"But not one you would relish."
"It's in the nature of adventure, is it not, to risk that possibility?"
I clapped him on the back. "You are a companion after my own heart, Kazak. Would that you had been with me in some of my former engagements."
"I have it in mind, captain, to be with you in some of your future engagements."
The future for me was so mysterious, so numinous, that I could not answer him. We began to explore the houses, one by one. We found flagstones cracked and pushed apart by plants. In some, small trees were growing. Everything was damp. Pieces of furniture were rotting; fabric fell to shreds at a touch.
"Even the rats have gone." Sedenko returned from a cellar with a wine-jar. He broke the seal and sniffed. "Sour."
He dropped it into an empty fireplace.
"Well," he said, "which of these comfortable houses shall we make our own?"
We decided in the end upon the building which had evidently been the town's meeting place. This was larger and airier than the others and we could light a fire in the big grate.
By dusk, with our horses billeted in one corner of the room and the fire providing us with sufficient heat and some light, we were ready to sleep.
Outside, in the deserted streets of Ammendorf, there was tittle movement. A few birds hunted for insects and occasionally we heard the bark of a fox. Soon Sedenko was snoring, but it was harder for me to lose consciousness. I continued to speculate on Lucifer's reasons for sending me to this place. I thought about Sabrina and despaired of ever seeing her again. I even considered retracing my steps partway and seeking service with the Swedish King whose army was just now marching at some speed through Germany. Then Magdeburg came back to me, as well as Lucifer's threats of what should happen if I betrayed Him, and I lapsed into despondency. Two or three hours must have passed in this useless state of mind before I nodded off, whereupon I was immediately aroused by what I was sure was the sound of hoof beats.
I was on my feet almost with relief, picking up my scabbarded sword as I ran towards the window and looked out into the murk. A thin drizzle had begun to fall and clouds obscured moon and stars. I thought I saw the glow of an oddly coloured lantern moving between the buildings. The light began to grow brighter and brighter until it seemed to be flickering over half Ammendorf, And the hoof beats grew louder, filling my ears with their din…yet still I could see no rider.
Sedenko was beside me now, his sabre ready in his fist. He rubbed at his face. "In the name of God, captain, what is it?"
I shook my head. "I've no idea, lad."
Even the meeting hall was shaking and our own mounts were stamping and whinnying, trying to break free of their halters.
"A storm," Sedenko said. "Some kind of storm, eh, captain?"
"It's like none I've ever witnessed," I told him. "But you could be right."
He was convinced that he was wrong. Every gesture, every movement of his eyes, betrayed his superstition.
"It is Satan's coming," he whispered.
I did not tell him why I thought that explanation unlikely.
All at once, from around a bend in the street, a horseman appeared. As he came into sight the hounds which surrounded his beast's feet, an undulation of savagery, began to bay. There were other riders behind him, but the leader was gigantic, dwarfing all. He wore a monstrous winged helmet framing a bearded face from which the eyes glowed with the same green-blue light which flooded the village. His great chest was encased in a mail shirt half-covered by the bearskin cloak which hung from his shoulders. In his left hand was a long hunting spear of a type not used in at least a hundred years. His legs were also mail-clad and the feet stuck into heavy stirrups. He lifted his head and laughed up at the sky, his voice joining in the note his hounds made until all seemed to be baying together, while his companions, shadows still behind him, began one by one to give forth the same dreadful noise.
"Mother of God," said Sedenko. "I'll fight any man fairly, but not this. Let's go, captain. They are warning us. They are driving us away."
I held my ground. "Drive us they might," I said, "and it would be a good sport for them, no doubt, for they would drive us like game, Sedenko. Those are hunters and I would say that their prey is Man."
"But they are not human!"
"Human once, I'd guess. But far from mortal now."
I saw white faces in the wake of the bearded horseman. ,The lips grinned and the eyes were bright (though not as bright as their leader's). But they were dead men, all of them.
I had come to recognise the dead. And, too, I could recognise the damned.
"Sedenko," I said, "if you would leave me now, I would suggest you go at once."
"I'll fight with you, captain, whatever the nature of the enemy."
"These could be your enemies, Sedenko, but not mine. Go."
He refused. "If these are your friends, then I will stay. They would be powerful friends, eh?"
I had no further patience for the discussion, so I shrugged. I walked towards the door, strapping on my sword. The door creaked open.
The huntsmen were already gathering in Ammendorf s ruined square. I felt the heat of the hounds' breath on my face, the stink of their bodies. They flattened their ears as they began to lie down round the feet of their master's horse.
The chief huntsman stared at me from out of those terrifying eyes. White faces moved in the gloom. Horses pawed the weed-grown cobbles.
"You have come for me?" I said.
The lips parted. The giant spoke in a deep, sorrowing voice, far more melodious than I might have expected. "You are von Bek?"
"I am."
"You stand before the Wildgrave."
I bowed. "I am honoured."
"You are a living man?" he asked, almost puzzled. "An ordinary mortal?"
"Just so," I said.
He raised a bushy eyebrow and turned his head to look back at his white-faced followers, as if sharing a small joke with them. His reply was given in a tone that was almost amused:
"We have been dead these two hundred and fifty years or more. Dead as we once reckoned death, in common with most of mankind."
"But not truly dead." I spoke our High Tongue and this gave Sedenko some puzzlement. But it was the speech in which I had been addressed and I therefore deemed it politic to continue in it.
"Our Master will not let us die in that sense," said the Wildgrave of Ammendorf. He evidently saw me as a comrade in damnation. "Will you guest with me now, sir, at my castle yonder?" He pointed up the cliff.
"Thank you, great Wildgrave."
He turned his glowing eyes upon Sedenko. "And your servant? Shall you bring him?"
I said to Sedenko: "We are invited to dinner, lad. I would suggest you refuse the invitation."
Sedenko nodded.
"He will await me here until morning," I said.
The Wildgrave accepted this. "He will not be harmed. Will you be good enough to mount behind me, sir?"
He loosened his booted foot and offered me a stirrup. Deciding that it would be neither diplomatic nor expedient to hesitate, I walked up to his horse, accepted the stirrup and swung onto the huge beast's stinking back, taking a firm hold of the saddle.
Sedenko watched with wide eyes and dropped jaw, not understanding at all what was happening.
I smiled at him and saluted. "I'll return in the morning," I said. "In the meantime I can assure you that you will sleep safely."
The Wildgrave of Ammendorf grunted a command to his horse and the whole Hunt, hounds and all, turned out of the square. We began to race at appalling speed through the streets and onto an overgrown path which climbed through low-hanging foliage and outcrops of mossy rock to the top of the cliff, where it was now possible for me to see that my eyes had not earlier deceived me. I had thought that I had detected masonry from the village and here it was…a horrible old castle, part fallen into ruin, with a massive keep squatting black against the near-black of the sky.