I grew up with tales of the Wild Hunt. The Hunt, my stepmother told me as she tucked Hilde and me into bed, presaged war and death. An army of ferocious beings would storm across the land, chasing dragons, and if you saw the Hunters, you may be driven mad, or you may be forced to join their war and destruction, or they may simply kill you for the fun of it. The horses they rode were large and demonic, with red eyes and hooves sharp as swords. Hilde hated the story and would beg our mother to tell her that it was all false, but every time, before my sister fell asleep, I’d click my tongue to sound like horse hooves to rile her up. Our mother always warned me that if I continued to be naughty, the Wild Hunt would come for me.
I never thought it was real.
Until now.
The horses that carry us are larger than any I’ve seen, but their eyes glow like amber, not devilish scarlet. Most of the guards are already mounted by the time Brigitta escorts me, Liesel, and Cornelia to where they wait. I see now why the Wild Hunt has the reputation of fear that it does. This is not even the full number of guardians the Well has to offer, but those gathered here are ferocious, dressed in full battle garb, leather straps holding plate armor, spears and swords gleaming.
Cornelia mounts a white stallion, heading to the front of the troops assembled. Brigitta brings me to a black horse with gold-painted hooves. Its long mane is plaited with glass beads that are somehow silent even when the mare shakes her head. Brigitta hangs back as I hold my hand out to the horse. She snuffs, the scent of clover filling the air, but then she bends her head low, letting me rub her nose.
I glance back at Brigitta, who visibly heaves a sigh of relief. “She’ll let you ride her,” Brigitta says, as if that had been in question. I start to ask her what her concern had been, but the woman strides closer to me. All around us, the other horses stomp, blowing puffs of breath into the chilled night air.
Brigitta moves behind me, her lips close to my ear, careful that only I hear her words. “This is Skokse,” she says. “The fastest horse we have, and the smartest. Our people are going to be focused on the fight. You, Otto Ernst, are not our warrior. You’re hers.” Brigitta gives me a significant look as she steps back, and I understand exactly what she means—one man on a swift horse can get to Fritzi faster than an entire army, should the opportunity arise. Brigitta and Hilde are close; my sister must have told her of what she knew I would want to do.
I swing into Skokse’s saddle, and I can feel the power of the horse under me, eager to ride. Brigitta mounts her own horse—a dapple gray wearing a red leather saddle. She raises her arm, and silence falls among the army assembled.
“Tonight we protect the Well by leaving the Well. We defend magic beyond our border. Tonight,” she yells, her voice ringing out, “we ride!”
She looks directly at me, eyes boring into mine, as she throws her arm down. I grab Skokse’s reins and dig my heels into her sides. All around me, fighters and horses charge toward the border of the Well. My senses are overwhelmed with it all—thundering hooves on all sides, the scent of petrichor and soft earth spraying up, the sharp snap in temperature from warm to frigid as we break into the Black Forest.
I am at once a part of something larger—this strange, wild hunt with nearly a hundred warriors and as many mighty steeds—and also utterly alone. I lean over Skokse’s body, my arms clutching her withers more than the reins, trusting the horse as we charge forward. My eyes squint through the darkness and the wind, and it feels as if there is no one, nothing in the world but me and my horse and our purpose. Skokse does not merely gallop through the Black Forest; she flies. I keep my head low against her neck so that I don’t run the risk of being knocked off by a branch, but the horse knows the Forest well. Skokse does not hesitate as she leaps over running water, weaves between trees, and crashes through the undergrowth.
When we burst through the edge of the forest, I recognize the road where we met Johann and Dieter. Skokse’s hooves crunch through fresh snow. It takes only minutes to reach the path, go past the old, ruined castle and toward the edge of Baden-Baden. Although Skokse has pulled ahead, the others catch up with us here.
A battalion of hexenjägers stands stiffly along the road leading into the city. Baden-Baden is not large enough to merit a wall like Trier, but the soldiers make their own wall, spaced out at attention, black cloaks billowing, silver enameled badges glistening in the moonlight.
I pull on Skokse’s reins, slowing the impatient beast as I eye the hexenjägers. All around me, the other soldiers do as well, approaching carefully, weapons drawn. The hexenjägers have no right to be here; we’re well away from the diocese and the archbishop’s influence. Besides, Johann said Trier was in turmoil—why haven’t they protested Dieter bringing them all out here to the southern edges of the Empire? My hand drops to my sword hilt, but I don’t draw it yet.
Why aren’t they moving?
Over the horses, I meet Brigitta’s eyes. She was watching me, hoping, I think, that I could excuse this strange behavior. I kick Skokse forward, taking the lead, and Brigitta holds up an arm, keeping the others back as I approach alone.
The men standing before us are silent, their eyes hollow, their muscles oddly tense. As I draw closer, Skokse stamping with impatience, I can see the ropy tendons of the men’s necks sticking out. I swallow, uncomfortable at the sight.
Nearest me, the one closest to the road, is Johann. I lean over Skokse without dismounting, trying to meet Johann’s deadened gaze. The boy attempted to help us on the road; he was happy that Trier rioted against the archbishop’s terror. But now his eyes are unfocused, and even though every muscle in his body is taut, there’s an emptiness to him. A spider has found its way to his shoulder, and I watch as the creature crawls over Johann’s face, eight legs pricking over his cheek, and the boy doesn’t flinch. Bile rises in my throat as the spider crosses the bridge of Johann’s nose, up to his left eye, a thin line of its black leg crossing the red veins streaking the white eyeball.
Johann doesn’t blink.
But, I think, perhaps his eyes are focusing, even if they don’t really move. He’s not entirely hollow inside.
There is horror there, a raw screaming horror that cannot escape his mind.
“I have to save Fritzi,” I whisper to the boy. “But I will come back for you.”
I wheel Skokse around, racing back to the Wild Hunt. “I don’t know why they’re frozen,” I tell her, “but this is Dieter’s work. No human can be this still.”
“Then it is a trap,” Cornelia says, pulling her white stallion up beside us.
Brigitta nods solemnly.
“We have to get past them.” I meet Brigitta’s eyes. Dieter has put these eerie human-toy soldiers to stand in our way. They will attack at any moment, surely.
“You go first,” Brigitta tells me. Cornelia starts to question her, but Brigitta shakes her head, arguing that speed is of the essence. Cornelia may be an elder and a priestess, but on the battlefield, it’s Brigitta who is wisest. Cornelia bows her head, agreeing that I should go on ahead.
“The youngest one—there,” I say, as I turn Skokse around, pointing to Johann. “If you can, save him.”
Brigitta scowls but nods. At that, I touch my horse’s side. Skokse responds immediately, a coiled spring waiting to launch, turning and breaking into a trot, wending around the stiff soldiers.
A few paces behind me, the forest folk follow. I’m about halfway past when a ripple goes throughout the crowd of hexenjägers.
“Attack!” one of them bellows, Jäger Kock, a friend, I recall, of Bertram’s. “Kill them all!”
The hexenjägers burst into a flurry of action, oddly rapid, given the stiff way they held before. Skokse easily dodges blows, and I use the hilt of my sword to smash into the skull of one that draws close. I don’t want to kill them, but I can’t let them delay me.
Fortunately, the forest folk draw most of the attack, and the hexenjägers surge past me, swords drawn, charging at them. I urge Skokse forward faster, but not before I get a look at the eyes of my former compatriots.
They are all eerily empty and blue, not brown or hazel or green. Each man now has Dieter Kirch’s eyes. While they attack using the same skills that were drilled into us as youths in training, there’s an odd nature to the fight. I see one jäger slashing in the air, fighting an invisible enemy. Two others bump into each other, bouncing off their shoulders without any awareness of having come so close to an ally. They fight as if enchanted, as if they see something in their strange blue eyes that none of the rest of us can see. Their blows come low, at the horses’ knees rather than at their riders.
Dieter has possessed them, somehow, I think as I break through the last of the hexenjägers and pick up speed, galloping down the road toward Baden-Baden. He expected opposition, but not monstrously huge horses.
I wonder what the hexenjägers think they fight, what hallucination is infecting their minds.
With the battle on the road behind me, the small city of Baden-Baden spills out, blossoming into a myriad of smaller streets. I head straight to the town’s center square.
It is so silent.
Skokse’s hoofbeats are thunderous. My hands tighten on the reins, fear stabbing at my heart. It’s late, but not that late. And while Advent was a time of fasting and sacrificing and quiet self-reflection, Christmas to the end of the year is a time for joy and celebration and raising candles to cut through the darkest time.
There is nothing now but silence.
As I draw closer to the center of town, I see a series of wooden stakes along the road.
I pause to count them. Twenty black stakes, kindling now nothing but ash and soot at the base. Each one leads deeper into town.
It is a horrid trail made of the remains of innocent people burned as witches.
And it leads me to one last stake, right in the center of the empty town.
Fritzi is tied to an enormous pole made of yew, its pale color a stark contrast to the blackened stakes along the road. Her chin rests on her chest, her unbound hair swinging over her face, gleaming gold. For a moment—for a horrid, pain-wretched eternity—I think she’s already gone. But then she twitches, and even though she’s bound, even though she’s unconscious, the sob withers inside me. She’s still alive.
Through the veil of her loose hair, I catch a glimpse of dark metal. My teeth clench at the sight of the iron muzzle forced over and into Fritzi’s mouth, a painful violation of her body that works to silence her as well. A slight breeze blows through the square, and despite being nearly unconscious, Fritzi gargles a sound of pure pain. My eyes widen—the breeze was barely enough to disturb her gown, but—
Her clothing has scorch marks all over. The center of her dress is burned away, exposing Fritzi’s pale belly marred with black and red burns, the welts so painfully sensitive that the barest kiss of wind makes her writhe. Blood speckles her once-beautiful gown, which now hangs in threads across her body.
My blood boils.
I will take pleasure in smashing each of Dieter’s fingers under my boots for daring to touch her this way. I will relish in his screams as I rip the tongue from his foul mouth. And then I will take even greater pleasure in crushing his throat beneath my heel and watching the life leave his already soulless eyes.
“Oh, look!” A male voice calls out, mocking me. Skokse prances nervously, as if she also knows that Dieter is a more formidable foe than any she has ever faced before.
I dismount, looping my reins on the pommel of the saddle so they don’t drag and catch. “Go to Brigitta,” I tell the horse, somehow confident she can understand me. “Lead them here. Hurry.”
As soon as I take a step closer to Fritzi and the stake, Skokse turns, neighing, hooves clattering over cobblestones so violently that sparks erupt. The horse is gone in seconds.
Send help, I pray, to my God, to the goddesses, to any power that will listen.
I draw my sword and strain my eyes to see into the shadows. I expect Dieter to face me. I expect one man to approach.
Instead, hundreds do.
Their footsteps make the ground rumble—they are in sync, perfectly moving as one. There are old men and women who stumble—they should have a cane or an arm to lean on, but don’t. There are children, Liesel’s age or so, their paces oddly elongated to match the tread of the others. There are adults. A huge man with biceps the size of a tree trunk, probably a blacksmith. A slender woman I think I recognize from the market when we first passed through Baden-Baden. Another dusted with flour, another wearing a butcher’s apron. Hundreds and hundreds of people emerge from the alleyways, skulk down the streets, pour from the buildings, all walking in even steps, all wearing the same empty, blank expression, eyes drooping, mouths slack.
Dieter is a puppet master, using these people as his unwilling army.
Movement on the stake makes me whirl around, my attention on Fritzi. She stirs, barely conscious. “Fritzi!” I shout.
Every single person turns as one.
My heart seizes in terror at the abstractness of it all. And then the townspeople speak.
Each person says the same words, at the same time, with the same inflection. The sound of it is deafening, rattling my bones. And although every voice is unique—cracked and old, young and high, deep and weary—the words are Dieter’s.
“Look at the insignificant traitor, come to fetch his witch,” the hundred voices say as one.
“Let them go, Dieter!” I bellow.
“Kapitän, Kapitän.” Even though it is a hundred voices that speak, they all, somehow, have a condescending inflection to them that is distinctly the kommandant’s. “How did you sneak past my men? You always were the cleverest little witch killer.” Another laugh, this one darker. “The cleverest little witch killer who never did kill a witch, did you?”
“You’ll be my first!” I shout.
The giggles from a hundred different throats, high-pitched and manic, are worse than the sarcastic chuckles. I weave through the people, trying to draw closer to Fritzi. Every step I take is blocked by another townsperson. I’m unwilling to cut my way through the crowd of innocents, but Dieter knows that he’s not only mocking me; he’s delaying me from reaching Fritzi.
A barking laugh that rings in different pitches but drips with the same sardonic bitterness on every voice echoes throughout the square, deafening. “She is not yours, Ernst. She is mine. Didn’t you see the way I branded her? It was a D, mein kapitän, not an O.”
I grip my sword, praying to find Dieter among the crowd. My hand grips the hilt so hard that my fingers ache, but there is nowhere for me to expel the hateful rage boiling inside me.
On the stake, Fritzi moans.
She’s not dead yet, I remind myself. I reach into the bag slung across my body, my fingers wrapping around the neck of the brew I made. It’s not too late.
Behind me, I hear the rising thunder of the forest folk warriors who’ve come to save Fritzi, to protect magic. Hope surges inside me. For a moment, Dieter’s hold on the crowd breaks, and their bodies all bend forward, drooping as if they are puppets with cut strings.
He did not expect me to have reinforcements.
He has laid out traps—the hexenjägers, these townspeople—but I do not think Dieter truly expected to be met with a strong force. The forest folk were a sanctuary, not an army, and I doubt Dieter thought anyone would get past his first layer of defense.
He didn’t expect me to have friends.
Because he has none.
With a bone-jarring jerk, all the bodies of the townspeople simultaneously snap to attention again, each one raising fists or holding out tools as weapons.
The forest folk burst onto the square, having fought through the hexenjägers. Cornelia, astride a white stallion, is in the front.
“Don’t hurt the people!” I shout, hoping my voice can be heard over the thunderous arrival of the others. “They are being controlled!”
Brigitta’s beside Cornelia, and I see her eyes flash. She, at least, heard me, and she calls back a warning command to the others. Horses are pulled up short, hooves stamping on the cobblestone.
The priestess pulls out a length of bright red string, weaving it through her fingers. She raises the pattern to her eyes, scanning the crowd, then points.
“There!” she screams.
I do not hesitate. I charge forward, knocking aside the empty puppets of the townspeople. They fall as if they were dolls. Hidden deep in the crowd, I see an old person hunched over a cane, a brown cloak pulled over their head.
The person is eerily, emptily still, just like all the rest, but there is not a flicker of doubt in my mind as I raise my sword and smash it down.
At the very last second, the cloak swirls as the person dives in the opposite direction. Off-balance, I stumble as my sword strikes the cobblestones.
A hundred townsfolk laugh, the sound an echo of Dieter’s, but too even, too measured. “Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha.”
The brown cloak drops, and I catch a glimpse of pale blond hair.
The townsfolk move, their steps jerking like puppets, surrounding Dieter, separating him from me.
Cornelia looks through her strings again, and the army, now aware of what’s happening, all track her movements. “There!” she cries.
A dozen soldiers lunge toward a street corner blocked by a dense cluster of people protecting Dieter with their bodies, and the warriors fight as gently as they can, pushing through the crowd. The puppets, though, do not care about injuring either the forest folk or themselves. Their movements are jerky, but their bodies swing out, arms flailing, legs kicking, heads thrashing.
It will delay the forest folk, prolong the battle.
I whirl around at the scent of smoke, acrid and sharp. I don’t know if Dieter used magic or if he merely controlled the townspeople to do it for him, but the kindling piled under Fritzi’s stake sparks in flame.
This fight is distraction enough that Dieter cannot focus on anything more than pulling the invisible strings that control the people. In the distance, I can hear boots stomping—he’s called the hexenjägers to join the fight.
But through the chaos and the smoke, I see Fritzi.
Let the entire world war around me.
I will save her.