advancing day, and the cold and damp clutched at him like the hands of a drowning man, pulling him back down toward unconsciousness. Brother Heinrich commanded the more able-bodied men to open the door, and a voice called “Hold!”
Josef turned slowly, feeling the motion in his abdomen, wondering idly, with the unconcern of the dreaming:
Am I bleeding again?
Telek stood in the doorway of the stronghold, at the head of a mass of men bearing on their tabards the odd devices of the Poles: multiarmed crosses, horseshoes impaled by swords and arrows, and glyphs less comprehensible—all red and blue, gold and white. They outnumbered the Germans easily four to one.
“What is this?” Heinrich said.
“You will lead us to this beast,” Telek called back.
“This is our charge, Rycerz Telek Rydz. We are called to fight this agent of Satan.”
“As my uncle calls me. And, Brother Heinrich, you have not shown great skill in containing this animal.”
Even in his limbo of pain, fatigue, and disorientation, Josef had the lucidity to catch the emphasis on Telek’s last word.
“Do not presume—”
“Presume? You are not in Prussia, you arrogant monk. You walk in our lands, and if we say, ‘Put your weapons down and strip the armor from your backs,’ you will do so and be glad of the chance to march barefoot back to your own lands.”
“You have no right to command us. The Duke—”
“Duke Siemowit has charged me to deal with this. You would do well not to challenge my authority here.”
Heinrich took a step forward. “You would lead your men against the Devil armed only with steel?”
“‘They are a beast like any other, but one that can at will disguise itself as a man. Also, like any beast, they are deadly to man when wild and untrained,’” Telek said.
Heinrich took a step back.
“I have a good memory for things I’ve read. Do I recall Brother Semyon’s words correctly?”
Semyon? That name again.
“Those letters are only for the initiated. You cannot understand!”
“I understand that this thing is no more demonic than a rabid dog. And according to your own Brother Semyon, if we take its head, with or without the aid of silver, it will be done with. Healing or not, a man with a pike should hold it at bay for the length required for my men to complete the task.” He glared at Heinrich. “Now, where is it you’re intending to go?”
Josef followed Poles with pikes and battle-axes and the Order, with their silvered swords and crossbows. The Poles marched, and the Germans and Telek rode. Josef sat astride a Polish warhorse, his knuckles white on the reins, every step sending jolts of pain through his gut.
But at least the pain kept him awake.
He tried asking his master once who Semyon was, but the only response was: “A brother knight in the Order, long dead.”
Brother Heinrich’s curt response fed Josef’s already growing doubt. When Maria had challenged him—had asked him if the monsters he hunted ever talked, if they did things any worse than men did—his response to all such questions had been that these things were soulless demons.
Doubt had come first when he’d realized that she was asking for her own sake. Now, with Telek’s statements, doubt had taken an equal footing with faith.
Josef had believed they were demons solely because of the words of his masters in the Order and the creature’s actions. Now Telek gave Josef reason to doubt his masters’ words; he could quote another knight of the Order upon the creature’s earthly nature without Brother Heinrich contradicting him.
That left the beast’s actions and Maria’s question: Were they worse than the actions of men? He had seen and heard much evil done in the wake of the great pestilence, and the burning of Jews in Strasbourg had not been the worst of it.
If he was left to judge based on actions alone, how could he judge these beasts to be demonic?
How could he judge Maria when her only crime was being this thing?
How could he judge her family?
The mixed group of marching Poles and mounted Germans drew to a halt in front of the cottage of Maria’s family. Her brother Władysław walked out to meet them as Telek and Heinrich dismounted.
Josef’s heart sank because he saw no way that this could end well.
XXXI
Darien chased after his mate.
His bitch.
He wanted to hold her, hurt her, force himself inside her and pin her to the ground until she whimpered his ownership of her. He had told her—he had shown her—the fact