Only one was left, lurking in the shadows. He attacked before the Wallcreeper, trying to gain the advantage. Yelling incomprehensibly and raising to strike with a strange weapon, neither a battleaxe nor a club. The Wallcreeper evaded him and stabbed. The attacker dropped to his knees. And then crashed down onto his face.

The Wallcreeper looked down at the sword. It was clear at once that the weapon was special. And expensive. Probably Milanese. There was a swordsmith’s punch on the blade, small and difficult to make out in the dark. The Wallcreeper wasn’t especially interested, in any case.

One of the men on the ground wheezed and trembled, scraping his belt buckle on the stone surround of the well he was using to drag himself up. The Wallcreeper was there in three strides; slashed once, twice. On the third swing, the Milanese blade groaned and snapped. He tossed away the scrap iron.

Another of the men moaned. It was the last one he had felled. The Wallcreeper approached and picked up the strange weapon. It was a cross. A large, heavy, iron cross with straight arms. A silver engraving shone on it. They were letters.

T

R

I

SIT MIHI CRUX

ADVERSUS DAEMONES

U

M

P

H

U

S

“I’m not a fucking demon,” said the Wallcreeper.

He raised the cross and brought it down like a battleaxe.

He wiped his brain-spattered trouser legs with the edge of the dead man’s cloak and went on his way. Through Wrocław by night. A city that could be dangerous at night.

Chapter Eight

In which, at Odry Castle, Prokop the Shaven places his trust in Reynevan, and an apparition lacking a toe prophesies the future of Gediminas’s descendants.

As they rode up from the north with the current of the Odra, the town lying on the right bank was visible from a distance. A round tower with a pointed roof loomed over the castle perched on a steep rock. The castle—built according to legend by the Knights Templar—adjoined the square of the town walls and was packed with squat towers. The gilt on the bell tower of the parish church shone.

Mist trailed over the river and fog crept among the osiers and willows, which were now turning green. Prokop the Shaven stood up in the stirrups, groaned and rubbed his lower back.

“Odry is ahead of us. Let us make haste.”

The sentries in the watchtower saw the detachment and shouted a request for identification. Chains rattled, the drawbridge thudded down and the portcullis grated as it rose up. They rode in with a rumble of hooves, first through the gatehouse, then into the narrow streets, among workshops, shops and merchants’ houses.

“Your medicine is wearing off,” moaned Prokop. “Jesus Christ, Reynevan, it hurts so much I’m about to fall from the saddle…”

“Patience. I just have to find an apothecary’s shop…”