by Howe, A. E.
“These ignorant peasants warned us not to go near the village. Warned me!”
“Tell them that we understand their concern, but I must go to the village out of respect for my grandfather,” Josephine said forcefully. She was afraid the captain might let his anger get out of control
But her words had the desired calming effect on him. Looking at her, he nodded and spoke to the gathering. His tone was slow and measured. They listened. Constantin started to speak, but Elena reached out with her gnarled hands and touched his sleeve, addressing him earnestly.
“What’s she saying?” Josephine asked.
“She told him that you were right to respect your grandfather’s wishes. As with all things, it is in God’s hands.”
An hour later they left the farm, followed by smiles and well wishes, with only a few disapproving looks from some of the older men.
They had ridden for about ten minutes when the captain stopped at a spot before the path entered a wooded area. He dismounted his horse and reached into his saddlebag.
“I don’t like taking chances,” he said, pulling out a holster and placing it on his belt. From the holster, he removed a Webley revolver and made sure it was loaded before putting it back into the holster and remounting his horse.
“You don’t think somebody would attack us?”
“Peasants,” he said as though any illogical behavior was explained by that one word. “Besides, there are bandits in these mountains.”
A few minutes later, they were crossing a stream when a horse and rider came crashing down a narrow animal trail toward them. The captain reached for his pistol, but stayed his hand when he realized that it was only Josephine’s young cousin, Gheorghe.
“What are you doing here?” the captain asked in Romanian.
“I have something for my cousin. You may need it if you’re going to the old village.” Gheorghe reached behind himself and unstrapped a leather case about the size and shape of a large loaf of bread. “Here,” he said, holding it out.
Josephine sat on her horse, not understanding what they were saying but with a sense of its importance.
The captain nudged his horse forward until he could take the rolled leather kit.
“This was her grandfather’s. He left it with the family when he fled to America,” the young man said.
“Why did they not give it to her?”
“They’re scared. They worry that something might cause the nightmare to come again. I am not afraid.” The captain recognized the bravery of youth that had not been tested in the heat of battle.
“Brave, are you? What is this monster your family is so afraid of?”
“I don’t know. The troubles were over long before the war.”
“You would have thought that the war would have given them other things to fear rather than silly superstitions.”
“My family may be scared, but I know they are not cowards. If they fear something, then it is real and dangerous.”
“So you say.”
The captain unrolled the leather case. Inside were several odd items: a vial of water, a small prayer book, several feet of crudely made rope, a small knife and a bone saw. The captain turned to Josephine and gave her a quick summary of the conversation. Turning back to the young man, he asked, “What is all of this?”
“A hunter’s kit. According to my grandfather, the village hired a hunter to kill the beast that was stalking them. He came with this and his guns. Her grandfather and his brothers went with him in search of the creature. Only her grandfather came back. Less than a year later, everyone still alive moved from the village.”
“What good is this against a wolf or a bear? Better if you’d brought guns,” Petran ridiculed the kit.
“Our people thought the monster was a supernatural being.”
“And that’s how peasants think.” The captain was getting angry again.
“We are not ignorant. My people know more about these hills than any man alive. It’s no shame that we couldn’t defeat something not of this earth.”
The captain shrugged and gave the package to Josephine.
“Thank him for me.”
“She thanks you. Now we’ll be off,” he said to Gheorghe.
“I’m going with you,” the youth stated loudly.
Petran looked him up and down appraisingly. “You need to tend your fields.”
“You need someone with you who knows the land. Did you know that there is a pass that’s not on the maps?”
As the whole reason Petran was in the area was to map it for an improved road system, he had to consider this news carefully. “You know of a pass that’s not marked?”
“Yes. It is above the village. My grandfather has told me about it many times.”
“How far from the village?”
“Not far. I can take you there.”
“Even though you’ve never been there?”
“Yes. I’ve heard the stories many times.”
“Very well,” Petran told him and then explained the situation to Josephine.
The three of them rode off toward the old village as the day turned into afternoon. The path became more of a deer trail as they approached the settlement. They passed the first abandoned house within an hour. Soon, they were standing in a small area of stone houses with thatched roofs that had fallen in long ago. They dismounted and tied their horses to trees. Josephine walked around, trying to imagine the place filled with families and animals.
She came across a small building where the roof had been made of wood. Looking up, she could see the remains of a small steeple. Behind the old church, she found a collection of gravestones and crosses surrounded by a low stone wall.
Going back to the horses, she retrieved her grandfather’s ashes. The captain came over to her.
“I’ve found a place to scatter his ashes,” she said. “The old cemetery. He’ll be at rest with his family.”
Gheorghe followed them back to the churchyard. Josephine said a prayer as the two men bowed their heads, hats in hand. She spread the ashes over the area while a cool, gentle breeze helped to send them drifting into the far reaches of the graveyard.
Some of the gravestones could still be read. Josephine and Gheorghe walked through them, seeing names that were familiar from their grandparents’ stories.
“We’d better go,” Petran said, “if we’re going to get back to town before nightfall.”
“The pass is over there,” Gheorghe said, pointing at two small mountain peaks that loomed over the village. The three mounted up and followed a path that had once been a road, but was now little more than an animal trail.
As they approached the pass, a large stone structure came into view between the peaks. A medieval fortress had been built from the stony outcroppings, spanning the gap above the pass. Anyone traveling this way would have had to pass beneath the fortress. Constructed from the same stone as the mountains, the building was nearly impossible to see from a distance. Captain Petran began to understand how it had remained hidden all these years.
“Did you know about this?” Petran asked Gheorghe.
“The old men talked about it in hushed whispers, but I didn’t believe them. They said that it had protected them for centuries.”
As they entered the pass, Josephine gasped. “There,” she said, pointing. “I saw someone.”
The captain and Gheorghe looked, but there was no one there. Then suddenly a man appeared in the middle of the road under the fortress.
“Stop!” he yelled loudly in Romanian. The man was large, taller than either the captain or Gheorghe, with broad shoulders. He held a pike in his hands.
“I’m Captain Petran of the Romanian Army!”
“Ha!” was all the man said. He twirled the huge pike threateningly. “I am Balan Lupu, captain of the guard for Baron Dragomir Blasko, once voivode of all that you can see from this fortress.”
“What is he saying?” Josephine asked in a hushed whisper.
“He is
called the Blonde Wolf, and he’s the captain of the guard for some baron who was once the governor of this land,” Petran explained. Then he turned to Gheorghe and asked in Romanian, “Have you ever heard of this Baron Blasko?”
The young man shook his head.
“Leave here and never return!” Lupu bellowed.
Now that she was able to see the man clearly, he looked older than she’d first thought. His hair was long and grey, his face leathery and lined as though he’d spent decades watching for trespassers.
“I have the authority of the government to survey all lands in these mountains,” the captain said.
The big man seemed to have had enough and began to approach them, his large, sturdy pike held at the ready.
“You’ve been warned. I give you one more chance. Turn and go,” Lupu said.
“We should leave,” Josephine said, not understanding the words but receiving the message just the same.
The captain said nothing, but drew his service revolver. As the gun cleared his holster, Lupu ran at him, pike extended. The captain fired two quick shots. The first one hit Lupu, who didn’t seem to notice, while the second round went high as Lupu closed the distance. Before Petran could react, Lupu thrust the pike into his chest and lifted him off of his horse. When the captain hit the ground, Josephine could hear the sound of the pike ripping through his ribcage.
Somehow Petran managed to steady the gun as he fired another shot into Lupu’s chest. The big man staggered, trying to wrestle the pike from the dying captain’s body.
Josephine’s horse had had enough, spooking at the sight of the maddened, pike-wielding Romanian. She lost control of the reins as the horse reared. Still holding onto the leather kit that Gheorghe had given her, she kicked free of the stirrups and fell to the ground as the horse bolted away. She rolled over to see Lupu, bleeding from his chest and standing over the captain.
Gheorghe had been watching the events unfold from a safe distance, sitting on his horse with his mouth hanging open and his heart hammering in his chest. His mind was a blur of thoughts and emotions that finally crystalized into one goal—saving himself. He turned his horse and galloped back the way they’d come.
As Josephine watched, Lupu twisted the pike, trying to free it. His movements slowed, his knees finally buckling as the blood pumped from the wound in his heart. He slumped to the ground and fell over beside the captain’s body.
Horrified, Josephine stumbled to her feet and stared at the bodies on the ground. The captain’s horse had also run off, leaving her the only living thing standing in the road in front of the medieval fortress.
What the hell do I do now? her inner voice screamed.
She looked down at the kit in her hand. Not much protection here, she thought, trying to think of a plan that would end with her safe and sound back at the inn. Or, better yet, back home in Alabama.
Looking again at Petran and Lupu, she noticed the Webley revolver lying on the ground near the captain’s outstretched arm. She carefully walked around the bodies and picked it up. Petran had shot three times, so there should be three rounds left—assuming that he wasn’t like her father, who had always kept an empty cylinder under the hammer.
Josephine had to work a little to figure out how to open up the gun. It was a top break, unlike the Colt revolvers she was used to. As she’d suspected, there were three rounds left. Do I have the nerve to search his pockets? she asked herself. Josephine shut her eyes for just a second, then thought, If I’m going to survive, then I have to do whatever is necessary. No time for niceties.
She quickly kneeled down before she lost her nerve. Petran’s body was still warm as she went through his pockets. She found a lighter, a cigarette case, his papers and nothing else. She kept the lighter and an official-looking letter that had his name on it. She kept the paper so that if she ever got out of there, she’d be able to let someone know what had happened to him.
The sun was falling behind the mountains and the temperature was dropping fast. Josephine would have taken the captain’s coat, but it was a bloody mess. She shivered.
It would take her most of a day to walk back to her relatives’ farm, and at night it would be impossible. The paths were too poorly marked and there would be only a sliver of a moon. Attempting to walk back now would only result in her getting lost and dying in the wilderness. And when I do get back to the farm, I will spit in Gheorghe’s face, she vowed.
A wolf howled in the distance and another answered. Pushing away the grim thought of being eaten, Josephine turned around and looked at the fortress looming over the pass. I don’t have much choice, she told herself. Surely, if there are other killer giants inside, they would have come out by now.
Josephine squared her shoulders and walked toward the castle, holding the revolver and her grandfather’s kit tightly. The door that Lupu had obviously come out of was still ajar. She opened it and walked through into the darkness, taking out the captain’s lighter and flicking it on. The flame illuminated a well-worn stone staircase that spiraled up out of sight.
After she had climbed about twenty steps, natural light began to seep through from above. Josephine continued up until she came to what appeared to be a large, ancient banquet hall. There were several massive wooden tables and a fireplace that half a dozen men could have stood in with ease.
What do I do now? she wondered. Continue searching the castle, or hunker down here for the night and leave first thing in the morning?
There was some wood by the fireplace and that made up her mind. With a fire, she would be able to last the night. There was no reason to risk disturbing anyone… or anything… living within the bowels of the fortress.
Chapter Six
Josephine was soon comforted by the warm flames glowing brightly in the fireplace. Outside, the light coming in through the ancient rippled glass of the great hall had faded to a dull blue. She walked through the large room quickly and checked all the doors. They couldn’t be locked, but with some effort she was able to slide two heavy wooden chairs in front of them. If anyone tried to enter the room, at least she’d have some warning.
She placed the revolver on the floor beside her and, using the rolled leather kit as a crude pillow, curled up beside the hearth in the soothing light of the flames. Darkness fell as she tended the fire and tried to rest.
Much later, she was startled awake when a voice spoke to her from several feet away.
“Cine esti?”
Josephine could see a large figure, barely lit by the dim light of the dying fire. “I don’t understand,” she said, sitting up and reaching for the revolver. The gun was gone.
“You speak English?” the man asked with a heavy accent. His face was still hidden in shadows.
“Yes.”
“Did you come with the man who killed Lupu?” The voice held only a hint of accusation.
“Yes,” Josephine repeated, not seeing the point in lying.
“Why have you come here?”
“I came…” She didn’t know if he meant to Romania or just to this castle. “My grandfather was born in the village below.”
“And that gives you the right to come here and kill my servant?”
“No, of course not. But he attacked us!” She couldn’t help but defend herself and Captain Petran.
“Lupu’s job was to protect my home and the pass it is built upon.”
Feeling vulnerable on the floor, Josephine scrambled to her feet, causing the leather-bound kit that she’d been using as a pillow to roll toward the stranger. The man flew forward so fast that her eyes could barely follow him in the dim light. He snatched up the leather satchel and unrolled it. Seeing the implements inside, he dropped it to the floor with an exclamation of disgust.
Josephine could see the man clearly now. While he wasn’t very tall, his wide shoulders and broad chest made him appear larger than he actually was. His hair was black with a hint of grey at the temples. Thin, dark eyebrows hovered above large green eyes. His cheek bo
nes were high and provided the perfect frame for his sloping nose. He was dressed in an Edwardian suit that looked worn with age.
He stared at her and his eyes burned red like the fanned coals of a fire. He raised his hands and stretched his long, elegant fingers toward her. “You came here to kill me,” he snarled.
“I did not!” she exclaimed, backing away from him.
“Liar! You bring a gun and these… tools to destroy me and still you try and deny it?” He was advancing toward her with each word.
Josephine had no more words to defend herself from someone who was obviously mad. Escape was her only option. She looked around the room, but the darkness prevented her from seeing any avenues of hope. As she backed away from him, she bumped into one of the huge wooden tables and ducked underneath it. Coming up on the other side, she felt a little better having the solid object between them. But as she continued backing toward the far wall, the man approached the table and shoved it out of his way as if it weighed nothing.
Shaking now, Josephine knew she was trapped and in mortal danger. One thought ran through her head, helping to rally her. I will fight. To my last breath, I will fight.
The man lunged toward her, grabbing her shoulder. With irresistible strength he pulled her toward him and savagely bit into her neck. She managed to jerk her head aside at the last moment, preventing him from tearing into a vital artery. But still he drew blood.
Fight fire with fire, she thought, biting down on the hand still holding onto her shoulder. She clamped her jaws with a force she didn’t think possible and blood from his hand filled her mouth. She choked, drinking in some of the fluid against her will.
As soon as she swallowed, a strange feeling came over her. It was a calmness that seemed completely out of place in the horror scene that was playing out in the great hall. At the same time, the man gave an ear-piercing scream and cast her away from him.
For a moment, she thought that the bite had caused this reaction, but he didn’t seem to care about his hand. His eyes were focused on her with hatred and something new… dread.
“What have you done?” he screamed at her. “Stupid woman!”