Chapter 1
One
Salt upon the threshold and sweep the frame with ash.
Set out a bowl of milk, and let the wild hunt ride past.
“Be sure to fasten the windows, Tomasz.” Oj Pavel rapped his knuckles on the chairback and clicked his tongue. “You set out a bowl of milk?”
“I did, Oj Pavel,” Tomasz confirmed. “And marked over the door with rowan wood ash.”
“Salted the threshold?” The old man squinted a gorza-reddened eye at him. Deep wrinkles carved canyons from bushy eyebrows down his sagging cheeks, disappearing beneath a scraggly nest of a beard stained yellow from years of pipe use. “You mustn’t forget to salt the threshold.”
“I haven’t forgotten in all the years I have poured your gorza.” Tomasz draped an arm across the old man’s back, guiding him to the door. He rattled the clay jar in his other hand. “But the longer you are here, the longer the salting is delayed.”
“Only looking out for your well-being, boy.” Oj Pavel’s breath clouded between them, the stale stink of gorza making Tomasz’s eyes water. “The Hunt rides this night.”
“Pah.” He spat twice. “A fairy tale.”
“The truth! We cannot have our favorite innkeeper getting swept up.”
“I’m only the favorite because my tavern sits at the crossroads.
” Tomasz shoved the door open. Splinters in the rough wood bit into his palm, sharp as the biting cold.
A burst of winter wind punched into the tavern, guttering the flames of candles set across the broad wooden tables. “Outside of the town and its laws.”
They were good laws. Old laws. Laws meant to keep away the beasts in the mountains and the ghosts on the road.
They demanded every villager be behind a warded door and a salted threshold by sundown.
And while they were stretched in the summer, when the sun lingered, and the horrors stayed away, in the dead of winter, they were not to be ignored.
“Can you blame an old man?” Oj Pavel winked a bleary eye. “You are the only tavern pouring after sundown, of course you are our favorite.”
“I won’t be your favorite when you get locked outside of the gates.” Tomasz guided him down the path.
Despite shoveling the short walk to the road earlier that afternoon, a new blanket of snow covered the flat stones he and Fenra, the wolfwoman who guarded the forest’s edge, had laid in the spring.
He shook his clay jar again, pondering the salt.
There was more in the shed he could use, but that would require shoveling and salting as he worked.
More time outside, more risk on a cold, dark night.
A wolf’s howl rose over the wind, too resonant and canid to be Fenra’s call of warning.
“Come along, Oj Pavel, the guards are waiting.” Tomasz steadied the old man and set him down the road towards their little town.
Clustered at the edge of a dense wood, the town served as a waymarker, little more than a dot on a map to let travelers know they were on the correct route to Wroclasz, a day’s ride to the east, and Drezd?n to the west.
A stopover, or a passthrough, depending on the time of day.
In his youth, Tomasz’s mother had told him the crossroads outside their door marked the border between the lands of two royal houses. But Tomasz had neither seen a royal nor their houses, and so he focused on the inn and its keeping.
For a decade, he poured gorza, laid the stones, and shoveled the walk. In ten years, never once had he failed to salt the threshold and leave out milk on dark nights like this, warding against whatever evil rode the winter wind.
Tomasz waited in the crossroads until Oj Pavel hobbled through the gates, raising a hand in thanks to the guards. One of the guards, Piotr, waved a torch in goodnight before disappearing behind the town’s walls.
A second howl rose in the silence between gusts of wind, whipping Tomasz’s attention south, toward the Szitlau Mountains.
The trees lining the road bent and creaked in the gale.
Though the night was clear, blizzards were known to kick up without warning, hidden behind the snow whirling in a dervish on the winter wind.
He shielded his eyes, studying the road where it disappeared into the trees.
In the fairy tales his mother had told him, the Hunt ran down from the Szitlau, screaming along the road on their way to the sea far to the north.
The horde consumed any found in its path, seeking entry into unwarded houses to steal children away.
“We must respect the Hunt,” she had said, “and give them a clear path to sweep up lost souls on the way. Salt the threshold, draw ash upon the frame, leave a gift, and stay clear lest they sweep you up as well.”
A branch snapped overhead. Tomasz whipped around, scanning the roofline of the half-timber inn.
It was not much: the tavern and functional kitchen, four second-story rooms accessible by a wooden stair along the far wall, and a fifth room beyond the kitchen, heated by the stove and hearth.
Set back from the road, the inn was built into a cluster of pine and oak. Low-hanging branches scraped the thatch overhang above the door. Twigs and powder fell to the ground, and the beams groaned under the weight of snow caught on the roofline.
Tomasz added clearing the roof and trimming the lower branches to his list of never-ending tasks, and stepped beneath the overhang. He thumbed the cork from the jar of salt, carefully lining the large oblong flagstone that served as a threshold.He paused at another, louder groan of wood.
Thatch crackled and hissed. A branch snapped overhead, loud as a crack of thunder echoing through the trees. Leaves and pine rustled, wood crashed into wood, and Tomasz threw his body forward as the overhang collapsed.
His temple struck the timber frame. A cold, heavy weight crashed down on his legs, pinning Tomasz with his body half stretched across the threshold.
However long he lay there, he did not know. Only that the cold crept in. A slow burrowing in his bones freezing him down to the marrow.
Boots crunched over ice and snow, and a long shadow fell over the open door.
Tomasz craned his neck, relieved to find he could, and without pain.
A tall, massive figure in black furs and riding leather loomed beyond the threshold.
A thick, snow-dusted cowl covered their head, and though their face was masked in shadow, the weight of their gaze was inevitable. Final. And fixed on Tomasz.
“Bad night to be on the road,” he said.
The figure did not move.
“If you are seeking a room, we have them, although…” Tomasz worked his legs. Again, no pain. A blessing, despite the weight of snow, thatch, and fallen beams. He grunted, attempting to work himself free while the figure watched in silence. “I appear to be stuck.”
The traveler shifted. Though he could not see their face or eyes, Tomasz felt their gaze drop to the detritus pinning him.
“Salted.” The word rasped from the traveler, carried to Tomasz’s ears on the back of the wind more than it was spoken.
“Of course.” Tomasz pressed his palms flat against the ground, working one leg, the other, and gaining a centimeter. “We practice the old ways, especially on nights like these.”
The traveler made a sound like steel over stone, and backed away.
Panic fluttered in Tomasz’s chest. He wriggled, gaining another centimeter before the effort left him gasping for breath. He collapsed flat against the ground, craning his neck to keep the traveler in sight.
“Any help,” he panted, “should you be willing, would be appreciated.”
Oddly, the traveler fluttered a hand at Tomasz and the inn. A helpless gesture at odds with his bulk and the aura of his presence.
Because the traveler was male, of that Tomasz was sure. It was in his size and stance. In the two guttural, grinding sounds he had made.
“Please,” Tomasz said quietly. “Come inside and take my hands. If you pull, I think I can work free.”
The traveler made that odd sound again. He raised his head to the fallen overhang, the broken branches above.
In the movement, two steel gray eyes flashed beneath his snow-dusted cowl, the shadows retreating enough to reveal the high bridge of his nose and the scarf covering the lower half of his face.
Those eyes, cold as the winter night, harder than iron, landed on Tomasz. “Alright.”
He worked his way over the snow and timber, hesitating whenever he thought the pile might shift. Wood groaned and ice popped beneath him, and with a quick intake of breath, he jumped over Tomasz’s head and landed on soft feet within the tavern.
Turning slowly, he took in the room, lingering his gaze on the fire in the hearth and the bottles lining the shelves behind the bar. His shoulders dropped, some sort of strain or stress leaving him, and he tugged the scarf low.
He crouched, face dropping into view. A dark beard clung to his jaw, and frost lined the skin beneath his eyes, the gray sheen making them gleam in the firelight.
“Hands.” He held out his arms. Worn leather gloves, the palms and fingers creased from gripping reins or rod, stretched over large palms. Tomasz held out his arms, and the traveler took hold, his grip strong and steady. A manacle around his wrists as inevitable as his haunting gaze.
Tomasz swallowed a sudden rise of fright, locking his gaze with the traveler and nodding.
Digging his toes into the ground, he pushed forward as the traveler pulled.
Wood shifted, snow and thatch crackled and snapped.
Tomasz gained an inch, another, and with a final, hard tug, he left the fallen pile behind.
The traveler dropped his hands and straightened, crossing his arms over his chest as Tomasz rose.
“Thank you.” He dusted himself off. “I do not know how long I would have been stuck there if you had not come along.”
“They would have come for you, eventually,” the traveler answered. “When the storms eased and the skies cleared. If only to say goodbye.”
“Goodbye?” Tomasz cocked his head.
“Goodnight.” He tugged his scarf up over his chin, aiming for the door.
“A gorza!” Tomasz blurted, too loud in the quiet room.
“Please, let me pour you a drink for your troubles.” Before the traveler could turn down the offer, Tomasz darted behind the bar.
His hands, cold and clumsy, dropped a cup.
Fumbled a bottle. He cursed under his breath, grabbed a clean cup, and set it down hard.
“It was no trouble.”
“A gift, then,” he said. “In thanks.” The half-full bottle of gorza thudded quietly beside the cup.
The traveler’s arresting eyes flicked to the gorza. Back to Tomasz. “A gift?” he asked, voice muffled beneath his scarf and the hand still pinching the wool. “I have not had a gift in a long while.”
“No better night than a cold one to share a drink with a friend.” Tomasz added a second cup and poured them both to the rim.
He nudged the traveler’s cup to the edge of the bar and waited, swallowing a sigh of relief when the man strode forward.
He tugged his scarf entirely free and shoved it into a coat pocket.
The gloves followed, disappearing along with the scarf.
He raised the offered cup to Tomasz. “My thanks.”
The traveler downed the gorza, set it down, and turned to leave, stopping as Tomasz poured again.
“As I said, a friend,” Tomasz said. He took up his own cup and raised it to the traveler. “Tomasz.”
At his name, the traveler startled back. Those bright eyes darted to the doorway and the raging storm beyond.
“Friends have each other’s names,” Tomasz prompted.
“You should not give it so freely.”
Tomasz shrugged and sipped his gorza. The sharp liquor burned on his tongue and slid smoothly down his throat, warming him along the way. “You spared me from a night beneath the snow; the least I can do is thank you by name.”
“It is not wise.”
“Neither is running a tavern beyond the village gates, but—” He gestured to the empty bar, the detritus crowding the threshold. “Here I am.”
The traveler’s gaze lingered on the doorway. “There you are.”
Achingly slow, he took up his refreshed cup and raised it to Tomasz. “Garek.”
“Well met, Garek.” Tomasz savored his name, sharp like his flinted eyes, broad like his shoulders. “Now you have my name, and I have yours.”
“I suppose that makes us even.” A smile flitted, gone so quickly that Tomasz half thought he imagined it. Then, Garek set an arm on the bar and sipped his gorza.
“I suppose it does.”
They drank in silence, cups emptying all too quickly. Garek set his cup on the bar and withdrew his scarf.
“Thank you for the gorza.”
“Thank you for pulling me free.”
Garek stilled, scarf half-wound around his face. He held Tomasz’s eyes, the intensity of his gaze drawing heat into his cheeks.
“I must go, for tonight,” Garek said quietly, voice half stolen by the wind howling beyond the door. “I will return.”
“I will be here,” Tomasz answered.
A sadness clouded Garek’s face. He nodded tersely, tugged the scarf over his mouth and nose, and left.