2

Winter this year was cold and snowy. In the morning, while you clear the path from the house to the gate, you will get stuck. And the cold is so breath-taking!

Lesana was returning from the well with two full buckets, the water in which had already begun to seize with ice. A sharp wind blew in his face, making it difficult to look, burning his cheeks.

- Let me help you.

And the buckets, which had just been so heavy, suddenly became weightless. The girl looked back, with difficulty opening her frozen eyelashes.

A tall, broad-shouldered fellow in a sheepskin coat seized the burden and smiled. His face was round and snub-nosed. The best face in the world! Lesana blushed. Miruta has long sunk into her heart. And he liked her. And in the spring, perhaps, he will come with matchmakers. No, not “maybe”, it will definitely come! From this thought, the soul became warm, warm, and even the burning wind could not cool the burning of the sweet flame.

They walked in silence. Yes, and what to talk about? They all knew about each other. He is the son of a blacksmith, she is the daughter of a potter. Not the most enviable bride, why pervert the soul. The family is not very rich, there are few cattle, but there are seven children in the shops. And she, Lesana, is the most mature. She had an older sister. But it's been four years since Zoryanka disappeared. In the evening, in the transparent autumn twilight, her fiancé escorted her home. All you had to do was walk from one yard to another. So they both died. They looked for them in the morning, called, shouted, hoped - the unfortunate wooden amulets saved the unfortunate ones. But no. Only the dogs were worried and howling...

Then the village headman called the guard to protect the settlement from the return of two lovers. The protective rite was not cheap, so expensive that not a single wedding was played that year - there was nothing to feast on, they barely made it, living from hand to mouth, until the new harvest.

Lesana still remembered the sorcerer - a tall, pale man, dressed in clothes gray as road dust. He then looked at the girl roaring in three streams with such a cold, lifeless look that her legs buckled. I even forgot to cry. Although... how not to cry when a sister, together with her fiancé, turned into undead and at any moment can return to her native threshold - moan, scratch under the windows, laugh with wild laughter or call relatives with tears to look out of the hut?

But after the ceremony performed by the guard, the village became calmer. Now the protective circle, outlined along the tyna, protected the entire settlement from evil spirits. Even in the dark it was possible to go out into the yard, or even walk to the neighboring hut. Of course, there were still few who dared, but it was still so calm.

Miruta - the first of all the brave men in the village - told Lesana how he went on a bet at night right up to the well! My heart almost burst. But no one touched the guy, although he swore later that he heard Zoryanka's voice calling from behind. After this, the father gave his son cracks and did not let him out of the forge for a whole week, knocking out nonsense with work. For everyone knew that a protective spell would not save if the victim was beckoned by the mind-depriving call of the walker. Good, if a charmed amulet hangs around your neck, and if not, you will run out on a werewolf or a bloodsucker, you will become prey.

Yes, things have happened. Therefore, everyone remembered - with the onset of night, if you want to stay alive, not a step out of the house. Whether you are rich or poor, you will find silver for a protective rite for housing. Those who were wealthy enough spoke to entire farmsteads. If a person was poor, he cast a spell only on the house, but this house became a shelter for both cattle (if there was one) and people.

When things were going really badly with my father, or when the year was lean, in the house of the Lesanya family, a cow and a calf, a goat, and a dozen chickens crowded behind the partition. You won't get anywhere.

What a difference to Miruta's family! Each of them has an expensive amulets around their necks, charmed to protect them from the call of those who walk not for a year, not for two, but for five whole springs! And the forge, and the house, and all their courtyards are overshadowed by a special slander.

But the neighbors - spoon-makers from the outskirts - had no money, therefore, when the grandmother died in their family, there was nothing to invite the sorcerer to whisper the deceased. They buried her behind a buoy, for they knew that she would rise.

And so it happened. The old woman got up two days later and walked around the courtyard for several weeks, calling her son in a rasping voice. He had to sell a cow to calm his mother down. But for a long time the small children in the cooper's house screamed in their sleep, everything seemed to them - the grandmother was scratching at the door, she wanted to come in and bite ...

What just didn't happen. Yes.

Lesana thought about all this, going to the house, and her hand reached out to the amulet hanging around her neck under her undershirt. Nobody in her family had one. Spellbound from the call of the bloodsucker. This amulet was given to Meerut for the Feast of the First Ice.

But then the native gates appeared. The girl stopped and turned to her guide. He carried huge buckets without the slightest effort, while he himself looked with happy eyes at his friend walking ahead. Good! A blond braid as thick as an arm descends from under a scarf onto her back, her cheeks on a white face blaze with a blush, but blue eyes under eyelashes that are white from frost look open and straight.

“Come on,” Lesana held out her hands in fur mittens, intending to take the buckets from the guy.

He shook his head and placed the burden in a snowdrift by the path.

The girl blushed, but the young blacksmith was not embarrassed, he squeezed a handsome companion between the fence and the snow-covered viburnum bush and began to kiss.

Finally, panting, Lesana broke free, picked up the buckets and rushed away.

Miruta laughed.

- Tell your father, the snow will come down, I will send matchmakers! he shouted cheerfully.

And the girl slammed the heavy gate leaf and leaned against it from the back, trying to control her breathing and hiding her face glowing with happiness in her hands. Hurry!

* * *

The long-awaited spring turned out to be dull, protracted. Damned snowdrifts did not melt! And although the sheepskin short fur coats had long since moved into woolen rolls, the porous snow still lay bald here and there, and the days dragged on gray, windy, smelling of rotten, bare earth.

The potter Yurdon was waiting for the matchmakers, annoyed. Spring conspiracy - hungry. The old crop has almost been eaten up, and the new one has not yet been sown. Whether business summer! But Kuznetsov's son, it seems, had a passion for becoming impoverished. 

... This day - the first for all previous weeks - pleased with the sun and warmth. Finally, spring did not blaze, it came in reality. Lesana was cleaning the barn when she heard lively screams from the street. Really? Without warning? Is it possible so? The heart sank and fluttered. 

The girl darted away from the stall, clutching the wooden charm Miruta had given her in her fist. 

When Lesana leaned out of the gate, an unfamiliar rider in black clothes was slowly riding down the street on a dapple-gray horse. Nearby, hastily bowing, minced the headman. Miracle! Why would a stranger be so honored?

But then a gust of spring wind ripped off the traveler's cape, revealing the ash-haired, short-cropped crown. Kref! Yes really? As it is - a guardian from the Citadel! Look, and see the sword! Came to seek learn. Lesana looked in fascination at the back of the retreating alien.

By noon, the news of the arrival of the messenger of the fortress spread throughout the neighborhood. Anticipation hung in the air. It will be a great honor for the village if the kref finds the Gifted One here and takes it with him! Learn the Citadels became either healers (wealth and honor until old age), or sorcerers (they were afraid of them, but they were not denied honor), or warriors (the life of the defenders was harsh and short, but satisfying).

And when the child accepts science and is girded, his native settlement will pay only half the price for the trebs to the Autumn ones. Help! But in Nevezh - all of Lesanin - the last time kref came five springs ago, and left with nothing.

The next morning, everyone was ordered to come to the headman's house and bring their children with them. The family of the potter Yurdon also gathered. It was interesting to look at the outlandish guest. And only Lesana, living in the expectation of collusion, thought less of the messenger of the Citadel than others. The snow is almost gone! Soon the matchmakers of the blacksmiths will knock on the gates... My heart sank sweetly with anticipation.

The sun had passed past noon, when it was the turn of Lesana's family to show the children to the guardian.

Kreff was sitting by the stove, his back against the warm stone. The girl was surprised - it seemed not old, but her face ... not that tired, but somehow ... She could not explain. The man was fit and strong. Not as hefty as Miruta, but where is the blacksmith, even with his heavy fists, against this!