Page 40 of When Among Crows
Doesn’t he?
“Very well,” Baba Jaga says. “I have heard that the longer you go without drawing that blade, the more difficult it is to unsheathe. Is that true?”
Dymitr nods.
“How long has it been?”
“Over a year.”
“Then I suggest you kneel.”
Dymitr looks at his hands, and Niko looks with him.His right pinkie is taped to the finger beside it and wrapped in gauze—the fingernail he gave to Lidia. His palm is cut from taking Ala’s curse. His fingertips are bright red, irritated from the bowstring.
Dymitr takes off his jacket and tugs his shirt over his head. Niko swallows a gasp.
He can see the sword buried in Dymitr’s spine. It’s a longsword, the hilt flat against his shoulders, but so deeply submerged in his flesh that Niko can only see a sliver of it where it catches the light. He knows from experience that the blade itself is bone white, but he can’t see it; it’s inside Dymitr’s body, and he’ll need to pull it free with his bare hands.
He holds the jacket and shirt out to Ala, and she takes them, her eyes wide. Dymitr glances at Niko.
“Might not want to watch,” he says to Niko and Ala.
“If you have to feel it, the least I can do is see it,” Niko replies, sharp.
Dymitr turns away, and kneels at Baba Jaga’s feet. He draws a deep, slow breath, then brings his hands up to the back of his neck. For a moment they hover there, trembling.
“Dzierzymy miecz,” he says softly, “i znosimy jego ból.”
We bear the sword, and we bear the pain of the sword.
Then he digs into his own flesh. A shudder travels through Niko’s entire body. Beside him, Ala presses a palm to her mouth, as if to stifle a scream. Blood spills down Dymitr’s back, around his fingertips. He digs still deeper,harder, and makes a strangled sound, something between a whimper and a scream.
Niko steadies himself. Everything in him wants to launch himself at Dymitr and pull his hands away from his back—to save him from this unnecessary agony. But he won’t, and it’s too late now, besides.
Dymitr screams into his teeth, and plunges his hands into his flesh to wrap them fully around the hilt, which is lifting away from his spine now, soaked in blood and skin and muscle. Dymitr sags over his knees with a sob, but the job is not done; the blade is still buried inside him.
For a moment Niko thinks he’s given up, that he won’t be able to finish. But then Dymitr sucks in a sharp breath, and straightens, and screams again as he yanks the sword upward. It pulls free of the sheath that is his spine, and he holds it aloft for a moment, blood soaking the blade, the hilt, his hands and forearms.
The open wound in his back is already knitting together, the skin sealing where he broke it with his fingernails. He drops the sword at Baba Jaga’s feet with a clatter, and falls forward onto his hands and knees, gasping. Niko’s knees feel weak with relief. Ala closes her eyes.
Baba Jaga bends down to examine the sword. She seems unmoved by the display of pain she just witnessed; her eyes glint as she looks over the blade, the simple gold-plated hilt. The instrument of so many nightmares: the bone sword of a Knight of the Holy Order.
“Are you certain?” she says to Dymitr.
Dymitr lifts his head. He hesitates for just a moment, and that moment is all Niko needs.
“Wait!” he says, the word tearing its way out of him. Baba Jaga raises an eyebrow at him. He falls to his knees beside Dymitr, laying a hand on his bare and bloody arm and turning him to face Niko.
Niko’s hands are cold against Dymitr’s shoulders.
“Don’t do this,” Niko says to him.
“Do you know how many of your kind I’ve killed?” Dymitr says to him, his voice rough.
“No, but—”
“Neither do I,”Dymitr whispers. “I didn’t keep track. It didn’t occur to me that the number would matter. Don’t you understand? I have to do something; I have to.”
“Pain is not penance.” It’s Ala who speaks this time. She draws Dymitr’s eyes up, over Niko’s shoulder. “You hurt me, you killed people I love, but I still have no use for your pain; I still don’t want you to destroy yourself.”
