Shadow Prowler

by Alexey Pehov

  “Did the ogre get away?” asked Bolt, throwing up his arms.

  He had already pulled the arrow out of the book, and now he was showering choice expletives on the entire tribe of ogres for damaging the old manuscript.

  “He won’t get far. You winged him,” I reassured the old man.

  Apparently Markun had given up waiting for Harold to join the guild and had decided to dispatch him to Sagot, to make sure the others wouldn’t rebel.

  “Yes, I got him good,” the old-timer said with a solemn nod of his head, hiccupping and swaying in the gusts of an invisible wind.

  “Thanks, Bolt, you’ve been a great help. It’s getting late, I’ll be going home.”

  I’ve found out everything I needed and now, before I take my trip to the forbidden part of the city, I have to get a good night’s sleep.

  “Come round again, old buddy,” said the ancient custodian.

  I thrust a gold piece into the old man’s hand, hoping that none of the city’s petty rogues would ever learn of my shameful generosity, and went out into the night.

  5

  NIGHTTIME SURPRISES

  Question: What can be worse than an enraged Doralissian? Answer: The only thing worse than an enraged Doralissian is a bunch of enraged Doralissians. And there were an entire dozen of those half men, half goats howling furiously as they pursued me through the dark night streets of Avendoom, yelling with all the power of their far from feeble lungs.

  As soon as I got back from the Royal Library and opened the door of my new and—dare I say it?—secret lair, the Doralissians came at me in a rush out of the darkness, bleating balefully and holding their spiked cudgels at the ready. I was saved only by my own naturally rapid reactions and the stupidity of my attackers: the goat-men tried to push each other aside in the hope of being the first to get at my unfortunate head. As a result a jam formed in the doorway, and I was out of there.

  And now, exhausted, furious, and short of sleep, I had been trying for twenty minutes to shake off my pursuers, but the brutes were still yelling and bleating somewhere behind me.

  No one leapt out at me from the dark gateways of the city, demanding my purse. All the drunks and midnight ramblers who hadn’t managed to take refuge at home before the onset of night had spotted the chase and the roads had cleared as if by magic. Even the creatures of the night had heard the furious cries of my pursuers and decided not to emerge into the light, for fear of attracting the hot-tempered goats’ attention.

  The Port City came to an end, and I plunged into the network of narrow streets in the Artisans’ City, skirting round the magicians’ districts. Magicians are a capricious and cantankerous crowd. The first thing they’d do would be to zap the howling mob that had woken them up with some heavy-duty spell, and then they’d start figuring out who was to blame, and what to do about the wall of that house over there that had been damaged accidentally by the magic, and whether they ought to clean off the ashes that were all that was left of the screeching stampede.

  So that I could run more easily, I gave a sharp tug on the string of the cloak covering my shoulders and the black material slid off, falling onto the road. I really felt like dumping the crossbow and the knife, too, but the thought of how valuable they were prevented me from committing an act of financial stupidity in order to save myself.

  If I’d stopped, of course, I could have brought down a couple of goat-men with the crossbow, but the others would still have caught up with me and given me a drubbing. So there was nothing else for it but to run. I heard gleeful, surprised bleating behind me: The beasts had obviously found my cloak and stopped to wonder where I could have got to. Fortunately for me, Doralissians are not good runners, despite the fact that they have hooves. And they are also quite incredibly stupid. The only real reason these quarrelsome creatures were tolerated was for their horses.

  Horses of the Doralissian breed had more stamina and speed than any others in the world. Buyers in the Sultanate and the elfin noble houses paid really big money for them.

  On the Street of the Butchers I came to a sharp halt and caught my breath. I thought I’d heard the creatures shout something as I entered my den. Something like: “Give us back our horse!” Their brains must have completely turned to mush. I’m a master thief, I don’t steal horses. Either this was simply a woeful mistake, or someone had set me up. But exactly which ill-wisher could it be, out of the hundreds of possible candidates? From round the corner I heard bleating and the clatter of hooves drawing closer. The Doralissians must finally have realized that I couldn’t be hiding in the cloak, and continued the pursuit. Should I try to conceal myself in the shadow? I would have done it long before, if not for the goats’ excellent sense of smell.

  But this can’t go on for much longer—I’ll run out of steam soon, and the brutes will grab me, alive but weakened. Or those wild howls will attract unwanted attention to my humble person. From the creatures of the night, for instance. I’ll have to resort to extreme measures. I stuck my hand inside my shirt and tugged out the scroll with the battle spell that I had recently borrowed from the library. Ah, and I’d been planning to hold on to it until the Palaces of Bone and use it there.

  I hastily ripped off the black ribbon and unrolled the scroll. I didn’t know how the spell worked, but I had to hurry. The howls of the Doralissians were drawing closer now. Screwing up my eyes to make out the small, fancy letters of the spell by the light of the moon, I began reading:

  “Laosto s’ha f’nadra koli set! I’hna azh zhazakh’ida!”

  My tongue twisted around desperately in my mouth, attempting to pronounce the unpronounceable. After the magical phrases I gestured theatrically in the direction of the approaching Doralissians.

  Nothing happened.

  That is, absolutely nothing. I was left standing there like an idiot in the middle of the dark street, with my arm flung out and my jaw hanging loose in astonishment. The rune magic hadn’t worked! Maybe I hadn’t read the incantation right?

  Okay, try again! I glanced at the scroll, swore, and flung it away. The ink had disappeared and the letters of the spell were gone. Obviously I had pronounced the accursed words correctly after all, but then why in the name of Darkness weren’t they having any effect?

  Realizing that while I just stood there thinking I offered a fine target, I decided I’d better get moving.

  A few minutes later, with the bitter sweat flooding my eyes and my lungs whistling like a blacksmith’s bellows, I realized very clearly just how bad things were. As ill luck would have it, there wasn’t a single guardsman anywhere in sight. That’s always the way. When you need them, they’re nowhere to be found. The goat-men might not run as fast as men can, but there’s no denying their sheer stubbornness.

  It was all over! I had no more strength to run. Another minute, and I was going to collapse on the road, come what may!

  I pressed myself against the wall of a house that cast a thick black shadow. My nose was assaulted by the rank odor of rotten fish. An appalling smell, I must say. But there was one good thing about it—the brutes might smell the fish instead of Harold. I froze, trying to breathe through my mouth in order not to collapse in a faint from that appalling aroma.

  They appeared about fifteen seconds later, puffing and panting as they plodded along in single file, glancing around and clutching their barbed cudgels in their hands.

  “Whe-e-re cou-ould he have go-o-one?” one of them bleated clumsily in human language, striking his club against the wall of the house beside him in confirmation of his less than positive feelings concerning a certain Harold.

  Chips of stone were sent flying.

  “He-e-e’s got ahea-ea-ead of us,” one of the crowd of volunteer executioners snorted. “Run i-i-into the i-i-inner ci-i-ity of humans.”

  “He took our ho-orse! Our ho-orse!”

  “Ye-es! Ye-es! Our ho-orse! We have to ca-atch up with hi-im!” they all started howling together.

  As I listened to the sound of cla
ttering hooves moving away, I made a sincerely heartfelt wish that my new friends would run into trouble on their nighttime run through the dark city. I waited a little longer, just to make quite sure that I wouldn’t run into another group of nighttime enthusiasts again.

  There wasn’t a sound. Nothing but the bats that had appeared in the city from somewhere in the south, soaring through the starry sky.

  I wondered what the Doralissians wanted from me. And why did they seem to think that I’d stolen their horse? What would Harold want with a horse? Surely they could have figured that out, even with their goat brains? I listened intently to the silence. Seems like I could get moving again. First I ought to go home for a moment, collect all my important and valuable things, and move to a new lair. I was just about to take a step out of the shadow when someone grabbed hold of me very firmly by the chest and lifted me three yards off the ground with incredible ease.

  I was taken completely by surprise. I was scared. I opened my mouth to yell. I raised the crossbow, which was still in my hand, and prepared to shoot. And it was only then that I looked at my attacker.

  The howl stuck somewhere in the region of my belly, and I gulped with a quiet gurgle.

  Well then . . . There I was, suspended three yards above the ground, flailing my feet about in a hopeless attempt to locate some support, and held tight in the grip of . . . Well, it was probably a demon.

  The immense torso seemed to grow straight out of the gray wall of the building. The monster’s body merged smoothly into the shadow. Two immense hands held me in their firm grasp. The head . . . well, it looked like a demon’s head. The standard collection of huge teeth that could slice straight through a knight in armor and his armored steed; foul, stinking breath that must have killed every rat for a league in all directions; scarlet slits for eyes, with pupils like a snake’s.

  “H-hi there,” I said as politely and calmly as I could manage, although any townsfolk who weren’t asleep yet could have heard the pounding of my heart. “I’m Harold. Who are you?”

  The creature narrowed its eyes even further and shook me like a cat shaking a mouse, but it spoke:

  “Vukhdjaaz—the clever demon.”

  Brrrr. That breath! The stench of rotten fish had been far more pleasant! “Really?” I said with polite surprise, and the demon gave me another ominous glance. “Ah, yes! Of course, of course! The cleverest of all the demons.”

  I had evidently succeeded in flattering the monster, and for a while he forgot about his gastronomic preferences.

  “Yes. Vukhdjaaz is clever. He was waiting. Watching. Clever.” The creature nodded its horned head. “When someone read the Spell of Return, Vukhdjaaz managed to hide.”

  “Wow!” I said admiringly, and earned a glance of approval from the beast.

  Bang! This time the demon didn’t jolt me quite so hard. It didn’t even rattle my teeth.

  “All the demons went back into the Darkness, but I stayed.” Another jolt.

  “Why?” I asked, puzzled.

  “There’s a lot of food here.” His eyes narrowed again and glinted as they stared at me.

  H’san’kor! The wrong question.

  “I was wondering about something else. Why did all the other demons go back into the Darkness?” I said hastily to distract the hungry creature from bad thoughts about my own humble person.

  “Ah,” said the beast, after considering the word “wondering” for a long moment. That was fair enough; it never does any harm to increase your vocabulary. “Some mortal read a spell that ended the freedom of demons in this anthill of men. I’m going to catch him and suck the marrow out of his bones. You haven’t seen anyone round here, have you?”

  I shook my head desperately. I thought I knew which particular mortal we were talking about here.

  “And who released Vukhdjaaz from the Darkness?” I asked, desperately seeking a way out of this unpleasant situation.

  “The Master.” Another jolt.

  “The Nameless One?”

  The demon only snorted and seared me once again with that hungry glance. This creature had a really great talent for making me feel nervous. Just what was it he saw in me?

  “Vukhdjaaz is hungry.”

  “Yes?” I squealed, setting my finger on the trigger of the crossbow.

  Of course, shooting at a demon with an ordinary crossbow bolt is like pricking an ogre with a pin. It only annoys them even more. But what else could I do?

  “Yes. And Vukhdjaaz needs help, too.”

  “Perhaps Harold can help you?”

  “He can.” Vukhdjaaz inhaled my odor and a sticky thread of saliva dripped out of the corner of his mouth.

  “No, with your business!” I wailed despairingly.

  “Ah?” The demon seemed a little upset, but he moved his toothy face away from me. “Vukhdjaaz wants to stay in this world. The food is not so good in the Darkness. Harold will help Vukhdjaaz.”

  “Of course, what do I have to do?”

  “Soon I’ll be drawn into the Darkness. No matter how well I hide.”

  The sooner the better, I thought, putting on the polite expression of an attentive listener.

  “But if I can find something first, I’ll stay here for a long time. I can sense the thing. It’s here in the city. Vukhdjaaz is clever,” the demon reminded me yet again.

  “What is this thing?”

  “A horse.”

  Well, naturally. There’s more meat on a horse than on a man. And this demon’s so big. And so hungry.

  “All right.” It wasn’t really a very tricky job. “Tomorrow I’ll get you a horse. Which breed do you prefer?”

  “You’re stupid,” the demon hissed, prodding me with a clawed finger. The prod sent me staggering back several steps. “Not a live horse, the Horse.”

  “Aaah. That horse, why didn’t you explain straightaway?” I decided that stupidity was the quickest way into Vukhdjaaz’s stomach, and it was much safer to be clever, even if I didn’t understand a thing.

  “I give you four days. Vukhdjaaz is clever. Get me the Horse.” The demon looked at me, waiting for an answer.

  “Of course, of course. I’ll do everything.” I still hadn’t understood the point of the conversation, but I was really keen to get rid of this creature that found it so easy to appear out of walls and hide inside them.

  “I’ll be watching.” The demon impaled me with its scarlet eyes. “Do as I order, or I’ll suck the marrow out of your bones. Vukhdjaaz is clever. You can’t trick him.”

  The demon took a step toward the gray wall and dissolved into it. I stood there for a while, trying to calm the rapid pounding of my heart, which was about to tear itself out of my chest.

  What do I make of all this? First a group of crazed Doralissians pursues me, demanding that I give back their horse, then I chant a spell that has been lying in the depository at the library for Sagot only knows how many centuries, and do what the entire Order was unable to do: I drive all the demons back into the Darkness. Or almost all. Then a ravenously hungry demon, the most stupid in the entire world, picks me up like a little kitten and also demands a horse. I wonder if Vukhdjaaz and the Doralissians are looking for different horses or the same one? Maybe I should introduce them to each other, and they can make their own deal about horses? Maybe horse-breeding was coming into fashion in a big way?

  I walked home—and got my cloak—without making any attempt to hide, in the complete certainty that not a single creature of the night could get me, apart from the extremely clever Vukhdjaaz. I didn’t bother to change my lair, just set all my troubles aside until the morning, dropped onto the bed, and instantly fell asleep.

  There were exactly six days left until the expedition to Hrad Spein.

  6

  DAYTIME SURPRISES

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  The unceremonious hammering on the door made me leap up off the old cracked wooden bedstead and start fumbling around for my weapon. “Harold? Are you there? Open up! In the name of th
e Order!” a loud, deep voice shouted.

  What could the Order want with me at this early hour? I glanced out through the dirty windowpane. The sun was already quite high.

  “Harold! Open the door, or I’ll break it in!”

  Okay, try. Although, if he really is a magician of the Order, he won’t need to try very hard. He’ll only need to spit and half the house will be reduced to splinters. I began thinking seriously about taking a stroll through the window.

  “Harold, His Magicness Artsivus requests you to come. Urgently!”

  Artsivus? Why didn’t he say straightaway that he was from Artsivus, instead of threatening to shatter the door?

  “Just a moment. Wait,” I shouted, feeling at my cloak. It was a little dirty and there were hoofprints on it, but it was perfectly wearable.

  I opened the lock, drew the bolt, and took a step back. But I didn’t put the crossbow away—after all, anyone could be hiding behind the name of an archmagician of the Order.

  “Come in.”

  The door opened and there in front of me was a harmless-looking young man in a blue robe that dangled like a sack from his narrow shoulders. I would never have thought this young lad could hammer on the door so hard.

  “Are you Harold? On the—” My visitor spotted the crossbow trained on him, turned gray in the face, and stopped talking.

  I put the weapon away behind my back—there’s no point in frightening children.

  “Yes, I’m Harold.”

  “Master Harold. His Magicship, the head of the Order, Master Artsivus, asks you to come to him without delay.”

  “I see. What’s happened?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “All right. Wait.”

  Without hurrying, I took the bag containing the magic ingredients and the gold I had received from the king out of its secret hiding place. I’m not usually so stupid as to keep my money all in one heap, especially at home. It’s simpler to pass it on to a few reliable people and make the gold work for you. In a gnome bank, for instance. The money’s always reliably protected by traps, locks, magic, and furious mattockmen. But I was going to need the king’s gold pieces today.