She galloped towards the granary, for she thought she saw behind it a thicket that might give her at least temporary cover. And only cover could save her. She had no chance in a race. She cleared more wattle fences, but the horse slumped down onto its rump, seemingly about to fall. But it bravely got up.

Only to suddenly squeal. And buck, buck so fast that Jutta flew from the saddle. Having first seen out of the corner of her eye a javelin stuck into the side of her steed quite close to her calf.

She tumbled straight into some dry brambles and for a moment was snagged by the curved, prickly thorns. By the time she had struggled free, covered in scratches, it was too late, the Black Riders were surrounding her on all sides. She bolted, nimbly weaving between their horses. They easily overtook her, knocked her down in the gallop, so hard that the impact against the packed dirt floor winded and paralysed her. She was lying on her back, looking up at the suddenly dark, overcast sky. Around her, horses snorted and hooves boomed.

“Miss Jutta of Apolda.”

He looked down at her from his saddle with his birdlike eyes. Smiling cruelly.

“We haven’t seen each other for a long time,” he said malevolently. “Just over a year has passed since our encounter at White Church. I’ve missed you. Go on, take her.”

Two Riders jerked her up from the dirt floor. They weren’t wearing helmets and she saw their faces, pale, as silver as ghouls’, their vacant, dark-ringed eyes and the foam at the corners of their mouths. She suddenly quailed. In a horrifyingly certain presentiment that this time there could be no escape.

They dragged her over against the wall of a tumbled-down shed. Grellenort was already waiting there. And the fair-haired girl with blue, inhuman eyes.

“I had other plans for you,” announced Grellenort. “I wanted to take you to Wrocław. Having first seized your lover, Reinmar Bielawa, I meant to force-feed him pieces of flesh I would have carved from you before his eyes, from various places. By cauterising the wounds, it would have been possible to drag it out for at least a fortnight. I planned to end with your internal organs. But time is against me and history is against me; the world has taken unforeseen turns. Thus I shall bid farewell to you here and now. I shall leave you here.”