Book of the Night

by Oliver Pötzsch

  As fast as he could, Lukas got up, squinted several times, and wiped the blood from his forehead until he could see more clearly. He staggered like a drunk, but at least he didn’t fall over again.

  A small group of boys and girls surrounded him. They were dressed in shabby clothing and had tied rags around their feet. With their lice-ridden hair and dirty faces gaunt from hunger, they reminded Lukas of a pack of wolves. They stared at him defiantly, as if waiting to see what he’d do next. Between the other children and Lukas, a boy of around eight was writhing around on the ground, clutching his foot.

  “Damn, the swine isn’t unconscious at all,” the boy snarled. “He was just pretending. Come on, let’s finish him off.”

  The boy stood up and hobbled a few steps backward. Now the children formed a circle around Lukas and started closing in on him, step by step. In their hands they all held sticks and jagged rocks.

  Lukas studied their faces, one by one. He’d often fought more than one opponent and usually won. At the very start, it was important to do something to impress the others, then usually, they’d retreat. This time, though, he was clearly outnumbered. There were over a dozen of them, most of them as old as he was, a few younger ones, and a big, strong boy who looked to be at least fifteen or sixteen. He was the one giving the signal to attack.

  “What are you waiting for, you chickens?” he shouted. “Get him!”

  Three children came charging at Lukas. He dodged the first, a skinny girl with a rock in her hand; the second, a boy who was just as skinny, he kicked in the stomach, sending him flying onto the ground, where he lay gasping and whimpering. The third boy was the strongest of the three. He was holding a big stick and took a swing at Lukas, but at the last moment, Lukas dodged and stepped back. His own stick was lying in the dirt a few steps away from him, just out of his reach, so for better or worse he’d have to use his fists.

  And a trick.

  As the boy charged at him with his upraised stick, Lukas did something unexpected. He didn’t retreat, but charged straight ahead. The stick whizzed past his head, barely missing him, as Lukas rammed the boy with his shoulder. The boy staggered, and Lukas flattened him with two well-placed punches.

  At the same moment, he sensed something moving behind him, and when he turned, he saw that the other boy had gotten up again and was preparing to throw a rock at his head. Lukas blocked the throw with his arm and gave his opponent a punch in the pit of the stomach that sent him flying into the dirt again.

  Now three other children approached him, armed with stones, sticks, and clubs.

  Lukas gasped. He’d never be able to hold out against the whole group; they’d kill him like a rabid mongrel, but at least he would defend himself to his last breath. Holding up his fists, he awaited the attack, when suddenly he heard a loud voice.

  “Just cut it out before he whips the rest of you. The fight’s over.”

  Again it was the older boy who had spoken. His words had an effect. The children stopped and lowered their weapons. Suspiciously, they looked at Lukas, then at their leader.

  “Just look what he did to Mathis!” The older boy laughed, pointing at the kid who was still lying on the ground, only half conscious. “This guy is worth more than three of you weenies. We ought to welcome anyone who can fight like that.”

  Grinning, the older boy approached Lukas. “My name is Marek,” he said in a loud voice accustomed to giving orders. “I’m the leader of this pathetic band. It looks like you can take a lot of punishment. Hans!” He summoned a smaller boy, who sullenly approached and handed him a sack. Marek took out a roasted chicken leg and handed it to Lukas with a patronizing gesture. “Here, this is for you. It’s the last we have. Consider it a welcoming gift.”

  Lukas hesitated, but then he reached out and hungrily took a bite of the food. As Lukas devoured the chicken, Marek continued talking, his arms crossed, looking him up and down.

  “We are all orphans or homeless outcasts, no better than a pack of wolves, but we still have our honor. Actually, we’d decided not to take anyone else into our group, which would mean one more mouth to feed, but for you we’ll make an exception. Who taught you how to fight like that?”

  Lukas looked up briefly from his food. “My father.”

  Marek nodded. “Your father, I see. Then he was somebody better than us, I suspect. Your moves looked a lot like sword fighting, and only nobles are allowed to carry swords.”

  When Lukas didn’t reply, Marek continued. “It doesn’t matter, I’ll find out sooner or later. By the way, we’re all equals here, whether we were squires or beggars before. We have a camp deep in the forest where the farmers and the soldiers can’t find us. We have a campfire there, a few warm blankets, and whenever we get back from a raid, something to eat as well.” He winked at Lukas and reached out his hand. “So, are you with us?”

  The snowfall had gotten heavier, and Lukas could feel himself shivering. It wasn’t just because of the cold. Just a few minutes ago, these children had tried to kill him, and now he was invited to join the group. But did he really have a choice? He’d never make it through the winter by himself.

  After a while he took Marek’s outstretched hand.

  “Welcome to the Blood Wolves,” Marek said with another grin. “That’s what we call ourselves. And now come, we’ll show you our camp. It’s no palace, but it’s ours.”

  The Blood Wolves’ camp was an old bear’s den in the middle of the forest, with a hole in the ceiling serving as a natural chimney. Fallen birch trees covered with moss and partially frozen bogs made it almost impossible to reach unless you knew the exact route to follow. The children had spread out fragrant reeds and rabbit skins on the floor of the cave, and every evening made a little fire where they roasted rabbits or partridges caught during the day. Now and then a newborn litter of dormice, an emaciated weasel, or a blackbird would be added to the thin meat stew.

  For the next few days, Lukas was busy getting to know his new comrades. They all had their own sad story of how they had ended up here. Mathis was the son of a blacksmith whom the mercenaries had seized and hung upside down by the heels before Mathis’s very eyes, after first pouring liquid cow manure down his throat because he wouldn’t tell them where he’d hidden his money. Little Martha, who was just eight years old, was the only one in her family to survive the Great Plague and had wandered through the forests alone for weeks until she finally came across the Blood Wolves. Marek, the leader, had marched as drummer boy with Tilly’s army until his entire company had been wiped out in a skirmish with the Danes. He was one of the few who survived the slaughter and, since then, had been on the run. None of the gang had any idea what the future had in store for them. And they all had just one goal.

  To survive.

  Often during the cold, sleepless nights, Lukas thought of his mother, and sometimes she even appeared to him in a dream, smiling. Her final consoling words helped him endure his darkest hours.

  I will always be with you . . .

  Had she really been a witch? Had he only imagined the strange blue cloud and the sound of her voice? But for the most part, Lukas was too busy just surviving another day to be able to think any more about it.

  After a while, the other members of the gang accepted Lukas, mainly because he taught them some of the things he’d learned about stick fighting. He never disclosed to anyone that he came from a noble family, but only said he’d lost both his parents in the war and after that had been a drummer boy just like Marek. Whenever Marek tried to learn more, Lukas fell silent, which made the leader more and more suspicious.

  “He’s keeping something from us,” Lukas overhead him hiss to the others more than once. “The fellow has something to hide, and by God, I’ll find out what it is.”

  Finally, at the beginning of December, the snow fell so hard they had trouble even leaving their camp. There were knee-high snowdrifts everywhere, and two of the children had bad cases of whooping cough. In addition, they had little to eat.<
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  “If we don’t want to starve and freeze to death, it’s time we went out on a raid,” Marek said one especially cold morning as they sat around the fire. “And I know where.”

  The others looked at him curiously.

  “There’s a mill not far from here, deep in the forest,” he continued in a low voice. “It’s well protected behind a wall. Up to now it’s always seemed too tricky, because the miller is also a bear of a man. But I recently heard that the miller has spotted fever. He’s bedridden and can no longer move. Aside from him there’s only his wife, a young apprentice, and two or three little children. We can take care of them.”

  “You intend to rob the family of a sick man who can’t defend himself?” Lukas looked at him skeptically. “Suppose the apprentice sees us and stands in the way?”

  “Damn! He won’t do that, because we’ll attack at night,” Marek declared. “And if he does, it’s just his bad luck. We’ll steal whatever we can get our hands on. Then we’ll take off—or do you prefer to stay here and die of hunger, eh?”

  When Lukas didn’t answer, Marek got up from the fire and knocked the sooty brushwood from his trousers. “So this is what we’re going to do. We head out tonight”—he grinned—“and tomorrow, by God, we stuff our bellies with roasted chicken.”

  VI

  At dusk the children headed out on their way to the mill. Only the two sick ones remained behind, while the others armed themselves with sticks or collected stones to use in their slingshots. Marek was the only one carrying a long knife. He also carried a torch wrapped in oilcloth to help them find their way through the approaching darkness. Their march led them through waist-deep snow, and sometimes they had to stop to help the younger ones over the drifts. A brisk wind arose, tugging on the torch and nearly extinguishing the flame.

  Lukas clenched his teeth and tried not to lose touch with the group. He was still torn about the robbery. They needed food—without doubt. Above all, the two sick children, one of whom was little Martha, were extremely weak. But did that justify robbing a defenseless miller suffering from spotted fever, along with his family? Lukas decided to make sure they stole only what they really needed. He knew, of course, that Marek had other plans.

  After two hours, they came to a clearing covered with snow and glimmering in the pale light of the moon. A wall about six feet high built of loose, rough-hewn stone surrounded a large area with a wooden house and a mill wheel at the center.

  “There’s no way to get in from this side,” Marek whispered, pointing to the right. “But over there the mill stream passes beneath the wall.”

  “Do you mean for us to swim when it’s this cold?” Mathis asked anxiously.

  “You idiot! The brook is frozen, of course. We just have to crawl underneath the wall. It’s a cinch.”

  Marek led the group around the wall until they came to a wide opening just a few feet high. Drifts of snow lay over the gleaming black icy surface of the brook.

  “But suppose the ice won’t support us?” Hans asked.

  “It will, you sissy,” Marek responded. “I tried it out just yesterday, so I know there’s a watchdog over there.” Grinning, as usual, he pulled out a roasted pheasant leg, and in the other hand, he held his knife. “I’ll take care of the mutt myself. When you hear me whistle, come on through.”

  With the knife between his teeth, he disappeared through the opening. A short while later, they heard growling on the other side of the wall that soon turned into a painful howl. Then they heard Marek whistling.

  Lukas was the first to venture out onto the ice in the mill brook. It creaked and groaned beneath him, but actually appeared to support him. Ducking his head, he scrambled beneath the wall in the darkness. A few moments later, he could see moonlight above him once more, and he knew he’d made it to the other side.

  As the other children followed, Lukas wiped the snow and dirt from his face and looked around. The mill was directly in front of him, and next to it a house. Beyond that there was a shed and a stable, from which a soft mooing could be heard. The only person visible in the courtyard was Marek, who stood a bit to one side wiping the bloody knife on his trousers. At his feet lay a large, lifeless dog, its tongue hanging out of its mouth. Marek had planted the burning torch in the snow.

  “At least the old cur had one last good meal,” Marek said as he put his knife away. Then he started whispering orders.

  “Hans and Mathis, look around in the mill and see if you can find any flour. The rest of you will go to the barn and grab the chickens while Lukas and I go over to the shed with the torch to see what we can find there.”

  Lukas stared at him in surprise, and Marek whispered, “I want to keep an eye on you to make sure you don’t get any dumb ideas. Now, let’s go!”

  While the other children fanned out with soiled linen sacks, Marek and Lukas ran over to the shed. They were relieved to find out that the door was bound only with a simple lock. Evidently, the miller felt secure enough behind his own walls.

  Quietly, Marek opened the bolt with his knife, then the two boys entered. Inside, it was pitch-black except for a pale beam of moonlight that fell through a slit in the door. Marek held up the torch to light their way.

  “Look around for anything we can use,” he whispered. “Axes, nails, blankets, furs . . . Perhaps we’ll even find a little money—millers are rich.”

  Hesitantly, Lukas started looking around. By the light of the torch, he could see the vague outlines of crates and chests. He opened one of them and found a few moldy wolf pelts and a bearskin coat.

  Marek took the coat and put it on. “As I told you, there are things we can use here,” he said with a giggle. “Be quick now, before someone wakes up.”

  They opened another chest containing tools and nails and filled their sacks with them. Just as Lukas was about to hurry out the door with his loot, he stumbled over a bump in the floor, a trapdoor handle that had been concealed beneath one of the many chests. Marek saw it too.

  “I’ll bet there’s something valuable under there,” he muttered. “Come and help me pull up the lid.”

  They both pulled on the trapdoor and found a small, moldy-smelling recess underneath. Marek shined the torchlight inside and whistled softly. “Well, look at this. It seems our miller has a little secret.”

  Lukas bent down, and his heart started beating faster. In the recess, bound in leather, was a gleaming sword with an elaborate hilt, together with its belt. Alongside it rested a dagger the length of a man’s forearm, a pistol with a pouch for carrying gunpowder, and a musket.

  “It appears the miller fought in the war and put this aside for bad times,” Marek whispered. “These weapons are worth a heap of money. Just look.” There was a jingling sound of metal coins as he pulled out a small leather bag from beneath the sword. “No doubt this is the booty from his raids,” he said with a triumphant look. “We’ve hit the jackpot. Let’s—”

  He stopped short on hearing a creaking sound behind them. When Lukas turned around, he saw a little girl standing at the wide-open door. She was perhaps seven or eight and clearly not a member of their gang. She was wearing a white nightgown, holding a raggedy doll, and blinking as she looked sleepily at the two boys with her mouth agape. Until now she had not made a sound. Evidently, she had been on the way to the privy and had seen the torchlight through a crack in the door.

  “Damn!” Marek growled. “That’s surely one of the miller’s daughters. Tough luck for her.” He turned to Lukas and handed him the knife. “Quick, grab her and shut her up. Now you can prove you’re really one of us.”

  “You mean you want me to—”

  “What else? Slit her throat,” Marek interrupted. “If she screams, the apprentice and the miller’s wife will come running, and then we’ll have an even bigger bloodbath. So hurry up!”

  Lukas stared at the girl, who was still standing there in the doorway as if petrified. She had tousled blond hair and a few freckles on her nose. The similarity made Lukas’s
blood freeze.

  She looked like Elsa.

  “I would never do anything to hurt this little girl,” he whispered.

  Sighing, Marek grabbed his knife. “Just as I thought. You’re a coward. Then I’ll have to do it myself.” Resolutely, he strode toward the terrified girl.

  Lukas didn’t hesitate a moment. He dashed forward and knocked Marek to the ground. The torch slipped from Marek’s hands and rolled toward the nearest chest as Lukas jumped on the older boy and struggled to hold him down.

  “Run!” Lukas shouted at the girl. “Run away, as fast as you can.”

  “You’ll pay for that,” Marek gasped. “I’ll kill you.”

  The older boy was still holding the knife in his right hand, and Lukas was struggling to push Marek’s hand away, but the leader was stronger. Inch by inch the blade got closer to Lukas’s throat. Screaming and running feet could now be heard, as the girl finally overcame her paralyzing fear and scurried away.

  “We have you to thank for this,” Marek snarled. “I always knew you weren’t one of us.”

  With all his strength, he thrust the blade forward, but Lukas let go and rolled to the side, dodging the knife. The boys rolled back and forth like two rabid animals, until suddenly, Marek was on top of Lukas, holding the knife just a few inches from his throat.

  “You filthy . . . ,” he started to say, but then his eyes opened wide. Lukas could smell smoke and saw that the torch lying on the ground had set fire to Marek’s bearskin coat. A few of the blankets had also caught fire. For a split second, Marek’s grip loosened, but that was long enough. With all his strength, Lukas pushed Marek’s hand aside, the knife flew back . . .

  . . . and lodged in Marek’s chest.

  Groaning, the older boy rolled away and fell to the floor beside Lukas. There was a final quiver, then his eyes became glassy and empty.