in his study and Yaga by his side.

The events of it all had made him realise how little he'd actually known her. She'd never once spoken about her dreams, what she wanted from her life, big or small, anything at all apart from the things they shared.

A sudden thought came to him as he remembered the last time he'd talked to her properly. Though it felt like forever ago, it couldn't have been more than two months - so much had changed. He sighed, a bitter laugh catching in his throat, thinking desperately until a name drove into his skull.

There was one person that could help him, safe his village from the darkness that hung over it.

"Radko."

His friend raised his head, beefy neck red from the cold.

"I know who can help us."

"Who?" Radko's expression was disinterested, and Dimitri knew he found it pointless. If it were up to him, the chickens would have been slaughtered either way, in preparation for the winter.

We need to eat, he had once said, knawing on a bone.

Dimitri trusted him, having known him since they were children, but his brain hadn't matured much since them. He was mostly a lumbering idiot, but also caring enough to make himself a close friend.

"Jana."

Radko's expression darkened. "Yeah, because the old rag can help us. She needs her nieces to help her even move, apart from constantly shuffling those god-forsaken cards."

Dimitri chuckled, but made his voice sterner, firmer.

"Baba Jana is who we need."

He sounded so much like his father when he said it that it tore him apart.

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