by Alexey Pehov
“A perfect child,” Bass chuckled, sitting down beside me. “They won’t get anywhere, with tackle like that you can’t catch anything but frogs.”
“Don’t you be so hasty. When I was little I used to pull out bream like thi-i-is with this kind of tackle!” said Uncle, spreading his hands wide.
“That’s enough blathering, come over to the fire, the food’s ready,” Hallas called to us.
We had almost emptied the pot when His Majesty’s jester appeared beside the campfire.
“Get rid of that!” growled Marmot, moving as far away from the goblin as he could. “It stinks!”
“Of course it stinks,” Kli-Kli said gleefully, holding a dead cat out in front of him.
“Where did you find it?”
“In the ditch beside the road; a wagon ran over it. A long time ago. It’s even got worms in its eyes, look!”
“Don’t ruin our appetites,” said Mumr, pushing his plate away.
“So shall I just throw it away, then? You said yourselves, we need some bait,” the little green urchin said, blinking in confusion.
“But not a dead cat! Use your head, Kli-Kli!”
“Wait, Lamplighter,” said Uncle, licking his spoon. “Not risking anything, are we?”
“Only our stomachs,” put in Hallas, trying not to look at the poor creature’s mangy little corpse. “Tell him, Deler.”
“Hallas is right,” the dwarf confirmed.
“Don’t despair, Kli-Kli, we’ll have your bait on a hook in a moment.”
“Hooray! Thanks, Uncle!” Kli-Kli exclaimed, almost dropping the cat in our pot of gruel.
This sacrilegious treatment of Hallas’s cooking almost gave him a stroke, and the goblin hastily cleared off to the riverbank and waited for the sergeant there. I decided to take a look at how this strange kind of fishing would go and got up from the “table” to join the fishermen.
Without the slightest sign of squeamishness, Uncle took hold of the dead cat by the tail, attached it to his homemade tackle, twirled it round like a sling, and flung it into the river. There was a loud splash and circles ran out across the water.
“Now what? Now there’ll be a bite, right?” asked the goblin, jumping up and down in his impatience.
“Maybe now, maybe in a little while. Here, you take the rope, wind it round your hand, and when you feel a tug, you tug on it, too,” Uncle said gravely, handing Kli-Kli the tackle.
The goblin sat down on the bank and watched the calm, smooth surface of the water in which the first stars were already reflected.
“Listen, Uncle,” I whispered quietly to the sergeant as we walked back to the campfire, leaving Kli-Kli on his own. “I can understand Kli-Kli. But you ought to know how hard it is to catch anything with a half-rotten cat.”
Uncle chuckled. “Yes, I do know.”
“Then why…”
“Kli-Kli’s just like a child. Goblins mature a lot later than we people do. Let him relax and get a bit of rest. The gods only know what an effort it costs him to be a jester all the time. Over there on the other side of the river is the Borderland, and none of us will have any time for rest there.”
“Is it that bad?”
“Well, of course, the Borderland isn’t the Desolate Lands, but orcs can appear at the most unexpected moments. The Firstborn regularly send punitive squads into our lands, and we’ll have to keep our wits about us, otherwise we won’t stay alive for long. We’ve already lost two men.… Curses! What sort of sergeant am I, if I wasn’t able to keep them safe?”
“A good sergeant, Uncle. You’re not to blame for the deaths of Tomcat and Loudmouth.” That was the only answer I could give him.
“Forget it,” he sighed. “I’m too old for expeditions like this. I should have collected the money I’ve earned and settled down in my own little tavern ages ago. And when we get this job finished, that’s just what I’ll do.”
“You said the same thing when we got back from the last expedition,” chuckled Honeycomb, who had overheard us. “A leopard can never change his spots!”
“You hold your tongue, kid! I’m still the sergeant around here,” Uncle rebuked him good-naturedly. “How could I leave you thickheads all on your own?”
And that put an end to the conversation.
There was a fresh scent coming off the water and the stars were lighting up one by one in the sky. The Wild Hearts were laying their traveling blankets on the grass, getting ready to go to sleep.
“So where are we going, then?” Bass asked, stuffing his folded-up jacket under his head.
“You just sleep, man,” chuckled Ell. “When we get there, I’ll be the first to tell you.”
“If it’s the Borderland, I’d like a chance to leave a few offspring behind and draw up a will.”
“Your friend’s very droll, Harold. Maybe we should make him our second jester?” Marmot chuckled. “My dear man, you were told—sleep and don’t worry about a thing.”
“I’m sleeping,” Snoop muttered, and closed his eyes.
Ell took another close look at him and went off into the darkness—to stand the first watch.
* * *
“A bite! A bite! I swear by the great shaman Tre-Tre, I’ve got a bite,” the jester yelled.
The goblin’s shrill howls battered at my ears, driving away sleep. I unglued my eyes and swore violently. The stars were still shining in the heavens, and dawn was not yet kindling in the east. The grass, the blankets, and our clothes were all covered with a fine diamond dust of dew. I shuddered from the cold as I emerged from sleep—during the night my clothes had soaked up the moisture.
The willows were motionless shadows against the background of the sky and the fading stars. Beside one of the trees a very familiar little figure, dressed in a cloak and pointed cap, was jumping up and down.
“A bite! Word of honor, a bite!” he yelled. “Help me! I’ve got a bite!”
“Ah, drop dead!” I said, and dove back under the blanket.
The others who were woken up felt the same way. Hallas, who had propped himself up on one elbow and was watching the goblin perform his crazy dance, growled in fury.
“Shut up, Kli-Kli!” Mumr advised him, without opening his eyes. “It’s not morning yet.”
“Why can’t you understand? I’ve got a bite! Honest, I’m not lying! Come and look for yourselves! Come quick! I can’t pull it out!”
“Uncle,” Deler said from underneath the hat tilted forward across his face. “You started this whole business, you go and see what kind of bite our horse-shit merchant has got. And shut him up!”
“Quick, quick! The rope’s breaking!”
“Curse the moment when I decided to teach a goblin to catch fish!” the sergeant sighed. He got up off the ground, pulled on his leather jacket, and tramped off toward Kli-Kli, who was going wild.
“Uncle, look! I’ve caught a fish!”
No, this is just too much! I’ll never get back to sleep now!
“Harold, are you going over to Kli-Kli?” Bass growled.
“Why?”
“Give him a good kick for me,” Snoop said, and turned over onto his other side.
I gazed at him enviously—my old friend had always been hard to wake up.
“Let’s go and take a look,” growled Honeycomb, getting to his feet.
A tattered blanket of mist lay across the smooth, undisturbed surface of the river. The goblin’s yells and howls echoed far across the water.
“Harold! Harold! Look! I caught it! It almost pulled me into the water! Harold, I caught it!”
The rope, stretched as tight as a bowstring, was jerking convulsively. The quick-witted goblin had done the right thing by winding the free end of his tackle several times around the trunk of the nearest willow.
“Almost pulled you in, you say?” Uncle pulled on the line with the gesture of an experienced angler. “Oh, he’s well hooked! And big, too! Honeycomb, come and help!”
The sergeant and the big, beefy soldier
grunted as they started hauling the line in. “He’s fighting, the swine!” Honeycomb grunted, when a sharp tug from under the water almost pulled him off his feet.
The hauling-in of the unknown prize went on for a full hour. By that time the excited howling of our would-be fisherman had woken even Bass, and everyone was standing behind Honeycomb and making suggestions about what the jester could have caught with a dead cat.
“He must have hooked a water sprite,” said Hallas, struggling to get his pipe to light. “Or a water nymph.”
“Or maybe the king of the krakens?” Deler laughed as he helped Honeycomb. “You’re a great one for making things up, Lucky.”
“You ignorant bonehead!” the gnome retorted. “What kind of fish is it that takes an hour to pull out of the water? Look, it’s not even thrashing its tail and it’s not giving up for a moment. It’s got to be a water nymph!”
“Well, the idea of a nymph is nonsense, of course, but it could be some kind of river monster,” Marmot said with a yawn.
“And what would you know, scholar? Have you ever seen one?” Hallas seemed to really like the idea of seeing a naked maiden.
“No, the old men told me about them.”
“Bah … Arnkh, take over from me,” Uncle said with a tired sigh. “It would be simpler to let it go than put ourselves through this agony.”
“Never!” Kli-Kli and Hallas howled in a single voice.
The battle with the water monster continued. By the time something long and black finally appeared on the surface of the water we were all fed up.
“A log!” said Deler, spitting in disappointment. “All that time tugging just wasted!”
“Ah!” said Arnkh. “And there was I thinking—”
“That’s no log! It can’t be a log! I couldn’t have caught a log!” Kli-Kli exclaimed indignantly.
“Better accept it, my friend,” Bass laughed. And just then the log opened a mouth that could have swallowed up a full-grown man.
“Oh, mother,” Kli-Kli cried, and fell over on his back in surprise.
“A catfish!” Uncle roared. “What a huge brute!”
At this point the catfish realized that the Wild Hearts weren’t going to be impressed just by a large pair of jaws—they’d seen worse things than that in the Desolate Lands—and it made an attempt to escape. The water seethed and Honeycomb went down on his knees, but he didn’t let go of the line. Arnkh gritted his teeth as he tried to hold on to the huge fish. Everyone on the bank, including me, went dashing to help them.
As a result of our joint efforts, the catfish ended up on the bank. The massive black body was covered with waterweed and shells; its long black whiskers twitched, its great white eyes gaped at us, and the fish opened its mouth greedily, threatening to gobble up anyone who dared to come close enough. The monster had an entire arsenal of different-sized hooks sticking out of its lips. It was about seven yards long and I didn’t even want to think about how much it must have weighed.
“What’s going on here?” asked Miralissa, who had come out to us.
“Miralissa, I caught a fish! Word of honor! Just look how big it is, they all helped me pull it out, but I caught it! Isn’t that fantastic?” Kli-Kli boasted.
“And what are you going to do with it?”
“I don’t know…” Kli-Kli pondered for a moment. “Let’s take it with us!”
“Eat this rubbish?” said Hallas, pulling a face. “It must be at least a hundred years old! Old meat, it’ll have the stench of the swamp! Damn the thing. Better just to let it go!”
“Let it go?” said Kli-Kli, pondering again, and then he decided to demonstrate the magnanimity of the victor to the defeated, and said with a solemn nod: “We can let it go. Off you swim, fish, and don’t forget that dead cats will be the ruin of you. Right, then … you know … push it into the water, won’t you.…”
Unable to believe its fishy luck, the catfish sent a column of water high up into the air as it plunged into the black depths of the river.
“Harold, did you see what a fish I caught? Tremendous, wasn’t it?”
“Well done, Kli-Kli, you’re a genuine fisherman,” I said.
“You really think so?”
“Yes, really,” I sighed. “Now go gnaw on a carrot and calm down.”
“I haven’t got any carrots,” Kli-Kli said with a shrug of disappointment. “I ran out the day before yesterday.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Hey, Kli-Kli! Help Marmot bring the firewood,” Uncle ordered the goblin.
“Straightaway! I’ll do that in a moment!” And the ever-cheerful goblin forgot about the fish and rushed off on his new assignment.
* * *
By the time they had got the fire going and Uncle, who took over kitchen duty from Hallas, had cooked breakfast, and we had packed away our things, it was early morning. The sky was already completely bright, the sunlight had driven away the stars, and there was only a slim crescent, the pale ghost of the moon, still hanging just above the horizon. The ferryman came back, accompanied by six hefty hulks, and said we could set out straightaway if we wanted.
“Only, my good gentlemen, you won’t all fit in at once. There are too many of you, and all the horses, too. I can take you across in two trips.”
“No need for that,” replied Alistan, counting out six silver pieces to the ferryman. “I see your neighbor’s back at work, too, so he can take the others across.”
“That won’t do, milord, pardon me for speaking so plainly. It’s a matter of professional pride. He won’t carry my clients, and I won’t take his, that’s the way things are. I humbly beg your pardon, but you’ll have to make the two trips.”
The other ferryman and his helpers were glowering hostilely at their rival.
“Two trips then, if it has to be two,” Alistan agreed. “Uncle, you divide up the men.”
“I hate boats,” Hallas muttered, glancing at the ferry apprehensively.
The gnome’s face was the color of tender young leaves in spring.
“Stop that,” Arnkh laughed, and his chain mail jangled. “Look, there aren’t any waves, the water’s smooth, you’ll get across and nothing will happen to you.”
“But as soon as the ferry starts swaying up and down, up and down, you’ll see what kind of stomach our mattockman has,” Deler laughed.
“Shut up, pumpkin-head!” Hallas snarled, gazing at the river fearfully. “I’m feeling sick enough without any help from you.”
“Then go into the bushes so you won’t upset anyone, and throw up there,” the kind-hearted dwarf suggested.
Hallas groaned and tightened his grip on the handle of his battle-mattock.
“Why don’t you sing a little song?” Kli-Kli suggested to the gnome. “It helps me.”
“Really?” An expression of disbelief mingled with hope appeared on the gnome’s bearded face. “But what should I sing?”
“Well, sing ‘The Hammer on the Axe.’ Or ‘The Song of the Crazy Miners,’” said Deler, slapping Hallas on the shoulder. “Welcome on board!”
The gnome gulped, turned even brighter green, told us all for the hundredth time that he hated boats, and stepped onto the ferry.
“Kli-Kli, you now,” said Uncle, nodding.
“Oh no, not on your life! I’ll go with Harold!”
“If that’s what you want. Then it’s you, Lamplighter. That’s it, cast off, we’ll follow on!”
“Put your backs into it, lads!” the ferryman called to his men.
His workers heaved on the drum, the chain clanged as it was wound up, and the ferry set off. Kli-Kli, Uncle, Arnkh, Eel, and I were left on the bank, together with the packhorses.
When the ferry had got a quarter of the way across, the peaceful silence of the early morning was shattered as Hallas started singing. I didn’t envy the others who were on the ferry right then—the gnome could sing about as well as I could fly.
Lucky Hallas roared away out of tune at the top of his voice,
howling so loud that they could even hear his song in Boltnik. I doubted whether the inhabitants of the village would be grateful to the gnome for this wonderful awakening.
“Just listen to him howl,” Arnkh chuckled, hanging his sword’s scabbard behind his shoulder. His eternal chain mail had been joined by a leather jerkin with metal plates sewn onto it, arm and leg armor, and chain-mail gloves. Arnkh caught my puzzled glance.
“It’s not far to the Border Kingdom now; I have to return to my homeland fully armed.”
“We still have two weeks’ riding to reach the Border Kingdom…”
“Well?”
It would take a h’san’kor to understand these men from the Borderland. They’ll happily go hungry, just as long as they can hang iron all over themselves. Living close to the eastern Forests of Zagraba—the domain of the Firstborn—does pretty strange things to people.
Meanwhile Hallas was still belting out his song loud enough to frighten everyone for miles around.
Whether old or young your age,
Beardless youth or hoarhead sage,
In the autumn and the spring,
The winter and the summer,
You shall hear the hammer
Set the axhead ringing!
The leafy forest’s cheery throng
Will all break off their jolly song.
All will quake in silent dread
As the graves on every side
Throw their dismal portals wide
To free the restless dead!
Through the battle’s clamorous din
Legions of the dead move in,
A grim and silent throng.
Bearded heroes block their path,
Soldiers unafraid of death,
Fearless, bold, and strong.
Frenzied clash of shield to shield
Forces tempered steel to yield
And mighty swords to crack!
