“It wasn’t too tasty.”

“You’ll grow accustomed to it. Let’s go. Aha. One more thing. Tell me.”

She raised her head. And her eyes. The colour of the water in a deep mountain lake. Gorgeous. Enchanting. And utterly inhuman.

“What exactly is your name?” asked the Wallcreeper.

Dzierżka of Wirsing didn’t know what woke her. It wasn’t the barking of dogs. The Skałka dogs, perhaps frightened by a wild animal outside, had barked throughout the night. At first, it had been hard to fall asleep; later, the barking became monotonous and lost its alarming character, until it was simply background noise. So it was probably a dreadful nightmare that made Dzierżka suddenly start, sit up in bed, muscles tense, fully awake and ready for action. Certain that what she had dreaded for the last four years was happening.

The dogs weren’t barking.

“Elencza! Wake up! And get dressed!”

“What is it?”

“Get up! And look lively!”

The unnatural, deafening silence was suddenly torn, rent by the scream of a person being killed in the courtyard. Other screams almost immediately accompanied it, and in the blink of an eye the entire Skałka estate resounded with yells and the thudding of hooves. And fire glimmered in the window skins.

“Elencza! Here! This way!”

Dzierżka slid a chest aside, tore a bison skin from the wall and opened a small door hidden behind it. A smell of mustiness and cold air came from it.

“Mistress Dzierżka!”

“Quickly, there’s no time! The passageway will take you to a stream. Hide there and don’t come out until… Until all this is over. Quickly, girl!”

“What about you? I won’t leave you!”

“Into the passageway! At once! Don’t you dare disobey me! Go, child, go…”

She shut the door and covered it with the hide and the chest. Then she tore a bear spear down from the wall in the anteroom. And rushed out into the courtyard.

She didn’t see anything apart from the confused light of brands showering sparks around. On the very threshold a speeding horse knocked her down, hard on the ground, winding her. Iron-shod hooves struck the ground just beside her, threatening to crush her. She didn’t have the strength to move. Somebody seized her and dragged her away. She recognised who it was. It was Sobek Snorbein.

“Madam… Save yourself—”

Sobek Snorbein didn’t say anything else. He groaned, fell to his knees and blood gushed from his mouth. Dzierżka saw the blade of a javelin protrude from his chest. A rider flashed past, as blurred as a black nocturnal bird, and she heard a girl’s cruel giggle. And a cry.

“Adsumus! Adsuumuuus!”

Hooves thudded all around again, there were horsemen everywhere. Black Riders.

“Adsuumuuus!”