Chapter 1
Crumbling church ruins, north-west Russia. Ten miles east of Livonia. February 1642.
***
The memory of the werewolf's ferocious snarling bounced around Katherine's mind as she packed up the camp at dawn. She was exhausted, having hunted him and his pack over the past two months in Livonia, killing nine of his family. He was the toughest werewolf she had ever fought. The rest of his pack had been no worse than the wolves or wolfmen she had hunted.
Her plan of killing him days ago had failed, so he pursued her through the forest until she hid in the high branches of an isolated oak tree since she had left her horses in the village stables in her desperate escape. She recalled his blue eyes reflecting in the moonlight, glaring at her. He circled below, making attempts to climb up, but his claws were useless at grasping the trunk. At the time she had her sword, throwing axes and knives yet was out of shot and powder for her pistols, so she waited until dawn for the werewolf named Alaric to return to human form.
As the clouds dissipated and the sun rose, she watched him run back to his cottage to lick his wounds from their fight. Throughout her time hunting his kind, she heard a person could shout their real name to turn them back to human form, yet it had never worked on any werewolf she had killed. It was bullshit. At nightfall today, she planned to kill him and claim the bounty.
The money she and her father earned by hunting werewolves and wolfmen over the past eight years had kept them in relative comfort. It made them respected by all since they took risks for the benefit of the rest. Katherine's reputation as a Wer Hunter was well known in north-west Russia, so a mayor of a town in Livonia had hired her to wipe out the werewolves attacking his town.
The wind whipped her ragged shoulder-length brown hair across her dark eyes. This is getting too long and needs a cut and a wash, she thought.
Her horse, Barley, grazed a few feet away outside the low flint walls of the crumbling church ruins where they had spent the night. Barley was a Russian Altai breed, a perfect grey stallion she had owned for five years. They had a bond of trust. She had never met a more sure-footed horse. As she watched him, he cast his gaze to her other horse, which she had acquired to pull the cart. Katherine had not named the brown mare yet since she had only bought her a day ago in Narva, northeast Livonia. Her previous one had been attacked by a bear, sadly making it too skittish for her kind of
1
work. The bear fled after she shot it three times as her dog, Tsar, had charged at it. It was a waste of ammunition but enough to scare it away. Its hide would have given her a months' worth of money, but she needed the horse more at the time.
The sky to the west was a sullen grey yet, to the east, where they had to go, the clouds were a dull white with occasional gaps showing patches of blue. It did not mean warmth and summer weather; it was only a different damn colour to look at in the firmament.
She glanced at the three fires around the camp. They had burned out long ago yet had done their job of keeping natural predators at bay. One gave off faint wisps of smoke from the embers, yet the other two were now cold and covered in morning dew.
Putting on her gloves, after rolling up the bear hide blankets, she unsheathed her sword before taking a brief walk around the small church ruins with her head bowed. The ruin had kept the wind at bay during the night. There was still a thin layer of snow on the grass and sod, but she instinctively knew more was on the way.
As she walked toward the charred stone arch to the east, Tsar bound down from the cart to greet her. He moved quietly for a dog of his size. She was thankful for it.
Tsar was a mottled black and grey Caucasian shepherd dog, capable of killing wolves or anything he wanted, including small bears. He was nearly three-foot-tall when on all fours and was her pride and joy, her guardian: loyal, fearless and above all, stronger than her. She gave him a loving hug speaking to him fondly while rubbing his black jowls. He responded with a lick of her cheek, then stretched and yawned as if to say he had slept soundly.
Her cart was lighter now since she had sold her wolf pelts and deer meat in Narva. Her coin purses were still heavy even after buying four plucked geese, plenty of cheese, apples, and water for the journey home to Gostilitsy in north-west Russia. One goose would remain as a gift for her father and siblings. The journey would be a dull fifteen hours if they did not encounter highwaymen, so a mile from Gostilitsy, her home town, she intended to encamp in yet another derelict ruin, a watchtower, where she would finally kill Alaric.
After hitching up the unnamed horse to the cart via its collar, she checked her other possessions underneath the well-oiled leather tarp. Her bow and quiver were there along with her crossbow, extra shot and powder, holy water vials, plus a sack of mistletoe. She still regretted losing her flintlock musket down a gorge two weeks ago on a previous kill, but her favourite weapons of choice were her bear traps. It had taken months of training from herself and her father to keep Tsar away from them.
Under her fur-lined battle-weary cloak, she wore a white blouse above brown leather trousers that supported two pistols, four knives, and her sword with its loop guard, knuckle bow and spiked
2
