As soon as they were both inside, Serilda shut the door and fitted the lock back onto the bolt.
Tearing the skin from the onion, she rubbed its flesh against the edges of the hatch. Her eyes began to sting and she tried not to worry about small details, like the pile of snow that had fallen from the cellar door when she’d thrown it open, or how the trail of the maidens would lead the hellhounds directly to her home.
Trail?…?footsteps.
Spinning around, she searched the field, afraid to see two paths of footprints in the snow, leading straight to her.
But she couldn’t see anything.
It all felt so surreal that if her eyes hadn’t been watering from the onion, she would have been sure she was in the middle of a vivid dream.
She threw the onion away, as hard as she could. It landed in the river with a splash.
Not a moment later, she heard the growls.
Chapter 4
They came upon her like death itself—yapping and snarling as they charged across the fields. They were twice as big as any hunting dog she’d ever seen, the tops of their ears nearly as high as her shoulders. But their bodies were skinny, with ribs threatening to burst through their bristled fur. Strings of thick saliva clung to pronounced fangs. Most disturbing of all was the burning glow that could be seen through their throats, nostrils, eyes—even areas where their mangy skin was stretched too thin across their bones. As if they did not have blood coursing through their bodies, but the very fires of Verloren.
Serilda barely had time to scream before one of the beasts launched at her, its jaws snapping at her face. Humongous paws knocked into her shoulders. She fell into the snow, instinctively covering her face with her arms. The hound landed on all fours astride her, smelling of sulfur and rot.
To her surprise, it did not clamp its teeth into her, but waited. Trembling, Serilda dared to peer up through the gap in her arms. The hound’s eyes blazed as it drew in a long sniff, the air kindling the glow behind its leathery nostrils. Something wet dripped onto her chin. Serilda gasped and tried to scrub it away, unable to stifle a whimper.
“Leave it,” demanded a voice—quiet, yet sharp.
The hound pulled away, leaving Serilda shaking and gasping for breath. As soon as she was sure she was free, she rolled over and scrambled back toward the cottage. She snatched up the shovel that lay against the wall and swung back around, her heart racing as she prepared to strike back at the beast.
But she was no longer facing the hounds.
She blinked up at the horse who had come to a halt mere steps from where she had just lain. A black warhorse, its muscles undulating, nostrils blowing great clouds of steam.
Its rider was cast in moonlight, beautiful and terrible at once, with silver-tinted skin and eyes the color of thin ice over a deep lake and long black hair that hung loose around his shoulders. He wore fine leather armor, with two thin belts at his hips holding an assortment of knives and a curved horn. A quiver of arrows jutted over one shoulder. He had the air of a king, confident in his control of the beast beneath him. Sure in the respect he commanded from anyone who crossed his path.
He was dangerous.
He was glorious.
He was not alone. There were at least two dozen other horses, each one black as coal, but for their lightning-white manes and tails. Each bore a rider—men and women, young and old, some dressed in fine robes, others in tattered rags.
Some were ghosts. She could tell from the way their silhouettes blurred against the night sky.
Others were dark ones, recognized by their unearthly beauty. Immortal demons who had long ago escaped from Verloren and their once master, the god of death.
And they were all watching her. The hounds, too. They had heeled to the leader’s command and were now pacing hungrily at the back of the hunt, awaiting their next order.
Serilda looked back up at the leader. She knew who he was, but she dared not think the name aloud in her thoughts, for fear she might be right.
He peered into her, through her, with the exact same look one gives a flea-ridden mutt who has just stolen one’s supper. “In which direction have they gone?”
Serilda shivered. His voice. Serene. Cutting. If he’d bothered to speak poetry to her, rather than a simple question, she would have been ensorcelled already.
As it was, she found herself managing to shake away some of the spell his presence had cast, remembering the moss maidens who were, even now, mere feet away from her, hidden beneath the cellar door, and her father, hopefully still fast asleep inside the house.
She was alone, trapped in the attention of this being who was more demon than man.
Serilda tentatively set the shovel back down and asked, “In which direction have who gone, my lord?”
For surely he was nobility, in whatever hierarchy the dark ones claimed.
A king, her mind whispered, and she shushed it. It was simply too unthinkable.
His pale eyes narrowed. The question hung in the bitter air between them for a long time, while Serilda’s shivers overtook her body. She was still in her nightgown beneath the cloak, and her toes were quickly going numb.
The Erl—no, the hunter, she would call him. The hunter did not respond to her question, to her disappointment. For if he’d answered the moss maidens, she would have been able to lob a question back at him. What was he doing hunting the forest folk? What did he want with them? They were not beasts to be slain and beheaded, their skins to decorate a castle hall.
At least, she certainly hoped that wasn’t his intention. The mere thought of it curdled her stomach.
But the hunter said nothing, just held her gaze while his steed held perfectly, unnaturally still.
Unable to stand any amount of silence for too long, and especially a silence while surrounded by phantoms and wraiths, Serilda let out a startled cry. “Oh, forgive me! Am I in your way? Please …” She stepped back and curtsied, waving them on. “Don’t mind me. I was only about to do my midnight harvesting, but I’ll wait for you to pass.”
The hunter did not move. A few of the other steeds that had formed a crescent around them stamped their hoofs into the snow and let out impatient snorts.
After another long silence, the hunter said, “You do not intend to join us?”
Serilda swallowed. She could not tell if it was an invitation or a threat, but the thought of joining this ghastly troupe, of going along on the hunt, left a hollow terror in her chest.
She tried to keep from stammering as she said, “I’ll be useless to you, my lord. Never learned any hunting skills, and can barely stay upright in a saddle. Best you go on and leave me to my work.”
The hunter inclined his head, and for the first time, she sensed something new in his cold expression. Something like curiosity.