Although he didn’t really know the Karkonosze or the surrounding region, he had heard various tales about Chojnik Castle, and he knew enough about the place to be anxious. The ancient stronghold, already shrouded in numerous legends, stood at the top of a steep, high mountain, rising over a bottomless abyss reputedly strewn with human bones, and known—in order to avoid unfortunate misunderstandings—as “Hell’s Valley.” The modern stone castle, built by the Świdnica-Jawor Piasts, had been captured around fifty years earlier and added to his already very wealthy estates by Gocze Schaff, Burgrave of Jelenia Góra. The castle was inherited by his elder son Janko. His other son, Gocze junior, was the lord of nearby Gryf Castle. The brothers ruled the entire surroundings with iron fists, including part of the important trade route running along the bank of the River Bóbr.

While the genealogy and wealth of the Schaff family didn’t interest Reynevan greatly, the same couldn’t be said for Chojnik Castle. Most of the horrible stories about the stronghold were most likely apocryphal, but the fact remained: Chojnik was a difficult castle to enter and even more difficult to leave. An escape, were it to succeed, would have to be attempted before they entered the castle.

There was one more important reason for doing so.

The frozen ground on the track and the moss on the roadside clearing were churned and torn up by many hooves. Schaff’s soldiers created a circle and looked around with their hands on their sword hilts. The bowmen loaded their crossbows, observing the road and the edge of the forest attentively.

“There was a brawl here,” said Gwido Buschbach, a short, stocky and not so young esquire and the detachment’s guide and tracker. “Around thirty horse. They fought, then went their separate ways. Yesterday, judging from the horse shit.”

“Who fought whom?” asked Schaff. “Are there any clues?”

“Naught but this.” Buschbach shrugged. “It was hanging on a snag. Don’t tell us much.”

“On the contrary,” said Reynevan, paling slightly as he looked at the shred of black fabric. “It does. I know who wears cloaks like that.”

“What are you waiting for?” snapped Schaff. “Speak!”

“You won’t be inclined to believe it.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

Janko Schaff listened, attentively and with a knitted brow, to the story of the Wallcreeper and the black horsemen. Although Reynevan suitably shortened and edited his account, the Lord of Chojnik had no problem with it. Reynevan saw a flash in his eye several times which might have signified that the knight had already heard this and that about black horsemen, murdered merchants, terrors by night, demons destroying at noon and other peculiarities mentioned in Psalm Ninety-One.

“The Company of Death,” he muttered. “Riders on black horses. The same ones the infernal priest was threatening me with. They fell on somebody here. I wonder who.”