by Alexey Pehov
* * *
The corpses smelled awful. Even if Pork decided not to bathe for an entire year (which, of course, his father would never allow him to do), he would not reek so badly. The village idiot, who had returned to the glade for the third time, wasn’t feeling very well. His head was spinning and his belly was churning from the smell. He’d already been sick twice, the last time right on his shirt.
This was bad, so very, very bad. Now he had to wash it, or there was no way he could go home. He’d have his backside tanned so hard that he wouldn’t be able to sit for a month. His father wouldn’t see that he was friends with the kind, glorious Nabatorians and that man who turned out to be a real magician. After Pork asked, he even gave him these dead bodies. And now they were his. He could do whatever he wanted with them. Ha!
And everything that belonged to these dead men was also now his. None of the Nabatorians could take it away from him. And if they did, Pork would go to his friend the magician, tell on them, and he’d turn the pissants into something moldy. He’d let them all know that Pork had been wronged! What friends he had, oh my!
Thousands of flies were circling over the rotting bodies and buzzing obnoxiously. They kept trying to fly into his mouth. The idiot spat and swatted at them, but this helped little. The heat was making him sweat, and the sweat, as well as his soiled shirt, only served to attract the vile insects. But Pork kept doing what he’d come here to do.
He was already the proud owner of two pairs of boots that stank pretty strongly of carrion (one pair fit perfectly and instantly found itself a more worthy master); one gold chain; three purses with a bit of small change; a knife with a pretty handle made of stag horn; a sharp, very sharp sword; and all sorts of other things. In the course of a single hour, Pork had become a truly wealthy man.
His dream had almost come true—he’d buy all sorts of things and then he’d be taken into the knighthood. Just try and let them stop him! And if they didn’t take him, he’d go into magic. And then what? He’d wear a curved sword and carry a staff, too. Why not? It turns out people are far more frightened of necromancers than knights. You see, all the villagers only spoke about Pork’s best friend in whispers, and only during the daylight hours. Chickenshits! Even Captain Nai, the bravest Nabatorian in the village, spoke very respectfully to the magician and didn’t argue with him.
Except, Pork was a bit jealous of Pars the carpenter. What if he was a closer friend to the necromancer than himself? Just look, the magician went to his house, stayed there for a while, and then left behind five Morts. They were bone-dry, like little skeletons, and they had skeem-swords. And their faces were noseless, and their eyes were yellow, so very yellow, like the eyes of old Roza’s cat. Last month, Pork had decided to check if the tub of lard knew how to swim, and he captured the cat, but he couldn’t get it to the river. The old woman’s house pet fought for dear life and scratched his arms up. He had to drop it. Right into a puddle.
But those Morts were beyond hideous, really! When Pork saw them he nearly died of fright. They were standing without moving a muscle. They just swiveled their eyes all around and didn’t let anyone near Pars’s house. True, no one really went there. People were afraid to walk along that street.… How contrary this corpse is! He doesn’t want to give up his boots, not no how.
Pork kicked the body out of spite, causing hundreds of flies to shoot up into the air.
The nasty boot didn’t want to slide off the foot of the nasty dead man.
He tried and tried. He puffed, pulled, yanked—it wasn’t happening. But the boots were really nice. Leather, embroidered with gold thread near the eyelets. If you wore such boots, all the virgins would be yours. You wouldn’t even have to persuade them. You’d just have to get there in the nick of time and climb off your horse. So what if they smell—that’s nothing. That’s not at all terrible, you know. The pigsty reeks, too. He washes that every week. He could wash the boots too. And clean them. And then go charm the virgins.
He dawdled there for a long time. He had a whole heap of goods. He needed to go back to the herd before Choir ran off. But he couldn’t leave boots like these. Someone would definitely come by and snatch them up. And a good thing if it was only them. There was more wealth than the heavens here. They’d filch it before he had time to blink. He couldn’t take it with him. How could he drag all this away? In what? And he couldn’t lift it all, either. It was too heavy. He needed to hide it. Maybe in the trunk of the cleft tree; perhaps the fools wouldn’t look there. Or in the bushes. He just had to get these damned boots off.
Pork turned around so his back was to the dead man, grabbed the boot again, and pulled. The bushes on the edge of the glade suddenly rustled and two men appeared in front of the frightened cowherd. The first was tall, redheaded, and old. With a sword and a funny skirt. The second was chubby with a face overgrown with bristles. He had an axe.
“A logger,” muttered Pork.
He also realized that the strangers had come at a really bad time. Just when all his riches were heaped in a single pile. Of course, they had to come for them now.
“Mine!” screeched the cowherd as he vacillated between the pile of stuff and the boots that were still attached to the corpse.
Then, realizing that there was no way he could deal with the men, he ran away from both them and his pile, shrieking with resentment and fear.
* * *
“Who was that, screw a toad?” asked Luk through the arm of his shirt, which was pressed up against his nose and mouth.
The carrion stank so badly that he was afraid he would pass out.
“It’s obviously not a living corpse. Usually they run toward you, not away,” Ga-Nor replied sarcastically.
“Melot only knows. He looked like a—”
“A looter. It’s a pity he ran away.”
“Why?”
“Because we could have asked him some questions. And also because he might get it into his head to lead someone here. We’re leaving. Move!”
Luk raised no objection. He regarded it as the greatest fortune that he was allowed to quit the putrid glade where the dead (definitely dead, thank Melot!) bodies were lying.
Ga-Nor set off at a run. The guard was panting but he did not lag behind. They kept up that tempo for about ten minutes. Finally, the northerner stopped, hopped into the underbrush, and disappeared. Luk nervously stayed where he was.
“Am I going to have to wait long for you?” The disgruntled face of the tracker appeared from out of the thicket.
“How was I supposed to know that I should go in there too?” the soldier said as he crawled under cover.
“Look.”
“Where?”
The Son of the Snow Leopard shifted a branch.
“There.”
Beyond the edge of the thicket stretched a small field, and beyond he could clearly see the village laid out along the shores of the river. Luk was so overjoyed at this sight that he didn’t immediately notice the search tower where the figure of an archer, just barely visible from such a distance, stood, nor did he notice the patrol of three soldiers walking through the houses.
“Now you owe me two sorens.”
Luk mentioned his toad in a dispirited way. The money was a trifle. To the Abyss with it! The Nabatorians were far worse than losing a bet. Were they really fated to make their way through the forests and swamps all the way to Al’sgara?
“I’d rather die here,” he groaned.
“Hold off on dying. Wait.”
“We can’t think of something just sitting here.”
“I’m not asking you to think. I’m asking you to wait. We need to stay for a while and watch. It’s too early to leave. We’ll wait until nightfall, and then we’ll see.”
“There’s no way we can slip through the village unnoticed.”
“Nonsense!” spat Ga-Nor. “Just look at them. What are they guarding, and what do they have to fear? Especially from this direction. If it wanted to, a Snow Troll could slip into that
village, to say nothing of a man. Look now! They seem to have caught wind of us.”
Luk watched as ten riders galloped across the field from the village. One of the horses had two riders. The first was a Nabatorian soldier, but the second, judging by his bright shirt, was the very same lad they had frightened away from the glade. At the edge of the forest the soldiers drew in their reins, jumped down from the horses, left one of their own behind to watch over them, and disappeared into the trees.
“Won’t they find us?” Luk shifted in the grass and, just in case, hugged his axe even closer.
“Don’t worry. Those dolts couldn’t find a mammoth locked in a cage in broad daylight. Besides, we’re not at all where we should be, according to them. They’ll search a bit then settle down. They won’t go far into the forest.”
“Perhaps they’re persistent.”
“Did you see their gait? Cavalry. What do they know about the forest? They’ll just leap about and bellow at the top of their lungs. They’d get lost in their grandmother’s vegetable patch. Are you looking for a fight?”
“I’ve had enough fights today. I’ll be happy just so long as they don’t find us. But what if they know how to read tracks?”
Ga-Nor’s face twisted up contemptuously, clearly indicating that he hadn’t expected such an unpardonably stupid idea from Luk.
“One of them might keep at it like a stubborn fool. We’re just lying here. We can’t see what they’re doing. What if someone suddenly comes up from behind?” asked Luk.
The northerner gave this conjecture the thought it deserved and then sighed deeply.
“All right. For the sake of your nerves I’ll go and check. You have an unsettling habit of making people doubt their own strengths.”
“I’ve been cautious since childhood,” Luk justified himself.
“Rest here. And, for the love of Ug, keep your head down until I return.”
He disappeared into the tall grass. Luk waited for him, sweating from nervousness. The northerner returned after about twenty minutes, just not from the direction the guard expected.
“Well, what of it?”
“I told you—they’re only good for braiding their horses’ tails, not for roaming about forests. They poked around and didn’t find anyone. Then they gave that lad a few good smacks about the head for dragging them there for nothing.”
In point of fact, the men returned from the forest just then. They greeted their horses, mounted them, and turned back the way they had come at a much slower pace.
“Thank Ug it was boneheaded cavalrymen that came searching for us, and not a scouting party. They would have examined every blade of grass before they left. But those guys—idiots!”
* * *
All was quiet and peaceful in the village. The cavalry had disappeared behind the houses, the archer was slowly roasting in his tower, and the patrols were sauntering along the outskirts of the village. Ga-Nor left and returned three more times.
“So, are we setting out when it’s dark?”
“I’m setting out. You are going to wait here for me.”
He was right. On a nighttime excursion Luk would be more hindrance than help. So the guard didn’t even think to object. It was hard enough to keep up with the northerner. And it was beyond his skill to do it quietly, leaving as little trace as possible.
“Bring me something to eat, will you? My belly’s full of spiderwebs.”
“You ate this morning.”
“So in your opinion, a crust of bread and a bit of cheese rind is food? I can suffer through the night, but I’ll drop dead of hunger without some scraps by morning.”
“And where am I going to get it for you? Should I stroll into the inn and buy some? Or waltz over to the Nabatorians and beg some off of them?”
“I’m just saying that if the possibility should arise to … um … borrow something edible, I would be really happy. I would pray for the health and life of your family until the end of time.”
“I don’t have a family.”
“Oh.” Luk, realizing he’d made an awkward blunder, frowned but then suddenly hit upon the answer. “Well, then I’ll just pray for you, and also I’ll—”
“Be quiet, you windbag,” the Son of the Snow Leopard cut him off genially. “You’re messing up my count.”
“What are you counting?” The soldier tore himself away from his contemplation of the pastoral landscape of the village and its surroundings and finally turned toward the northerner.
“The Nabatorians. I need to know how many patrols are here.”
“There are three men on the tower. One is always on the lookout, while two others, I think, sit on the floor. Probably playing dice. It’s a smart arrangement. If someone attacks, they’ll think the archer is alone up until the last moment. You can’t see them. They change shift every two hours. There are four patrols. Three men in each. The time between the first and the second, and the third and the fourth, is about ten minutes. It’s almost twenty between the second and the third. They rarely look around. The third patrol once paused for a half an hour. The darkness knows what they were doing. Just hung around not moving. It’s always the same men. The sentries walk around the borders of Dog Green. It’s the usual arrangement for an occupied village. I can’t say anything about the actual number of Nabatorians. We’re at the farthest end of the village. Judging by the houses and all those fields, not too many people live here. I might be able to get a better idea from a different vantage point.”
While Luk was talking, Ga-Nor was looking at him in shock, his eyes narrowed. The northerner hadn’t expected such attention to detail from his companion.
“What are you looking at?” asked the soldier gruffly. “I haven’t grown horns yet.”
“How did you notice of all of that?”
“What do you think I am? A complete idiot? Unable to do anything besides play dice? I spent many years serving in the garrison of the Towers. You never trained with the men posted on the Wings. We drilled constantly. We had to be familiar with the faces of everyone in the area. Who drives what. Who visits whom. How to sniff out contraband. You scouts think we’re all just trash, but we—”
“You left the Gates open,” the tracker finished mercilessly.
Luk wanted to say something nasty in return, but at the last moment he just waved his hand at his companion, turned his back to him, and did not speak to him until evening.
* * *
Night fell warm and clear. The moon had not yet appeared, but due to the thousands of stars strewn across the sky, there was enough light. Luk was lying in a secluded forest hideout, and the bushes industriously hid him from outside eyes.
Ga-Nor had left more than an hour ago, and the soldier was getting nervous. The shirt on his back was soaked with sweat. Plus, his stomach was aching from anxiety. In his solitude, he’d managed to think through all the alternatives that would account for the tracker’s extended absence ten times. The worst of them was that the Son of the Snow Leopard had been killed. That would mean that staying in his hideout was dangerous. If the Nabatorians began searching in earnest, they’d let out the dogs. Or someone worse. Then it wouldn’t matter if he hid or not—they’d find him all the same.
Dread seized his throat, squeezing it so that it became hard to breathe. Luk almost made a break for it, but he willed himself to stay put, closed his eyes, and began slowly counting to ten.
Don’t even think of fleeing. He couldn’t allow himself that kind of cowardice. Abandoning the northerner would be low. He’d done too much for him.
He looked at the sleeping village once again. Not a soul. No movement. No light shining from the houses. Here, just as in any other village, they were early to bed, early to rise. Summer was the time for work. They had no love for idlers. Luk recalled a saying of his grandfather, “If you sleep in during the summer, you’ll go hungry in the winter.”
The loud shriek of a nocturnal bird made him flinch, and all extraneous thoughts flew out of his head. Luk h
ated the forest with all his heart. He didn’t understand it, and he was afraid of it. The constant rustling in the crowns of the trees. The odd screeching, so reminiscent of the wailing of a child. Every now and then, the trees took on the forms of dreadful monsters. Burning eyes looked out at him from the roots of an oak tree. There were ominous shadows everywhere. The soldier didn’t know where he would rather spend the night if fate gave him a choice—in the forest or in a graveyard. After a moment’s consideration, Luk chose the graveyard. At least there he knew what it was he had to fear.
The guard made out the figure of a man only when it was less than five yards away. He grabbed his axe and jumped into a fighting pose, intending to sell his life dearly.
“Calm down.”
“Screw a toad! You’re alive!”
“Follow me. But be quiet,” whispered the northerner. A bag was hanging over his shoulder. “I found a safe place.”
It took quite a long time to get to this “safe place.” When Ga-Nor led Luk out of the forest the village houses were within easy reach.
Luk glanced at his companion in bewilderment.
“You mean to tell me that it’s less dangerous here than in the woods?”
“Not here. At the mill.”
“It doesn’t look abandoned,” said the soldier skeptically, studying the building next to the river.
“I didn’t say that.”
Luk wanted to object that it was idiotic to hang about where the locals might see them, but the Son of the Snow Leopard was already standing by the waterwheel.
“What, they don’t lock the doors?”
“Who’s going to steal? Everyone knows everyone else. And the Nabatorians wouldn’t steal from themselves. They need bread, too. Get in.”
The northerner shut the door firmly behind them. He struck a fire and lit the wick of a lantern standing on the floor. Then he closed the metal shutter so that the night watch wouldn’t accidentally see the light.
