This world is merciless and dirty.

Aeryn Hawker had to learn that bitterly. When she was a girl, she lived in the tiny village of Fuchsbergen. Surrounded by dark firs and trees whose branches seemed to resemble dangerous thorns, between cold and sunshine, lay her small world.
Her family was small but warm. Her mother was a dressmaker and her father a lumberjack, who just about kept her afloat. With her brother, she was of one heart and soul - at least most of the time. Her life was not perfect, of course. But it was good the way it was.

The dreaded werewolf was nothing more to her than a creature from her parents' stories. A tale that adults liked to tell their children. Of the great beasts in the woods and their glowing red eyes on the hunt for naughty children. A means to an end, to scare them or punish them if they didn't go straight to their grandmother and back again without deviating from the path.
Since Fuchsbergen made sacrifices every full moon, there were never any incidents. As long as they tied the best cattle to the stone, the tales that came up anew when the moon increased were the most frightening thing they encountered. Nevertheless, the villagers held on to this fear that surrounded their little world like a fence of thorns.

Of course, as she grew from a child to a young woman, she increasingly ridiculed the stories. She slipped away secretly, seeking adventure and mischief.... even behind the borders of the stone or wooden village boundaries. She liked to climb high trees, the rocks, or bathe in the cold streams and lakes in the woods.

But one night everything changed. 

She did not like to think back to this event. She was still young, so it was probably more survival instinct than conscious action when she plunged the silver scissors she had received from her mother into the monster's chest. Just at that moment, it opened its slavering mouth to end her life.

Although she didn't like to recall anything from that night, she remembered exactly how it felt when the blood spurted from the wound. Like a fountain that had erupted from a rock, it wetted her face and body, soaking the fabric of her dress in the crimson blood of the wolf. It tasted like iron and tingled from the warmth on her cold skin, her lips, her tongue... Then it flowed down her hands, making the grip slippery, before the large body fell to the side, the wolf rolling its dark eyes and staying there.

It wasn't long before it resumed its true form... who was it?
She didn't remember. She only remembered pulling out the scissors and holding them in her trembling hands. Eyes widened from shock, she stood amid the carnage that claws and teeth had wrought: Her mother and father were dead, and her brother lay moaning in pain in the autumn leaves with a gaping wound. She clutched the scissors as if her life still hung on them. So tightly that her fingers ached. Even when the inquisitors arrived belatedly to the rescue and took the girl with them. She was 'chosen by God,' they claimed. And from then on, her new life began. 

But that was another story. Now - today - she was no longer part of the white butchers who roamed in the name of the church or temple. In the meantime, she belonged to another lodge: the Red Hunters.

But even those were simple-minded in some things: These monsters had to die. They were spawns of the devil, they killed innocents and feasted on blood and human flesh. The werewolves slaughtered people like cattle. Kept them like slaves small and weak under their terror. Whole villages lived in fear and dread, hardly knowing anything else.
Who bred their animals and always sacrificed the best, the biggest, the most beautiful every month anew to the creature, so that it only did not kill and hunt them. The people lived in fear for their daughters. and the men did not dare to rebel. Too many had already lost their lives to the claws and talons of these monsters. 

At such moments, the Red Hunters came into play. The heroes of the stories, which the bards sang about in the taverns, paid homage to them and spread the word: The Red Hunters stained their souls with blood to sacrifice themselves to a higher goal, the protection of the defenseless.

They were now called 'Red'. They and others who wore the red color somewhere as a distinguishing mark were exactly what their name promised: hunters and executioners. Revered by many villages, they hunted down the creatures that terrified supposedly blameless citizens. They judged the cursed. Especially the murdering beasts, which always raged particularly cruelly when the moon was full and round in the sky. As would be the case again in a few nights.

"Red," Hawk's deep, insistent voice sounded from beneath the hat that had been pulled down deep into the broad-shouldered man's forehead, casting a shadow over his face.
He jerked her out of dim memories and dark forebodings. She blinked and her gaze jerked to him, only to find him nodding his chin ahead. Following his interpretation, hers now slid forward as well. Past the dense trees of this seemingly endless forest, their broken branches sticking out like wooden spearheads, following the road to the high palisades of Fuchsbergen.
"We're here," the man continued. Almost as if she couldn't see it for herself.

Her eyes slid over the rampart of dark wood. They had seen better years, but at least appeared intact. The large gate was reinforced with iron fittings and two towers flanked the entrance, almost like a small fortress in the middle of nowhere that seemed quite inappropriate for this backwater. But she knew that these measures were appropriate, and yet simply quite useless. A lie for the poor souls of the villagers, who believed themselves safe behind it. Just as she and her parents once did. In former times... before she had learned what it really looked like behind the curtain of this theater.

"How long has it been?" Lysander tilted his head to the side behind her to look at her scrutinizingly, letting his eyes of clear brown and charcoal stain glide over the scene. There was always something analytical about his manner. As if he were looking at a painting, searching for... Blemishes.

She hummed thoughtfully, though she knew it very well.
"Long," was her reply instead.
Yes, it had been years since she had killed her first werewolf. More hunters lived in the cities, many soldiers and fanatics loyal to the church could be found, and they were quicker to put a stop to such creatures. But here? In their home village? This was the perfect little sleepy nest for the beasts. The woods were dense, black, and impassable.

"What a pretty little slaughterhouse," a broad-shouldered rider remarked almost sardonically. "A village full of sheep... Let's see who's sheep - and who's the wolf in sheep's clothing." Hawk snorted and spat out some tobacco into the thick brush beside his steed as if for emphasis.
Her leather-gloved hands tightened around the reins.

"They don't know any better," she pressed out with a tense jaw. "We grew up believing the stockades would keep us safe."
Cayden. Asta. Henry. She hadn't seen her brother or her best friends in years now. She abided by all the rules, the commandments, all that she had been taught - or rather burned into her. Only one she had not kept: When they had taken her away, they forced her to tear down all the bridges to her old life. 
Four years after she disappeared from the village, she broke the supreme rule of the inquisitors: she contacted her brother and Asta.

At first, she only sent them things.
Dried snow roses, a silver comb. Certainly not the noblest, but she had been saving up for it for a long time. Asta and she had always loved to comb each other's hair. A royal blue, long silk ribbon, embroidered with small, shimmering pearls. An ornate dagger of noble work but an exotic appearance from the far east. To Cayden, she sent money most of the time because she was sure that he could buy her parents' house with it and live well. Although she sent everything without a message or a hint as to who it was that was sending them these things, she was sure - no she knew - that they would recognize who these gifts came from. 

Nevertheless, she did not know what awaited her now in Fuchsbergen. After all, they had not seen each other for years, there was no exchange of letters or messages... Were they still alive? Aeryn didn't even want to consider a 'no'. They were strong. They were not one of the victims... she was sure (or told herself).
So what would they expect if they met again? They knew nothing about each other. What did her friends and brother look like today? Did Asta still have that wild ocean of curls? Did she wear her hair down, wild as before, so that it bounced when she ran? Or strictly tied into a braid by now, because maybe Asta was already a mother? Did her friend still have those gentle eyes that she sometimes saw in her memories? Did she laugh as brightly as chimes?
And Cayden... had he grown up like her father? With broad shoulders and strong arms? Was he a lumberjack by now, too? Had he left that path and retrained? I wonder if he still fell asleep in front of the fireplace all the time...?
Would she... Henry again? Was he alive and well? Had he possibly married Rose by now - that goat who was always winking at him?

So many questions that gave her no peace. She would never admit it, but.... she was afraid.
In the distance, they could see the excited guards turning and calling inside. Two men stood on the narrow and tiny battlements inside the gatehouse, two more below in front of the gate itself.

"Your turn, Red," Hawk growled beside her, an amused inflection in the deep sound of his baritone as if they had just arrived at a dice table in a tavern. A game, nothing more. Hawk was her closest comrade in the Red Hunter group. He nodded to her. Possibly to encourage her wordlessly. Maybe just because he could imagine how hard it was for her. Then her gaze slid naturally to Roman - their leader. In the last few years, he had always been the one who, crudely, brought her some clarity back into the confusing world. His eyes were like this land: cold and clear. But also of a calm, that hid deadly ice storms.

This group was their family. The majority of it for many years, since she had left the Inquisition and taken a new path. These people were the sun around which her new world revolved. All the more difficult was the test that lay ahead of her. For there, behind the palisade, lay her past. With all the horror, but also all the feelings that she had learned to suppress and banish all these years - or should have.
The young woman took a deep breath and expelled it. Her breath formed a small cloud of smoke and dispersed in the winter breeze before she spurred the horse.

"Stop! Who are you and what is your desire in Fuchsbergen?!" the deep voice of the man came to her, over which her eyes slid. She tried to remember and open that dark box, buried infinitely deep and secured with heavy iron chains inside. Ah...

"Jacob Hawkins!" she stated, and her lips pulled apart as confusion appeared on the face of the man who was making a pitiful soldier - but trying, after all! - confusion appeared. "You've grown up. But your father's clothes still don't quite fit you. Especially the helmet. I hope you didn't sneak it again, but he gave it to you willingly this time?" she said in a familiar babbling tone as if they had just seen each other yesterday, before pulling the hood of the woolen cloak off her head. 
Blonde hair, slightly wavy, flowed over her shoulders and spilled down to almost her waist in a warm golden blonde. It contrasted sharply with the full red lips, over which attentive and sparkling blue lakes were enthroned. At that moment, the guard's wide, widened eyes showed first disbelief - and then joyful realization.

"Aeryn Hawker!" groaned Jacob, who was three years older and more than a head taller than she. Then he executed a beckoning motion and the tension flowed from the remaining soldiers at the gate. Another now leaned over the parapet to see better as Jacob walked directly toward them. Vigilance beaded off the militiamen like drops of melting snow.

'Oh my, you reckless fools,' Aeryn thought bitterly. She had been away for many years and could have easily led brigands into the village. The past did not have to define today. But her thoughts did not penetrate outward, for now, the charade had to be kept up. Grinning, therefore, she faced the old acquaintances of youth she had left behind the palisades of Fuchsbergen.
"Good to be back," she lied as the man approached the horse and extended his arm to shake her hand.

 
The hunt had begun.