Chernevog by C.J. Cherryh

coming at them sideways.
    Volkhi snorted and protested, doubtless accustomed to a warm stable and a generous helping of good dry hay on a day like this, not to stand chilled and chilling after hard going, and Pyetr's own teeth were starting to chatter. So he took to rubbing Volkhi down with twists of fern, work to keep both of them warm so long as his strength held.
    Lightning flashed, turning the woods winter-white for a moment, making him and Volkhi both jump. “ Easy, ” he said, and shoved against Volkhi's shoulder to hold him, thinking that the last thing he needed was to lose Volkhi in the woods. “ Just Father Sky in a bad mood tonight. I promise you he has nothing personal against horses. ”
    Volkhi grunted, shifted, tried to nose his ribs, as if he did truly hope there was supper coming after all this work, from some magical bottom of his master's pockets. Pyetr scratched under a wet chin and said, “ There's none for me, either, lad. I do promise to do better than this in future. ”
    Another flash and clap of thunder. Rain poured down their necks. Somewhere nearby a dead tree gave up a branch that crushed down and took others with it.
    “ Not a nice evening, ” Pyetr muttered, pressing himself against Volkhi's shoulder. “ I don't know what's going on, lad. I truly don't. —Sasha, dammit, have you noticed it's raining? ”
    Granted neither of them liked to meddle with the weather more than the raising of a breeze, for fear of droughts and floods and other disasters wizards had to think about; and granted they might not go so far as to stop the rain for his sake—but they had surely noticed he had not come back.
    “ For the god's own sake, Sasha, not wishing at me doesn't mean I want to spend the night out here! ”
    Surely two wizards with their minds made up could manage to let him know where home was—unless—
    Something's wrong at home, he thought, clinging to Volkhi's warm shoulder, scared and suddenly chilled inside as well as out. They had enemies: there was always the River-thing. And the leshys were not answering, no matter he called Misighi's name till he was hoarse.
    Things seemed less and less clear to his mind ... first Babi, then his memory of the woods—slipping away from him so persistently he had to think hard to keep his wits about him, so pervasively that from moment to moment he began to think there was no such place as the cottage by the river, or, completely crazy notion, he had somehow not come there yet but would; now and again he had escaped the tsar's justice on his own, riding Volkhi out of town. There was no such thing as magic—anyone who thought so was crazy, and everything he had remembered in these woods was yet to happen... or never would happen, an d nothing good would ever be true for him for long: it never had been.
    “ Misighi! ” he shouted, desperately, making Volkhi fret—but if there was a thing altogether elusive in the woods it was the leshys themselves; and if there was a thing first to turn invisible to an ordinary man, it was not something so plain and substantial as an old ferryman's cottage on a riverbank, it was the Forest things that a man's eye had trouble enough seeing in the first place.
    “ Misighi! ” he called until his voice cracked, until he was half ashamed of himself, standing here shouting at nothing but his imagination. But if he was a fool he had no witnesses. “ Babi, ” he made himself say, confidently and loudly to empty air, “ dammit, go home if you can't do anything else! Go home and bring Sasha here. ”
    The wind gusted, shifting direction, slipping around the hill to find them. Under Volkhi's mane was the warmest place to keep his hands, and against Volkhi's side was the only warmth for a man in soaked clothing. He pressed himself there as closely as he could, and kept thinking about home, the very outlines of which were starting to shift and elude him, as if a veil were coming between him and that, too. He had to be crazy