The shaft of the arrow pierced the center of Oleg’s back with a hard thunk as the crowd gasped and rose to its feet.
“Vpered!”
Tatyana heard Ivan shout the command and the red-coated Muscovite vampires surged from the sidelines, running forward and pulling axes from their long coats, ripping the earth from beneath the chaugan field as horses and humans screamed.
They turned on all their brethren, who raised their hands in defense, turned on the guests witnessing the match, and turned even on their own who did not pull weapons from their coats.
There was chaos and confusion as the vampires of the Kievan Rus broke apart, some running across the field to meet the battle without weapons while others stood in defense of the guests under attack.
In the chaos and torchlight, all Tatyana could see was her mate, bent forward with an arrow driven straight through his chest.
“Tatyana le Tala!” Sándor was off his mount and flying at her side. “We must get you off the field immediately.” He held out his hand as another Hazar flew toward her.
But her blood was raging. She wanted to kill. She wanted to killIvan. “Find me a weapon!”
“Oleg can protect himself!”
The Hazar flying toward them spun in the air, and Tatyana saw the arrow sticking out from the Poshani woman’s shoulder.
“Archers.” She pointed. “In the trees. Just like my mother’s house. Sándor, find me a weaponnow!”
She dismounted from her horse, slapping the animal’s rump to urge it away from the field, which was rumbling beneath her feet in a near-constant earthquake.
The earth was rippling like a wind-whipped sea, but Tatyana ran toward the last place she had spotted Oleg. She couldn’t see anything clearly in the chaos of panicked horses, fleeing humans, and vampires who were looking for the source of the arrows.
She reached out with her amnis and felt the tie between her and her mate like a tight cord running from her chest.
“Yes.” She lifted her hands, drawing a veil of snow and ice around herself to block out the vision of the archers.
But no. That was too visible. Too focused. She heard arrows cutting through the air over her head.
Tatyana lifted her hands again, drawing on the combined energy of hers and Oleg’s blood to raise as much snow as possible, a white wall of confusion to keep the snipers at bay.
She felt someone approaching from the left.
“Knyaginya!” Ludmila shouted. “Come with me.”
The sniper grasped her by the arm and pulled her into the white wall of snow even as they tripped over a rock that burst from the ground.
“Rudov cannot be trusted,” Ludmila said. “I saw some of his people helping Ivan’s.”
“Rudov?” What did that mean for Oleg? For Juliya, Rudov’s daughter? “Who can we trust?”
“Oleg and your people,” Ludmila said. “Right now that is all.”
Tatyana felt his heat and his fury in her own veins. He was alive. Clearly and furiously alive. She gripped Ludmila’s arm and tugged. “Come with me.”
The chaos around them had descended into bloodshed, with Ivan’s men wielding axes even against the partygoers. Tatyana saw a blond vampire in a bright yellow sarafan on the ground, her head lying next to her body.
There was a red-and-green-coated vampire lying on top of her with his head nearly severed.
Tatyana nearly vomited the blood-wine she’d taken earlier in the evening.
There was blood on the snow, blood in the air. Arrows cutting through the snowstorm, shot blindly by archers in the trees.
Ludmila wheeled around, yanking her arm from Tatyana’s as a red-coated vampire burst through the drifting wall of snow, his axe raised at Tatyana.
The small vampire went low, barreling toward the vampire’s legs as she pulled a long silver dagger from her coat. She rolled and cut the back of both the man’s knees, sending him to the ground as he tripped and fell forward.
