Shadow Prowler

by Alexey Pehov

  “This area used to be covered with thick forest. There weren’t any villages yet . . . that is, there were some, of course, but pitifully few. In those times, no one thought about building a road or a main highway, there was only a fairly large track from Ranneng to Avendoom. And it happened to pass straight through the area that is now known as Hargan’s Wasteland. In our times the old road has been forgotten and abandoned, but then it was the vital thread that connected the central cities of Valiostr. The army retreated along it. A council that included both soldiers and members of the recently founded Order of Magicians decided that part of the army had to be sacrificed so that it could hold up the invaders for at least a few days. The area was advantageous—full of forests and marshes, with just one road, which was the only way the enemy could advance. At one point the road crossed a deep ravine with impassable swamps on its left and its right. It was decided to hold the enemy back here for as long as possible. To allow the main human forces to get as far away as possible.”

  The goblin broke off, wrapped himself in his cloak, and continued.

  “They put out the call and looked for volunteers. People who would decide to stay and give battle. You men are amazing creatures. Sometimes you’ll tear each other’s throats out for a copper or some piece of rubbish, and sometimes you decide to cover your comrades’ backs, knowing that you’ll never get out alive. Just over three thousand soldiers volunteered. Three thousand men willing to condemn themselves to death, to dig their nails into the slopes of that ravine, but not let the orcs pass. Four hundred of them were chosen; it would simply have been stupid to sacrifice the rest.”

  “Well, I would have argued with that,” Hallas, who was sitting beside me, muttered to himself—but quietly, so that the goblin wouldn’t hear.

  “The men who were chosen to stay behind were named the Dog Swallows. I don’t know why. The main army left. The new unit was commanded by an old soldier who had commanded a regiment with Grok. He was called Hargan, and a grateful posterity later named this place after him. The defenders’ primary goal was to hold back the enemy for at least one day, no more than that. But they managed to halt the orc army’s advance for a full four. In that time not a single orc got through. Hargan’s soldiers gave Grok’s army precious breathing space, and time to prepare for the encounter at Avendoom. If not for the Swallows, there’s no knowing how the history of the kingdom would have gone.

  “The subsequent events are well known to you. Grok gave battle and the orcs broke into Avendoom, but then the dark elves arrived on the scene. No one had been expecting them. Neither the men nor, in particular, the orcs. The elves forgot their quarrel with men and came to their aid at the very last moment. The dark ones could not ignore such a good opportunity to settle scores with their cousins. The Spring War was won. And that, I think, is all.”

  “And this wasteland?”

  “The wasteland?” the jester echoed. “The wasteland remained a wasteland. A new road appeared somewhere else, of its own accord. No one wanted to disturb the bones of the fallen warriors. But then, to be quite honest, most of them were not actually buried. People had too many other things to deal with, setting the country to rights after the war. The years passed and Hargan’s Brigade gradually began to be forgotten. The road gradually fell into disuse. Only the shepherds used it to move their sheep. The land round here is really rich, and so the grass is high. Only the name was left—Hargan’s Wasteland—and with time people even forgot where that had come from. Now not even the old men remember those soldiers’ feat of heroism.”

  An oppressive silence fell round the campfire. Each of us was thinking about those men who stood firm against the crooked yataghans of the orcs and did not retreat.

  “Gnomes would never have forgotten something like that.”

  “Or dwarves!”

  I felt shame for my race. Probably for the first time in my life I feltashamed of people for forgetting such a sacrifice. . . .

  “Come on, Loudmouth,” grunted Lamplighter, getting up off the ground. “We’re on the first watch tonight.”

  No one spoke to anyone else. One by one we all went to bed, leaving only the solitary figure of the jester still sitting beside the small camp-fire, gazing at the dance of the flames. . . .

  The slanting downpour from the sky was like whips lashing at their clothes, it soaked them with its soft hands, it was cold, warm, angry, prickly, stinging, caressing, biting.

  The soldiers were tired, cold, and soaked through. The bowmen squinted furiously up at the sky—moisture spoiled the bows, and no elves’ tricks for preserving the condition of the string did any good.

  “Wencher!” Hargan called in a low voice, wiping his wet face with his hand.

  “Yes?” responded the commander of the swordsmen, running up to him.

  “Take your lads. Grab every ax you can find in the brigade and cut down the trees on that side of the ravine.”

  “Very well,” said the soldier, without batting an eyelid.

  “Drag the trunks over to this side, and then we’ll dismantle the bridge. We’ll arrange a pleasant welcome for the Firstborn.”

  The other man gave a gap-toothed smile, clenched his fist in the military salute, and ran off to rouse his men.

  Hargan sighed.

  It was hard. Ye gods! It was so hard to look at them! He was an old man, almost sixty years old—he wasn’t afraid of dying. But the men fate had decided that he should command . . . boys. Twenty-year-old, thirty-year-old boys. He regarded them all as too young to die in front of this bridge thrown across the abyss of a nameless ravine.

  The orcs had attacked suddenly. No one had been expecting this war, and during the first days of the catastrophe that overwhelmed the land of Valiostr, the army had been defeated in battle after battle. And now there was only one hope left. Hargan and his men had only one goal—to detain the enemy for as long as possible, until the main human forces could dig in at the new capital of Valiostr. The retreating army was already far behind them, and in front of them, beyond the curtain of mist, the army of the enemy was waiting.

  The orcs were in no great hurry. What difference did it make if they spilled the humans’ blood an hour earlier or an hour later? They were the Firstborn, they would conquer all the lands, and men . . . Men would be dispatched to feed the worms. First the Valiostrans, then the men of Miranueh, then it would be the turn of the gnomes and dwarves, and finally of their detested relatives, the elves.

  The rain eased off somewhat until it was no more than a gentle drizzle. The air was filled with fine drops of water. It was early morning and mist was rising from the ground in thick white streamers. Three hundred yards away, on the opposite side of the ravine, the road was concealed in a dense white shroud and they could only guess how far away the enemy was. Yesterday the scouts had reported that the advance units of the orcs were at a distance of one day’s march. But that was yesterday. . . .

  The bottom of the ravine was hidden from sight. Its walls were not actually sheer, but they could certainly not be called shallow. If you were careless going down, you could easily break your neck. Somewhere far below there was a stream tinkling; sometimes you could hear it above the rain. So after they dismantled the bridge, the orcs would first have to climb down one slippery clay slope and then climb up another. That was the only way they could reach the fortifications.

  The brigade had only been named that morning, when the final soldiers of Grok’s army retreated, leaving the volunteers alone to face the foe. Nobody at all was hoping to survive the fighting, they all knew what they were doing when they volunteered. They were saying good-bye to life.

  Waiting is the worst torture of all. It has broken many men, even destroyed them. And what could be worse than standing behind a low wall of logs covered with earth and peering into a dank haze for an entire day, with only one picture in front of your eyes the whole time—a road cut off by a thick white wall of fog.

  The day was approaching its end, and there had been n
either sight nor sound of the enemy. True, about an hour earlier something that sounded very much like the booming of the orcs’ battle drums had been heard from behind the curtain of fog, but everything had gone quiet, the alarm had come to nothing, and the oppressive silence of anticipation had descended once again.

  On the slope of the ravine itself, just below the line of fortifications, the builders had set long, pointed stakes into the ground. The attackers would find it very tricky to get past this obstacle with any speed. They would probably get stuck trying to squeeze between the stakes, and the bowmen would have time to reap a bloody harvest.

  “They haven’t decided to wait for darkness, surely?” the commander of the Dog Swallows asked apprehensively. “But since when has the race of the Firstborn ever been so cautious with men? They regard us as talking monkeys.”

  “I’ll tell you what I’m afraid of,” croaked Fox, who was sitting beside Hargan. “What if they’ve found another route to Avendoom? Maybe through the forest or the swamps . . .”

  “Through the swamps?” The commander shook his head. “No, there’s only one road here. If the orcs decide to try the swamps, they won’t reach Avendoom before next spring. This whole area’s such a wild tangle you could never find your way out, even sober.”

  “So we’ll wait, then,” Fox concluded philosophically.

  And they waited.

  “They’re coming! They’re coming!” The cry went up, and then a lone bugle sounded the alert.

  Hargan lifted up his head and rubbed his eyes.

  “Everyone to their posts!” the commander ordered, putting a light helmet on his head.

  Like all the other soldiers, Hargan was never parted from his chain mail even for a moment. If the enemy attacked, they weren’t going to wait while the soldiers put their armor on. So he wore his mail all the time and even slept in it.

  This was no time for the standard three royal lines, and certainly not for the four lines of the elves. Those formations were good out in the open, but here, hiding behind a wall of wood and earth, it was best to fire a salvo up and over first and shoot directly at the enemy afterward. When you could be certain. With a clear aim. So that every arrow hit its target.

  The powerful battle bows had already been strung; the trusty mittens, tattered by thousands of blows, had been donned; the quivers were bursting with arrows.

  One arrow in the hand, another two stuck into the ground. Each was as thick as a man’s thumb, with solid, armor-piercing heads—not just the standard cutting edges that would bring down only light infantry, but battering rams that could pierce good steel.

  A dour line of soldiers with swords and huge rectangular shields formed up seven paces behind the bowmen. Unlike the archers, they were well spaced out, with a gap of two paces between each man. If the enemy managed to get through the hail of arrows, the sword-swingers would give the bowmen time to get behind them and exchange their weapons for something more effective at close quarters, while they themselves closed ranks and set their shields together.

  “Is my help required?” asked Siena, who had approached the consulting officers.

  The enchantress was wearing steel armor and her head was covered with a chain-mail hood. Overnight the armorers had managed to hammer together some reasonably good protection for the short girl out of whatever was available. Like yesterday, Siena had no weapon, just the amulet gleaming on the chain round her neck.

  “Your help, Lady Siena, will be required in the very near future,” Hargan said, and shifted his gaze to the sergeant of her guards.

  Several figures slid forward out of the wall of fog.

  “Orcs!”

  “Make rea-dy!” The sergeants’ calls ran along the ranks of bowmen.

  “Raise the banner,” Hargan said curtly.

  His order was immediately carried out and the yellow panel of cloth began fluttering above the fortifications. The material for it had been donated by Siena, who had allowed them to tear off part of her own tent. Although the brigade had just been formed the previous day, it had to have a banner, no matter what, even if it was only an ordinary rag nailed to the trunk of a young aspen instead of a flagstaff. Some unskilled hand had drawn something on the cloth that looked vaguely like a dog with wings and a swallow’s tail. And also written something in orcish. Hargan felt quite sure that the polyglot artist had crammed these incomprehensible squiggles with the most terrible of insults to the race of the Firstborn.

  The men watched in silence as the enemy wave advanced. Now it would begin. . . .

  Three soldiers came forward out of the ranks of the enemy. The one in the middle was carrying a white flag, the one on the left was blowing a bugle in an appeal for negotiations.

  “Since when do orcs come to negotiations with bugles instead of drums?” Hargan muttered as he drew on his armored gloves.

  “Strange . . . ,” said the soldier standing beside him, screwing up his eyes to peer at the strangers. “They’re . . . not orcs . . . they’re men! Yes, they are! They’re men!”

  The whispers ran along the ranks of the defenders:

  “Men? Where from? The entire army fell back ages ago! Are they ours? Reinforcements? But why from the south?”

  Meanwhile the trio of negotiators walked up to the edge of the ravine and halted.

  They really were men.

  “Hey, you! Can you hear me?” shouted the one standing on the right, a tall, solidly built soldier with a full, thick beard.

  “We hear you! We’re not deaf!” Wencher answered from somewhere over on the right flank of the fortifications. The harsh voices dispelled the charm of the summer morning.

  “We are the valiant Sixth Southern Army of Valiostr, now the First Human Assault Force! Formed on the orders of the orcs from valiant warriors who desire the well-being and happiness of all humankind.”

  “Hang on there, hang on! What’s this First Human Assault Force? And you’re lying about the Sixth Southern, none of them survived, they were caught in the thick of it at Boltnik!”

  “Ah, come on, lads, don’t you get it?” shouted a voice from the ranks of the bowmen. “They’re turncoats! Traitors! Renegade scum! They do the orcs’ work now!”

  “Fighting their own kind?”

  “Bastards!”

  “Don’t they realize that afterward the orcs will cut them to shreds?”

  “The glorious army of the Firstborn, worthy of ruling the whole of Siala, offers you the chance to lay down your arms and join the First Human Assault Force. Resistance is useless; there are far more of us than there are of you. In a few hours the main orc forces will arrive, and we will crush you! Why simply throw your lives away? The war is lost, even a Doralissian can see that! Join with us and you will stay alive and perhaps even make good pay! The orcs are just.”

  “Our reply is no!” said Hargan.

  “Fools!” the bearded man roared. “How many of you are there behind those flimsy sticks of wood? Two hundred at most. And there are almost a thousand of us! We’ll wash our hands in your blood!”

  “Come and take it!” yelled Wencher, incensed. “We’ve enough arrows for the lot of you!”

  Hargan had total confidence in the loyalty of his men and he was not afraid of being stabbed in the back, but it was time to put an end to the conversation with this vociferous traitor.

  “And now you listen to me, peace envoy! I’ll give you just one chance, too! You are a coward who had betrayed his own people! I hope you’re a fast runner! Try to outrun our arrows! That’s my answer to you!”

  As he turned away, he saw the standard bearer toss aside his useless white flag and go running back, while the bugler started dashing about on the edge of the ravine and the bearded man followed, shaking his fist.

  “Soldiers!” Hargan barked. “We’re about to fight a battle with our own kind, not orcs! With men! With traitors who have forgotten the taste of their own mothers’ milk and gone over to the enemy! Do not let your hands falter! Kill the turncoats, show no mercy
!”

  And the phrase rang along the ranks of men, determined to fight to the death before they let the enemy pass:

  “NO MERCY!”

  Bugles sounded on both sides. The attackers bolstered their spirits by shouting and brandishing their weapons as they ran. A thousand of them. A thousand men who would stop at nothing, since they had already gone over to the side of the orcs. There was no way back for them now, so they would fight to the last man. But Hargan had no doubt that his lads would hold out. After all, these were not orcs who were attacking them. . . . And the Dog Swallows also had the slight advantage of the ravine and the wall above it.

  The first wave of the enemy came rolling on, getting closer and closer. The soldiers ran, hoping to get through the danger zone exposed to arrows as quickly as possible and leave their comrades—the men running twenty yards behind in the next wave—as the targets.

  “What kind of idiot is commanding them?” Hargan muttered.

  Running in a crowd, simply inviting the arrows to strike, without even holding up your shields in front of you, was stupid. Very stupid. But now the traitors already had no choice.

  “Arc five fingers upward! Together, fire!” Blidkhard commanded, shouting above the howls of the attackers.

  The bowmen raised their bows, there was a sharp crack, and the arrows went whistling up into the leaden sky.

  “Arc seven fingers upward. Correct for wind half a finger left! Together, fire!”

  The new swarm of deadly bees took to the air at the very moment when the first wave of arrows came crashing down on the attackers’ heads. Some managed to hold their shields up to ward off this deadly rain; some were simply fortunate enough to escape being hit. But the greater part of the first wave knew the bitter taste of death. His scythe sliced through the ranks of traitors as arrows fell on heads and shoulders. Their impetus drove them straight through cuirasses and chain mail, deep into men’s chests, finishing off the wounded who had already fallen.