by Stuart Daly
Armand shuffles over to my side. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘I don’t think I’ve ever been so nervous,’ I say, finding it hard to meet his eyes.
‘I felt exactly the same during my first fight with witches. It’s a little bit different to the strategic deployment of troops on a battlefield, isn’t it? There will be no watching the fight from the rear lines here. But you must remember that we are about to draw our swords in the name of Christ, and there can be no greater cause than that. Rest assured, God watches over us today.’ He tousles my hair, as if I were his kid brother. ‘But do as von Frankenthal said: keep your head down, and stay by the Lieutenant. And if anything gets past Blodklutt and comes after you, use your pistols. You’ve got two free attacks at whatever comes near you. If a witch does get in close, remember what I told you about seizing the advantage and striking it down before it has a chance to cast a spell. Whatever you do, don’t hesitate.’
I attempt a weak smile. ‘I’ll do my best.’
I wish there was some way I could go back in time and erase those lies from my letter of introduction. Armand has offered a hand in true friendship, and all I’ve done is deceive him. I’m afraid, however, that if the truth is ever known it will mean my immediate expulsion from the order. But, more importantly, that lie has now placed me in great peril.
Perhaps I could …
‘Now.’
What? So soon! I didn’t even have time to finish that last thought. I’m surprised I could even hear Captain Faust’s command over the sound of my beating heart.
Armand pats me on the shoulder. ‘Godspeed.’
The next instant, he springs from his concealment and – along with Captain Faust, von Frankenthal, Klaus and Robert – races towards the castle as if the Devil were at his heels.
The five Hexenjäger sprint across the expanse of open ground and reach the outer gatehouse. It’s not surprising that Armand is the first to reach the castle. It wouldn’t surprise me if he has essence of lightning in his veins. Conversely, Christian von Frankenthal brings up the rear, moving with the speed of a lame draught horse. Gravel and lime mortar – that’s what you’d find in his veins.
Blades drawn, pistols at the ready, the Hexenjäger melt into the shadows beneath the raised portcullis. They then hold their position, waiting to see if they have been noticed.
Anxious seconds take an eternity to pass.
I scan the gatehouse for movement, my eyes prying deep into the shadows. But Schloss Kriegsberg is as still as a corpse. It’s as though the world is frozen in silent expectation, waiting for us to be lured into Hell’s maw.
This is painful. The anticipation is excruciating.
But then I see movement – in the shadows, over to the left of the portcullis. I tense, and my heart skips a beat. A witch!
No, wait. False alarm. It’s only Captain Faust. I didn’t even notice him creep forward. He’s as stealthy as a thief’s shadow. You wouldn’t want to run into him in a dark alley. He’d have a knife to your throat even before you knew he was there.
A snap of his hands issues silent orders to the others. They divide into two groups: Captain Faust and Armand move through a doorway in the eastern tower; Klaus, Robert and von Frankenthal take the door in the western tower.
I take a deep breath and try to calm my nerves. It will be my turn any minute now.
Time has been shackled with a ball and chain. Agonising seconds have dragged into minutes, and still there’s been no sign of Captain Faust’s signal.
Perhaps something has gone wrong. What if Captain Faust’s team has been ambushed? Surely I would have heard sounds of combat if that were the case.
I turn and look at Lieutenant Blodklutt for reassurance. His steel-grey eyes are locked on Schloss Kriegsberg. He reminds me of a hunting dog, eagerly awaiting its master’s command to tear into its prey. But I can’t read any alarm on his features. I’ll take that as a good sign. Still, this waiting is as painful as thumbscrews.
More minutes drag by. I wipe a sleeve across my forehead, readjust the grip on my rapier. Finally, I catch movement in a window in the eastern gate tower. It’s Captain Faust, waving his hat.
The signal! At long last.
‘Let’s go.’
A simple command from Lieutenant Blodklutt, and the next instant I’m sprinting towards the gatehouse, Bethlen racing by my side.
‘Like a lamb to the slaughter,’ he taunts.
Ignoring him, I keep pace with Lieutenant Blodklutt and charge across to the castle’s entrance. The carbine slung over my shoulder jostles about like an awkward appendage. It’s essentially a cavalry weapon, much lighter than a musket, but I’ve never tried running with one before. And I don’t think I will ever again, particularly when I’m already carrying two pistols and a rapier. Even over this short distance it feels like an anchor. As tempting as it is to toss it aside, I dare not abandon it. There’s no telling what we will face in Schloss Kriegsberg. It’s best if I don’t discard any of my weapons just yet.
I reach the right gate tower. Knowing that Captain Faust has already come through here is reassuring. Surely he would have triggered any surprise attack. But I’m not taking any chances, particularly when I read the inscription above the portcullis … scrawled in what appears to be dried blood.
Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate.
Translation – Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.
Straight from Dante’s Divine Comedy: the inscription on the gates of Hell!
The hairs on my body rising in fright, I brace my back against the wall and arm myself with my rapier and a pistol. I try to squeeze into the shadows, my eyes darting left and right, surveying every possible hiding spot in the courtyard beyond the raised portcullis.
Nothing there. Well, at least, nothing that I can see.
Good. Now check the eastern gate tower. Careful, though. I can’t be too hasty. Caution must govern my every step.
I inch forward, move beneath the portcullis, and open the gate tower door. With the exception of Captain Faust and Armand, I’m sure this door has not been opened in centuries, and the air inside has remained undisturbed until this very day, brewing into a lethal cocktail, just waiting to assail our nostrils. I step back, take a breath of fresh air, and then peer past the door. There’s nothing in here but a flight of stairs, winding up into the darkness. All is silent – deathly silent. There’s no sign of Captain Faust and Armand, either. They must be exploring the upper levels of the tower.
A click of Lieutenant Blodklutt’s fingers draws my attention to the courtyard. A series of silent gestures indicates that Bethlen and I are to skirt around the eastern perimeter. The Lieutenant will check the opposite side.
With Bethlen trailing behind, I slip into the courtyard. It’s an area of roughly a hundred square yards, drenched in shadow and littered with debris, bordered on the east and west by towering crenellated walls. Its northern side is dominated by a gatehouse, comprised of twin guard towers flanking a second raised portcullis. It’s through this final gateway that one gains entrance to the castle proper.
I scan the area for movement. Nothing. But there’s something about the courtyard that disturbs me. I can’t quite put a finger on it; it just doesn’t feel right. But I’ve got a job to do, and so I make my way through the shadows, moving stealthily around shattered barrels and stone, my eyes alert for any sudden movement.
I’m making good progress. Then a terrible revelation dawns upon me, forcing me to stop in mid-stride. I finally realise why the courtyard unsettles me: it has been designed for one purpose – to trap intruders. If the outer portcullis were ever breached, an enemy would find themselves bottled within this area. They would then be subjected to raking crossfire from archers positioned in the flanking battlements and gate towers.
In short, it’s a death trap!
And here I am, skirting around its perimeter, an open target for any marksman hiding on the battlements – or rather, a target for any witch to cast a
spell upon. This is not a good situation to be in. Not good at all. I need to reassess my strategy here. Rather than focus on the courtyard, I need to monitor the flanking battlements and gatehouse. That’s where an attack will come from.
I continue to move forward, but with my eyes trained on the merlons, rising like broken tombstones along the western wall and the northern gatehouse. I gesture back at Bethlen to do the same. But he flicks a hand at me dismissively, annoyed, as if he’s already aware of the predicament and that I have no right to be offering him advice.
The situation is hopeless. There could be any number of witches up there, watching our every step. They could launch an attack at any moment. We’d be struck down faster than lame rabbits in a wolves’ lair.
I move fast through the courtyard until I’m only a few yards away from the relative safety of the second portcullis, sheltered between the flanking gate towers. Only a dozen more steps and I’ll be there. But some sixth sense warns me that I’m being watched.
I stop dead in my tracks.
My head snaps to the left. It only takes a second to spot the marksman, positioned on the southern end of the western wall, his rifle trained directly on me.
I cry out to Lieutenant Blodklutt and Bethlen, warning them of the ambush. And then I freeze, not knowing what to do, my body unresponsive. After what seems to be an eternity, I dive to the right, into the cover provided by a three-foot-high pile of rubble. Climbing to my feet, I aim my pistol at the marksman. It’s not an easy shot at this range, particularly when I’ve never fired a pistol before in my life. My carbine – being a medium-range weapon – would be more suitable, but I don’t have time to ready it.
At least thirty yards – that’s the distance to the sniper. An almost impossible shot with a pistol for a trained marksman, let alone a sixteen-year-old boy who’s spent his life caring for horses. But I have no other option, for Death has me in its sights. I can’t believe the marksman has not yet fired. I’m expecting a sharp report any second now; the last thing I’ll no doubt hear before my brains are splattered across the courtyard floor.
I steady my aim, apply pressure to the trigger. Before I release, I catch myself. For it’s only now I realise that the marksman is wearing a crimson cassock, exactly the same as the one worn by Robert Monro.
Thank God for that. I breathe a sigh of relief. Robert must have exited the front western gate tower and taken position on the barbican battlements. But why does he have his rifle trained on me?
My jubilation in learning that the marksman is Robert vanishes, and a terrible thought makes every hair on my body stand on end. I’ve heard that powerful witches and warlocks have the ability to take possession of people, to force them to perform acts against their will. Has Robert encountered a witch in the front gatehouse and been possessed? Has he been turned into a pawn of evil? A terrifying thought indeed, but in a witch-infested castle, highly probable.
I once heard of a case in England concerning the Witch Finder General, Matthew Hopkins. Hopkins and his witch hunters had tracked a warlock into the sewers beneath York. Things soon turned ugly when the warlock took possession of one of Hopkins’s henchmen. The possessed witch hunter and the warlock fought their way past Hopkins’s company, escaped from the sewer, and conducted a month-long killing spree throughout the Yorkshire Dales. Hopkins eventually hunted them down and killed them, but not before forty-seven people had been slain.
Imagine how deadly an opponent Robert Monro – a veteran Hexenjäger – would be if he were possessed by the forces of darkness? And to make matters worse, he already has the drop on me.
It’s only now, staring down the barrel of Robert’s powerful rifle, I notice that the gun is not locked on me at all. Robert is taking aim at something slightly off to my left. Then it dawns on me that, apart from myself, the Lieutenant and Bethlen, there is something else down here. Something we obviously failed to see.
Following the aim of Robert’s rifle, I spin to the left, just in time to see the impossible happen.
I lower my weapons in disbelief. This cannot be happening!
Three yards off to my left, a hag is emerging from the courtyard floor, rising from the cobblestone paving as if it were nothing more than water. A witch! My first encounter with a proper witch. Not some innocent peasant accused of heresy for owning a black cat, but one of the Devil’s concubines, trained in the dark arts – a disciple of Hell.
She has emerged only up to her shoulders, but the ghastly image she presents fills me with a dread the likes of which I have never before known; the type of dread that makes hardened soldiers cross themselves and say hasty prayers in preparation for their inevitable deaths. She – if indeed this abomination can be called a she – is terrifying. She has eyes like gobs of spittle, and skin the texture of bark and coloured mucus-yellow. Her teeth are as jagged and crooked as broken fence palings, and she emanates a presence of evil that would suffocate even the heart of the Catholic Church in Rome.
To make matters worse, a second witch starts to emerge from the courtyard floor, some three yards off to the right of the first. Only her head has appeared, but her eyes – filled with hatred – send a wave of terror down my spine.
The first witch to appear rises to her knees and clambers closer. She’s obviously been involved in some recent conflict, for her left arm has been severed at the elbow. A trail of gore drips across the flagstone paving.
To my great surprise, it’s only now that she finally notices me. She hesitates, stares wide-eyed at me, almost as if she’s the one who should be afraid.
Staring face to face with this living nightmare, I almost panic and bolt. Some inner strength I never knew I had, however, orders me to stand my ground. Perhaps it’s my father’s blood, summoning forth some warrior spirit that has been laying dormant in my soul. Perhaps it’s some primal instinct of survival that lies deep within all of us. I might also be subconsciously heeding Armand’s and Klaus’s advice about never allowing a witch to seize the initiative. I don’t know what makes me do it, but I suddenly find myself levelling my pistol at the witch’s head.
It’s at that exact moment, however, that I flinch instinctively at the report of Robert’s rifle. His shot hits the witch straight in the heart, forcing her to stagger back, staring in awe at her blasted chest. But she doesn’t fall. To my horror, she staggers towards me, her remaining hand reaching out, its withered fingers clawing at the air.
Rooted to the spot in fear, I somehow manage to discharge my firearm at her. There’s a powdered flash followed by a deafening BLAM!
The witch might as well have been hit by a cannonball, the impact is so great. If I’ve learned anything from this encounter, it’s that witches can indeed fly. She is thrown clear off her feet, her head exploding in a cloud of pink mist. Her body slams into the eastern wall and slumps to the ground. I never thought that the impact of a pistol fired at close range could be so devastating, and I stand there, dumbstruck, staring at the witch’s twitching body.
But whereas the first witch was caught off-guard and was dispatched with the use of our firearms, the second witch – which has now clambered out of the courtyard floor – launches herself at me. Still staring at the first witch’s now motionless corpse, I don’t even have time to ready my rapier before she’s all over me in a maelstrom of slashing inch-long fingernails. They tear into me like razors, and within seconds my tabard is shredded and I’m bleeding from over a dozen wounds.
Stumbling back, I try to push her away, but the fury of her assault is too strong. I call out desperately for Lieutenant Blodklutt – even Bethlen – to come to my rescue. But hearing sounds over to my right, I snap my head around to see that Bethlen is involved in a vicious struggle with two crones. And then there’s the Lieutenant, hemmed against the western wall by three more. With my companions fighting for their own lives, I’m going to have to fend for myself.
Determined to end this fight before I’m shredded to death, I manage to pull away from the witch, freeing my s
word arm. Then, as the crone tears after me, I step to the side, drawing her past me, and – with a savagery I never knew I possessed – hammer the pommel of my rapier into the side of her head. She recoils, and I lunge forward, pressing the attack, certain my blade will skewer her. But I make the fatal mistake of underestimating her.
Moving with a speed that defies her emaciated appearance, she dodges my thrust, weaves through my defences and tackles me to the ground. Her mouth is like a burst sewer, spitting saliva and blood, as black as oil, all over me, and she’s consumed by such a rage that her bloodshot eyes practically pop out of their sockets.
My rapier is useless in such close quarters. Nor can I reach my daggers, for they are tucked in the folds of my boots, and the witch is all over me, pinning me down. And so, in an act of pure desperation, I drive my thumbs into her eyes. She falls back, blinded, allowing me to regain my feet.
Unarmed, and as blind as a bat, she doesn’t stand much of a chance defending herself against the sharp edge of a rapier – even one wielded by a novice. A series of savage thrusts brings a decisive conclusion to the struggle.
Even before the witch drops lifeless to the ground, I find myself staggering over to aid Bethlen, driven again, I can only assume, by my father’s blood hammering in my veins. Bethlen’s already killed one witch, but another has wrestled him to the ground and is trying to gnaw into his neck.
Ten steps and I’ve crossed to Bethlen. Realising that a fellow Hexenjäger is bearing down upon it, the witch rears its head from Bethlen’s neck. It hisses at me like some demonic serpent … just as my blade cleaves its head clean off.
I kick the lifeless corpse clear from Bethlen and drag him to his feet. He’s bleeding from the neck. It doesn’t look like a serious wound, though. Nothing some salve and a bandage won’t fix. Rather than thank me and extend a hand in gratitude, he shoots me an enraged look and pushes me away. Did he honestly believe he was going to defeat that witch? A few seconds more and it would have bitten straight through his neck.