The Trials of Ascension

Chapter 5 – Wacław

Chapter 5 – WacławWhat is Weles doing?

NIGHT HAD COME EARLY IN THE MOUNTAINS. The rocks above cast deep shadows across the terrain as we rested without a tent on the hard ground. I lay alone again beneath the trees, and each gust of wind made them creak and moan, enough to put me on edge.

Twinges of pain had shot through my connection to Otylia ever since I’d left Katiôn. It wasn’t the first time, but this was different. I felt her desperation, her drive to escape, and most of all, the toil her body was enduring. After a week away from her, I couldn’t handle it anymore. I needed to find her.

What sounded like an animal call echoing through the mountains pulled me from my thoughts. Refugees and warriors alike had spoken of an aspid that called Perun’s Crown home. A hulking monster with the wings and a beak of a bird but the scales and fire of a dragon, it preferred solitude, but when disturbed, it could destroy armies without hesitation. Something seemed to lurk on the winds beyond that call. I hoped it was friendlier than the tales.

Despite my worries, I finally drifted to sleep and awoke shivering in my soul-form. I pulled my cloak tighter and slipped through camp, heading toward the southern cliffs. Without Dadźbóg’s warmth, the winds brought a chill that made my hair stand on end. I embraced them. They’re your friends now.

Eryk had told me to speak to Cervenko. How? I’d sensed the east wind’s presence many times, yet contacting him seemed another task completely.

My power still felt wrong tonight, but the winds carried me over the Narrow Pass. My fingers throbbed as I landed along a rock face, digging into the thin handholds. I stared up the cliff and reveled in my isolation from all else living. With each step up, I reached for the winds. Their answers were weak, and instead of a fluid climb, I clambered to the summit with straining shoulders and fingers that bled from gripping stone.

But the pain was worth it.

The sky stretched forever, its darkness only broken by the twinkling stars representing each living soul. The Kwiecień moon hung among them—a godless crescent that taunted me every night with its sword humming at my back.

Dread returned. As long as I held Kwiecień, Jaryło would struggle to return during the moon, but the gods were a mystery. When would he come for revenge? Or was he already punishing Otylia in my place?

The sword glowed in the light of its moon as I set its point against the rocky ground and let its odd power join with mine. Though I couldn’t wield Kwiecień’s magic, the gales rushed around me, blowing the chilled air through my cloak and hair. With them, I traced every inch of the mountains and forests beyond. Mountain goats, wolves, and smaller creatures of all kinds traversed the land. There was no sign of demons or the aspid.

When I released the winds, they took my energy with them. I staggered, barely catching my footing as I shook away the fatigue.

I understood my žityje more with every night, but my power still caught me by surprise at times. Some nights I could summon storm clouds or even lightning. Recently, though, just searching with my power was exhausting.

“Cervenko,” I whispered into the gales. “I seek your guidance.”

The winds swirled around the summit, howling in my ears, but no reply came. I sighed and gripped Kwiecień’s hilt. Now what? Cervenko was known to be as reckless as a wild stallion—a trait more helpful in battle than discussion. Did he not want to talk, or was I doing something wrong?

I looked east, over the hills and steppe beyond. Maybe I must go to him…

Kwiecień tight in my hand, I swept along the cliff’s edge. The sword had begun to feel more like a companion than a tool in recent days. Though Otylia would’ve called me foolish for thinking so fondly of a sword, knowing that brought a grin to my face.

Clouds gathered far to the east, near where we’d first found the clans. The air buzzed as I flew to their center, shouting through the storm, “Cervenko, grandson of Strzybóg, I seek your guidance!”

Lightning snapped. A gray stallion burst through the clouds, sparks crackling through its body as it struck my chest at full stride.

I collapsed through the storm, clutching my sword as the figure made chase. The flashes of lightning illuminated its flowing mane and the swirls of mist encompassing its form. Its bright blue eyes pierced my soul as I spun out of its way and steadied myself on a bed of air.

“Demon!” the stallion shouted on the winds. “My brothers and I aided you against the other of your kind, but we are no friends of yours. You manipulate us to your will!”

Cervenko charged before I could respond. I tumbled to the side. As he rushed past, I grabbed hold of his neck in desperation.

“Release me!” he demanded.

My ribs ached from the strikes as he bucked. Tanek had done the same many times as a foal, though, and I countered the move, swinging myself onto his back with the winds and gripping his mane. “I don’t wish to manipulate you! Marzanna is a threat to us both, and I need your help to stop her.”

“Betrayer! Schemer! Begone!”

We dove.

My arms and thighs strained and my eyes stung as I clung to the beast. With each spin I struggled to breathe, holding on with weeks of frustration and anguish taking over. Otylia needed me. No stubborn wind god would stop me from finding her.

Cervenko hit the dirt at full stride, the muscles on his neck flexing as I gripped a fistful of his mane in one hand and Kwiecień in the other. The flat of its golden blade burned against his skin, and he reared as I pushed it harder into him. “Relent and I’ll release you,” I ordered.

“Demons speak nothing but lies.”

“From what I’ve seen, gods are no different.”

His laugh bellowed across the sky as he skidded to a halt atop a hill of short grass. Ahead, smoldering fires blanketed the ground, where a camp of hundreds of tents had once stood. My stomach turned at the sight and smoke burned my nostrils.

“What happened here?” I asked.

Cervenko huffed. “Don’t ask stupid questions.”

Riders appeared over the next hill, their black horses and bone weapons just as Otylia had described. The Frostmarked Horde. They had destroyed yet another clan, and Cervenko sought to warn me. “Where did they come from?”

He tossed his head. “Beyond the mountains east of the Anshayman Steppe. An immortal sorcerer leads them, the one they call Koschei the Deathless. His army grows ever stronger as they burn the clans one-by-one, and soon, even your lands will not be safe.”

The Horde cheered as a rider on a white horse appeared over the hill. With a long spear of bone in one hand and a decapitated head in the other, power seemed to radiate from him. His skin hung wrinkled on his cheeks, and a chill crawled down my spine as his black gaze locked on me. His lip curled.

“Is he a god?” I asked.

“No,” Cervenko said. “Koschei is not a god, but neither is he a normal man. Though many warriors have slain him, he has returned each time. His body is immortal.”

I stared at the white rider, his stallion carrying him across the steppe faster than any horse I had ever seen. The earth shook with each stride. “If his body is immortal, where lies his soul?”

“You asked the right question this time, but I do not know the answer.”

As the Horde drew nearer, Koschei’s gaze never left me. It was hard to know how far we’d flown, but the Horde was no more than a week’s travel behind the clans. If they caught us…

I gripped Kwiecień, its hilt warming my shaking hand. “If you don’t know where it lies, then who does?”

“Only the goddess of winter herself.”

“Then there is little hope to defeat him.”

“What hope does a demon have anyway?” Cervenko huffed. “Leave me. I’ve said everything I know.”

He charged into the air. I held on as he spun, trying to throw me off his back a final time, but Eryk’s words rang in my mind. “Wait!” I said. “I was told you could tell me how to get to Nawia—how I can save Otylia!”

He snorted and shot north even faster than before. With his storm whipping around us, only my hold on his mane kept me on his back.

I stared down at the blur of grasses below. If only Mom could see me now. What would she have thought of her demonic son riding the east wind over the steppes? I didn’t know whether she’d laugh or simply shake her head, but my chest ached regardless. I’ll come home. I promise.

We soon raced over the warped branches of the Mangled Woods. It seemed far more than a week ago that we’d wandered through those trees in search of the płanetnik. They had been covered in Marzanna’s frost then, but now, even in the dark, the warped and naked branches stretched across the forest. The snow was gone—yet death’s grip lingered.

“Death is inescapable, demon-born,” Cervenko said, finally stopping over the woods, out of breath. We’d flown a week’s worth of travel in mere minutes. “But Nawia is not for your kind.”

Can he read my mind, or am I just that obvious? Either answer was disconcerting as I shook my head. My own brow was coated with sweat from the ride, and I lacked the energy to fight the impatience burning away at my core. “There must be a way! I have to reach Nawia before Jaryło’s return in Maj if there’s any chance of saving her.”

He laughed. “I have never seen a demon obsessed with love, nor do I know a way for one to go to Weles. No one travels freely between the realms except Dadźbóg and Weles himself. Even if there were a way, your demonic soul could not enter paradise.”

With a groan, I slid off the horse’s back and hovered on the winds, my glimmer of hope fading. Anger replaced it. “There must be a way.”

“There are many secrets among the Three Realms,” Cervenko replied. “It would not surprise me if a route existed, but such a thing is not of my knowledge. Even my northwestern brother, Kyustendil, remains trapped in Nawia. If you were to help him escape too, then you would have all our loyalties—except Chorna.” He scoffed at the mention of his northern brother.

The storm swelled around us as if it fed on Cervenko’s power and the pain pounding in my soul. Intoxicating, it tempted me to surrender to its call. “I promise,” I said as I took a shuddered breath. It helped me build a wall between my mind and the storm in my heart, but part of me loathed the return of that numbness. “I don’t know if I can get Otylia back, but gods know, I’m trying. If I succeed and Kyustendil is there, I will do all I can to rescue him too.”

“Very well. Tell this to Dogoda in the west and she may know more.” Cervenko leaped into the storm with a dismissive glance. “Know, however, that you chase fantasies. Even if you save the girl, Marzanna will use Koschei’s Horde to slaughter her before your eyes. But you’re a demon. The sight of death is natural for you.”

Then he dissolved into the clouds, leaving me floating above the Mangled Woods.

I took one last look at the trees swaying in his gales. In the past moon, they had swallowed so much of my joy, my dreams. Nothing could change what had happened, but as I returned to the clan camp, I promised myself I wouldn’t let those we’d lost die in vain. They deserved more—Kuba deserved more.