Prologue (!)
It was a dog-cold morning - like every winter morning in Fuchsbergen.
In a cottage with too many drafty holes in the walls, a middle-aged woman rolled around under her blanket. She would have liked to sleep longer, but the cold made her shiver so much that rest was out of the question. The last flames in the fireplace must have gone out several hours ago and it had snowed during the night. Proof of this was a small pile that wind and weather had driven under the door. The wife cursed softly, pushed herself over her sleeping husband, and scrambled out of bed. It was up to her to start the fire until the good-for-nothing got out of bed, took the axe from the wall, and finally left the house to chop wood.
The draft through the slits between the boards was icy, driving heartlessly under the yellowed nightgown and ruffling the woman’s long, already partially graying hair. Eleonore made her little money selling fish at the market. Usually, her husband caught them, but at the moment the ice on the small mountain lake was too thick to make a hole in it. Therefore, until it got warmer, he moved out with the loggers.
Eleonore idly shuffled to the fireplace, grabbed some small logs and dried birch bark, and piled it all into a small pile in the stove’s hatch. It took her a little while to strike enough sparks with the flints to ignite a handful of dry grasses. Hastily she let the flames leap over and spent about ten minutes getting the fire properly started. Only very slowly did the warmth seep into the room, hesitantly touching her icy toes. Eleonore lived on the outskirts of the village, so she could hear the bleating of sheep from the stables if she listened carefully. Not long now and the shepherds would come to check on their animals.
The village still lay sleepy and completely snowed in. Amid the most northerly mountains, a north could have, between endless forests and accessible only by rugged roads that could not be traveled in the depths of winter anyway. Even in summer, it took talent to maneuver horses or carts up here. There were some fields, but they could only be cultivated by those who had the difficult work in their bones from an early age. Fuchsbergen was a close-knit community where everyone knew everyone else. In particularly hard times, people helped each other, and especially when strangers entered the village, the neighborly quarrel turned into a fraternal alliance.
It might have been a simple, arduous life... but so separated from other communities and influences, their existence was freer than that of many a region tyrannized by the king or the church. At least, if one disregarded the pompous ramblings of the priest and the self-congratulatory, good-natured speeches of the mayor.
Slowly, the sparks ate through the dry grass, solidifying into small flames and clinging hungrily to thin shavings. Only seconds later, the intense smell of smoke hung in the room. Sighing, Eleonore picked herself up from her place in front of the stove and turned toward the sleeping area to wake her husband. At that moment, something flashed in the corner of her eye. With a raised brow, Eleonore turned her head. Her gaze fell on a spot just beside the door. A dark spot stood out there on the wooden floorboards. A substance that must have been frozen there. Pale morning light hit the spot and made it shine. Eleonore squinted her eyes and took a skeptical step toward it. Had the lazy guy in her bed brought in heaps of snow or dirt with his boots again?
Lips already curled in displeasure, she stepped even closer and froze. A small pool of frozen, reddish-brown liquid was gradually thawing again from the warmth of the fire and was about to soak into the wood. Eleonore gulped her gaze following the trickle to the wall, where it disappeared beneath the wooden beams. Up close, she could see it quite clearly: Blood. Slowly, she moved to the door and listened carefully.
Nothing. There was nothing. Dead silence.
She swallowed hard, then her weather-beaten hands reached for the latch and carefully pulled it back. Almost silently, she turned the key in the lock and then pulled the second latch back. With a warning groan, the heavy wooden door moved, allowing the weak light of the rising sun to fall into the room. Tickled by the brightness, her consort grumbled but didn’t think it necessary to move. Eleonore swallowed, then took a determined step outside. Her bare feet met the thick layer of snow and immediately she felt the sting of cold in her toes. The woman turned her head to the side and her gaze met the spot on the outside wall where the blood must have entered.
Directly in front of Eleonore’s feet lay ahead. It had not been neatly severed, with hard bite marks and roughly torn flesh emblazoned just where a larynx should have been. The eyes were wide open and stared into nothingness. Raven-black hair was frozen to the formerly sweaty forehead. A wreath of ice flowers adorned the dark lashes. The face lacked any color, but Eleonore still recognized the man.
He had been a mercenary and had only been in the village for a few days.... along with his squad of four other men. The mayor had brought them here, through a letter he wrote to the next largest town. Apparently, word had spread of the desperate plea for help, because his men were not the first, and probably not the last, “rescuers” of the village.
Eleonore stared. Her pupils slowly followed the trail of blood left by the head to the rest of the dead man. He was leaning right against the wall of her house, sitting there as if he hadn’t found his way home after a night of drinking. But she knew better. This man had not been drinking... the battle scars were clearly visible all over his clothes as well. Blood soaked the torso, it was covered with countless wounds. Large chunks of flesh were torn from the body, parts of his intestines were scattered over the ground and long claw marks disfigured his mangled legs. Yet he still held a weapon in his hand.... a dagger with dried blood on it. The flesh was frozen as well. Snow and ice preserved the scene of brutal violence and disfigurement.
Eleonore blinked, then felt her knees tremble like pudding beneath her. The woman hardly noticed that her mouth opened into a scream. Then her lungs expanded, gathering air, and the sound of shrill desperation startled a nearby flock of birds. Eleonore screamed, screamed her throat out until finally, someone came running. She didn’t know if it was her husband, a neighbor, or someone else. The image of the frozen eyes had burrowed into her mind like the wolf’s claws into the body of the dead man. Minutes, endless minutes she spent there in the snow, the cold eating through her uncovered legs as impassively and cruelly as it did into the flesh of the corpse.
At some point, someone pulled her up, heaved the woman into the house, and sat her on a chair there. Eleonore was shivering all over, not from cold, but from fear. Directly in front of her door, a man had been murdered... no, hunted down.
It was obvious what had killed him. The condition of the body spoke for itself. Eleonore had heard a thousand stories about it and had seen countless grieving widows, sisters, brothers, parents, and children. But she had been spared the sight of a victim herself until now. Now she could not drive away the memory of the mercenary. He no longer had a head, how was he to find the kingdom of heaven without a head? How was he to find peace without eyes that could see and a mouth that could speak? Her heart raced, she felt her hand clench into a fist again and again and then relax. Cold sweat stood on her forehead when, after quite a while, her husband lowered himself into a chair next to Eleonore.
“Calm down, they took him away,” he growled darkly, patting her knee. His big hands were warm, strong, and rough. Marked by hard work and a great deal of deprivation. Eleonore blinked, then turned her eyes to him and slowly ran a hand over her forehead.
“It’s not that,” she murmured, lost in thought, feeling her body slowly calming down again at his nearness. He believed her distraction rested from the sight of the corpse, but the disfigured body Eleonore could eventually forget, she knew. No, what the peasant woman was really afraid of was something else. Her hand trembled as she lowered it.
“They were in the village, outside our door...” she tried to explain hoarsely, but the words faded into a stifled sob. The broad-shouldered man slumped in his chair, barely noticeable. He too knew how powerless they were against this threat and he would have liked to protect his wife, to give her security and trust. But he could not.
“It’s okay, it’s okay.” A little perplexed, he put an arm around Eleonore and pulled her to his shoulder, where she buried her tear-soaked cheeks in the dirty fabric of the nightgown. “We’ll manage. We always manage,” he reminded her. Slowly, chunky fingers stroked her thinning hair. Eleonore’s gaunt body twitched under the heavy breaths, though she tried with all her might to push back the tears.
" They... They...” Only slowly did the tears dry up, but it took time for Eleonore to catch her breath. Despair constricted her throat for a few moments, as she suddenly felt unsafe in her own hut. Already earlier they, the wolves, had come close to the village. But SO close?” Winter is not over yet.... And they are getting hungrier,” she brought out. Her husband sighed softly, but he didn’t disagree. “Besides, we live so far on the outskirts of the village.... no one would notice if they saw us...”
“Shh.” Eleonore was interrupted by her husband, who gently but firmly interrupted her. Slowly she broke away from him and wiped at the wet marks on her sunken cheeks. The fire had long since gone out again and the cold was slowly but surely creeping into the hut. They both stopped talking but thought the same thing. No one would intervene if the wolves tampered with their little cottage the next night. They could not afford thick iron locks or solid oak planks with which to bolt the door and board up all the windows. If luck was with them, they would not starve... but even that was written in the stars.
And tonight the wolves had ventured into the village and torn a mercenary there. An armed, armored warrior... and he was just lying there in the snow. Eleonore had not even woken up from it. What had they done wrong, and what misstep had they made? The village regularly paid its debt and now for several moons, it didn’t seem to be enough.
So what, what in all the gods, would follow next?
