the man is tall, with robes around him that are more expensive than what dmitri has ever seen in his life. it is clear that this is his encampment, that it was his men that he slaughtered before. blood seeps down his face as he's forced into his presence; it takes no less than six men to force him onto his knees, jerking his head up.

the closer he gets to him, though, the more he realizes that there's something off with this man. the way he holds himself, the way that he seems unperturbed by the slaughter around him, the cool expression on his face. dmitri thinks of the word chyerti as the man's mouth begins to move in a language that he doesn't know, yet brims, hums with something more.

"i don't speak your language," he says, still struggling to get out of the grip of the men who have subdued him.

the man's mouth moves again, and this time it feels as if something in his brain shifts, slots into place as he picks up on the words, their meaning into they're strung into a full sentence of, "you are on the losing side. wouldn't you like to be on the winning one?"

the army is large, comprised of many peole from many places that dmitri has never heard of before, speaking languages he's never known before. they move from place to place, acting as aggressors more than saviors, and at first, he thinks that it will bother him. that he will hate this. except...

except he finds himself liking to learn about other places. about shieldmaidens who fought alongside men, about monks who wielded poisons, about sea farers who were far more dangerous up close than in stories. he likes seeing them roll up their sleeves to display battle scars, to show off tattoos, to gather around the fire to talk to each other, to sing and sometimes dance.

he takes some of them to bed. he fights alongside them. he calls them family, because the ones he knew before are gone now.

so he makes a home here among other war dogs, among other warriors, and he does so at the behest of the daemon leraje. calling him chyerti in his head was correct, and yet, leraje is different than the stories whispered at home. he grows no horns, no long beards. he doesn't babble incessantly. he explains things sharply, succinctly. he allows dmitri to learn at his elbow at times: how to manage a battle plan, how to think as both a soldier and a general; how to use chopsticks to eat properly, how to thank someone in their home tongue and not with the enchantment laid on his; how to do a little bit of magic here and there.

and one day, leraje asks him, "do you want to keep hungering? thirsting? sleeping? or do you want to be the best warrior on the battlefield?"

and dmitri says, "yes."

one of leraje's men catches up with him, and even though koschei dispatches him, he has to heal. he takes shelter in the barn of a farm long abandoned. he curls on his side, breathing hard, feeling himself succumb to his wounds. a panic runs through his mind: he doesn't want this, he doesn't want to go there to that place in his mind between living and death. but he does; the man was good.

he goes right to the dream he has of asa at his bedside, smiling down at him, teasing him gently. he feels the phantom warmth of his fingers in his hair, and in dreams, he says, i'm sorry. i should've done better.

asa never condemns him in the dreams. he should. koschei thinks that's what makes it a dream.

"he healed me," the girl says, clutching the paper. "i tried -- i wanted to give this to him. they wouldn't let me."

koschei looks at the sketch in front of him, and for the first time in a long time, he really feels pain. he can feel it crack his chest open to look at her crude drawing and to see asa's face. to hear her say, "he cried over me. his tears healed me."

she can't see his memories: of asa crying over jai's cut hand, of asa offering tears to koschei despite the fact that he could heal, of what it was like when asa had cried on a wound anyway, the salt on koschei's skin warm...

there is a reason that people fear him when he comes. there is a reason leraje found him on the battlefield, and gave him what he has now. there is a reason he has survived so long without his egg being found, and koshei grips tightly onto the rage in his chest as it blooms.

where there was once mild curiosity and perhaps a morbid sense of following something that was doomed... all he has now is anger. all he has now is rage that somehow, some way someone has found a way to bring a version of asa into the world is not only wrong, but being used for something he would have never wanted.

he thinks of the magic he knows, of the daemons out there, of the many who would do anything to have something so powerful in their arms, being used like this. being raised as a god, a false one, an imitation of someone else, and he can feel the rage pouring out of him as he moves from the very edge of civilization but to the forefront.

and he does not go alone. not anymore.

no, this time, koschei is mounted on a horse, and this time when he sees a soothsayer preaching to an audience, he takes aim with a spear and makes sure that the aim is true. this time, he says to the frightened mages, to the terrified werewolves, "if you want to take revenge on those you've lost, you'll come with me."

they do try to stop him. they get a rope around his neck, they kill a vampire who was there with him. they tie thim to a stake, and they set him on fire and they're terrified when the fire doesn't kill him, when he laughs even as his flesh is seared off, when he breaks the ropes and starts to walk out of the fire. what magic he has, he takes delight in only using it well enough to stop them from running.

they're judge, jury, and executioner, right up until they are not.

he doesn't sleep. he doesn't dream. he doesn't eat.

he watches the sun set, waiting with the small army he's assembled. those who've hated each other for generations have agreed to work together, for this one night. he's promised them nothing but bloodshed and vengeance, and they all feed off of each other as they finally come to the main temple where the 'eternal flame' burns.

the sky is as red as a blood, the sun so burnished gold that it hurts to look at. he has but one command to them, "i want to kill their flame myself."

the howls they give are more than enough approval. the flash of swords, the angry cries are just apart of that as he turns to look at the cult below.

people burn. people are killed. he grows with it, healing as fast as he can, soaking it all up. he travels deeper into the temple, finding less people to slaughter but each one is a bit harder to take down than the last. he knows they're guarding that thing wearing asa's face.

his fingers, stained with blood like almost every part of him is now, trail the walls as he walks steadily on. he only holds a dagger in his his hand now, gold and gifted to him years ago. a howl rents the air as his eyes land on him, on the doppelganger, this evil thing that they used to build a religion around.

the copy of him is good. he has to admit that as he looks at his face, at his body. he's the exact height, almost the age that asa was when he koschei had extended his hand to him and take him away to buyan. for a moment -- only a moment -- he wonders if he is wrong. if this is asa. and then he thinks that no. he wouldn't have abided this. that there was only one firebird, one that could look like him and he was dead.

even as he grasps him, he can't help but think: asa never knew how to fight. he could move beautifullly, could never use a dagger, didn't pick up a sword. even as he drives the sword through this thing's heart, as he sees his eyes shift strangely in his face, feeling some heat between them, he strangles the thought that maybe he's wrong here.

any other time, he'd feel that he was right. that this isn't wrong. until it says: koschei?

it says his name and he doesn't want to hear it, doesn't want to believe anything else except this is what he has to do and he wrenches the sword, deeper, harder, as if it was ivan he was killing, as if this thing didn't wear asa's face, as if it could fix any and everything at once.

before this he thought he would gloat, watch it die. instead, hands half bone, half flesh, he leaves the doppelganger on the floor to gag on it's own blood.

on the way out, he throws down one of the numerous candles to the hallway floor, to finish it and everything else off.