Shadow Prowler

by Alexey Pehov

  The older son had been given several nannies to care for him, and he lived in his own childish, fairy-tale little world, which was probably very happy, without any of the pain, dirt, and blood of the real world.

  “Shouldn’t you be asleep? Where are your nannies?” the king asked his son. I sensed an unusual tenderness in his voice.

  “Rotten beasts!” That was all the prince had to say about his governesses.

  “I’ll take him,” Kli-Kli intervened. “You come with me, Stalkosha, come on. I’ll give you a toy.”

  “A toy?” The king’s eldest son bounced up onto his feet and stomped after the jester, who had already slipped out through the door.

  There was an awkward silence in the room.

  “Please accept my apologies.”

  “Come now, Your Majesty.” The elfess’s yellow eyes flashed in understanding. “You are not to blame.”

  “Then who is, if not me? The gods?” There was a clear note of bitterness in the king’s voice.

  No one answered him.

  I could understand the man. When, for no particular reason, a healthy twenty-year-old heir is suddenly transformed into an idiot with the reason of a four-year-old child and all your hopes are dashed, it must be appalling. And frightening. As appalling and frightening as being an orphan alone in the streets. Stalkosha, at least, had people who cared for him. Some of us weren’t so lucky. But our king had always had the reputation of a strong man. After all, he had survived even that. And if he hadn’t completely recovered, at least he never showed his grief. There were rumors that the young prince had been damaged by magic. But what kind of dark wizardry it was and who had worked it, the rumormongers never got a chance to say. The king’s sandmen shut the talkative lads’ mouths by dispatching them forever to the Gray Stones—or perhaps to even more distant places.

  “So, it’s a prophecy about you, Harold,” said Stalkon, finally breaking the heavy silence.

  “I very much doubt that, Your Majesty.” I really didn’t believe in the goblin’s tall stories. “An unfortunate coincidence and nothing more.”

  “It can hardly be about our dearest thief,” said milord Alistan, supporting me. “Thieves don’t end up in prophecies. The best a thief can hope for is to end up in the Gray Stones.”

  Artsivus also paid little attention to the goblin’s fairy tale. The Order is very old-fashioned in this regard, and it pays no attention to any prophecies at all unless they were created by magicians from the tower.

  “Lady Miralissa, can you tell us what this Selena mentioned in the poem is?”

  “Selena? That’s ancient orcish, the first language of this world, unless you count ogric. But a very strange dialect. If one uses a bit of imagination, it could simply be a play on words. In the old language ‘sellarzhyn’ is ‘moon’ and ‘ena’ is ‘purple.’ A purple moon? It’s the first time I’ve come across the word. It is not mentioned in our Annals of the Crown.”

  “So there’s a purple moon in Hrad Spein,” Kli-Kli giggled as he returned to the room. Somehow he seemed to find this fact extremely amusing.

  “That is only my provisional translation,” Miralissa said with a barely noticeable frown. “We need to do some work on the documents before we can understand exactly what is what.”

  “And the work will be done, do not doubt it. Harold!” said Artsivus, turning to me. “You don’t object if I take this document, do you?”

  I shrugged indifferently. Why not? I remember verse pretty well, so he could take it; maybe the Order would dig something up.

  “That’s excellent,” Artsivus said delightedly, handing the rest of the papers to the goblin so that he could pass them on to me.

  Kli-Kli gave a humorus curtsey in the finest tradition of the ladies at court, crossed his legs, and sat down, holding up the papers. I put them away in my bag, paying no attention to the fool, which didn’t seem to upset him very much. In any case, he pulled a face that only I could see and went back to the carpet.

  “I have another two questions. What are the halls of the Slumbering Whisper and the Slumbering Echo?”

  “I don’t know, Harold. In Zagraba we have legends about many terrible things to be found in the Palaces of Bones, but I have never paid any attention to them. And I have never heard anything about such halls in Hrad Spein.”

  “And what are the Kaiyu?”

  “More precisely the blind servants of Kaiyu,” the elfess corrected me. “That is yet another tale that has lived on for over a thousand years. It came into being at the time when we began fighting the orcs in the Palaces of Bone. In order to protect the graves of the elfin lords against defilement, our shamans summoned creatures from distant worlds, so that they would guard the peace of our dead forever. This is a very, very old legend. No one has been down to those levels for hundreds of years, and our records about Kaiyu contradict each other.”

  “You are setting out tomorrow morning,” said the king. “Lady Miralissa and her companions will lead the expedition through the Forests of Zagraba. Alistan, you are in command. Try not to be detained anywhere and to get back as quickly as possible. As soon as spring comes and the snow in the pass melts, the Nameless One will set out from the Desolate Lands.”

  “My king, perhaps we ought to send several thousand troops to the Lonely Giant as reinforcements?”

  “Pointless. The Wild Hearts will not be able to hold out in any case. And the regular army will only get in their way. The Lonely Giant is merely a small dam, and it will burst under the combined pressure of the Desolate Lands. The border has always held only because of the bravery of the Wild Hearts and the aggressors’ inability to unite. Sending the army there, Alistan, would mean risking the very life of the kingdom. You understand that yourself. We’ll send a hundred Beaver Caps and the Jolly Gallows-Birds from two ships. They will help the Wild Hearts to hold out for as long as possible. A week, two at the most, so that I’ll have time to prepare the counterattack. Closer to winter we’ll have to send another thousand soldiers.”

  “My father and the other heads of houses intend to send about three hundred archers to help you,” said Miralissa.

  “Yes?” The king was not the only one delighted by this news. “Please convey my gratitude to your father, milady.”

  I chuckled. It might seem to many that three hundred archers are a mere drop in the ocean. . . . Well now, that’s true, just as long as they’re not elves. But three hundred elfin archers can reap the enemy in a deadly harvest. It was more than eight hundred years since Filand fell out over something or other with the light elves of I’alyala, but everyone still remembered how less than thirty elves had routed the heavy cavalry of the Filanders. Hitting the joints in the armor and the eye slots in the helmets, firing twenty arrows a minute, the handful of elves forced four select legions of cavalry, four hundred men, to retreat. Or rather, only two hundred men actually managed to retreat. The same number were left lying on the ground.

  “We shall pass through Valiostr, cut across the Iselina, and enter the forests from the side of the Border Kingdom,” Miralissa said.

  “Those are dangerous parts,” Markauz said with a frown of disapproval. “That’s orc territory.”

  “But that is where our nearest entrance to the Palaces of Bone lies; we would have to travel through the Forests of Zagraba for another three weeks to reach the other entrance,” said Miralissa, adjusting a strand of ash-gray hair that had come loose from her tall hairstyle. “So we shall have to take the risk, just as the previous expeditions did.”

  Alistan Markauz said nothing, but it would have been obvious to a hedgehog that he was not very pleased at the prospect of making his way to Hrad Spein through the forest of the orcs. Neither was I. My preference would have been to stay at home and drink wine.

  “I think that you will reach the goal of your journey in a month. That is, you should arrive during the first days of August,” Artsivus declared.

  “That is if there are no unforeseen circumstances,” Stal
kon objected.

  Everybody understood what kind of unforeseen circumstances he was talking about—the kind that had prevented the first two groups from completing the expedition.

  “I hope that everything will go well. And while we are on our expedition, the army will have to be made ready. Not too much hope can be placed in our undertaking.”

  Count Alistan was not really all that keen on setting out on the journey. And his reluctance was quite understandable. Not only would he have to pass the time in the company of a thief, he had to leave the king without his protection, too.

  “You know that I am already doing everything I can,” Stalkon retorted irritably. “But there are still too few of us anyway. Catastrophically few. What are a few tens of thousands against the countless hordes from the Desolate Lands? King Shargaz has sent us his apologies, but he will not send us a single soldier. All the forces of the Borderland are now beside the Forests of Zagraba; the orcs are running wild. The Border Kingdom is expecting an invasion and they will need every soldier. By the way, Harold, I have heard everything that I wanted to hear from you. You are free to go. I don’t suppose matters of state are of any great interest to you. Kli-Kli, take our guest and show him his room, his things, and all the rest of it.”

  Realizing that the conversation was at an end, I got up, bowed, and followed the jester out of the room.

  “Follow me, Dancer in the Shadows.” The depth of seriousness in the jester’s voice was ominous.

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “Why?” asked the goblin, peering at me innocently.

  “Because I don’t want you to!”

  “Oh,” the jester said considerately. “Then I won’t.”

  We walked back through the massive throne room and out into the corridors of the palace.

  “What would you like to see first? Your temporary quarters or a new friend?”

  “What new friend?”

  “Come on, I’ll show you.”

  I had to walk for quite a long time. First we went out of the building and past the garden, which was now almost empty—the only Wild Heart still there was Loudmouth, already on his fourth dream, if not his fifth.

  “Kli-Kli,” I said as we walked along, “these Wild Hearts, where are they from?”

  “The Lonely Giant, of course,” the goblin snorted.

  “No, I don’t mean that,” I snorted back. “What unit of the Wild Hearts?”

  “Oh! Apart from Arnkh, they’re all from the Thorns. Arnkh’s from the Steel Foreheads.”

  The Thorns . . . Now I really felt that my skin was safe. And there were any number of stories about the skill of the Thickheads, as the other soldiers called the Steel Foreheads.

  Eventually the jester led me to a outbuilding standing quite a long way from the palace. Or to be absolutely precise, the goblin led me straight to the stables. There was a smell of fresh hay and dung (also fresh, as a matter of fact). The horses in the stalls peered out curiously at the uninvited visitors. Every now and then one of them would reach its face out toward us in the hope of getting a treat.

  There were about fifty horses here. Elegant Doralissian steeds, imperturbable draft horses, the powerful war horses of Nizina that seemed so terrifying to the ignorant . . .

  “Here, let me introduce you,” said the jester, putting his hand on the muzzle of a large ash-colored mare. “This is Little Bee. She’s yours now.”

  “Oh, yes?” I asked uncertainly.

  “What’s wrong, Harold?” Kli-Kli asked with a frown. “Don’t you like the king’s gift?”

  “What makes you think I don’t like it?” I asked, stroking the Nizin breed horse behind the ear when it reached its head out toward me. “I like it very much. It’s just that I’m not very good at riding them.”

  “Mmm, all right, I’ll teach you today.”

  I gave the jester the same look I would have done if he’d asked me to kiss a poisonous snake.

  “Calm down, Harold. I really can help you. It’s fairly simple. Little Bee’s clever, she’s been trained. And what’s more, she’s a war horse, or a war mare, or a steedess. . . . Well, you know what I mean. . . . Here! Give her a treat.”

  Kli-Kli took out a huge red apple from somewhere and handed it to me.

  Little Bee happily crunched the treat and her amicable expression became even more kindly. I found it hard to believe that she was a war mare. . . . Damn it! Now I was doing it, too!

  “Come on, I’ll show you your room,” said Kli-Kli, tugging at my sleeve. “Your things are there, by the way. A dwarf brought them, together with the ring.”

  So Honchel had already brought the things I hadn’t been able to collect on the evening when I bought them from him. I meekly followed the king’s jester, realizing that he wouldn’t leave me alone today and I’d have to put up with him until tomorrow morning, when I would happily wave good-bye to the little green goblin.

  “By the way, we need to go to the armorer and pick out a decent sword and some chain mail for you.” Kli-Kli was simply bursting with the desire to do something.

  “Now that’s one gift I don’t need,” I said, shaking my head.

  “So what’s wrong this time?”

  “I need a sword like a drowned man needs a noose. I don’t know how to use it anyway. These are all I need, my dear jester,” I said, slapping my hand against the short blade at my hip and sticking my crossbow under the nose of the king’s fool.

  “Well, you know best,” he said, too lazy to argue with me. “Then we’ll choose you some armor.”

  “I’m not Alistan Markauz, Kli-Kli! I don’t intend to carry the work of an entire mineful of gnomes around with me.”

  “Don’t get nervous. We’ll find you some light, safe armor.” The goblin was not about to give up this time.

  “I don’t need it. It’s awkward moving about in chain mail.”

  “Harold!” The jester pointed one finger at me and pronounced his verdict. “You’re a boring, tedious fellow.”

  19

  A NIGHT IN THE PALACE

  Groaning in disappointment and cursing the entire world, I turned over onto my back and stared up at the ceiling. Cowardly sleep had fled from me like a healthy man fleeing from a leper. At first I thought I’d been woken by another one of the goblin’s tricks. But I couldn’t see the little jester anywhere around. I hoped very much that he was sleeping like a log somewhere as far away from me as possible, after exhausting himself during the day. After all, it must have taken a serious effort for him to give Harold a lesson in how to control a horse and then go on to wear me down with all his whining about the chain mail I hadn’t chosen, so that eventually I had to give way and go with him to select an iron shirt from the king’s armory. The delighted jester had taken himself off to his bed with a smile of triumph.

  But if Kli-Kli wasn’t to blame, then what was it that had woken me up? There it was again! That was it, definitely. Those shouts. They had woken me up. And that clash of weapons.

  It sounded as if there was a full-scale battle taking place in the corridors of the palace. But then who was fighting whom, and what about?

  I tried to think on my feet as I searched for my trousers in the darkness and at the same time groped for the crossbow and the bag with my bolts that I had left on a chair. Outside, bugles sounded to rouse the guard. First one, then another, and after a short while the alarm signal was ringing throughout the palace grounds.

  I grabbed my crossbow and dashed to the window. There was no question of lighting a candle. It would have taken too long to find one. I would have to load the crossbow by the light of the stars. Yes, I can load it in complete darkness, but it would have been annoying to confuse an ordinary bolt with one of the magical ones, then roast myself as well as my target when I fired.

  “Alarm! Alarm!” The bugles rang out, echoing each other.

  Outside, people were dashing about with lighted torches—for some reason, not one of the magical lanterns the Order had installed in the g
rounds of the palace was lit. Several guardsmen ran past right below my window, two of them carrying a wounded man. A little farther off there was a unit of soldiers heading in the opposite direction with the points of their spears glinting menacingly in the flickering light.

  Two human shadows darted out of the palace and ran off into the depths of the garden. One of the guards in the first detachment spotted the fugitives and most of the soldiers ran off in pursuit, leaving their two comrades with the wounded man.

  One of the men they were chasing stopped and threw his arms up. Then he started spinning round and swaying from side to side. The guards slowed from a run to a walk, approaching the strangers cautiously, not really sure what this madman was doing. They realized the answer to the riddle too late. The man stopped his crazy spinning and flung one hand out toward the soldiers, and the guards were simply tossed in all directions like children’s straw toys.

  Darkness! He was a genuine shaman!

  In immediate response to the shaman’s magic, a silver streak of lightning struck from somewhere in the upper stories of the palace. I ducked down in surprise, trying to get rid of the multicolored carousel that was spinning in front of my eyes, and when I could see normally again, the fugitives no longer existed. On the spot where they had been standing there was a huge round circle of scorched earth, with the grass still burning around its edge. Some magician of the Order had really put everything into his blow against the enemy. There was nothing left of the intruders.

  The bugles began calling again, sounding the alarm and calling men to arms. The din outside my door was unbelievable. There was already fighting at the end of the corridor where my bedroom was. Which meant there must be a lot more of the attackers, otherwise why couldn’t I hear cries of victory from all those guardsmen?