CHAPTER 13: Storm and Tempest

I would hasten my escape from
the windy storm and tempest.
Psalms 55:8

Snow melted in his boots and in the gap between his gloves and cuff, then re-froze in icy chunks. The scarf over his mouth and nose kept freezing up, and he had to rub it in his hands to break off the frosty crust that built up where his breath dampened the fabric. Basti swore as he kicked a tree to knock snow from his boots, then hurried after Caterina and Araciel. He had, he decided, seen more than enough snow in the last two hours to last him the rest of his life.

Caterina turned and waited for him, catching his arm as he stumbled, his foot caught by a branch buried in the snow. Together they set off again, following Araciel.

Wind swept the snow in blinding flurries and made it almost impossible to hear anything. Blinded, deafened and slowed to a painstaking crawl, the three were forced to stop every few minutes to make certain they hadn’t wandered from the trail. Passage through the wooded parts of the trail was a relief, because the path there was shielded from the worst of the wind. But whenever they skirted the cliffs, Araciel stayed far ahead of the other two, his lantern swinging back and forth as he checked the trail’s safety.

Now the devil waved to them and stopped, placing the lantern in the snow and waiting until they caught up. As they entered the comforting circle of lantern light, he put his arms over their shoulders and leaned close. The French saber he’d belted around his waist left trails in the snow.

“About two more miles!” he shouted over the wind. “But there be tracks!”

“Wolf?” Caterina shouted back. Araciel nodded. Before they’d left, he’d pulled thin leather dueling gloves on beneath his heavier gloves, in case he had to use his saber in the chill weather. Wolves were the least they feared.

“Be careful!” he shouted back, releasing them to retrieve his lantern. Basti patted him on the arm and Araciel waved, turning to lead them again. After a minute, Caterina and Basti set off after him in the trail he broke.

Much later Araciel flung up an arm and halted. Through the whirling snow, Basti could just barely see his friend lift his head, as if listening.

“What is it?” Caterina asked, leaning close and shouting. Basti lifted his hands in an expressive shrug. They were in the valley now, passing through the forest that surrounded Gestern. He expected to see houses any minute.

The apprentice turned and gestured rapidly. Basti hesitated, puzzled, then tensed as he heard the same thing that had alerted his friend.

A wailing howl rose and danced on the winter wind.

“Come on!” he shouted, grabbing Caterina’s hand. She didn’t waste any breath to respond, her free hand lifting her skirts out of the way as she ran.

“That way!” Araciel shouted as they drew near, pointing deeper into the valley. He shoved the lantern at Caterina, who dropped Basti’s hand to take it. “Run for the village!”

“What about you?” Basti gasped, each freezing breath he took a lungsearing agony.

“’I shall follow,” the apprentice promised, pulling off his outer gloves. “Now go!”

Caterina and Basti plunged into the snow, their pace slowing as they broke their own path through the drifts. Araciel stood behind them, tucking his fur-lined gloves into his coat pocket and laying one leather-gloved hand on the hilt of his ornate saber. Basti glanced back at his friend as often as he could, then finally turned his back and concentrated on running.

Howling floated on the storm wind again, spurring Basti on. Caterina let go of his hand as he pulled ahead, following as closely in his tracks as she could. He squinted through the whirling snow, trying to see if any dark shapes approached from the surrounding forest, and desperately searching for any sign of Gestern.

Caterina shouted something lost in the wind, grabbing his shoulder with her free hand. Basti stopped and looked. She pointed, and he spotted the dark silhouette of a building through the trees. They’d reached the village.

He spared another glance over his shoulder for Araciel and saw the apprentice running close behind. His friend waved him forward.

Gestern’s small hallenkirche was in the center of town. Now Basti led the way with assurance, recognizing landmarks. His attention to the forest wavered.

Caterina’s cry, faint over the storm, warned him in time to see something black and heavy hurtle toward him from the trees.

Basti raised his arms up to shield his chest and face, unable to do anything more. The impact knocked him down, and snow flew up around him and the wolf that snarled over his chest. Sharp teeth ripped through the heavy fabric that protected his arms; amber eyes gleamed in the lantern light. Basti couldn’t draw a breath to cry out. He was paralyzed with terror as the beast’s teeth ripped closer to his flesh. Memories of the first time he’d been attacked flashed through his mind and he made a small sound in his throat. Then, as though that sound had broken his paralysis, he felt a surge of anger. His whimper turned into a low growl of defiance.

Above him, a leather-gloved hand clamped down on the wolf’s scruff. Basti felt the wolf yanked from his chest, and his anger seemed to be plucked from him as neatly as the wolf. He scrambled backward, still seated, until Caterina grabbed his arm and pulled him upright. Unnerved, Basti staggered against her, still backpedaling in panic.

Before him, the wolf squirmed and snapped in an attempt to clamp its jaws around Araciel’s wrist. The apprentice grit his teeth and lifted his other hand, clutching his sword. Too close to his foe to use the steel blade, he slammed the saber’s pommel into the wolf’s skull. Steel met flesh with a dull thud.

“Managgia!” Basti exclaimed, forgetting Caterina’s presence. He remembered the devil’s iron grip when he’d awoken from his drugged unconsciousness, and now his last doubts about Araciel’s supernatural nature vanished. The devil lifted the sword again, straining to keep a grip on the writhing wolf as he slammed the pommel into the side of its head once more. Blood spattered, creating a black webwork on his pale dueling gloves. The wolf yelped in pain, and howls sounded from the forest around them, drawing closer.

“Come on!” Caterina yelled, grabbing his arm. “We have to get to safety!”

Basti hesitated, then let her pull him away, keeping his head turned as he tried to keep track of his friend. She was right. Neither of them could help Araciel. The devil was the only one of them who had any chance at all against the beasts.

They took the lantern with them.

Darkness shrouded the two combatants.

Another sound rose over the wolves’ song; a long, clear note, the call of a hunter’s horn. Fear slid through his gut as Basti realized they weren’t just running away from stormmaddened wolves.

They were running away from the Erl King’s hunting pack.

“Araciel, run!” Basti shouted, then turned as Caterina yanked him up the church’s steps. His feet slipped on snow-covered stone as he scrambled. Caterina set the lantern on the stair as Basti fought to turn the handle of the heavy wooden church door. She risked a glance over her shoulder, and stiffened.

“No!” she gasped. He turned, his eyes widening.

Araciel had stopped when he’d seen his young friends safely on the church’s steps. Now the pack was on him, the wolves’ eyes shining in the lamplight from the church. He lifted his saber in solemn salute between their glowing eyes and himself.

Basti froze, watching, as the fallen angel spoke a word in a language he’d never heard before.

The power of the word shook the wind and the earth around them. The wolves paused a moment, then shook themselves and lunged.

A sweep of Araciel’s arm batted one wolf’s lunge aside, and it landed on its feet to circle him. Another snapped at his arm, and Araciel parried with effort, driven backward. The other wolves paused, eyes fixed on the prey that had chosen to stop and fight.

“Ye be no wolves,” Araciel said, his golden head rising. A look of shock was painted across his face. “Ye be no children of this wood.”

Basti gaped.

The beasts snarled, circling, patient.

The clarion of the hunting horn rose again. The wolves furthest from Araciel drew away, loping toward the church. Seeing the wolves draw closer broke Basti’s horrified trance. He turned and rattled the door handle again.

The door wouldn’t open.

“It’s locked!” he shouted, panicking. Caterina turned from the enemy behind them to place her hands next to his on the iron handles.

“It can’t be,” she said, pulling. “The church is never locked!”

Suddenly, with a shudder, the door gave. Ice crumbled and fell along the hinges.

“Quick! Get in!” Basti shouted, yanking the church door open.

The church’s interior was almost pitch black, with only a small red lamp lit over the altar. Caterina stumbled inside, crossing herself as she passed over the threshold.

“Araciel!” Basti shouted at the top of his lungs, standing by the open door. “Araciel, come on!”

Brushing another attack aside with his weapon, Araciel took the opening to turn and run. Wolves raced after him, teeth snapping at his sleeves and hose. Torn flesh ripped further as he fled, but he seemed reluctant to use his sword. Blood stained the snow.

Caterina rested a hand on the basin of holy water that stood near the church entrance, slightly behind Basti. Past Araciel and the pack, they could just make out another dark shape as it broke away from the forest.

Basti waved his arms, urging his friend on to greater speed. Behind Araciel, the wolves’ eyes gleamed with excitement as they smelled blood, and hot breath clouded the air around their muzzles.

Araciel gasped for breath, pushing another wolf aside in mid-leap. Basti feared they were playing with him, weakening him, but they’d move in for the kill as soon as he faltered. The wolf Araciel had shoved ran beside him, then put on a burst of speed and shot forward. It laid its paws on the church steps, bounding upward toward Basti and Caterina.

“Close the door!” Basti shouted, turning and grabbing the handle. He saw Caterina’s eyes open wide as he shut the door behind him, sealing her inside the church and himself out. He put his back against the wood.

With a thud, the wolf’s body slammed into him. Basti howled, despite himself, as claws scrabbled at his coat and teeth snapped at his face. Then Araciel bounded up the stairs toward him and hurled the wolf aside.

“Basti, get thee inside!” he gasped, staring down.

“Not without –“ Basti stopped, his eyes widening.

The Erl King rode through the whirling white curtain of snow.

Along his warrior’s saddle hung a long, bronze-tipped boar-spear. One black-gloved hand rested lightly above its guards. His clothes were of a cut generations past, as stark and colorless as his heart, and his face was malevolently handsome.

“Erlkönig,” Araciel greeted him, stepping in front of Basti. Blood ran down his arms and legs, staining his finery. The wolves snarled and crouched, ready to bring him down should he try to flee.

Basti edged to one side so he could see. His legs were shaking so hard that he had to lean against the stone door sill.

“Ach, mein gut Freund Araciel,” the Erl King returned his greeting with a twist of cruel lips. “Was machen Sie heute kalt Winter Abend herausbringen?”

“You know well why I be here, Erlkönig, and you be too late. The chatelaine of Gestern Keep be safe.” Araciel continued their speech in German, his old-fashioned usage making Basti strain to undersand. “You have no power here.”

“Less power, that is all,” the Hunter assured him. “And if I do not catch her tonight, then tomorrow night. I have the patience of eternity.”

Araciel lifted his head and met the Huntsman’s gaze. Basti tried to say something, to protest, but the words died on his lips. He felt as much in the Erl King’s power as the wolves that circled and snapped around him. The Erl King’s sheer presence seem to sap the will from him.

The Dark Hunter smiled and leaned forward in the saddle, his gloved hand caressing the dark length of the barbed spear’s wooden shaft.

“Come, Araciel, you don’t have to die,” he whispered, his tone intimate. “Why not join me, instead? Where else can you go, cast out by God, traitor to Satan, and alien to humanity?”

“No.”

“Come be my companion in the hunt and feast at my board. I have ruled this cold country a long, long time; before ever your God’s word was heard by human ear in these mountains. The people have not forgotten the sound of my steed’s hooves. Neither the strength of your foreign God nor the evil of your Satan has had the power to drive me from the hearts of my people as they drove away the lesser gods.” His wolf eyes bored into Araciel’s. “My daughters and I would welcome you to our hunting hall.”

Basti’s eyes flickered to his friend. He could only see the side of Araciel’s face, but the hesitation there frightened him.

“Araciel….” he hissed, through frozen lips.

Araciel shuddered and anger hardened his expression.

“You offer me no temptation I have not already faced,” he grated. Leather-gloved fingers opened and closed on the saber’s hilt, shifting the blade to a better position. Steel scraped against stone. “I repeat not my errors.”

The wolves around him pressed closer. A curt word from the Huntsman made them pause, teeth bared.

Basti realized his own lips were curled up in a silent, warning snarl of his own.

“Do you prefer to serve those fragile mortals, then? Or have they bound you as though you were some common genius, who has never flown higher than this thin æther?”

“There be no binding on me I did not accept of my free will,” Araciel said, his voice stiff and his fingers tightening on the sword’s hilt. The Erl King laughed, and every other noise in the storm seemed to silence.

“I know what you want, fallen angel. I know what kind of binding is on you, in the depths of your heart.” The storm spirit chuckled. “Stop resisting it. You made your choice when you were created, Araciel, when you came to understand where you stood in relation to your God and His Man.”

“I understand very little,” Araciel whispered, hardly audible over the wind, “and that, least of all. Get you gone, Erlkönig. I shall not join you.”

“If you will not come to me through your own will, then I’ll have to take you by force,” the Erl King said with regret. “I have no intention of seeing you wasted in Hell.”

“Hell be the absence of grace, and from that you cannot deliver me.”

“I have no need of your desert god’s grace,” the Erl King sneered, sliding the boar spear from its fastenings and gathering his reins in one hand. “And neither do you.”

Basti struggled to push himself forward, although he didn’t know what he could do, unarmed against a supernatural power. In front of him, Araciel lifted his saber.

The Dark Hunter stood up in his stirrups, throwing his arm back to cast the spear.

With a crash, the church doors burst open, and the Huntsman’s amber eyes rose.

“You can’t have him!” Caterina shouted, the rage in her voice carrying over the wind. She hurled the bronze basin of holy water down the church steps.

The Erl King yanked his horse’s head aside, his spear and arm rising to ward off the basin as its liquid contents as it spun in the air. Screaming, the black stallion staggered sideways, blood running from its mouth as the bit cut into its flesh.

Araciel flung himself backward, stumbling into Basti. Wolves howled like souls in anguish, rolling in the snow and snapping at their flesh wherever the droplets struck them.

“Hurry!” Basti grabbed Araciel’s arm. Beside them, Caterina watched as the Huntsman struggled to control his horse, baring his teeth at her in fury. For a fleeting moment amber eyes met brown, and there was no difference in the loathing each held for the other.

Basti pulled Araciel to the door, but when they came to the threshold, his friend jerked back, one hand grabbing the door frame.

“I cannot!”

Basti ignored him, aware that they had only seconds to act. But Araciel’s face was white with consternation, and he had a death grip on the doorframe, his arm locked to keep from being pulled in.

“Get thee within to safety!” Araciel ordered, voice tight. “I shall defend the door and thee.”

At the bottom of the steps, the Erl King gathered his reins and forced the terrified horse’s head down beneath him. His black cloak swirled as he fought the beast under control. Around him the wolves were scrambling to their feet again, teeth bared.

“Araciel! He’s coming!” Caterina grabbed his wrist and tried to pry his hand from the doorframe. Behind them, the Erl King mastered his mount and snarled commands to his pack. Wind whipped the snow up in flurries.

“Please!” She grabbed Araciel’s tattered coat sleeve and looked up. “Please, save yourself!”

Araciel turned his face away, teeth grinding. With a brusque movement he shook Basti off his arm and shoved the youth into the church. Caught off-guard, Basti stumbled against the benches and nearly fell. Somewhat more gently, Araciel lifted Caterina’s hand from his sleeve, starting to speak.

“Look out!” Basti yelped, seeing the Erl King’s wolves coursing up the stone steps behind the two. The alchemists’ apprentice whirled and threw out his arms in a desperate attempt to block the entrance until Caterina could close the doors. Leaping, the lead wolf’s teeth snapped at his throat. Araciel’s hands rose in a vain attempt to ward it off. His saber clattered on the steps, lost, as the wolf’s weight drove both backward into the church’s entryway.