“Here kitty-kitty…” She ran out onto the landing, getting tangled up in the sheets hanging there. “Kitty… Kitty!” She ran down the stairs. And realised at once that something was wrong. The cold night air had suddenly become even colder, choking her as she breathed in. The cold wasn’t fresh and invigorating now; it had become heavy, as dense as phlegm, as mucus, as clotted blood. It was suddenly full of coagulated, concentrated evil.

A bird alighted three paces in front of her. A large wallcreeper.

It appeared to Elencza as if it had taken root in the earth. She couldn’t move, couldn’t even tremble. Not even when the wallcreeper began to grow in front of her eyes. And change shape. Change into a man.

And then two things occurred at once. A cat mewed loudly. And a huge wolf ran out of the black of the night.

It speeded up, suddenly lengthening its steps into great bounds and then leaped. But the wallcreeper had become a bird once more, grown blurred, shrunk rapidly, flapped its wings and flown up. It croaked triumphantly when the white fangs of the leaping wolf snapped shut just beyond its tail feathers, missing the target. After it leaped, the wolf landed softly and took off at once into the darkness, in pursuit of the fleeing bird.

Elencza seized the cat and ran. The tears drying on her cheeks.

The Iron Wolf gave chase like every normal wolf does, loping along at a steady, fast, relentless pace. Its nose, lifted from time to time, unerringly caught the magically imbued draught of the soaring wallcreeper. The wolf’s eyes glowed in the darkness.

The chase—a pursuit to the death—was on. Through the Niemcza Hills. Along the Oława, Ślęża and Bystrzyca valleys.

Children in their cradles awoke, cried and choked on their tears. Horses in stables fidgeted anxiously. Cattle banged against one another in cowsheds.

A knight in a stone watchtower sat up, awoken by a nightmare. A breviary fell from the trembling hands of a village priest as he recited the Nunc dimittis. Soldiers in guardhouses rubbed their eyes.

The chase went on. Before it—announcing it like an outrider—sped Horror. And Terror settled behind it like dust.