“Adsuumuus! Adsumuus! ”
The moon went behind the clouds, plunging the world into impenetrable darkness. Only then did Reynevan begin to slow the steed down, without difficulty, as a matter of fact, for the gallop had exhausted the black horse and it was wheezing, covered in foam. Reynevan reined it in and listened. Cries were still drifting through the forest. And whistles. The black horse snorted.
At the sound of a piercing whistle close by, the horse tossed its head and whinnied. Reynevan caught it by the nostrils, but it didn’t help. The black horse just jerked its head and neighed even louder. Understanding that the horse was reacting to a call, Reynevan instinctively dismounted and lashed the black horse’s rump with an osier ripped from a bush. The horse leaped away with a squeal and Reynevan ran through the forest. In the opposite direction. As far away as he could. He ran blindly, without stopping, terror giving him strength and fleetness of foot.
His way was first barred by a rushing stream, then a hill and ravines among bizarrely shaped rocks. He waded through the thigh-high water of the stream without thinking and ran towards the ravines. And suddenly changed his plan. The ravines were too obvious an escape route, they might furthermore drive him into a trap, into a cul-de-sac with no way out. He began to scramble quickly up the steep slope, soon reaching a treeless summit where he sat down, trembling, squeezed between two rocks. A few short heartbeats later, the stream was churned up by snorting horses and about a dozen horsemen in black cloaks. Having crossed the stream, the pursuers rode deep into the ravine.
The sky to the east had begun to lighten a little. Reynevan was trembling, his teeth chattering. The wet clothes stiffened on him, freezing, and the cold nipped like a fierce dog.
It was utterly silent.
Chapter Eleven
In which Reynevan is—by turns—attacked, rescued, captured, fed and finally abducted, while owing to a certain priest, mandrake is sown on the southern foot of the Karkonosze Mountains.
The only thing moving in the area was a murder of crows circling over the trees. The only thing that could be heard was their plaintive cawing.
There wasn’t a trace of the black riders and the wind had stopped carrying the cries of “Adsumus. ” He appeared to have lost his pursuers. In spite of that, Reynevan didn’t leave his hiding place on the hill for a long time. He wanted to be utterly and completely certain. Furthermore, the hill offered the opportunity to get his bearings in the forested, rocky wilderness.
The hill wasn’t high enough, though, to command an extensive enough view from the top since it was obscured by other, higher hills. To be more precise, he couldn’t see the Old Woman or the Maiden, the towers of Trosky Castle, the sight of which would have given him his bearings.
He calculated that he had walked for more than an hour underground from Trosky, which gave a distance of around a quarter of a mile. Then there was the gallop through the trees, followed by the lengthy escape on foot. Assuming he had galloped and run in a straight line, he had covered ten furlongs at most. So he couldn’t have been far from where he left the underground tunnel, where Grellenort had surprised him. Where Samson…
Grellenort, he thought, had been frightened by Samson. Birkart Grellenort, Peterlin’s killer. The sorcerer capable of changing into a bird, the timor nocturnus, the destruction that wasteth at noon, the bishop’s thug, the thug whom Jan Smiřický claimed in Prague that the bishop himself feared. And a character like that is panic-stricken at the sight of Samson Honeypot, the giant with an idiot’s face.
So it is indeed true. Samson Honeypot is not of this world. Huon of Sagar recognised him right away, as did the mages from the Archangel, Axleben and Rupilius. Only I continue to treat Samson as a good and jovial companion, as a comrade. I have scales over my eyes that won’t let me see it.
He sighed, but also felt relief at the same time. Previously, he had been pricked by his conscience for listening to Samson and fleeing, leaving his comrade in need. Now he understood that Samson had coped wonderfully without his help. He probably escaped from the Black Riders easily, he thought, and joined Scharley and the rest of the company long ago. They must be searching for me now.
Despite that, I have to get moving, he thought. My clothing didn’t dry at all in the night, and it’s fast clouding over and growing cold. If I stay here, I’ll fall asleep and freeze to death. Walking will warm me up. If I don’t encounter Samson and Scharley, I’m sure to come upon someone else, I’ll bump into a good soul and ask around. I’ll chance upon a track or road; I’ll emerge onto the highway. Trosky Castle lies near the busy road leading from Prague to Žitava via Jičín and Turnov, while to the south of Trosky there’s another highway, a back road leading to Žitava via Mimoň and Jablonné. I know the other road, I rode from Michalovice that way; it was there that Jelínek sold me to Hurkovec’s martahuzes. Jelínek… Wait till I get my hands on you, you bastard…
Rupilius said that the way out of the underground passage led north-east from the castle, in the vicinity of the village of Ktová or something. We were meant to follow a stream after leaving the cavern. There is a stream. But is it the right one? The stream, whose icy waters almost caused my death by hypothermia during the night, flowed in broad meanders and vanished into a winding ravine. God only knows where it ends up. Despite that, it must be the only sensible route. The stream has to join a river somewhere. Even if I’m totally lost, sticking to the bank means I won’t be walking around in circles. There are villages beside streams, and charcoal burners, tar makers and woodcutters build their settlements next to streams.
He was already walking by the time he got to the final reflections about the stream’s virtues.
Reynevan was walking very fast, as fast as the rough terrain permitted. He was exhausted and panting but had warmed up enough for his wet clothing to be literally steaming on him; it was drying fast and not so unpleasantly cold any more. Although he had covered quite a considerable distance, he didn’t find any tracks by the stream, not counting paths trodden by deer and depressions in the mud made by wild boar.
As he had predicted, it became overcast and a light snow even began to fall.
The forest thinned out abruptly and Reynevan saw the outlines of wooden buildings looming beyond the last maples. Heart beating, he speeded up and almost ran into the clearing.
The buildings turned out to be huts covered in tree bark, most of them tumbledown. There was no point even looking inside. All traces of humanity were covered by grass and weeds. Great stretches of blackened wood shavings and sawdust lay around, no longer even smelling of resin. A long-forgotten axe driven into a tree stump was red with rust. The woodcutters—for the huts had undoubtedly belonged to them—must have abandoned the glade many years before.
“Anybody here?” Reynevan preferred to be certain. “I say! I saaaay!”
Something rustled behind him. He quickly spun around, but in spite of his speed he only managed to catch a fleeting glimpse of a shape vanishing around the corner of a hut. The shape was small. The size of a child.
“I say!” he said, running after it. “Stop! Wait! Fear not!”
The small creature wasn’t a child. Children aren’t shaggy and don’t have dogs’ heads. Nor arms reaching to the ground. Nor do they run away in strange leaps and bounds, swaying on short, crooked legs, croaking loudly as they do so. Reynevan set off in pursuit. Towards a gap in the wall of trees. And a road. When he came out onto the road, the shaggy creature stopped. Looked back. Stared goggle-eyed. And bared its doglike teeth.