Blood-Oath
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The fire crackled loudly as Yesugei gingerly shifted it about with a stick before sitting back, wincing slightly as he did so.
Across from him, the girl—Vasilisa, as he’d learned—heartily gorged herself on cheese, stale bread, and flaps of salted meat. Their rations were meagre - far removed from the teas and sausages he’d enjoyed just two days ago, but sufficient to stave off hunger for now. Nearby, Kaveh’s exhausted stallion grazed on a patch of dry grass, reminiscent of the Hungry Steppe, and yet so alien.
The memory of Kaveh cut through him like a knife. His thoughts swirled in exhaustion, a clash of feelings he could barely sort. Vasilisa had robbed him—not just of death, but release from fear, betrayal, and hatred. Yet another part of him was grateful for the second chance she had given—to set right one of the world’s great wrongs: the so-called Apostles.
Where once his heart roared and tore at itself in black rage, there was now only a cold, resolute promise. He vowed to destroy the stone-skinned abominations, no matter how powerful or alien they seemed. The memory of the massacre at Tosont sent a shiver through him, but for all those it had killed, the Apostle itself was now ash on the wind. They were not gods - only monsters. Monsters that could be killed with shards of living darkness.
Yesugei’s fingers drifted to the crystal embedded in his chest - his flesh had already closed around the crystal, leaving a mess of scar tissue. With the fear and apprehension of his new unlife gone, he could sense the contained enormity of the curse that lay inside the crystal. The roiling hatred of the Apostle’s curse had been like a heavy stone weighing on his chest, suffocating the life out of him. Now it was gone, but the memory still lingered like a phantom pain - a reminder of the life that was owed to fate, and dragged back by Vasilisa.
She ate with a startlingly human hunger, unlike any undead spirit he’d heard of. The golden glow in her eyes had faded since the moment she had shouted at him with the Apostle’s ear-splitting, glass-shard voice. In that instant, her face had seemed stripped of humanity, revealing something inhuman and furious beneath. He suppressed a shiver at the memory and focused instead on the oddities he’d been pondering since their uneasy truce began.
“A talking snake?”
After they had set down their weapons, Vasilisa explained to him her story as he began starting a fire. At first, she spoke hesitantly - unsure whether he would believe her. But soon her words flowed, recounting: her lord father’s city, the crystal her mother had given her, and the sorcerer Chirlan, who abducted her to his stone tomb. Despite everything she’d described, the serpent stood out as too outlandish - even as he recalled that just three days ago, he had been doubting Sergen’s stories of dark spirits.
Vasilisa bristled at his question and spoke through a mouthful of bread, “It spoke! It did! I swear by the morning light of Xors!”
As the girl gestured out towards the morning sun, the eleven crystals that remained in her chest slipped into view. Vasilisa’s face turned red, and she quickly covered up her now-bandaged chest. Despite all she had done, Vasilisa knew little of the crystals - only that they shielded her from the Apostle’s miasma and that her mother, Cirina, had given her one before her abduction.
The name Cirina struck a chord with Yesugei. She was the adopted daughter of Naizabai - though Yesugei did not speak of the man in front of his own granddaughter. If Naizabai’s daughter knew of the crystals, could her father have known as well?
His thoughts turned to Nariman and his siblings, gathering at the Khurvan mountains. He imagined another black crystal stabbing into the mountains, eclipsing the sun and swallowing the entire kurultai in shadows. Every single one of his siblings bore a crystal - enough to face the Apostles, to survive, to flee. But Nariman and the others had always scoffed at Sergen’s stories, and their father had never bothered to correct them and teach them to listen - Yesugei wished now more than ever that he had.
Harvest. That was the word Sergen had whispered in his horror at the crystal. He whispered it as though it was planned - or prophesied. Was that why his father had armed each of his children so, shrouding them with the invisible strength of the Ormanli crystals? The more he thought about the kurultai, about the crystals, and about his father’s hidden protection, the more the path ahead looked clear.
Yesugei stood up shakily, and readjusted his boots.
“I need to return to the steppes,” he muttered over the crackling of the flames. Vasilisa raised her eyebrows. “If more of those demons were to appear at the kurultai, it would be a bloodbath. Nearly all of the steppe tribes are gathered there - the khans need to be warned, but more than that my father must learn about the Ormanli. Before he died, Sergen warned me about his exiled kin, and I wager that just because Chirlan is dead, they will not stop trying to raise more of these monsters.”
“And my family?” Vasilisa stood, her expression grim. “I brought you west to help warn Belnopyl—my people. You’re the only one who killed one of those things, and even a foreign man’s word holds more weight with the princes and boyars than a noblewoman’s when it comes to war.”
If it’s your family you seek, you would see them just as well out east, thought Yesugei. Your grandfather awaits at Khurvan, plotting against my kin.
“...and you’re also in no shape to travel alone,” continued Vasilisa as she pointed at his ragged, blood-stained clothes. “Qarakesek or not, you’d be easy prey for slavers out on the steppe. I hear they’re quick to take anyone, even nomad khans if they had the chance.”
The girl makes a good point. Though Qarakesek law had outlawed the enslavement of Khormchaks,, many tribes still took and sold their own kinsmen as slaves whenever they could without arousing suspicion - selling them south along the Eagle’s Sea to the Yllahanan slave-republics. Even under the White Khan’s banner, he and Kaveh had traveled with the keshiks precisely to ward off any slavers from trying their luck. Now he had no banner, and no allies - no-one to watch his back for bandits tracking him, nor take watch while he slept.
“I’m surprised a Klyazmite princess would know so much about the world,” Yesugei remarked. “I thought the western princes kept their women all locked up in stone towers and ignorant.”
Vasilisa huffed. “My father wanted it to be so - my mother had other ideas.”
“A woman traveling alone out in the west isn’t free from danger either, mind you.” said Yesugei. “I might have never visited your lands, but rapers and slavers are a scourge across the entire world, not just the steppe.”
“Perhaps, but it’s a much longer trip to the steppes than it is to the nearest city,” Vasilisa countered. Her wits were surprisingly sharp - though from her story of escaping Chirlan’s men, Yesugei supposed it was to be expected.
“If I travel west with you, I’d only be getting further and further away from the kurultai.”
“But if you go with me, you wouldn’t need to return to the steppes alone.” said Vasilisa, picking up a stick. She drew three circles in the dirt, connecting them with a curved line - a river. “I know these lands, and my father is overlord to many loyal houses.”
She jabbed the stick at the center circle. “My father rules from here, Belnopyl. If we are where I suspect we are, the city is two weeks’ ride from here but-”
The stick traced the snaking line to the circle south of Belnopyl. “-Gatchisk is only a day’s ride or so from the Devil Woods. The prince there is old and without sons…but he’s been true enough to my father. If we can make it there, he’ll see to it we’re clothed, fed, and set on our way with an escort from his guards.”
“The prince would have men to spare for the ride? It’s a long journey from here to Khurvan.”
“Prince Gvozden has two hundred armored riders in his druzhina,” said Vasilisa. “They’re young, eager for glory, and raised on tales of adventure in the steppe. Most would jump at the chance to help you, especially if it means fighting marauders. And of course, escorting a Qarakesek princeling would certainly bring some rewards, wouldn’t it?”
“Hunger for glory or silver—they’d get their fill of both,” Yesugei said. The thought of arriving late to the kurultai stung, but it would sting more to die on the way or be captured by slavers.
He examined his torn robe. Beautiful blue silk decorated with cloth-of-gold was now completely caked and crusted with blood, dirt, and sweat from the days past. He smelled foul - like a corpse left to rot out beneath the summer sun.
Vasilisa’s words rang true - travelling west seemed the better option, at least for now. But there was one final matter that needed to be settled.
As she spoke, Yesugei drew his hunting knife from its sheath. Vasilisa flinched but relaxed when he took a bowl, pouring the last of the arkhi spirit into it. Pressing the blade to the fleshy part of his palm, he made a shallow cut, squeezing his hand into a fist and letting blood drip into the bowl. The crimson swirls disappeared into the off-white wine.
“I’m not sure what you are, but I owe you a blood-debt.” He flipped the knife around and presented the handle to Vasilisa, who looked at him with incredulity. “We’ll be traveling together for the time, and so I propose a blood-oath.”
“I thought only men could make such blood-oaths,” Vasilisa said, though she took the knife.
“Usually because they’re the ones who earn them, by way of valor,” replied Yesugei. “But you’ve saved my life twice now, when others might have run away. Cut your own hand, and we can strike an oath - in honor of the blood spilled fighting the gray abomination, and to fight the golden-eyed bastards that did this to us.”
“This is ridiculous.”
“I insist. At the very least, a blood-oath means I’ll be cursed by the spirits if I were to bring harm to you.” He fixed her with a determined look, blood still dripping from the cut on his hand. “Won’t the threat of curse set your mind at ease, traveling with a Khormchak rogue?”
He saw the princess think on his proposal for a few moments, before she relented and brought the tip of the knife to her finger. With a small twist, she pricked out a few droplets of blood from her scarred right hand and let them fall into the arkhi.
Yesugei sat cross-legged, and Vasilisa mimicked him as he lifted the bowl. He drank first. The arkhi tasted sour as ever, and was tinged with the taste of iron. He drank half, then passed it to Vasilisa, who hesitated before taking a careful sip. He saw the princess nearly gag as she took a careful first sip - but then her resolve hardened, and she downed the rest of the foul-tasting drink. The taste of iron lingered strongly on his tongue - the taste of the blood bond, binding him and the foreign princess before the morning sky and the watchful eyes of the spirits that dwelled in the western domains.
“Now we are bound, by blood and spirit.”
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Vasilisa’s sour expression softened, replaced by solemn determination as they stood up. The air felt charged, like the moment lightning had scattered the Börijan's Quanli riders days ago. The spirits whispered through the swaying grass, affirming the oath.
He gave small thanks to the presences he felt dwelling within the grasslands, then snuffed out the dying embers of their fire. “We should begin moving as soon as we can - the day’s light will only carry us for so long.”
The road off to the side from their hastily-set camp grew wider as it stretched out to the west - towards Gatchisk, and further away from home. Yet it would be traveling west that he could make it home in one piece, if the western princes were as loyal and eager to please as Vasilisa claimed.
All the same, move swiftly, and with purpose.
For the first time in a while, his purpose had never seemed so clear.
***
They set off from the outskirts of the Devil Woods by noon beneath gray skies. Vasilisa shifted uncomfortably in saddle, trying to prevent the Apostle’s - wrapped in a blood-stained bedroll - from sliding off her back. The cleaver was dreadfully cumbersome - and the rope strap was already beginning to cut into her shoulder.
Yesugei elected to travel on foot to spare the horse, leading them along the western road - a dirt path that cut through the high grasses on either side. The border plains stretched unbroken for miles, ending only at the frigid taigas of Pemil and Wrangel to the north, and the shores of Shipbreaker’s Tide to the south where the Band of Three and Yllahana fought wars of trade and ships. The Klyazmites feared the plains as the nomads’ domain, while the nomads avoided the border to keep their back from the Devil Woods. As such, beyond the wagon and hoof-worn road, there was no other sign of man’s presence upon the wild landscape.
Eventually the road plunged into forest, the path began twisting unpredictably like a snake. Yesugei was accustomed to open skies and featureless steppe - and so it fell to Vasilisa to try and distinguish the main road from maze of hunting trails. At times the road vanished entirely, leaving her to fear they were lost, only to reappear a mile later - just before she considered turning them around.
As they trudged on Vasilisa’s thoughts wandered. It had felt like an age since she last stepped foot in Gatchisk lands. Back then, Prince Gvozden had still been strong, not yet bedridden.
Back then, he still had a son.
Even now, she shuddered at the memory of the Young Griffon. He had been handsome at fifteen, with curly black hair and sea-green eyes, envied for his swordplay by boys and admired for his Yllahanan courtly grace by girls. Yet, all that stuck with her was the wolf-like glint in his eyes the night he climbed through her bedroom window to take her at dagger-point.
Though she escaped and summoned Ilya, the prince tried to explain away his actions as a romantic gesture—claiming he sought only a kiss from his love. Her father, Igor, was not deceived. Gvozden had long yearned for the days before the Khormchak yoke, before Gatchisk was sacked to the ground and left a shadow of its former power. When Igor refused to betroth her to his son and thus place the House of Gatchisk in line to inherit the title of Grand Prince, the Young Griffon sought to force the match by despoiling her at fourteen, leaving her father no choice but to consent. Igor exiled the prince’s son, and only Cirina’s caution against starting a war spared Gvozden himself.
Despite the disgrace, Gvozden remained loyal, perhaps relieved his own head was not placed on the chopping block. Now, six years on, the old prince was bedridden and without issue, and his house was already being eyed by the boyars of the south.
Vasilisa was confident the aged prince would help; he had nothing to gain by holding her up at Gatchisk should she arrive. If anything, he would likely send her back quickly and well-dressed, hoping for favor with Belnopyl - and assurances that his lands would at least pass on to some distant cousin or uncle rather than to one of her father’s courtiers once he died.
Horsed, bathed, dressed, and well-fed, Vasilisa thought longingly. Her dress - ruined by blood and grime - felt as though it were made of stiff parchment. And the idea of a warm bath to wash away the nightmare of the past two days was irresistible. Yet reminders lingered - the bandaged hole in her chest throbbed, though the pain had eased with travel. The crystals in her chest gave her pause - she wondered whether it might be wiser to ride for Belnopyl directly to avoid Gvozden’s scrutiny, but two more weeks of travel under the open sky, sharing a beleaguered horse with Yesugei, seemed worse.
The forest soon gave way to farmland, but something felt wrong. Off in the distance, vast fields of black tilled earth separated by wooden fences and low stone walls broke up the landscape. But though it was midday, the fields were completely empty. No peasants were working the earth, no horses or oxen were pulling plows. Not a single soul could be seen.
Perhaps there’s a festival? Peasants often held summer ceremonies to honor the gods - Simargl to protect their crops from pests, or Mokosh to bless their work with a bountiful harvest. Or perhaps the villagers were hosting their boyar, in which case they would be holding a feast in the village square.
“See the fields?” She pointed out to Yesugei, who squinted his eyes as he looked. “We should be nearing a village soon. When we do, let me do the talking - the people of Gatchisk don’t look too kindly upon those who burned their fields and killed their folk just six years prior.”
Yesugei nodded in affirmation. “There should be some silver in the saddlebags - if we’re in need of it.”
“We needn’t stay too long - just long enough for some directions.”
“And perhaps a bucket of water,” Yesugei appraised his own sorry state, and then looked her up and down. “Or better yet, a tub. You look like shit. I look like shit.”
She spurred the Khormchak horse onwards, trailing slightly ahead of Yesugei to scout out the village.
Then she smelled it - the smell of smoke, burning wood, burning flesh.
As she drew closer, she realized the dark fields were blanketed in a layer of ash. Further up along the road, past a bridge spanning a small stream, she saw the village. Or rather, where the village had been.
The houses past the stream were blackened husks - their rising plumes of smoke from fading fires had been obscured by the canopy of the woods as they approached. Charred desolation reigned for a mile on, house after burned house. The corpses of men and animals dotted the fields barely distinguishable from one another - all were blackened by soot, and covered by a living wave of carrion birds. The bridge spanning the stream creaked beneath her horse as she slowed, letting Yesugei catch up.
When he did, she heard him whisper, “Smoke is still rising - this was done recently. Perhaps even last night. Walk softly.”
She slid off the horse, tying the reins to a small tree that sat near the stream - the only thing that seemed to be spared from the fires that side of the water. Yesugei’s hunting knife came out, and Vasilisa placed one hand on the bone hilt of the cleaver that weighed on her back. Even if it was too heavy to pull quickly, much less swing, it gave her some comfort to hold something as she and Yesugei drew closer to the village.
The crows that swarmed over the dead nearby took to the skies in a squawking swarm as they slowly approached. Beneath the gray skies, the village that surrounded them was a mix of gray wood, black ash, and the occasional dull red from drifting embers or smoldering debris. Vasilisa breathed slowly, trying to steady her nerves and avoid breathing in the ugly poison of the ruined land.
“Who do you think did this?” she asked at Yesugei’s back. The nomad didn’t reply as he looked out past the village square towards a large manor sat atop a hill. The ruling boyar’s manor was surrounded by a low stone wall, and still stood tall and unburnt amidst the ruins all around.
“I don’t know.” Yesugei seemed to sense the other, unspoken question. Was it your people who did this? “It would make no sense to burn the place like this if it was just a simple raid. If it was food and livestock they were looking for, they could have killed everyone with arrows and lances and moved on - not torched the entire damn place. Though I suppose it could have happened by accident - a dropped torch, a broken lantern.”
Silence lingered between the two of them as they peered into the burned houses nearest to them. Some seemed to have been abandoned before they collapsed. Others held the corpses of their former occupants - burnt to a crisp, their bodies curled up as if praying to the gods for a reprieve from the agonizing flames.
She felt a sickness rise up to her throat - the smell and sight somehow seemed worse than the fight at the outpost. Without the blood-pounding terror of combat, all that was left was the misery and disgust and invisible poison that hung over the entire village like a cloud - the lingering spirits of the village’s former occupants whispering with the breeze as it blew through the torched land.
They fetched the horse once they were certain the area ahead was abandoned, and Yesugei led them onwards and upwards towards the boyar’s manor - casting only a cursory look at the dozen other houses they passed by. When they were close to the manor’s gates, she saw they were left ajar - the wooden exterior splintered and mauled by axes.
When they slipped past the doors, she saw another corpse lying against a large wagon, its hands tied to one of the wheel spokes. The man was young, with a short, bloodstained beard and a shaved head - around the same age as Stavr and Pyotr, who guarded her father’s court. He wore a beaten shirt of mail, his ring-covered chest punctured by three long arrows. His eyes were thankfully closed - and Vasilisa gave a sigh of relief before she guided the horse to remain by the damaged gate.
Yesugei knelt close to the dead man - closer than she would have dared. Then he yanked out one of the feathered shafts from the man’s chest.
“These arrows don’t look like any I’ve seen the tribes use,” Yesugei mused as he studied the arrow. He then turned his attention to the dead man’s armor. “A waste of good mail. They could have stripped him, but didn’t. Might have been they were turned back, or moving quickly.”
Before Vasilisa could protest, Yesugei untied the man’s hands and quickly shucked off the mail coat, letting the corpse fall to the side in the dirt.
“What are you doing?” she said instinctively, angrily setting the horse’s reins aside as she approached.
“What does it look like?” Yesugei barely acknowledged her as he shook some loose dirt from the shirt, then pulled it over his head. “He doesn’t need it anymore.”
“You’re no better than the crows, stealing from the dead like this!” Her face burned with anger, as she looked at the dead man, now lying face-first in the muck. “He died protecting his people-”
“-and maybe if we find who did this, we can avenge him,” Yesugei counseled, his voice even. “But it won’t do either of us any good if we’re dead before then.”
He rapped his knuckles against his armored chest - the shirt giving a jingle as the rings clashed against one another.
“Now, see if we can find a sword. Or better yet, a bow.”
A sudden slam caused both of them to jump away from the dead man, and Vasilisa’s hand flew to the handle of the over-heavy cleaver. Several ragged figures stepped out from the doorway of the boyar’s manor: four men caked in grimey clothes. Each of them held a different farming tool as a weapon, save for one who held a winged boar spear. Their eyes had the hollow look of desperate, destitute men - men ready to kill.
“Who are you?” called the largest of the four, a fat, sweaty man holding a rusty hand-plow.
She called to the men, “We’re lost - waylaid by bandits along the eastern road. We mean you no harm - we were just passing through.”
“There’s many a lost soul out in the country by now,” spat another man holding a pickaxe. “Few who look like your friend, though. What are you doing traveling with a Khormchak bastard?”
Yesugei adjusted his grip on the knife as she saw him weighing his odds against the four men.
“Like I said, we’re lost. We were both making our way to Gatchisk when we were attacked by some brigands. Might even have been the same men who destroyed your village.”
“Where were you headed from?”
Vasilisa struggled to come up with a place. She saw Yesugei take a step back, and the four men each took a careful step closer.
“I don’t think you’re telling us the truth,” said the man with the spear softy. “I think you and the Khormchak are just a bunch of filthy crows come to feast on the fallen - our fallen. Do you know what we do with crows that wear manskin?”
“Hang ‘em.” came the reply from the smallest of the bunch, a stout man holding a sickle.
She eyed the horse behind them. The armed men were thirty paces away - if they turned and ran as fast as they could, they might just make it onto the horse before they were hacked to pieces.
“Maybe we’ll string them up on the gates - give the other crows something to gawk at so they leave us alone,” said the fat man as he adjusted his grip on the hand-plow.
“You’ll do no such thing.”
The voice called from behind the men, coming from within the manor. In the shadows, Vasilisa saw two figures stir, followed by the sound of staggering, heavy footsteps.
The first person that appeared at the door was a young woman, her decorated dress covered in dirt and soot much like the armed men. She had an arm wrapped over her shoulder, and clumsily paused at the doorway before the fat man rushed over to help her.
Together, the woman and the fat man helped out a ragged man covered in blood, his short dark hair and one eye covered by bandages that needed changing ages ago. The man gave a wheezing cough, shaking so hard Vasilisa thought he would fall dead right then in the arms of the two that carried him, but he quickly stood upright and tall. His one good eye focused on her, studying her face.
“Yes…you’ll do no such thing, you fool.” The man said as he slowly hobbled from the manor towards them. As he approached, the others set their weapons down.
“Don’t you see who you’re talking to?” laughed the injured man. “This is Vasilisa of Belnopyl, the Grand Prince’s daughter.”
The man struggled as he lowered to one knee, and his two companions lifted him back up to stand.
“You’re a long way from home, my lady. And perhaps for the better. They say Belnopyl is gone.”