Bloodwind

“Hurry up! The sooner we start, the sooner we can make it to the next inn and I can get out of the cold!”

The frozen Alpine wind stung the coachman’s face as his breath turned to mist in the freezing January air. He sunk his head as far into his high-collared wool coat as he could, waiting impatiently for the coach to finish loading. Granted, he was being paid handsomely for this job, almost double his usual fare. Even so, transporting passengers over the Alps in January was a hard burden to bear.

Soon after, an elderly, balding man emerged from the inn, straining as he dragged a large traveling trunk behind him. He somehow managed to heave it onto the top of the coach, and quickly climbed inside, just as eager to be out of the cold as the coachman was. He banged on the side of the coach three times, closed the door, and they were off.

The icy roads made for slow going; excessive speed would inevitably have resulted in the horses slipping or the coach sliding and overturning. Inside, wrapped in coats and blankets and trying to keep warm, was a party of four.

The elderly laggard who had been loading the trunk was Bernardo Rossi, a somewhat frail man of about 60. The trunk belonged to his employer and charge, Lady Bianca di Mantova. She was a stunningly beautiful woman in her early 20s with hair like spun gold, considered by many to be the most eligible bride in all of Italy. They were on their way to Vienna, where Bianca was to meet her future husband and in-laws. Her haste, and wealth, was what kept the coach going through this miserable weather.

Sitting opposite from Bianca and Bernardo were two others, also traveling to Vienna, that the coach had picked up in its long midwinter journey from Milan to the capital. The first was Zoltan Palfy, a brusque and bluff man of few words and virtually no neck. His flamboyant black mustache and tight blue and red uniform betrayed his status as a trooper of the Emperor’s hussars. Captured by the French at Marengo 2 years earlier and only recently paroled, he was on his way north to rejoin his regiment.

The final passenger was an absolute enigma of a man. A few years younger than Bernardo, all the other travelers knew about him was his name: Josef Mack. He was a serious-looking man who never smiled or joked, or even talked to anyone on the trip. He spent all his time silently perusing one of a number of books, all written in Latin and all in various states of decay, which he carried with him. Was he a priest? A spy? A madman? No one knew for sure.

The coach creaked and groaned as it left the village and crossed a narrow stone bridge which arched over a ravine. Below, about 2000 feet below, lay nothing but jagged rocks, the remnants of what had, in the distant past, been a riverbed. Past the bridge lay a fork in the road. Turn right, and you would continue on a winding mountain road that would take you gradually down a series of descending peaks until you reached a valley about 20 miles on. This was their planned destination for the day. Go straight, however, and you would climb up a peak a few hundred feet, before reaching a foreboding and apparently long-abandoned fortress: Schloss Runkelstein.

The local people, the traveling party observed, seemed to regard the ancient castle with a great degree of fear and apprehension. Many refused to even speak its proper name, simply referring to it as “the castle”, or merely jerking their head or a thumb in its general direction when referencing it. Dark legends seemed to surround it. Tails of ghosts and specters, missing travelers, horrifying, barely-human screams in the dead of night. Depending on who you asked, it was tied-in with stories of a pure white wolf that stalked the forests and ravines in winter, or a mysterious woman, clad in black is if in mourning, who sometimes roamed the streets of nearby villages at night, attempting to lure children out of their beds and take them back to the castle with her.

Bernardo, Bianca, and Zoltan had all brushed off these tales with bemusement and slight unease. Clearly, they were all simply the ramblings of country bumpkins who had had a bit too much mulled wine in the evenings. Only Josef seemed to actually pay attention, silently probing for more details, and occasionally making notes with a pencil in a small book he always carried in his coat pocket.

Gradually, the progress of the coach began to slow. A thick mist enveloped the coach, and the driver swore and attempted to bat it away with his free hand so he could see better. A bit odd, perhaps, but mist was not an unusual thing to find in the high mountains in winter.

Crack!

The coach jolted, with the passengers almost being thrown out of their seats. All was silent for a moment, before the coachman got down from his seat, and, muttering further profanities, began to inspect the damage.

“Blast! Damn fog must have made me loose track of the road! We’ve slid into a ditch and broken a wheel!”

The way the travelers, now standing outside on the road, looked at the coachman and the broken wheel betrayed their mental states. Zoltan seemed impatient, wondering whether it was time for him to take charge of this situation. Bernardo appeared worried. Bianca impatiently tapped her foot on the dirt road. Josef was, as always, inscrutable.

“Alright, don’t worry, I’ve been in situations like this before.”, the coachman addressed the travelers. “I’m going back across the bridge to get a couple of strong men from the village to come help pull the coach out of this ditch. I’ll also bring the carpenter; hopefully he can fix this wheel for us. While I’m gone, all of you stay here with the coach and don’t wander off. This is dangerous country and you can’t pay me if you’re dead or vanished!”

With that, the coachman crossed himself and started back down the road to the village, quickly disappearing into the mist.

An hour went by, then two. The fog grew thicker and thicker, and the temperature dropped as the sun began to set over the mountains.

“Damn coachman!”, thundered Zoltan indignantly. “Ran off and left us her to freeze!”

“Now signore, calm down. I’m sure he’ll be back any moment now.”, Bernardo interjected, trying to calm the situation.

“Nonsense! Don’t you see you doddering old fool? He’s run off and left us here for dead!”            

“Signore, with respect, that seems unlikely. You heard what he said; if something happens to us, he doesn’t get paid.”

“Ach, well, maybe he’s a bandit!”, Zoltan continued. “I’ve seen types like these before. He probably caused the accident on purpose, and as soon as the sun goes down him and some lowlifes from that village back there will come and rob us!”

“Gentlemen, if I may.”, Josef said as he raised his hands to signal for calm. The others were shocked as they heard his low, baritone voice for the first time.

“Regardless of whether this is a legitimate accident or not, the fact of the matter remains that it is getting dark, it is getting cold, and this mist is so thick that we probably will not be able to make it back to the village before dark. I suggest we walk the short distance back to the fork in the road, then go up to the castle, see if anyone actually lives there, and ask if they can help us, or perhaps give us somewhere to stay while we wait for our coach to be repaired.

“But Mister Mack,” Bianca asked, “do you really think that is wise? According the stories we heard in the village…”

“Bah, a load of nonsense spread by ignorant peasants! I’m with the old man here! Let’s get inside somewhere warm before my balls fall off from the cold!”, Zoltan interrupted with his customary bluntness.

All eyes were now on Bernardo. He sighed wearily, and fetched his mistresses’ trunk down from the top of the coach.

After about half an hour of walking, the travelers came to the door of the castle just as the light was beginning to fade. Schloss Runkelstein was a chaotic mishmash of different architectural styles, a mix of Romanesque, Gothic, and Baroque that indicated that it was an old structure with a long history and countless owners over the years. From the outside, it gave off an aura of decay and disrepair. The ornate stained-glass windows in the chapel were partially smashed, the slate roofs of the main buildings and towers were missing shingles, and the great wooden front door looked cracked and warped with age, its brass knockers tarnished and faded. None of this, however, concerned the travelers. They merely wanted to get out of the cold.

Josef took hold of one of the brass knockers and banged three times on the door. After about a minute of waiting, they heard the great doors creak and then slowly open just a crack. Visible through the crack in the door was the face of a young woman with long black hair and red lips, her face pale almost to the point of seeming ethereal.

“Who are you? What do you want? Why do you disturb us?”, the woman asked testily.

“Good afternoon signora.” Bernardo began, drawing on all of his courtesy and decorum. “We are travelers whose coach has broken down a short distance past your home. The sun is going down and it is getting very cold, so we humbly ask if you could shelter us for the night.”

The woman was silent for a moment. Then, the door creaked fully open, revealing the way to the courtyard.

“Enter.”, the woman said coldly, motioning for the travelers to follow her.

They slowly followed her through the snowy courtyard. It was a barren space, with a well that had been blocked up long ago, an old horse drawn wagon with no horse anywhere to be seen, and indentations in the ground that showed the faint outline of a former garden. Josef walked slowly, carefully noting his surroundings.

They came to another old, heavy wooden door. The woman opened it, and they stepped into the castle’s great hall. It was a dark and cavernous space, illuminated by only a few small shafts of fading sunlight from small windows cut into the tops of the walls. Its centerpiece was a massive table, with enough chairs to seat 2 dozen guests, and a great stone fireplace at the opposite end of the room. Curiously, there was no fire in the fireplace. All of the guests shivered, while the mysterious woman seemed strangely unaffected.

“My name is Maria.”, she addressed her guests, her voice echoing throughout the hall. “Welcome to our home.”

“’Our’ home?”, Bianca questioned.

“Yes madam. I live here together with my sister Margaretta. It has been our home since our dear father died some 10 years ago. Please,” she gestured to the great table, “sit down and rest. I shall fetch my sister, and then we shall make a fire and find something for you to eat.”

The exhausted travelers slumped into chairs at the great table while Maria disappeared down a side passage. She emerged a short time later in the castle’s chapel. It was bitterly cold, the smashed windows having allowed the winter chill inside, and small mounds of snow had actually formed on the floor. The pews had all been overturned and piled in the corners, and all crucifixes and holy images violently smashed and discarded in the same piles. At the other end of the chapel, Margaretta crouched in front of the altar.

“Sister!”, Maria shouted.

Margaretta rose and turned to greet her sister. Her face, pale like that of her sister, was smeared with blood. Behind her lay the body of the coachman on the altar. It was pale and cold, with his lifeless eyes staring up at the rafters. Half of his neck had been violently ripped out, resembling a roast chicken set upon by a hungry guest at a banquet. The altar was stained red with dried blood, flesh, and viscera.

“Sister, your plan worked! We have guests!”, Maria continued excitedly.

“Did I not tell you it would work Maria? Turning myself to mist to strand those fools was a perfect plan!”

“I must learn to have more faith in you, sister.”, Maria replied.

Margaretta wiped her bloody mouth on a handkerchief, which she then carelessly tossed to the floor. She then drew a small leather bag from the front of her bodice. She opened it, took some mint leaves from it, and began to chew them furiously to conceal the rancid stink of blood and rotting flesh on her breath. The room smelled heavily of incense, which the sisters likewise kept burning constantly to conceal the dreadful odor from their future victims.

“Sister, how shall we proceed? What shall we do with our new guests?”, Maria asked.

“Simple. At dinner, we shall serve them the drugged red wine from the cellar. Later, once they are fast asleep, we shall simply pluck them from their beds like a bird plucks worms from the ground.”, Maria explained with an evil smile as she flashed her fangs.

“Wonderful, dear sister, simply wonderful!”, Maria replied gleefully.

“Alright, I’ll go introduce myself to the guests and then light a fire. Maria, you go fetch the wine from the cellar. But first, I saved some of the coachman for you. I know you haven’t eaten since we snatched that little boy last week, and I don’t want you gorging yourself later tonight and getting sluggish.”

“Why, how considerate of you, sister.”

“Is there any particular one of them you’d like for me to set aside for you for later?”, Margaretta asked.

“Oh, I’d love the woman with the lovely golden hair. Her dresses look just about my size!”

“Just as vain as ever, sister. I think I’ll start with the one with the mustache. He looks nice and burly; I’ll probably be able to feed off of him for days.”

With that, Margaretta disappeared down the passage back to the castle, as the sun finally sank down behind the mountains and the wind continued to howl through the shattered windows.