Prologue
The stagnant air of Wallachia suffocates me as I hurry through the cobblestone streets of downtown. I don’t like being here at this hour. A man like me rarely comes to town. However, tonight I want something different. I want something more.
The Ottoman Empire has just waged war across Europe, and I want to roam the streets before I’m shipped off to battle.
Me, a soldier.
I’m too old, too set in my ways, to fight another man’s war. In my thirty-five years on this earth, I’ve never needed to fight.
But any man who can walk is sent to battle.
1792 had promised to bring change to our dying country, but now here we are, fighting for another country's freedoms.
I turn a corner, passing the blacksmith, hoping to make it to the tavern before it closes its doors for the night. My feet stomp through puddles as I pick up speed. The rain we received over the past few days has been excellent for the farmlands, but it won’t matter when the soldiers use our land as battlegrounds.
I tug at my shirt, trying to make the damn thing not cling so tightly to my body in this heat. I hustle down the street, the sweltering night stifling every part of my bones. I need a drink. I need a lot of things I’ll never get.
“Hi, there,” a prostitute in the street says.
My mind goes there for about five seconds, imagining the soft feel of a woman beneath me, but I continue down the street, not giving her a moment of my time. Why bother?
It’s not how I wish to spend my final night as a free man.
I stick to the shadows, because I don’t need the gossip mill talking about how I’m whoring around on the eve of a major war. I don’t need anyone spreading lies about me. I keep to my own. I mind my own business, and I appreciate the same respect.
I can’t escape the fact that tomorrow, I’m going to war.
To fight for a cause I don’t believe in.
A cause which has no meaning in my life.
A light down the alley catches my attention, and I turn my head, trying to focus on what I’m seeing. A man, in a long dark robe hanging off his body even though it’s a million degrees outside, stares at me, as if he knew I was coming.
“It’s a dark night,” he says, and I nod.
What does that even mean? I continue heading in the tavern’s direction, and I hear the click of footsteps behind me.
It’s him.
Moving closer.
Walking faster.
My heartbeat picks up. I have nothing to arm myself against a mugger. And nothing he can steal from my pockets. I never need money. Everyone knows my name, and they run me a tab wherever I go.
The bills always get paid.
I move quicker, almost in a full run. Sweat forms above my upper lip.
He reaches me, yanking me into a dark alley, bringing his cloak to wrap around the both of us.
I struggle to get away, but he’s stronger, like an otherworldly stronger, and I have no fight in me that can overpower this evil being.
He pulls me further down the abandoned street. Even the moon hides from the horror of it all. “The night is the perfect time for hunting…”
Before he kills me, because I know that can be the only thing coming, he stares into my eyes and stops. “I’m going to make your life so much better.”
Yet, he doesn’t.