WHAT DEATH CANNOT TOUCH
vii. burning flesh and frozen bones

❆          ❆          ❆

Beware the one who has no voice of his own. Beware the one with half a soul.

Khaya spun around.

Beneath a dusk-bruised sky, he stood.

Davor Kazminov, wearing his beautiful shuba, the fur hat to cover his golden hair, and the ornated sword at his side, stood on the bank of the river. His beautiful, snow-white mare was right beside him. He looked like he came right out of a fairytale. But Khaya was wise enough not to mistake him for an honorable bogatyr.

"I did not know rusalky could shiver."

Khaya crossed her arms around her body.

"What are you doing here?" she felt her voice rise. Not only because she feared he would not understand her from afar but—and she hated it—out of fear. Vulnerability. Alone, freezing, and only dressed in her soaked light underdress, she stood in the river in front of this man with his furs, sword, and horse, and there was nothing but the forest to pay witness.

For someone who claimed to be rarely scared just yesterday, Khaya was afraid way too often lately. If you fear him, how do you want to face Karachun?

But maybe that did not matter anymore. What would stop Davor from slaughtering the evil witch he saw in her?

Kazminov raised an eyebrow. "I should be asking you. Your father caused quite some flurry with his worry. Half of Lasow searches for you."

"Searches for me?"

"Your cousin said you ran into the woods and did not return. She bid me to bring you home safely." This time, his words did not aim to hurt her—or so she thought—still, they struck Khaya like a blow of his shining sword.

"How fortunate you have found me now. However, I don't need help," she said, unable to bite back the cynicism. Animosity sharpened her tongue, though it was a lousy opposition to his blade.

Davor approached her, hand on the bridle of his horse. Each of their steps sounded harsh in the snow. "Don't you? The woods are dangerous, and you are freezing." And wet and barely dressed and hurt, that he did not say, but if not for his tone, then for his small, complacent smile it was obvious he thought it.

The arms folded around Khaya's chest pressed even harder against her ribs. Her own flesh was the only armor she had. "And I know the way better than you."

The mare blew her hot breath against Khaya's skin.

"How fortunate I have found you, then. Don't you think?" Kazminov said tenderly.

Khaya did not answer. Davor didn't seem to expect her to as he was already taking off his coat. She could not help but watch his every move with suspicion, especially keeping an eye on his sword. However foolish that might be.

But what if he was lying? If no one knew them here in the forest?

"What are you doing?"

"It will keep you warm."

"I don't need it." Of course, that was wrong and silly to say. Her whole body was shaking as by an invisible cruel force and only speaking through clenched teeth disguised that they would be chattering violently by now. Under her numb toes, she could not feel the ground anymore. If she stayed like this longer, she would get sick.

Davor spared a simple, cool stare, and with a sigh of frustration, Khaya gave in, when he placed the fur-trimmed coat on her shoulders that would provide her a little warmth and protection. His eyes wandered over her, leaving cold prints on her skin and a rotten silence to hang between their misty breaths.

"I wonder how it feels...to freeze in the snow."

Whatever Khaya would've wanted to answer got stuck in her throat, and so she could do nothing except watch Kazminov in bewilderment while he as if nothing had happened, turned to his horse. Zvyezda, he called the mare. A fitting name.

Khaya did not let him help her to get on Zvyezda's back before he swung himself on it.

Still freezing, even if a little less, she watched the trees rush by as they rode through the wood as fast as Kashchey would have on his magical horse. Dusk already darkened into nightfall—a Stygian sky started to stretch above the crowns. In sourceless light, the snow flying up under Zvyezda's hooves glittered like stardust.

For a split second, Khaya meant to see another horse to run beside them. Sable as the velvety night that spread over the wilderness, and the rider on its back... as the horse he was there and he was not. It was a mere shadow with white hair and frosty sparkling eyes.

"Beware, little witch, truth," the rider's voice was the wind in the branches.

Karachun.

Khaya gasped for air. But when she blinked, there was nothing but trees, and no traces in the snow.

Am I mad?

Against her back, Davor's body pressed with the rhythm of the horse's moves and with it something uneven and firm at the height of his chest. A talisman, perhaps; the Light of Svet.

"A witch. That was what you wanted to say earlier, didn't you? You didn't know a witch could shiver," Khaya said, almost hoping that the storm that tore her hair would swallow her voice.

Again, Kazminov did not answer, but she thought to feel his smile on her back as he looked down at her.

"But, gospodin, I am neither rusalka nor witch."

"No? You surely look like one now." He had heard her.

There was a pause, and the humor left his voice. "There is power in your tales, in your words. It is a dangerous one to possess. A benison that can easily become a curse. But I thought maybe you could..."

Maybe the drumming of hooves and the wind carried his words away. Maybe he didn't finish the sentence, but incomplete it hung between them. A mystery Khaya could not solve.

As the hero bringing home the lost princess Davor thundered into the village with his mare. Herself covered in his coat being the valuable good he had saved. Instantly, they were surrounded by people. The villagers had heard the horse and gathered in front of the church, looking in astonishment at the handsome rider and his companion.

Majda ran towards them, already equipped with blankets. The rest of her family was just by her side—Ilya and Ulyana calling her name, Dorka muttering yet another prayer—but her cousin was the first to reach her. "Where have you been?"

Khaya slipped from the mare and right into Majda's embracing arms. "I feared..." she whispered in her frozen hair.

"In our forest, nothing can happen to us, remember?" Over her cousin's shoulder, Khaya could see her father's linen-white face while the children already ran towards her, clinging to her clothes. In one hand, Ulya pressed the little wooden rabbit to her heart.

"Ilya said you've got eaten by a bear," she sniveled.

"I didn't! I said Karachun commands bears and...that I'm afraid."

"You need not worry. The bears are sleeping now," Khaya appeased them, stroking their heads.

"But it was dangerous and stupid." Dorka looked at her punitively before her lined face softened just a little.

Gracefully, Davor jumped down from Zvyezda. "As you see, I brought your daughter home safe, gospodin. But your sister and niece would do well warming her up."

"Of course. Of course. Thank you."

The priest, stepping out of the temple into the scene, smiled. "Svet hears all our prayers, didn't I say?"

It was only now that Khaya realized what she had let happen: with this gesture, one bringing back the starosta's single child and the other supporting them in prayer, the strangers had yet again proven themselves in front of the people of Lasow. No empty promises. Now, they really had a reason to be thankful, to trust, to love them. And all of that was her fault.

Abram, laying one arm over Khaya's shoulder bowed in front of the soldier. Were these tears of joy shining in his eyes? "I don't know how to thank you. Khaya, show this man your gratitude."

She could barely bring herself to look up at Kazminov. "Thank you, lord. And forgive me for being so... indecent last evening," Khaya forced the sentences out of her mouth, the words decaying on her tongue like moldy mushrooms.

"You should rather thank and apologize to Svet in prayer," Davor answered, overmodest and again wearing this awfully complacent smile. The crowd was touched by his every word.

No, whatever Majda says. I cannot trust. And I will not.

"No, you have to accept it. Svet cannot forgive injustice committed against another human. Neither should he receive all gratitude for the actions of men." Her words were not fueled by appreciation but silent resistance as she tried to remind not only Davor but also the rest of the people of these facts. They called themselves messengers of Svet—yet they twisted his laws to their liking, turning them into strings to guide the crowd like puppets.

Kazminov understood well what she meant. "I see, little preacher. Well then..."

He was interrupted by chaos: hasty steps crunching in the snow, shrieks, the crowd parting like the waves of the lake when the storm came crashing down.
However, it was just a boy who drove them asunder. Cold sweat cleaved his blonde hair to his forehead, where there should have been a hat. Lips parted he sucked in air as if dying. His clothes were stained by something dark Khaya refused to recognize but, in her nose, stung the metallic stench of death's breath. All over the youth's face terror was written.

It was Mladen.

"What happened?" Abram being the first to find his voice again, though weak, demanded to know.

Mladen gasped for air. His widened eyes looked at them as if seeing right through them.

"At the lake... Daniil... dead. His night is near. Death is coming." And he dropped into the snow, the force who had led him back here suddenly leaving his limbs. There was the cry of a woman, who shoved her way through the people to her son.

Daniil... dead? Khaya's head swam. She had known the boy since birth, even if not very well. But what did it matter—her mother she had known not at all, and still, she died so Khaya could breathe. What a cruel irony to call a child born from death 'life'.

He died because of me, she thought and clenched her hands into fists. Had the words she heard been a simple warning or a thread?

The priest touched his Light of Svet, Davor his sword. "Death is coming."

❆

Whatever they did, they could only force a few other words from Mladen while they took care of him. Deliriously, he answered things no one understood. Another peasant boy, Daniil, and he had been at the lake, searching for Khaya, then followed a chaotic description of the bloody teeth of a wolf, a freezing child, shadows, and Karachun's icy grip. Whatever had happened, it killed Daniil and left Mladen with a fever.

"It must be the shock," some said, "Seeing his friend slaughtered by a beast."
"A hungry wolf, for sure. Like the one who came last winter," others responded.
"Or what if it was Karachun as the master said? Aren't the beasts of the wilderness his servants? What if Mladen saw him and it made him go insane?"

After such words, there was silence, except for the helpless weeping of the mothers, mourning the one that had not returned and the other who came back only half of himself. They would not leave Mladen's and each other's side. At least, now he was sleeping peacefully, and no hint of the horrors he must have seen blemished his countenance.

"What shall we do now, Abram Abramovich?" the men asked Khaya's father, who sat at the oven, engrossed in thought about things, one could only guess by the grimness written on his face. The Lasowians' hearts were screaming for justice and the blood of whoever threatened their children. Abram wrenched his gaze away from the fire to look at the priest and his soldier, who both reassured him with a nod.

"We will go to the lake to bring the boy's body home to his family so he can be buried properly. And then, we will go for a hunt. Whether Karachun or mortal creature, I will not let this happen again."

"I will come with you," Khaya said with trembling lips. "He was searching for me. It was my fault."

"You won't." Abram gave her a hard look that told her she had done enough damage before he shook his head. "You won't. You help us best in staying safe here, katyonak."

Kitten, he hadn't called her that for quite some time.

Later that evening, Mladen woke up from his fever dreams, more confused about all the cheerless faces, tears, and determination than troubled. He could not remember anything of what had happened, though the Lasowians whispered to themselves that from this day on, the nights in his family's house were always filled with screams from his nightmares. All of which turned to smoke and ashes the second Mladen awoke.

Some said it was the scars his friend's death left. Horrible, but who in Lasow had not already seen a loved one die? They would feel sympathy for the poor boy, however, mixed with conciliation for all of that was ordinary.

Others said it was Karachun's touch that infected him with madness. Those would turn to their prayer all the more often and run to church and the priest more than once a day. And soon, the others would join in.

Just before daybreak, they found the boy—ripped to pieces by claws and teeth that could belong to nothing less than a horrible monster. Davor Kazminov got to his knees in front of the corpse and tipped his fingers into the frozen bloody mass that lacked a heart, bringing them to his nose as if he could smell the beast's trace just like the dogs whining at their feet.

Abram could not suppress the shudder that crawled up his spine and into his every fiber as he watched him. There was something harrowing about this angelic, young man begriming his hands with gore that let his blood run cold.

Unmoved by this scenery of death, Kazminov got to his feet. "Time to sharpen your weapons, gospodin. Karachun is coming."

Davor let them burn what was left of the body right there at the frozen lake before everyone else, let alone the poor mother, could see this cruel death. Abram, though agreeing, suspected a deeper reason for it than just compassion. The flames touching the sky and bleeding right into dusk reflected in the soldier's eyes and golden hair—as though he himself were made out of flames—who stood there, watching in silence.

No one heard the soft steps that had followed and now veered away from them again, leaving nothing except for little traces of the silent observer. They all were too occupied with the cracking of the wood on which the boy's bones burned.

It was their first pyre this winter and would not be the last.

❆

"On this day we mourn a neighbor, a friend, a brother...a son," the priest stopped and let the words, evoking sobs in the gloomy church, sink in, "that has been taken from us too early and sent into the arms of Svet. May the earth weigh light on his body and his soul be received safely in Svet's realms."

Liar, Khaya thought. There had been no corpse left to inter but ashes.

The priest whispered a prayer and turned his blind eyes up to the arch. Every Lasowian joined in. Beside her, Khaya heard Ulya's muffled weeping and reached for her hand. The other one had already been taken by Majda, sitting next to her little sister.

"I know you are all questioning now why this tragedy had to happen. Why steal such a youthful life? And I think we all know deep in our hearts that there is only one answer. Karachun, whose name should sound inside these walls only in odium.

"He has set foot in this world again, in your home, to nourish his powers on your blood. And he is not alone! He has found his faithful servant in one of your kind. A witch, ready to feed your sons and daughters to the demon of winter, the master of rotten flesh." Now the priest's voice turned from soft compassion to a thundering invocation. But he did not let the fire of his ire burn wild—just as much that it could set ablaze his audience. In his hands, they turned into clay he could form to his liking.

Khaya shivered. It was not for the cold the bench and wooden walls were radiating.

"But we will not let this happen! The traitor will be found and punished. The Dark God's tyranny will end, and his idols burn. Judgment day will come. Fear you not, for we are with you."

Stop it! Stop this! Khaya felt herself rise to her feet.

"How?" she asked.

Astonished, the priest fell silent.

"How do you, how do we fight him?"

First, there was silence. Then the priest continued just as before. "Remember the old tales of the great power to bring to life protectors of our kind. Remember the year when Lasow woke its own golem to fight against the ones endangering it."

The Golem? Babushka had told her the story of the clay man as well. Though a benevolent being, she had called it dangerous, for creating life like this led to disastrous consequences all too fast, which was why Lasow's golem had been hidden long ago.

Beware the one who has no voice of his own she remembered. Could that mean...? Her grandmother had told her, golems could not speak.

Khaya once again opened her mouth but a strong hand on her shoulder demanded her to stay silent and forced her back. Surprised, she turned around, meeting Dorka's warning gaze.

Only Ulya kept crying, and Majda silently watched Khaya while the crowd cheered in frantic prayers.

and there he is. give it up for... karachun! (or is it him really?)

so much happening here right now and i can't wait to hear your thoughts on our beloved creep davor, karachun (?), the golem lore, mladen's not so great encounter with death...

yes the truly creepy stuff is yet to begin. is it possible two whole new unplanned chapters just appeared? yes. do they give me the "oh yes it's all coming together"-feeling? yes. was it wise to add them just 5 days before final deadline? no.

if all of this reads like a fever dream it's most probably because i'm sleep deprived and on too much coffein :'D

as always, if you liked the chapter please consider voting, commenting, and saving the story in your reading list! 💜

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19 236 / 20 000+ words
milestone 3 ✗
(getting there!)