Neither of them was even scratched.
“Prepare to die, O Bird.”
“Prepare to die, O Wolf.”
The lights of non-human eyes flickered and swayed in the gloom, the mumbled and excited murmur rose and fell.
This time, they circled each other for longer, now shortening, now lengthening the distance.
The Wolf attacked, slashing diagonally with his knife held straight out, then turning the blade and dealing a treacherous blow to the neck.
The Wallcreeper dodged, himself thrusting from the left, then from below to the right, then quite low with a sweeping blow that ended in a direct lunge and thrust. The Wolf parried the blow with his knife, dodged the thrust with a half-turn, then lunged forward, feinting and leaping to jab from above to the side of the neck. This time, the Wallcreeper didn’t dodge. He parried with his forearm, spun around, turned the knife in his hand and, thrusting with the full strength of his shoulder, stabbed the Wolf powerfully right in the solar plexus. The blade entered up to the cross-guard. The Wolf didn’t utter a sound. He only gasped when the Wallcreeper pulled the blade from the wound and withdrew, hunched over, ready to deliver another blow. But there was no need. The knife slipped from the Wolf’s fingers and he dropped to his knees.
The Wallcreeper approached vigilantly, staring at the fading, iron-coloured eyes. He didn’t say a word.
There was utter silence.
The Iron Wolf gasped once more, bent over and slumped heavily to one side. He didn’t move again.
In the stone circle of the ancient cemetery, in the place of worship to old, forgotten and eternal gods, pulsating with ancient magic and power, the Wallcreeper raised his arms and the bloody knife. And screamed. Triumphantly. Savagely. Inhumanly.
All life around fell silent, horror-struck.
Chapter Six
In which, in a certain inn at a crossroads, the entertainment industry flourishes and prospers. The dice are cast, as a result of which something—apparently unavoidable and inevitable—occurs. Anyone who thinks it must all mean the start of quite major difficulties will be right.
The inn at the crossroads was the only building left from the village once located there and which signalled its existence with several black stumps of chimneys, the meagre remains of charred joists and a still-perceptible smell of burning. It was unclear who had put the village to the torch. Most of the evidence pointed to the Germans or Silesians, since the village lay on the route of the crusade which King Sigismund of Luxembourg had led to Prague in June 1420. Sigismund’s crusaders had burned down anything that could catch fire but endeavoured to spare inns. For obvious reasons.
This inn was quite typical—low, squat, with a thatched roof that contained as much hard, old moss as it did straw, with several entrances and tiny windows in which the light from cressets and candles now flickered in the darkness, as unsteady and fleeting as will-o’-the-wisps over swamps. Smoke crept out of the chimney, trailed over the thatch and drifted across the meadows. A dog was baying.
“We’ve arrived,” said Scharley, reining in his horse. “According to my information, Mr. Fridusz Huncleder has temporarily settled here.” Although no one had asked a question, the penitent continued, “Fridusz Huncleder is a man of affairs, an entrepreneur. He ingeniously fills the gap that, as a result of certain non-economic reasons, has opened up in the relationship between supply and demand. He supplies certain… what we shall call ‘services’ that are in demand—”
“He runs a travelling whorehouse,” interrupted Samson Honeypot, as quick-witted as ever. “Or gambling den. Or possibly the former and the latter.”
“Indeed. The military statutes introduced by Žižka are strictly observed in the Hussite army. Drunkenness, gambling and debauchery are prohibited and punished severely, even by the death penalty. But the army is the army, and the men in the camps want to booze, play cards and go whoring. But nothing doing, it’s forbidden. To everyone. Žižka’s statutes are horribly democratic—they punish everyone regardless of position and rank. It has its benefits, too: it doesn’t result in the weakening and loss of combat readiness. The hejtmans understand it, approve of the statutes and severely and ruthlessly execute them. But what’s for show is for show… A halberdier, flailman, crossbowman, wagoner—he, indeed, should be flogged or hanged for dice, whoring or theft; that is right and proper and has a good effect on morale. But a hejtman or a captain—”
“We’ve come, to put it bluntly, to an illicit establishment serving to sate the illicit cravings of senior officers,” guessed Reynevan. “How risky is it?”
Scharley shrugged. “Huncleder operates under the guise of being a military supplier and only allows entry to trusted officers. But in any case, somebody will one day turn him in and then he’ll swing. It’s also possible that a few of the men they catch here will also swing as a warning and an example… But first of all, what’s life without risk? And second of all, in the event, Prokop and Flutek will back us up. I trust.”
If his voice betrayed a faint note of hesitancy, the penitent drowned it out at once.
“Third of all,” he said, waving a hand, “we have something to take care of here.”
Right outside the inn, the dog barked at them again, but ran away as they dismounted.
“I don’t think I need to explain to you the main principles of how the business functions,” said Scharley, tying the reins to a stake. “It’s a den of unhealthy and forbidden pleasures. You can get blind drunk here. You can admire nude girls and sample sex for money. You can indulge in serious gambling. Great caution is advised in what one says and does. As a matter of fact, just to be clear, only I shall talk. And if it comes to cards or dice, only I shall play.”
“Naturally.” Samson picked up a stick from the ground. “Naturally, Scharley.”
“I wasn’t talking to you.”
“I’m not a child,” Reynevan said, frowning. “I know how, what and when to speak. And I also know how to play dice.”
“No, you don’t. Not with Huncleder and his cheaters. And that’s final. Do as I say.”
The hubbub quietened down as they entered. Silence fell and several pairs of nastily staring eyes stuck to them like leeches to a dead cockroach. The moment was unpleasantly worrying, but happily didn’t last long.
“Scharley? Is it you?”
“Glad to see you, Berengar Tauler. Greetings to you, too, Master Huncleder. Our host.”
At the table, in the company of three characters in leather jerkins, sat a broad-shouldered, pot-bellied man with a large nose and a chin disfigured by an ugly scar. His face was densely covered in pockmarks, but curiously only on one side, the left—quite as if the scar above his nose, the nose itself and his deformed chin described a demarcation line which the illness hadn’t dared to cross.
“Master Scharley,” he answered. “I don’t believe my eyes. What is more, in the company of men I don’t know. But since they are with you, sir… We are keen to have guests here. Not because we like them. Ha, we often don’t like them at all. But we live off them!”
The men in the leather jerkins guffawed. The rest of those present didn’t manifest their merriment, no doubt having already heard Huncleder’s joke many times. The beanpole with a red chalice on his doublet at the counter didn’t laugh, nor did the bearded man standing next to him wearing black, the absolute archetype of a Hussite preacher. Unsurprisingly, none of the scantily dressed young women moving around the room carrying flasks and pitchers smiled.