“It weren’t us, it weren’t us!” said the flat-footed peasant, his speech taking on human features. “It wasn’t us what killed ’em, schwöre bei Gott, not us. They killed each other, killed each other! We only stripped the bodies of their clothing… We caught their horses and took ’em… Um Gottes Willen! Good m’lord… Why, last Sunday they stole everything, them knights. Didn’t leave a single hen… By Saint Genevieve… So when we found them bodies—”

“Bodies? Where? Take us.”

Fallow land, covered in bushes and snow, spread out beyond the forest. Snow mixed with blood had been churned up by horses’ hooves and was dotted with the dark patches of corpses. Around twenty of them.

The peasants hadn’t managed to strip even half the number, hence identifying the bodies presented no difficulties. At least four of the dead were wearing black cloaks, black armour and black hounskulls, familiar to everyone as the attire and distinctive features of Birkart Grellenort’s Black Riders. The others looked like mercenaries.

Only Rixa rode over the bloody snow and around the battlefield, attentively inspecting the bodies, details and tracks.

“It happened yesterday,” she said on returning. “There were fifteen mercenaries—all dead. There was a smaller number of Grellenort’s Riders, three were killed. Two of them were finished off with misericords. Grellenort was clearly in a hurry.”

“Which way?” asked Scharley. “Where did he go?”

“South. Lucky for us, or we’d have run into him.”

“What’s he doing here?” said Reynevan, calming his frisky horse. “What’s he looking for?”

“Us,” replied Samson dryly. “Let’s be under no illusions.”

“Christ,” said Reynevan, paling. “He came from the east. Jutta—”

“No,” Rixa cut him off. “Definitely not. Let’s go.”

They set off, Samson and Reynevan riding on fresh black horses and leading two riderless ones.

Rixa looked back one more time.

“I recognised one of the men they finished off,” she said, grimacing. “He served in Wrocław under Hayn of Czirne. A thug, a murderer and a molester of little girls. It confirms that in his determination, Grellenort gathers and recruits whoever he can find: scoundrels, degenerates and utter scum. It confirms one more thing,” she added. “The rumour of the destruction by the Inquisition of their legendary castle at Sensenberg. Grellenort doesn’t have a headquarters any more, nor the Arabian narcotics for his underlings.

“Once horrors of the night,” she said, spitting. “The Company of Death, the Demons of Midday inspiring superstitious fear. Now a pack of demoralized rogues, incurring losses in any old skirmish. And despatching their own wounded. I’d call that ruination.”

“Fallen angels,” said Samson, “are no less dangerous.”

“You talk like a dybbuk, O dybbuk.”

“He’s right,” interrupted Scharley. “However low Grellenort may have fallen, I’d rather not run into him. Neither him nor his Riders. I’ve already had that questionable pleasure.”

“And who hasn’t?” snorted Rixa. “To horse!”