Shadow Prowler

by Alexey Pehov

  “Reload!” Vartek commanded loudly.

  Resting their crossbows on the ground, the guardsmen set their feet in the stirrups of their weapons and furiously set about winding the mechanism that drew the bowstrings taut.

  While the soldiers were making their crossbows ready for action, a man emerged from the ranks of the enemy. Without speaking, he lifted up his arms and slowly turned round his own axis, at the same time swaying from side to side, like a tree battling against a gusty autumn wind. I’d already seen this happen once that night, and it looked to me like we were about to have serious problems. If someone didn’t do something during these few seconds, the power of this ogric shamanism would come crashing down on our heads like a massive club.

  “Alistan!” I roared. “They have a shaman!”

  The crossbowmen had only just finished tightening their strings and now they were putting in the bolts, but they were too late. Far too late.

  I fired. First one bolt, then the other. And I missed. Either my hands were shaking too much, or death had decided to spare the shaman just at that moment, but the bolts went flying wide, with the second one just nicking the sorcerer’s gray and blue guards uniform.

  We were all saved by some soldier from Izmi’s unit who threw his spear. The shaman was either half-witted or lacking in skill, but in any case he was too slow to put up a barrier. The heavy weapon flew the length of the hall like a swallow and struck the sorcerer in the stomach, throwing him backward into the crowd of the Nameless One’s supporters.

  And that was when it happened.

  I don’t know why it became active just then—perhaps it was angered by the death of the shaman, or perhaps it had been under the sorcerer’s control—but the hall suddenly echoed with a furious roar, and the creature that had been hiding under the black drapery torn down from some wall in the palace pushed aside the last remaining intruders and stood there before us.

  “An ogre!” the guardsmen shouted.

  Their voices were full of genuine terror.

  I stared hard at this creature that I had only ever seen before in pictures. These villains had managed to bring a genuine, live ogre into the palace! A member of a race that had not set foot on the land of Valiostr for thousands of years.

  It is hard for the uninformed to believe that an ogre is a distant relative of the orcs and the elves. It is three and a half yards tall, with glassy, blue-black agate skin and a face in which the only similarity to the elves and orcs lies in the black lips, the huge fangs, and the ash-gray mane of hair.

  The little black pupils of the ogre’s eyes almost fused into the irises against the background of the light-blue whites. The muzzle, like a wild boar’s, and the immense pointed ears, each the size of a large burdock leaf, were repulsive. The ogre had no neck at all, and its head seemed to grow straight out of its shoulders. Its muscles rippled like steel-hard cables across a powerful, square-set body that was clad in the skin of a polar bear. And to add to the list of our problems, the monster was holding a massive ax in its hand. With a bit of effort, that notched blade could easily have chopped through the column supporting the façade of the Royal Library.

  “Everybody back!” Honeycomb growled. “Against the walls! You crossbowmen, look lively now!”

  The guardsmen all darted aside and started withdrawing into the corridors. The crossbowmen fired another salvo. And as malevolent fate would have it, only one of them hit the target. The bolt slammed into the upper right section of the ogre’s chest, forcing it to take a step back and . . .

  And that was all, actually. The entire effect. According to rumors, these creatures had two hearts, and in order to kill an ogre, you had to destroy both. So what could you expect if the bolt had not even nicked any vital organs? I took a magical bolt out of my bag. It looked as if I was going to use up all my emergency supplies before I even got to Hrad Spein.

  “Marmot, from the right! Loudmouth, move in from behind! Now we’ll carve up this tough little nut!” Honeycomb was already advancing on the ogre, whirling his terrible ogre-club above his head. The chain connecting the handle and the striking head of the weapon hummed angrily.

  Marmot and Loudmouth had already circled round the ogre, clutching their hand-and-a-half swords with both hands. The monster growled, swung round sharply, and struck downward with its ax, aiming for Loudmouth’s head. He jumped aside and the ax hurtled down, smashing the elegant tiles on the floor. Fragments of stone flew in all directions.

  Marmot took advantage of the ogre’s miss to dart up to it from behind and run his sword across its leg in an apparently casual stroke that severed the tendons below the knee. The ogre immediately thrust the handle of its ax backward and hit the shield held out by the warrior. The blow was so powerful that Marmot was sent flying and then slid about eight yards across the floor on his back.

  “Stikhs!” Hallas swore, clutching his mattock tight in his hands, but he didn’t go dashing into the battle, in order not to get in his own men’s way.

  “Tomcat, lend a hand,” Uncle ordered curtly, and the fat man went bounding forward like a round ball, coming between the stunned Marmot and danger.

  Just then the enemies who were still left alive realized that this was their chance, while everybody was busy with the ogre, and they tried to break through to the corridor where Izmi’s men were standing. If Alistan’s men hadn’t dashed to cut them off, ignoring the danger of running into the monster’s ax, then the curs would have got away.

  A fight broke out in the hall. Only the jester and I were left in the corridor.

  “Harold, don’t get involved, they’ll manage without you,” Kli-Kli suggested.

  It was an excellent idea, so I did just that and observed the skirmish from a distance. Meanwhile, the ogre had become really furious. He had only one target—that cursed man with yellow hair who was spinning the heavy ogre-club above his head. Limping on its right leg, the monster flailed the ax about in front of itself like the sails of a windmill, hoping to catch the Wild Heart. The giant Honeycomb, who looked tiny compared to the ogre, waited, drawing all of the ogre’s attention to himself.

  Then the right moment came. Loudmouth ran in from behind with a crooked grin and slashed his sword across the ogre’s other leg, then darted back out of range of the ax. The monstrous beast fell to its knees with a dull groan and Honeycomb’s ogre-club slammed into its head, crushing the bones of its skull.

  Loudmouth walked up to the ogre’s body and kicked it.

  “Yu-uck,” Honeycomb drawled, wiping his sweaty forehead with his sleeve. “Bringing down one of them takes years off your life!”

  “And I hear that from someone who once did away with six of them in a single day?” Loudmouth chuckled. “Strong, mature ogres, too, not young and green like this one.”

  It was all over. Our enemies had been crushed. Tired after their night battle, guardsmen started sitting down on the floor. Not a single supporter of the Nameless One had survived; they had all preferred to die fighting.

  “Harold, come on!” the jester cried, wriggling his way between the soldiers like a little fish. He climbed up on the ogre’s body. “Hey, how about this!”

  “I’ll give you hey!” Lamplighter said, and spat. This time Mumr didn’t have his huge bidenhander with him and he had had to fight with an ordinary sword. “Just what am I doing fighting ogres so far away from the Desolate Lands?”

  “Hey there!” Arnkh protested. “I thought whining was Loudmouth’s favorite pastime, not yours. . . .”

  “We must check all the corridors and every room. Some of the villains might have survived,” the prince said.

  “I’ll give instructions immediately,” Alistan said with a nod.

  I tried not to push myself forward, so that I could slip away as inconspicuously as possible, but I was afraid of going back to my room on my own. What if I ran into someone? It didn’t really matter who it was—enemies who had survived or zealous guardsmen, ready to thread anyone on their spears just to rack
up the numbers. Then they could figure out later who I was—friend or foe.

  “Come on, Harold, we’re not appreciated here,” Kli-Kli said, walking over to me.

  “And where are we going?”

  “We can have a drink at least!”

  “Oh, no! I have to be on the road this morning, and I intend to get a bit of sleep first.”

  “Ah, you’re always such a bore!” the goblin complained, but even so he tagged along to see me to the door.

  Deler and Hallas joined us. The dwarf was intending to look for his favorite hat that had been lost in the heat of battle, and the gnome wanted to have a friendly drink with Kli-Kli.

  “How’s Marmot?” the jester asked the dwarf a little while later.

  “The shield saved him. He sprained his arm, but his ribs are all right. And his head, too. What else do you need?” Deler scratched the back of his own head. “Our Marmot’s always collecting things. He managed to grab a shield from somewhere.”

  “But if the ogre had belted Tomcat with that handle . . . ,” the gnome said slowly.

  Yes indeed, Tomcat had been fighting in nothing but his drawers.

  “Deler, will you join us?” Kli-Kli asked, jumping over the sprawling body of a guardsman in a gray and blue uniform, but with a white armband.

  “I should think I will!” The dwarf didn’t need to be invited twice to wet his whistle.

  “See, Harold,” the jester taunted me. “Not everyone’s a spoilsport like you.”

  I gave the goblin a sour glance, and he shut up, realizing that my patience was exhausted for the day. The gnome muttered something to himself, stuck his mattock under his arm, and started sticking out the fingers on both hands. He was counting how many enemies he had felled. The count came to forty-five. When he heard this figure, Deler stumbled over his own feet and said that some gnomes’ conceit was even longer than their beards.

  “What are you haggling for?” Hallas asked, annoyed. “How many do you think I finished off?”

  “Nine of them,” said the dwarf, picking his battered hat up off the floor.

  “How many?” the gnome asked indignantly. “Why, the gnomes are fighters like—”

  “You’re lousy fighters,” Deler interrupted. “You wore yourselves out on the Field of Sorna. We know, we know.”

  “Who wore themselves out?” The bearded gnome was ready to start an all-out fight. “We kicked your backsides!”

  “Our backsides!” The dwarf stopped and clenched his fists. “You kicked our backsides? How come you didn’t have a single magician left after that battle?”

  “Never mind that, we’ll have magicians again.”

  “Oho! Sure you will!” said the dwarf, setting his thumb between two fingers and sticking it under his friend’s nose. “We’ve got all your magic books! Come and take them back, you damned mattockmen!”

  “We will! We will take them!” Hallas cried, spraying saliva. “Give us time and we’ll flatten the Mountains of the Dwarves to the ground! We’ll bring in the cannons . . .”

  I didn’t listen to any more, just went straight into my room and closed the door firmly behind me. No slanging match between a dwarf and a gnome was going to distract me from the most important business of all—sleep.

  It seemed like my head had barely even touched the pillow before the ubiquitous Kli-Kli’s annoying little hand was shaking me by the shoulder.

  “Harold, get up! Wake up!”

  Growling quietly, with my eyes still closed, I started groping around for something heavy to splat the little pest with.

  “Kli-Kli,” I groaned. “Show some respect for the gods! Let me sleep until morning! Go and drink with your new friends!”

  “It’s already morning,” the goblin objected. “You’re setting out in half an hour.”

  At this far from joyful news I leapt up off the bed, shook my head drowsily, and gazed out of the window. In the east the night sky was gradually turning paler in anticipation of the sun’s new birth. Four o’clock in the morning at the most.

  “Has Alistan completely lost his mind, deciding to go this early?” I asked the goblin, who was sitting on a chair.

  “Did you want them to see you off with music and fanfares?” The jester giggled. “There are too many eyes in the city during the day. Rumors would start.”

  “Everyone who’s interested already knows about our little excursion,” I objected reasonably.

  The jester merely chuckled in agreement.

  “And by the way!” I exclaimed in sudden realization. “How did you get into a locked room?”

  “You’re not the only one who can open locks, Harold,” the goblin said, and his blue eyes flashed merrily. “There’s a secret passage here. . . . Are you ready?”

  “Just a moment, let me get my things together,” I muttered.

  “Everything was collected and packed into Little Bee’s saddlebags ages ago. I took the liberty of making sure my best friend was all right.”

  “And just who is this best friend of yours?”

  As ever, the jester left my ironical question unanswered, and handed me a plate with a breakfast that was still warm.

  On the way we met that inseparable pair, Hallas and Deler, also walking in the direction of the stables, arguing animatedly. Those leopards would never change their spots. I was surprised to see them both alive and well, which meant that the battle between them had not taken place after all. The Wild Hearts joined us and we walked the rest of the way together.

  “Why don’t you tell me where you went last night?” Deler growled resentfully.

  “To visit relatives in town,” Hallas replied imperturbably.

  “Aha, of course,” the dwarf chortled. “They’d be really glad to see you at two in the morning. They’d be expecting you. You were chasing the women again, I suppose?”

  “And what if I was?” Hallas retorted furiously. “What business is that of yours?”

  “And you brought back some kind of sack,” said Deler, still growling.

  The gnome had a plain canvas sack hanging over his shoulder. The kind that miners use for carrying precious stones in the Steel Mines.

  “And what of it?” Hallas asked, and started lighting his pipe. Deler wrinkled up his nose contemptuously.

  “What are you carrying in that sack?” the dwarf asked curiously.

  “I don’t ask you what you’ve got in your keg,” said the gnome, trying everything he could to change the subject.

  “Who needs to ask?” said Deler, rather surprised, and he shook the large keg that he was carrying with both arms, puffing and panting. I ought to say that the keg was half the size of the dwarf, and there was something splashing about happily inside it. “It’s got wine in it.”

  “And where did you manage to get hold of such valuable treasure?” Hallas chortled, blowing rings of tobacco smoke.

  “Kli-Kli gave me a hand,” the dwarf said with a joyful smile. “It’s from Stalkon’s cellars.”

  “And what are you going to do with it?”

  “Drink it! You stupid mattockhead!” the dwarf roared. “What else can you do with wine? I’ll hang it on my horse and gradually drain it dry.” Deler pronounced these last words with a dreamy expression on his face.

  We reached the stables, where the first things to catch my eye were saddled horses and armed men. All the familiar Wild Hearts were here, too, only now it would have been hard for the inexpert eye to tell that they were Wild Hearts and not just ordinary soldiers from some border garrison.

  The famed badges in the form of hearts with teeth had been ruthlessly torn off the worn leather jackets. And I noticed that the handle of Lamplighter’s huge sword had been wrapped in a strip of black cloth that concealed the golden oak leaf of a master swordsman. Just one more precaution or attempt to avoid attracting any unnecessary attention. In some miraculous way, Mumr had actually managed to attach his favorite toy, the bidenhander, beside his saddlebags, evidently frightening his unfortunate dappled mare half t
o death in the process.

  “Time to go, Harold,” the jester reminded me.

  So there weren’t going to be any farewell speeches from the king and Artsivus. They weren’t even there. But then, why should they bother seeing off men who were already as good as dead, and anyway they must have been up to their eyes sorting out the consequences of last night’s attack. What time could they spare for thinking about our little expedition?

  I walked up to Little Bee and greeted her with a pat on the neck. She replied with a joyful whinny, and I climbed into the saddle.

  The jester looked up and said: “There are the last of your companions.” He pointed to the two elves beside Miralissa. “Ell from the House of the Black Rose and Egrassa from the House of the Black Moon.”

  I cast a curious glance at the elves. Ell, with a thick head of ash-gray hair and a fringe that almost covered his amber eyes, was just putting on a helmet that completely covered his face. He had a rather broad nose and a heavy lower jaw.

  Egrassa had a thin silvery diadem on his head—evidently a mark of distinction of some kind—and he and Miralissa were talking in low voices. I looked closely at the thoroughbred face with high cheekbones, the slanting eyes, and the solidly built figure of a true warrior.

  “Are the two of them related?” I asked Kli-Kli, leaning down as far toward him as I could.

  “Mm, yes, I think he’s her cousin. But he’s definitely a relative of some kind and definitely from the royal line—that’s a fact! Even you can tell that from the idiotic ssa in his name. Right. I’ll go and say good-bye to the dwarf and the gnome,” the goblin muttered, and disappeared.

  Miralissa sensed my glance and looked round. The luxurious Miranueh dress was gone, replaced by ordinary male elfin clothes. The tall hairstyle was gone, too, transformed into an ash-gray braid that reached all the way down to her waist. And the elfess, like her companions, had an elfin sword, or s’kash, hanging behind her back and, nestling beside it, a formidable bow and a quiver full of heavy arrows fletched with black feathers.

  Unlike human soldiers, the elves have a conservative attitude to weapons, and they normally use only crooked swords or longbows. Other weapons are employed only on an occasional basis.