XI

NOVEMBER, 1348

The Kermis

THE KRENKEN were coming into the village.

The announcement struck Dietrich like a blow to the stomach. He steadied himself with a clutch to Eugen’s bridle. They meant to take the village. Given the Krenkish choler, it could be nothing else. But why, after the months of hiding? He looked up at the junker, whose face was as white as the ground. The lad knew. “The Herr sent hand-picked men to face them, I hope.”

Eugen swallowed. “They’ve been told. They’ll stand.”

God vouchsafed Dietrich a vision of the coming events. He saw them unfold with awful clarity, as if they had already been accomplished—already factum est. Grim ranks of the strange creatures hurl bullets with their pots de fer, ignite their thunder-paste. Men are pierced, shattered. Krenken swoop from the air to strike men from above.

Max’s men cry in terror. But they are men who answer fear with blows. The Krenken have their magic weapons, but a broadsword hews them as easily as a man. And once frightened men see that, they fall upon the survivors with a fury more murderous for having been born of fear; hacking and chopping to bits the creatures he had named Hans, and Gschert, and Kratzer.

Whichever way the fight might go, too many would die for the remainder to live. It would be pressed to the last. There would be no men left. Or no Krenken.

But if the Krenken were only beasts that spoke, what did it matter? One slays attacking beasts, and it would end his anxiety.

And yet …

Hans had flown through a rain of arrows and braved Gschert’s dungeon to rescue Dietrich from Burg Falkenstein. Whatever cold Krenkish reason had driven it, it deserved more than a sword in answer. One did not put down a dog that had succored one, however fiercely it now barked.

Dietrich saw the world suddenly through Krenkish eyes—lost, far from home, neighbors to ominous strangers who could contemplate the killing of their lords, an act incomprehensible, even bestial to them. To Hans, Dietrich was the Beast that Spoke.

Dietrich gasped and seized Eugen’s snaffle rein. “Quickly. Ride to Manfred. Tell him, ‘they are your vassals.’ He will understand. I will meet him at the millstream bridge. Now, go!”

The villagers chattered. Some had heard the lepers mentioned, and Volkmar said they would bring their illness into the village. Oliver cried that he would drive them off alone, if need be. Theresia answered that they must be welcomed and cared for. Hildegarde Müller, who alone among them realized what was coming down the Bear Valley road, stood frozen with a hand across her open mouth.

Dietrich rushed to the church, where he seized a crucifix and an aspergum and hailed the creature Hans on the head harness. “Turn back,” he pleaded. “There is yet time.” He draped a stole around his neck. “What is it you want?”

“Escape from this numbing cold,” the Krenk answered. “The … hearths … in our ship will not burn until we have repaired the … the sinews of fire.”

The Krenken might have spent the summer building snug cottages instead of collecting butterflies and flowers. But such chastisement was in vain. “Max brings a force to turn you back.”

“They will run. Gschert has that sentence in his head. Our weapons and our form will cause them to flee, and so we will take your hearths for ourselves and