Prisoner of blood and night E-Book

Lisa Frank

• Herausgeber: novum pro Verlag
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 446

Beschreibung

Jonathan, Johan and the other vampire hunters from the village of Vrain actually intended to rid the distant city of Lyria of vampires once and for all. However, they had no idea that they had been bewitched by a beautiful stranger and lured into a trap. Soon they would lose one of their own to the darkness. Could Jonathan himself have been turned into a creature of the night? Will the vampire hunters have the heart to save their friend from this fate? And might they even have to realize that vampires are not the monsters they had previously assumed, but that they are even capable of feeling love?

Leseprobe

Prologue: Obsidian

The moon cast its silvery glow on the glistening snow.

She lay naked and trembling on the floor in front of him. Skin like porcelain.

He didn't say anything for a long time, just looked at her body, the dark hair, the skin that was the same color as the snow.

"Who are you?"

She looked at him for a brief moment, a brief, desperate moment. Then she turned her gaze away. But he had looked her in the eye, through her, straight into her soul. If she even still had one. There had been the fear of a wounded animal in it, but surprisingly no resignation. She had not given up. She would fight.

"Who did this to you?"

Again she did not answer, only wrapped her bloodied arms around her trembling body. Her wounds had already dried up, the dark red blood frozen around her. An icy lake of darkly sparkling rubies.

More and more snowflakes fell on her and got caught in her dark hair. The bare, snow-covered trees under which she had sought makeshift shelter offered little cover.

He made a decision. He couldn't leave her here alone, because if he did, she would perish miserably. Stabbed by humans or burnt by the sun. She was now one of his kind and he had to help her.

With his hand outstretched, he walked slowly towards her. His footsteps crunched softly in the freshly fallen snow. He saw that she wanted to retreat but had no strength left. When she realized that she couldn't escape him, she finally raised her eyes, and this time she didn't look away. The look in those obsidian-black eyes was forever etched in his memory, that desperate fear, the confusion. The goodness hidden behind all the terrible experiences she had been through.

When he met her gaze like that, he knew he couldn't just leave her to die here, in this grove where he had found her. She was destined for greater things and he, Meoran, would help her and not leave her alone. Never again. He swore to himself at that moment.

"I won't let you die here, Obsidian." He thought that name suited her and he would call her that again and again later, long after he had learned her real name and long after they had learned to respect and love each other more than anything else in the world.

He grabbed her outstretched hand. It was ice-cold and sticky with coagulated blood, and so weak that it almost slipped from his grasp. But he gripped her tightly and helped her to her feet. She looked at him with a look of deep gratitude and warmth.

"My name is Esmeralda," she whispered, her breath just a soft whisper in the icy night air.

"I am Meoran. And I'm taking you away from here, to our kind."

As he said this, he put his strong arm around Esmeralda's slender figure to support her and carry her away, away from these desolate trees that offered no shelter, away from the cold stars, away from the snow stained red by her own blood.

Away from her old life, because that no longer existed. Esmeralda had died, she had been killed to begin another life, a life in darkness and in secret. But a life of immortality.

Part 1

***

The journey to the mirror of the sky

Chapter 1

Blood night

Winter was just setting in, bringing a glistening frost to the small village and the surrounding forest, which was bordered by a high mountain range on the horizon. The trees, still clinging desperately to their last colorful leaves, had to realize that they had to let go and give in to the cold.

Without exception, a thick cloud of smoke billowed out of every chimney into the steely gray sky and only a few villagers were out in the fields or in the forest, doing their thankless work or making final preparations for the coming snow.

The day before the night that was to change Jonathan's life forever, the first snowflakes finally fell. The storehouses were full to bursting from the extremely productive summer and the villagers sat contentedly in their huts in front of the fireplace. Some children had gathered outside and were staring upwards with mouths agape and tongues outstretched to catch a snowflake or two.

Jonathan was sitting with his parents and older brother in the hut that had belonged to his family since time immemorial, warming himself by the crackling open fire. His mother had just heated some milk and they were all sitting there enjoying the warmth while the snowfall outside was getting heavier and heavier.

Night fell quickly that evening. The heavy clouds had never let the day become completely light, and the darkness that was now approaching from the forest seemed all the blacker. None of the villagers could have guessed that a cruel, deadly danger was approaching with the night.

It was well past midnight and his family had been asleep for hours when Jonathan was suddenly startled out of his sleep. What had woken him up was a loud noise. It had come from close by and had sounded like the ghastly cracking of bones. Although his forehead was cold with horror and he sat upright in bed, he made no sound and breathed as shallowly as he could with his fear. Then he heard something again. Now there was no longer any doubt that something was in the hut. Something that didn't seem to shy away from any obstacle, not even the sturdy oak wood of a door. Trembling with fear, Jonathan groped his way to the door of the small chamber that served as his bedroom. Before he carefully opened it a crack to peek out, he listened with bated breath. He could no longer hear anything, but instinctively sensed a presence in his immediate vicinity. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up and an icy shiver ran through his entire body as he finally made himself step out of the chamber and face the dark cold that awaited him outside.

It took a moment for his sleepy eyes to adjust to the darkness, but when they finally did, he saw that the front door was hanging splintered on its hinges. An almost imperceptible glimmer of light seeped in from outside.

Jonathan turned his head to the left as slowly as he could to look towards his parents' and brother's bedrooms. His heart skipped a beat when he realized that both doors were open.

With a pulse twice as high as normal, he set off, step by step, until he reached his brother's chamber. He peered inside and made out the outlines of the small chest of drawers and the bed, the only pieces of furniture his brother Gal owned. The comforter was rumpled, otherwise the bed was deserted.

What's going on here, Jonathan thought with growing horror. Something was very wrong, and what exactly it was would be revealed to him in his parents' room.

His throat tight with fear, he turned towards the black doorframe, behind which he expected worse than his worst nightmare.

The closer he got to it, the clearer the strange noises that reached him became. A strange rustling mingled with a sound he couldn't quite identify, which was vaguely reminiscent of smacking.

By now, the fear had settled so firmly in Jonathan's guts that he felt like he wanted to throw up but couldn't because his throat was so tight. Somehow he managed to get to the doorframe and carefully peek through.

The gruesome image that now presented itself to his far too young eyes would haunt him from now on like a hellish demon and weigh on his chest every single night until he woke up breathless and frozen with horror.

Gal, his beloved brother, was lying on the floor in the far corner of the room in a pool of blood and intestines were spilling out of a terrible wound in his stomach, some of which had spilled over the rough wooden floorboards. Cracked, broken eyes stared helplessly at the ceiling.

His parents lay side by side in the wide bed, no more than two bundles of flesh and cloth. They were obviously dead, for the white sheet was soaked with fresh blood. Bending over them to the right and left of the bed were two figures shrouded in shadow, bending over the corpses and sucking the still-warm blood from their carotid arteries.

Paralyzed with horror, Jonathan simply stood in the doorway and stared at the vampires with wide eyes that saw nothing. He could neither move nor was he aware of the mortal danger he was in. In a kind of delirium triggered by nameless horror, he was also unaware of the noises from outside, which quickly became louder and turned out to be the excited voices and footsteps of several people.

The black figures, however, heard it very well, and before they started to jump out of the window, the taller one turned her face to Jonathan and for a split second he caught a glimpse of a chalk-white face with sunken cheeks, blood-stained lips and the brightest and most piercing eyes he had ever seen.

Then, as quickly as it had been made, this eye contact between the ancient vampire and the small, frightened boy broke off again, and the intruder had disappeared through the window into the pitch-black shadows of the night.

His companion was just about to do the same when something shot past Jonathan's ear and hit him in the face with an icy cold gust of wind.

Before he had realized what had happened, the second vampire grabbed his chest and then collapsed as a black bundle on the floor in front of the window. At the same time, Jonathan was grabbed by a pair of strong hands and pulled aside. He awoke from his stupor and all the sounds and feelings came crashing over him at the same time.

A couple of men, led by a giant with long, flowing hair, burst into the bedroom and pounced on the vampire lying on the floor, a long wooden spear sticking out of his chest. Others surveyed the bodies strewn around the room, and the man who had grabbed Jonathan and snatched him from the spear's potential trajectory a moment too late turned him around a little more gently to face him. Jonathan recognized Björn, the baker, but took no further notice of him. The boy just stared into the distance with a glazed look. Who could blame him, since his entire family had been murdered in such a gruesome way in a single night?

Björn awkwardly brushed the dark hair from his forehead, which was covered in ice-cold sweat. He would actually much rather be looking at the dead vampire that had been hunted down, after all, he had not joined the village's vampire hunters for nothing, but he knew that his task was now here, and that it was much more important at the moment than the appraisal of this hideous creature, from whose cold heart a long wooden spear now protruded.

The giant was the first to bend over the pale figure on the ground. With his foot, he disrespectfully kicked aside a piece of the black fabric the vampire was wearing so that he could see his face. It was a woman, he noticed first. The second thing he noticed was how beautiful she was.

There were dark circles under her eyes, but her skin was even, her face narrow and framed by a mane of raven-black hair. Her full lips still glistened with the blood of the poor housemates she had just killed.

"What is it, Johan?"

When he heard his name, the tall man straightened up and turned to the questioner. "It's a woman," he rumbled darkly. "Get her out of here! You know what to do. Burn the body. And then take care of the bodies of the Ilmarssons. Give them a dignified burial. Is there anything else?" He turned his gaze to the left and right.

"Yes, Johan." The voice belonged to Björn, the blond baker. He was standing a little to one side and was straightening up. The young man looked Johan firmly in the eye. "What's happening to Jonathan, the Ilmarsson's surviving son?"

Johan didn't think twice. "I'll take him in and train him as a hunter."

The silence that followed this announcement weighed heavily. It was finally broken by the timid voice of a slightly older man: "Johan, are you sure? You stopped hunting years ago, and for good reason, because you only survived with incredible luck..."

A look from Johan's bearded face, which could have turned water to ice, silenced the man.

"I will raise the boy like a son and teach him the craft of killing," the giant repeated. "There can't be enough vampire hunters in this world. People must never forget how to hunt down these disgusting creatures of the night. And it is all the better if one of the best hunters of our time trains him. Even if he has actually retired. Tonight has made me - and hopefully you too - realize that it is now more important than ever to hunt the vampires. They are growing in number and will continue to kill. Unless we stop them."

And so it was a done deal. The boy was still aware that the former famous vampire hunter Johan, who had retired to this village and only occasionally went hunting with his amateur helpers, knelt down in front of him and explained what would happen next. Then Jonathan's eyes went black and he fell into a deep swoon.

That day was his seventh birthday.

Chapter 2

Dead eyes

Ten years later

In the flickering light of the lantern, the beast's eyes shone like polished onyxes. It crouched in a corner, ready to attack at any moment. From the next room came the sounds of battle, bursting wood, the clanging of metal, screams of pain, the crackling of burning logs in the fireplace.

Jonathan didn't take his eyes off the monster for a moment, didn't even dare to blink, because every second of carelessness would cost him his life. Slowly, like a cat about to take a fatal leap, he moved in a semicircle towards his opponent. He had cornered her, pushed her into a corner so that she had no chance of escape.

All his muscles were stretched to breaking point as he moved towards the vampire, constantly expecting a sudden attack.

He didn't have to wait long.

The vampire woman's black pupils widened almost imperceptibly, a tiny fraction of a second before she leapt up from her crouching position and lunged at Jonathan. Jonathan had been waiting for this telltale sign, which always appeared just before an opponent struck back. With lightning speed, he pulled up the knife he had kept hidden behind his back and used it to fend off the woman's attack, inflicting a deep cut on the side of her neck. The hideous wound, which would have killed any mortal man instantly, didn't bother the woman in the slightest, but was enough to stop her from slamming her long, claw-like fingernails into Jonathan's neck and face. She stumbled to the side in the middle of the attack and pressed her hand against the wound.

Jonathan always found it fascinating and frightening at the same time that these monsters seemed to feel pain, even though not a drop of blood seeped from even the deepest wounds.

Now he turned to the side in a flash and raised the knife again to gouge out one of the creature's lifeless eyes. But the vampiress was quicker. She grabbed Jonathan's wrist with an iron grip and squeezed with superhuman strength, causing his muscles to give out and he dropped the knife to the ground, where it landed with a bright clang. He tried to suppress the panic rising in him and fumbled with his free hand for his belt, on which various other weapons were hanging.

Unfortunately for him, this movement had by no means escaped the vampire woman's notice and she also took his other wrist in her relentless, ice-cold vice grip. He cried out in pain as the sharp ends of her fingernails dug into his flesh and hot blood ran down his skin and dripped to the floor. He struggled desperately, trying to kick at the vampiress, but in vain. If his kicks made any difference to her, she didn't let on.

Desperate, Jonathan realized that he was completely helpless at her mercy. His opponent was stronger than him and he had no chance of getting hold of one of his weapons. He cursed himself for getting himself into such a situation, which would probably cost him his life.

The vampire woman looked him straight in the eye and he stared back in sheer horror. So this was how it was going to end - face to face with the enemy, defeated, taken by surprise and scared as a rabbit before the deadly bite of a snake?

Jonathan felt a slight tingling in his hands and then nothing at all. The vampire was choking off their blood and her grip did not loosen a bit. The rivulets of blood on his arms were cold and no new blood was flowing. A black veil appeared at the edge of his field of vision.

The vampire's black eyes did not blink once as she seemed to look into his soul. They were not the eyes of a human, they were the eyes of an animal, a hungry predator on the hunt. There were no emotions to be seen in them.

Then the pale mouth on the white face distorted, pulled apart like a tearing scar and bared two rows of gleaming teeth from which saliva dripped. The absurd grin grew wider and wider until it distorted the beast's face into such a grotesque grimace that it was difficult to guess that this creature had once actually been human.

Very slowly, as if it wanted to savor every moment, it tilted its head without taking its eyes off Jonathan. The wound Jonathan had inflicted on the undead's neck gaped open. No blood had leaked, leaving Jonathan with a clear view of cleanly severed tendons, muscles and empty blood vessels exposed beneath the cut skin. The slimy flesh was not red like that of living creatures, as it was not supplied with blood, and therefore had a strangely pale color that seemed surreal to Jonathan, who was slowly losing consciousness.

The vampire's face drew closer to his, the predatory grin not a millimeter narrower, taking away even the last bit of humanity she might have possessed.

Resigned to his fate, Jonathan waited for the fatal bite. He wasn't worried about being turned into a vampire himself, as the woman wouldn't have time to drink all of his blood, because Johan and the rest of the hunters would rush into the room in time after they had killed the other vampires and finish this one off too ...

Just before he finally drifted into unconsciousness, he saw the vampire woman suddenly stop and her bestial grin turn into an incredulous, silent scream. After she had let go of his wrists and fallen to the ground, he saw Johan's face as he drove a wooden stake into the monster's heart from behind. He must have slipped past them both unnoticed while they were distracted, and Jonathan realized that the sounds of battle had been fading for a while ...

This realization cast a black veil over his consciousness and he fell into a deep, dark abyss.

Chapter 3

Stupidity and courage

A strong slap on the cheek brought Jonathan back from his unconsciousness and almost brought him back there again. Groaning, he opened his eyes only to see blurry outlines moving and seeming to stare at him. Confused, he blinked a few times until his vision cleared. He saw a wooden ceiling supported by dark beams, from which fresh and abandoned cobwebs hung at irregular intervals.

Two bearded faces now appeared in front of this backdrop, looking at him with worried and reproachful eyes. One belonged to Johan, who now began to speak in his deep, rumbling voice: "You should be dead, do you realize that? If I hadn't been there to save your sorry ass, you'd be lying on the floor, sucked dry like a wineskin, and at worst it wouldn't have been the end of you! What were you thinking, attacking such a strong vampire on your own?"

Jonathan groaned and half sat up. His head seemed to be about to burst.

"I..." he began, but didn't continue as a wave of numbing pain rolled over his head. He lifted a hand and felt the back of his head, where he felt a thick bump caused by his fall when he had lost consciousness.

Now the other man spoke, leaning over Jonathan. He recognized him as Björn the baker. "Don't be so hard on him. After all, he showed great courage today and ..."

"Courage, oh yes? Only a fool doesn't recognize the difference between courage and stupidity. What good is it for a hunter to perform the bravest of actions if he ends up dead? In some cases, it's better to rely on your cunning or the strength of the group rather than doing something incrediblybraveon your own." Johan literally spat the word out. "If you don't know when something like that is appropriate, you'll soon meet your death. And who knows, maybe he'll even deserve it."

Without another word, Johan turned around and hurried away with heavy steps.

Björn, obviously just as shocked by the harsh words of their leader as Jonathan, tried to calm him down.

"I don't think he meant it that way, he was just very worried about you, and if you had died, it would have been an incredibly great loss for him ..."

But Jonathan was already struggling to get up.

"That's exactly what he meant," he replied coldly. "And he's right, isn't he? A weak member who constantly needs to be rescued is just a drag on the rest of the group."

With that, he stomped out of the room next door, where the rest of the group of vampire hunters had gathered.

Sjörendur was a small town on the cliffs, through which a rough wind swept incessantly from the sea. The houses were all built of dark wood and stone and the roof gables were adorned with carved figures of dragons and other mythical creatures.

Just outside, where the coast did not drop away into rocky cliffs, there were a few boats anchored, which the inhabitants of the town used to trade with other coastal towns or to go fishing.

Jonathan walked along the main street of the tranquil town with the group of nine vampire hunters to which he belonged, back to the small inn where they had been staying during their stay. On the way, they kept coming across the inhabitants of Sjörendur running errands, sitting on benches in front of their houses or transporting goods on ox carts. Without exception, they all looked at the vampire hunters with great reverence and gratitude in their eyes.

When a messenger had arrived in Johan's home village of Vrain about a week and a half ago and reported that he had been sent by the head of the town of Sjörendur because vampires were up to mischief in the town, Johan had immediately rounded up all the hunters and they had set off that very evening.

Since Johan had resumed his craft of hunting and killing vampires ten years ago, he had traveled everywhere he had heard rumors of such deaths and, with his volunteer helpers, had hunted down a considerable number of the monsters. Word of Johan, the famous vampire hunter, and his group had spread quickly throughout the land and soon messengers were coming from everywhere, bringing requests from their masters whose subjects were haunted by the monsters.

In Sjörendur, the hunters had laid in wait at night and flitted like shadows from house corner to house corner, from dark alley to dark alley, always ready to pounce if one of the sentries they had hired among the residents and distributed throughout the town raised the alarm.

They hadn't had to wait too long before the loud voice of one of the men had rung out and they had stormed off like the wind. It had been a relatively small house in which a fishing family lived. The hunters had stormed the wooden building and searched all the rooms until they had found the vampires. They had only got as far as the first floor. The occupants of the house, whose bedrooms were on the second floor, were rescued by two of the hunters who had stormed up the stairs. The remaining men had taken on the vampires. There had been three of them, two men and a woman. The men were putting up great resistance, which was why the hunters' attention was focused entirely on them. The woman had taken her chance and disappeared into an adjoining room in search of an escape route. But Jonathan had watched her and followed her. The rest was history and Jonathan was glad to have escaped with his life.

Now, the next day, the hunters were on their way to their inn to leave as soon as possible. Beforehand, they had paid their respects to the head of the town to tell him about the successful hunt and to ask him to ask for help again immediately if vampires were to attack Sjörendur again.

They reached the inn - a wooden, three-storey building with a large taproom on the first floor and a façade almost completely overgrown with wild vines - and entered through the door with the squeaky hinges.

Although it was only mid-morning, the room was already full and a babble of voices hung in the air. All the guests seemed to be talking about just one topic.

"I haven't even thanked you yet for ridding our town of these monsters," the slight innkeeper called out, coming around the bar towards them. He was lean and wiry and barely reached Johan's shoulders. He wore a stained apron and had braided his long blond beard into a messy plait. "And of course, it is a very special honor for me to have given you shelter in my humble room!" He bowed enthusiastically to the hunters.

Johan nodded briefly. "It was a pleasure to bring a few more of these beasts to their just punishment." He cleared his throat when the innkeeper didn't get out of his way. "We'd like to get our things now and then leave as soon as possible. I'm sure there are new jobs waiting for us," he said curtly, and the undertone in his voice brooked no argument. Nodding eagerly, the little innkeeper stepped aside.

Jonathan didn't have much to pack. Like all hunters, he had only taken the bare essentials with him - a change of clothes, some money and provisions for the journey - in order to move as quickly as possible and not burden their horses unnecessarily.

A few minutes later, the hunters gathered again in the taproom while a stable boy outside fetched their horses from the stables that lay directly behind the inn.

They paid the landlord the low price for the rooms, then left the house without paying much attention to the applause and cheers that rang out behind them.

Johan was the first to mount his dark brown horse. "We'll ride fast and only stop when it's absolutely necessary. That way we'll reach Vrain in a few days. I don't want to stay in the wilderness any longer than necessary. You never know what dangers lurk there."

So they set off and rode along the stone road that led out of Sjörendur. The road turned more and more into a dirt path as they left the last houses behind them and finally entered the dark forest that surrounded the town like a menacing shadow.

Chapter 4

The valley of damnation

They crossed dark forests and deep ravines, at the bottom of which, as distant and small as a trickle, flowed a raging river. They rode through steppe-like valleys, where nothing far and wide indicated the presence of any civilization, and finally, when the sun had long since disappeared behind the horizon, they reached the edge of a small wood, where they set up camp for the night.

The area was rocky and uneven, a clear sign that the mountains surrounding Jonathan's home village of Vrain were not far away.

The hunters swung off their horses and stretched their aching legs, groaning.

"I wonder what Johan is trying to achieve with such a violent kick," Jonathan heard one of the men mutter into his beard. The others had to ask themselves similar questions, but none of them dared to criticize Johan directly.

He was already trudging around the perimeter of the makeshift camp and handing out tasks, such as collecting firewood or killing some game for dinner. Without resistance, the men set about their assigned work.

By the time Jonathan had finished tethering the horses safely in the shelter of some young birch trees, a small fire had been lit in the camp. That was all their leader would allow, as the heat and light could attract dangerous creatures.

A little later, when it was pitch dark and only the flickering orange-red light of the campfire illuminated the exhausted faces of the men, Hanok and Onan returned from the hunt. The two were experienced hunters and skilled trappers, which had earned them a high reputation in the village in the past. The rest of the group was glad to have them in their ranks, as not only did they always have fresh meat to enjoy, but their mastery of the bow and arrow had also proved very useful in the fight against the vampires.

Now they dragged a shot deer into the camp.

"Over in the forest, not five hundred paces from here, flows a small stream. The deer thought they were safe and were careless. It was easy for us to shoot this magnificent specimen," reported Onan, a note of self-satisfaction in his voice. Johan nodded with satisfaction and instructed the two of them to gut the game immediately. They carried it away from the camp, back into the forest, where they would skin it, gut it and finally bury the innards so as not to attract any hungry wild animals.

The fire covered Jonathan's bronze-colored skin, long dark hair and thick eyebrows with a golden glow, making the shadows dance wildly around his sharply cut face. He had stretched out his hands to warm them, but the pain was stronger than the cold. During the ride, his leather shirt had rubbed against his wrists, right where the vampire woman had dug her fingernails into his flesh. The skin around the wounds was stained blue and yellow, a result of the iron grip with which she had held him.

Ashamed, he tried to hide the wounds, for they bore witness to his defeat and reminded both him and the other men, and especially Johan, that he had almost let himself be killed by a vampire.

Hanok and Onan returned with the meat, which they rubbed with the spices they had brought with them and hung on a large spit over the fire to roast. The delicious smell of roasting meat soon caught Jonathan's nose and he tucked into his portion with a big appetite.

There was not much talk during the meal. The hunters were tired and wanted to get to sleep as quickly as possible before they would ride east again at dawn under Johan's strict command.

Soon the fire had burned down and one man after another had yawned and said goodbye until only Jonathan and one other were staring thoughtfully into the embers.

The dull light from the burning logs cast a blood-red glow on Johan's angular face and shrouded the rest of his body in deep black shadows. Jonathan watched him cautiously as he seemed to brood to himself.

He couldn't get what Johan had said in Sjörendur out of his head.

Anyone who doesn't know when something like this is appropriate will very soon meet their death. And who knows, maybe he will even deserve it.

Did he really mean it like that? Did he really think that he, Jonathan, deserved to die because of a stupid mistake?

Johan had been like a father to him since the death of his parents, even if he had never been interested in sentimentalism and the like. But he had taken good care of Jonathan and trained him to be a decent vampire hunter. How could such words come from his lips?

Jonathan involuntarily wondered whether Johan perhaps regretted having turned him into a hunter. He couldn't think of any logical reason why this should be the case, but he couldn't explain Johan's outburst any other way. Jonathan desperately poked around in the embers with a twig.

Then Johan stirred and shifted visibly uncomfortable in his seat. He let out an abysmal sigh, as if all the misery in the world was on his shoulders, and turned his beady eyes to Jonathan. He ducked his head, expecting another lecture on courage and how boldness is not always the right path. Surprisingly, Johan coughed and fumbled around for a while before he finally began to speak.

"I know you quite well by now, and I think that what I said to you, or rather to Björn, in that house in Sjörendur has been and perhaps still is on your mind." He bore his gaze deep into Jonathan's. The latter, however, closed his expression to any feelings and returned his gaze expressionlessly.

Johan continued. "In the ten years you've lived and learned with me, we've become a family. I ... when I saw you like that, at the mercy of that beast, that's when I really realized this fact and ..." He broke off. Some time passed, but Johan did not continue. But Jonathan thought he understood what his mentor was trying to tell him. Namely that he wouldn't have been able to bear it if something had happened to Jonathan and that he was very worried about him. A faint smile crept onto his face as he finally nodded slowly, looking at Johan.

Relieved, Johan stood up from his place by the campfire. "You should lie down slowly too, boy. We've got a tough ride ahead of us tomorrow." With that, he turned and disappeared into the shadows. Jonathan remained seated for a while, staring into the dwindling embers.

At dawn, Jonathan could hardly bring himself to get up and roll up the blanket he had been sleeping in on the hard floor. The sun had not yet risen and the world was nothing but pale shades of gray. It was also bitterly cold.

Shivering, the men packed their things and stowed them on the horses' backs, which pawed impatiently. They were all far too tired to have much of a conversation. So they mounted in silence and rode after their leader Johan, a little way into the grove to the stream Onan had told them about to water the horses.

Then they continued along the course of the stream between the relatively widely spaced deciduous trees, none of which were thicker than a beam. The path went steadily uphill and now and again rocks and stones protruded from the ground. Autumn-colored leaves lay on the forest floor with little undergrowth and muffled the horses' steps.

After a while, the group reached the eastern edge of the forest and found themselves on the edge of a deep ravine. At the bottom, they could make out a raging mountain river, an icy blue line carving its way through the gravelly riverbed. It was framed by steep cliffs in various shades of gray, which supported evergreen coniferous forests further up.

The mountains rose majestically behind the forests, their snow-covered peaks bathed in the orange fire of the rising sun. Individual wispy clouds drifted past in the sky and were also illuminated, glowing fiery red, orange, purple and pink. It was a gigantic sight that left Jonathan open-mouthed in amazement.

Between the mountains lay a gorge that ran right through the mountain range and behind which lay the village of Vrain. The men had come this way and they would take it back again. Jonathan had heard at some point that the gorge was called Ilendahl by the people who lived nearby, which meantValley of Doomin the stubborn dialect of the surrounding villages. And indeed, the descent to the bottom of the gorge was extremely dangerous, as many travelers and traders had fallen to their deaths here.

Johan ordered the group to dismount. "You've conquered this path before and you know how damn dangerous it is. One false step and you'll fall out of the nest like a baby bird. I didn't lose any of my men on the outward journey and I'll damn well keep it that way. Now follow me and watch your step. There are many loose stones that can quickly spell your doom."

The hunters set off, one behind the other. They led the horses behind them on a lead.

The path, which led in steep serpentines all the way down to the river, was so narrow that no two people could walk side by side. Every now and then clumps of plants grew on the rocks beside and on the path, which didn't mind the rugged conditions and the lack of daylight - the gorge was so deep that the sun only reached most places for a few minutes a day. Otherwise, there was just a barren rock face on one side and a precipice on the other that made you feel dizzy when you looked down.

Jonathan concentrated as best he could on his feet, which were in thick leather boots and deliberately took one cautious step after another. In front of him, Hanok's black horse made its way down, behind him and his own animal, Björn tried not to fall into the depths. Only the footsteps of the men and horses and their strained panting permeated the silence.

The descent seemed to drag on endlessly and when the sun had finally risen, making the shadows in the gorge seem even harder and darker, they hadn't even made it halfway. Jonathan remembered that the ascent a few days ago had taken them almost a whole day, and suddenly he was glad that the descent was at least a little faster.

Nevertheless, his legs and knees soon became tired and an unpleasant stinging sensation spread through his left side. But he knew he would have to keep going until the very end, as there was no opportunity to take a breather on the path.

Towards the afternoon, the rocky bottom of the gorge seemed close enough to touch. The roar of the river drowned out every other sound and you could make out dark pieces of driftwood being swept along by the raging waters.

The sun's rays now reached down almost to the bottom of the narrow valley and bathed the opposite rock face in bright light. Gloomy shadows were cast between the conifers further up and the protruding rocks.

Although it was a beautiful day, it remained cold in the gorge the whole time. The piercing blue water of the river seemed to radiate cold like a lantern radiates light. Jonathan wondered how deep it was and whether anyone could survive falling in.

During the descent, he kept looking thoughtfully at the water-slicked rapids and came to the conclusion that a body helplessly exposed to the wild force of the river would probably smash against the rocks. He shuddered at the idea.

When he finally set foot on safe ground, a sigh of relief escaped him. He led his horse a short distance along the river to a place where the stones were particularly large and where Johan intended to take a short rest. The men, exhausted but glad to have made the dangerous descent down into the Valley of Doom in one piece, settled down on the smooth round stones and fortified themselves with some provisions as they gazed lost in thought at the river.

Meanwhile, Jonathan was talking quietly to Lars, the oldest of the hunters. He had a wrinkled, weather-beaten face, thin gray hair that hung to his shoulders and piercing blue eyes that Jonathan had always been a little afraid of as a child. Today he admired the old man, who had traveled a lot and had accumulated so much knowledge over the years that he was nicknamed the walking book in Vrain.

"Did as many people really die here in the gorge as the stories say?" asked Jonathan, swallowing a bite of jerky.

The old man scratched his chin. "People, horses, elk ... even wolf bones have been found down here. No one is safe from Ilendahl, not even the most sure-footed predators."

Jonathan felt a cold shiver run down his spine. They had been incredibly lucky not to have lost anyone from their group. He wondered anxiously whether they had already used up all their luck for this trip.

He watched Lars, his brows furrowed darkly as he looked out at the rushing water and kneaded his water hose with his gnarled hands. Something seemed to be bothering him.

"Have you ever been to Ilendahl?" Jonathan wanted to know, trying to distract himself from the growing worry that was creeping up on him.

Lars didn't react for a while, but just continued to stare into the water. Then he nodded somberly.

"It was in the spring, many, many years ago," he began in his deep, raspy voice. "We were traveling down the Enero on a raft, heading towards the sea. I had something to do in a town on the coast, and the quickest way seemed to be across the river. In hindsight, it was a terrible mistake." Lars faltered and ran his hand wearily over his eyes.

"Is Enero the name of the river?" asked Jonathan, pointing to the raging stream.

"That's right. It has its source high up in the mountains and flows into a small delta where the town I had to travel to used to be. I don't think it even exists anymore. Anyway, the three of us set off on the journey back then," Lars resumed his story. "Olaf, my best friend, his fiancée Yareli and me. We built ourselves a raft - Olaf was a real master at it - and launched it a little south of the spring. It seemed practical to us that the river, coming down from the mountains, would carry us quickly with its strong current. At first we were proved right and it looked as if we could reach our destination within two days. But then the river carried us into a deep gorge and the current inexplicably became stronger and stronger. We only had a simple raft and it was helplessly exposed to the forces of nature. Ice-cold water splashed in all directions and soaked us to the bone. We struggled to keep our provisions on board. The raft was constantly turning on its own axis, sometimes faster and sometimes slower, but always at a speed that could make you feel sick. Thanks to Yareli's help, who was extremely talented in manual and practical skills, we managed to keep the raft from capsizing and stabilize it to a certain point so that we could at least see what was going on around us. I saw huge rock walls towering on either side of the shore and felt like an animal in a deadly trap. And then we finally realized what was responsible for the breakneck speed of our raft: rapids jutting out of the water at irregular intervals." Lars paused and a look of hostility crept onto his face as he looked at the stones in the river, as if they had deliberately caused him a lot of pain. "To make a long story short: The raft ended up being thrown against a particularly large boulder. Olaf went overboard immediately, while Yareli and I somehow managed to cling to a wooden plank of the splintered raft. With great difficulty, we managed to save ourselves on the shore. But Olaf sank into the ice-cold water. He drowned and was found a little way downstream by some locals from one of the villages. Almost all the bones in his body were broken. I don't know whether it happened before or after his death, but I wish him with all my heart that he didn't feel any more of it. A little later, we were also found by the villagers. They took us with them and gave us dry clothes and something to eat. Without their help, Yareli and I would have frozen to death."

Jonathan had listened to Lars' story in horror and now felt deep sympathy for the old man. He knew only too well what such a loss felt like.

After they had simply sat next to each other in silence for a while, each pursuing their own dark thoughts, Jonathan's curiosity finally won out.

"Did you still travel to the city to do your business? And what happened to Yareli?"

The old man shook his head slowly. "I never saw the town. After we had recovered, we immediately returned to our village on horses that the villagers had given us. I continued my life there as a blacksmith, but Yareli went far away. I heard that grief for her fiancé finally killed her."

With an expression that allowed no further questions, Lars rose awkwardly, grabbed his water hose and trotted back to his horse, where he stowed the hose in the saddlebags. Jonathan stayed behind on the large smooth stone and let his gaze get lost in the ice-blue waves and the whitecaps dancing on them.

Chapter 5

In the bloody stake

Shortly afterwards, Johan's powerful voice rang out. "Everybody mount up, we're riding on!"

Glad to finally be able to think about something other than Lars' story, Jonathan stood up with some effort. The muscles in his legs were tired and trembling from the continuous downhill walk. But he made it back to his horse and stroked its shiny dark brown coat.

The horses had not been as physically exhausted by the descent as their riders, but they still deserved a break and Jonathan could not imagine that Johan would ride any further today than the point where a smaller ravine branched off, which would take them through the mountains directly to Vrain.

Jonathan sat up and joined the group as they rode slowly north along the gravelly riverbank.

Now that he was a little rested again and no longer had to constantly watch his steps or those of his horse, he could look around undisturbed. To his right, the river rushed along with undiminished speed, its roar still masking all other sounds in the valley. The riverbed merged into a bank of stones and rocks polished round by the water. The wet stones shone gray, while those that remained dry were a pale white. A few meters further on, sparse vegetation began to sprout from the stony ground, mostly thorny bushes that had found a way to survive despite the nutrient-poor soil. The bushes became denser the further they got from the river and the closer they got to the rock face, which loomed over everything like a giant sentinel. Jonathan tried to estimate its height, but failed miserably as he lacked any point of orientation. The riders had long since left the path they had come down behind them.

The further they got, the taller and more lush the bushes became, with smaller trees growing between them from time to time. At some point, the plant kingdom became so dense that it was impossible to see further than a few meters. For Jonathan, who had already ridden this path in the other direction, this meant that the ravine that branched off was not far away.

The other men also remembered and although Jonathan could not hear any conversations due to the booming Enero, he was sure that his companions' spirits were lifted. The prospect of finally leaving the cold, dark valley of damnation behind them filled them with a new vigor that almost bordered on euphoria.

Finally, Jonathan spotted the place where the trees and bushes grew less densely and seemed to form a clearing. They had reached the junction.

The gorge was so narrow that only three riders and their horses could ride side by side. A path overgrown with grass and moss, barely recognizable as such, was surrounded by trees with dark bark and thorny bushes on which poisonous berries grew. Behind them, the rock faces rose seemingly endlessly into the sky, just like in the main gorge.

The path reminded Jonathan of an ominous tunnel, and the cries of rare birds could be heard from the depths of the gorge, as if they were warning each other of impending danger.

Jonathan fervently hoped that he and his group of people represented this danger, but the narrow gorge radiated something incredibly hostile.

When they had ridden for a while, Johan raised his hand at the front and called out the signal to dismount. Evening had fallen and the surroundings had swallowed up any light that might still be left from the day that was drawing to a close.

The camp was set up and a large fire was lit in the middle. As potential attackers could only approach from two sides this time, there was no need to ensure that they remained as invisible as possible.

After all the hunters had eaten - they only drew on their supplies from the saddlebags - two guards were posted and the rest went to sleep.

Wrapped tightly in his woolen blanket, Jonathan listened to the strange sounds of the night. The loudest sounds were the crackling of the fire and the occasional crack of a twig breaking in the heat, but these were by no means the only sounds. Somewhere in the treetops above him there was a rustling and not far from the camp an owl hooted. As the night wore on and Jonathan found himself in that suspended state between waking and sleeping, a wolf howled far away, too far for anyone to be worried. But there were also less familiar sounds in the valley. Jonathan could have sworn he heard a cracking and rustling in the bushes immediately behind him at some point, followed by a wild snuffling, a grunt of some kind - and then a grave silence. Cold goose bumps gripped him as he figured out that whatever creature had made those sounds must still be in the bushes. But after lying there for a while with his heart pounding and one hand on the handle of his knife, which was stuck in his belt, and the sound not repeating itself, he finally calmed down again and eventually fell asleep.

The next morning, when the sun had not yet risen and everything was covered in cold dew, the journey continued. The ride through the gorge was neither as arduous nor as unpleasant as through Ilendahl, as there was no river flowing here to make any conversation impossible. The ground was also not covered with stones, which made it easier for the horses to move forward. After just a few hours, the hunters reached the end of the gorge and a gigantic view of the vast valley in which their home village of Vrain lay was revealed to them.

The trees in the forest, which nestled against the mountain slopes opposite the gorge, glowed orange, red and yellow in the golden autumn sun and seemed to be on fire. The mountains themselves also seemed to be bathed in liquid gold and stood out majestically against the cold blue sky, in which birds circled as small black dots in the distance.

Jonathan enjoyed the renewed freedom around him after days of being encircled by towering, hostile rock faces, spread his arms and closed his eyes. The sun cast warming rays on his face and the air tasted clear and fresh.

The other men were also relieved to have finally escaped the confining clutches of the gorge and their laughter and boisterous shouts echoed off the surrounding mountainsides.

Led by Johan, whose mood had noticeably improved, the group turned southwest and trotted down the steadily sloping meadows until they reached the valley floor and the small village came into view. As always after a hunting mission, Jonathan was incredibly pleased to see the familiar houses and huts of his home village again. They gave him a sense of security, of normality.

A large crowd had already gathered on the main street; men, women and children in colorful outfits gathered at the entrance to the village and awaited the returning vampire hunters with joy and pride. Dogs were running around.