Page 102 of Night of the Witch
Up ahead, rounding the bend that leads toward us, comes a hexenjäger at a sharp gallop.
The three of us freeze, Otto at the edge of the road, Liesel and I in the center.
The rider reins in his mount about a dozen paces down the road, the speed making his horse nearly buck him off. But he rights himself, canters in a circle, and when he faces us again, I recognize him. Not my brother—one of the jägers that had been under Otto’s command. The scared one, the young one—
“Johann,” Otto breathes. He lifts one hand, the other on a knife I know he has tucked into his belt. I stay rigid with Liesel, who grabs onto my skirts and hides behind me, burying a whimper into my side.
Johann eyes us.
Looks over his shoulder, back down the road.
“He’s right behind me,” Johann says, giving Otto a severe look. “Get off the road.Now.”
“Johann—”
But he cuts off Otto. “They’re rioting in Trier.”
Our tension shifts from fear to wonder.
Johann gives a watery smile. “The people who escaped turned on the hexenjägers. You started something. And for the first timeever, that city feels like it has hope again.”
My heart lurches, imagining the people we freed, their gaunt, terrified faces in that cell. Jochen, the old man. They’re fighting back? They’re doing what Otto hoped they would do.
Johann’s horse dances in another circle, feeding the anxiety that palpitates off us, and he shakes his head. “But you need to go. I’ll cover for you, but he knows you’re here.Go, Kapitän!”
Otto gathers himself before I do. He bolts back toward us, hauls Liesel up in one arm, and cups my face. “Fritzi. Let’s go. Let’s go, come—”
Johann shoots off on his horse, galloping back the way he came.
We can hear the pounding of hooves now. The woods around us echo with the murderous clomping of dozens of horses pushed into gallops.
Otto and Liesel plummet into the tree line.
I follow.
We narrowly squirm around rough brown trunks and branches like black reaching fingers. The forest floor is thick with undergrowth, spotted barrenly with what snow managed to fight through the canopy, andthe air is somehow even more frigid than it was on the road, each breath crystallizing across my tongue.
“The road’s clear!” we hear Johann call to the hexenjägers. “No sign of them leaving this way.”
There’s a long pause. I run with everything I have, darting behind Otto with Liesel, going, going—
“Fritzichen!” the shout rings up the road, snakes through the trees. “You’ve played with my toy long enough. It’s my turn now.”
Ahead, Liesel sobs and clings to Otto, and I barely make out the things she cries, half whimpers, half pleas. “Don’t let him get me—not again—”
“He won’t,” I promise her.
I don’t have magic anymore, no protective spells, nothing, and I’m so tired of not having supplies that can help us, that cando anything—butIcan do something. If I don’t have magic to stop my brother,Ican still stop him.
I dare to glance behind us. To gauge how far my brother has advanced.
We’ve only made it a few paces inside the Forest. Dieter is there now, on the road, his horse dancing as he surveys the edge. He must realize it’s fruitless to lead horses through these trees; he leaps down, snapping at someone to toss him a pistol.
Then he charges straight into the Forest.
A handful of hexenjägers follows him, pistols out, one already aiming.
I start to turn, to scream warning at Otto, but the moment Dieter vaults into the trees, his body goes airborne. He hovers there, suspended at the edge, and the same thing happens to each of the jägers who follow; an invisible force grabs them, yanks them aloft.
