The mare was light and swift and sure. Her rider’s anger quieted as he rode.
“The signs led me here,” said the man to his horse. “Here, to this stinking city, when I should not have left my own lands.” He had been in Moscow a month already, searching, tireless, face after face. “Well, signs are not infallible,” he said. “The witch’s daughter is hidden from me, and her child is long gone. The hour might have passed; the hour might never come.”
The mare slanted an ear back at her rider. His lips firmed. “No,” he said. “Am I so easily defeated?”
The mare went on at a steady canter. The man shook his head. He was not yet beaten; he held the magic trembling in his throat, in the hollow of his hand, ready. His answer lay somewhere in this miserable wooden city, and he would find it.
He turne
