Shadow Chaser

by Alexey Pehov

  “That’s a gnome secret, milord,” Hallas said with a frown. “I’m sorry, I can’t tell you.”

  “Don’t talk nonsense, any fool can figure that out,” Deler interrupted. “There’s the wick, and there’s the trigger. Press the trigger and it lowers the wick, lights the powder, and the ball flies out! Tremendous gnomish cunning, my foot! It’s just a little cannon.”

  Hallas ground his teeth in annoyance.

  “You’re a cannon, you thickhead! It’s a pistol, our new invention. Just you wait till we turn up in the mountains with weapons like these to take our land back!”

  “We’re always glad to see you, call any time! If the Field of Sorna wasn’t enough for you beard-faces, we can give you more, we’re not greedy!” Deler’s voice sounded boastful, but his eyes were fixed on the pistol in Alistan Markauz’s hands.

  “If we had a few hundred pistols like this, it would make fighting the Nameless One’s army a lot easier,” the captain said pensively, handing the weapon back to the gnome. “What do you think, Hallas, would your kinsmen fulfill an order like that?”

  “Pardon me for speaking plainly, Milord Alistan,” Hallas said in a flat voice, putting the weapon away in his sack. “But gnomes have never been fools. If we let you have things like this, first you’ll kill all your enemies, and then you’ll come after us, out of sheer boredom. You people are not all that bright, all you want to do is fight wars and let your enemies’ blood. A weapon like this in your hands … Our rulers would never make such a bargain.”

  “A shame, we’ll have to take it with our swords.”

  Egrassa came back and shook his head.

  “He didn’t say anything.”

  “Damn the orc to the darkness! Let’s go.” Miralissa was in a hurry to get to the castle as quickly as possible. “Are you ready, Fer?”

  “Yes, milady.”

  The detachment set off, with the wagon wheels creaking, and we left behind Crossroads, the place that had sent another two of our number to the light.

  14

  ON THE BORDER

  The detachment moved as fast as it could. The elfess rode alongside one of the wagons, constantly checking the condition of the wounded men.

  “I hope Honeycomb’s going to be all right,” Hallas muttered.

  “Everyone hopes so, Beard-Face,” Deler replied, and took a sip from his flask. “Want some?”

  “All right,” the gnome replied after a moment’s thought. “Since there’s nothing else, dwarf swill will have to do.”

  Fer sent two horsemen on ahead to Cuckoo to warn the magician, the healers, and the garrison. Everyone held their weapons at the ready, in case any of the orcs we hadn’t killed were lying in ambush in the forest.

  “Torch!” a soldier with his left arm bandaged shouted to his sergeant. “Servin’s dead!”

  “May he dwell in the light,” whispered one of the soldiers.

  “Harold!” said Eel, holding out Invincible to me. “You keep him, the little beast is used to you.”

  I took the shaggy little rat that had just lost his master and tucked him inside my jacket. Ling sniffled as he settled down and then fell quiet. We could decide what to do with him later.

  A horn sounded—it was the messengers sent on ahead by Fer coming back. A detachment of eighty horsemen came with them.

  Their commander, an elderly warrior with a wispy beard, asked, “Is there anyone left alive in the village?”

  “Not as far as I know. But the villagers who were killed need to be buried.”

  “We’ll deal with that. I’ll leave twenty horsemen to accompany you. It’s no more than four leagues to the castle, you’re expected.”

  “Thank you,” said Fer, with a curt nod.

  Cuckoo—a reddish gray hulk with three towers, double walls, and six earthen ramparts—was seething like a disturbed anthill. It was hard to believe that only an hour’s ride from here the orcs had wiped out a village, and the soldiers had known nothing about it.

  “Healers!” Fer barked as soon as we were in the castle courtyard.

  Men came running up to the wagon, some of them brought stretchers, and first aid was given to the wounded on the spot, leaving the men who had been hurt by the orc’s magic to Miralissa’s care.

  A tall man with a bald head walked up to the elfess, who was still whispering spells. He was dressed in the black chain mail of a simple soldier. There was a sword hanging on his belt and he was holding the staff of a magician of the Order.

  The magicians in the Border Kingdom weren’t all that different from ordinary soldiers. They were as skilled in handling a sword as in magic. Nothing like our Valiostrian idlers.

  “A ‘soap bubble,’ milady?” he asked, putting his hand on Honeycomb’s forehead, which was covered in sweat.

  “Yes, it’s the Khra-z ten’r,” she replied with a nod. “To whom do I have the honor of speaking?”

  “Wolner Gray, magician of the Order of the Border Kingdom, at your service…”

  “Miralissa of the House of the Black Moon. Can you help me?”

  “Yes, Tresh Miralissa. Hey, lads!” the magician called to the soldiers. “Get stretchers and carry the stricken into the hospital hall.”

  The magician and the elfess walked away. The soldiers carried the wounded after them.

  “Young lad!” said Deler, grabbing hold of a stable boy by the sleeve. “Do you have a shrine to Sagra here?”

  “Yes, master dwarf, over there.”

  “What’s this, Deler? Turned devout all of a sudden?”

  “Don’t be a fool, Beard-Face. I’m going to pray for Honeycomb’s health.”

  Hallas scratched his beard and shouted: “Hang on, Hat-Head, I’ll go with you, or you’ll only get lost.”

  “But I’m not going anywhere,” said Lamplighter, who was feverish from his wound. “Eel, help me stagger over to the healers, I’m feeling a bit shaky.”

  Mumr leaned on his bidenhander and got to his feet. Without speaking a word, the Garrakian offered him his shoulder and led him toward the healers bustling around the wagons. Kli-Kli and I were left on our own.

  “Come on, Dancer, I’ll show you something,” the jester called out to me.

  “Where are we going?” I asked him suspiciously.

  “Come on, you won’t regret it.”

  There was nothing to do, evening was drawing in, and I didn’t think we would be going to Zagraba today, so I followed the goblin. Kli-Kli walked over to a hoist beside the wall.

  “Where are you going, greeny?” asked the man who was loading stones for a catapult into the hoist.

  “Would you be so kind, my dear man, as to raise the two of us up onto the wall together with these most remarkable stones that match the color of your face so well?” Kli-Kli asked.

  “What?” the worker asked, wide-eyed.

  “Can you hoist us up, blockhead?”

  “The steps are over there!” said the man, jabbing a dirty finger toward the wall. “Use your legs, I’ve got work to do, I’ve no time to be giving you a lift as well.”

  Kli-Kli stuck his tongue out at him and stomped off angrily to the steps that led up onto the top of the wall.

  “Kli-Kli, can you tell me why I should climb twenty yards up a wall?” I asked the goblin.

  “It would spoil the surprise. Have you ever regretted listening to what I say?” The goblin was already climbing briskly up the steps.

  “Yes,” I replied quite sincerely.

  I followed him anyway. It was an easy climb, because the steps wound round the wall. The palace courtyard sank lower and lower below us, and the men, the horses, and the wagons all shrank.

  “Tell me this,” I asked Kli-Kli as he ambled along in front of me. “Where did you learn to handle throwing knives so neatly?”

  “Why, did you like it?” asked Kli-Kli, glowing at this unexpected praise. “I have just as many hidden talents as you do, Dancer.”

  “You don’t say?”

  “I’m a jester,�
�� he said, and shrugged. “Throwing knives is no harder than juggling four torches or doing a triple reverse somersault.”

  “You’ve got a tough job, old friend,” I laughed.

  He stopped, looked down at me, and said in a serious voice, “You can’t even imagine how tough it is, Harold. Especially when I have to look after fools like you!”

  “So you’re the one who’s looking after me!”

  “There, that’s human gratitude for you,” said the goblin, raising his hands imploringly to the sky. “Wasn’t I the one who saved you from that dog’s teeth?”

  “Well, yes,” I had to agree.

  “And today? Today, whose knives stopped the orc’s ax?” the goblin went on as he completed another turn of the stairway.

  “Yours,” I sighed.

  “Oh!” said the goblin, raising one finger didactically without turning to face me. “That’s exactly the point. Are you thieves all like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “With such a short memory for the good things that other people do for you.”

  “All right, calm down, Kli-Kli. I remember that I owe you for one time.”

  “What do you mean, for one time!”

  “You saved me from the dog, and I saved you from the river, so I still owe you one rescue,” I chuckled.

  “Maybe I know how to swim, and I was only pretending?” Kli-Kli suggested, narrowing his eyes cunningly.

  “Well, then you really are a fool.”

  “All right, I admit it, I can’t swim. And by the way, we’re here.”

  I hadn’t realized that I was on the wall. It was broad, with immense battlements, loopholes, and blue sky. The walls gave no protection from the wind up here, and it blew straight into my back. I could imagine what it was like being up here in winter or during a storm. Invincible crept out from under my jacket and clambered onto my shoulder.

  “So what was it you wanted to show me?” I couldn’t spot anything interesting up there, just a catapult, a few bowmen standing watch, and one craftsman, reinforcing the stones of the wall.

  “Look over that way!” said Kli-Kli, dragging me across to a loophole and almost pushing me off the wall in his enthusiasm. “Over here!”

  The castle stood on a low hill, and the view was magnificent. Out there, beyond the castle’s earthen ramparts and three moats, beyond a small river with a lazy current and a field about three hundred yards across, overgrown with scrubby bushes, the forest started.

  Zagraba.

  The massive wall of trees gazing back at me from the far side of the river was magnificent and beautiful. A forest whose size rivaled the whole of Valiostr. It stretched on for thousands of leagues.

  There before my eyes was the land where the gods had walked at the dawn of time, the kingdom that had existed in Siala before the times of the Dark Age, when orcs and elves had not even been heard of. The mysterious, fabulous, magical, enchanting, and also bloody, terrible, and sinister Forests of Zagraba.

  How many legends, how many myths, how many endless stories, riddles, and mysteries were hidden beneath the green branches of the forest country? How many beautiful, outlandish, and dangerous creatures roamed its narrow animal tracks?

  The beautiful towns of the elves and the orcs, the famous foliage and the labyrinth, the abandoned idols and temples of vanished races, the remains of the cities of the ogres, almost as old as time itself and, of course, the wonder and the horror of all the Northern Lands—Hrad Spein.

  “My homeland,” Kli-Kli declared in a ringing voice. “Can you just feel that smell?”

  I sniffed the air. There was a cool, fresh smell of forest, honey, and an oak leaf crushed in the palm of your hand.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s wonderful, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is,” I answered quite sincerely.

  The immense carpet of green stretched out in front of us all the way to the horizon, disappearing into the evening mist.

  Zagraba seemed to be endless. I screwed up my eyes, and for a moment I thought I could see the majestic summits of the Mountains of the Dwarves wreathed in violet haze and propping up the sky. Of course, I only imagined it; the great mountains were hundreds of leagues away and impossible to see from there.

  “Why do they call it the Golden Forest?” I asked Kli-Kli, who was pressed right up against the loophole.

  “Golden-leaf trees grow there,” the jester said with an indifferent shrug.

  “It’s getting dark, let’s go back,” I said, casting a last glance at Zagraba. “I don’t want to break my legs on the way down.”

  Twilight was creeping up on the castle and torches were lit in the courtyard. There were not many men there, the bodies of the dead had already been unloaded from the wagon and carried away. I couldn’t see Eel, or Alistan, or Miralissa.

  “Now how can I find our group? I don’t intend to go wandering all over the citadel like a fool.”

  “We’ll think of something,” Kli-Kli said cheerfully.

  An old man in a baggy, shapeless robe came up to us:

  “Master Harold, Master…”—a brief pause—“… Kli-Kli?”

  “That’s right.”

  The old man gave a sigh of relief and jerked his head.

  “Follow me, they’re waiting for you.”

  He shuffled into one of the towers, led us through a long hallway where the walls were hung all over with weapons, and turned onto a narrow spiral staircase, from which we emerged into a hall where the Wild Hearts, Milord Alistan, and Egrassa were already eating.

  “Where’s Mumr?” asked Kli-Kli, sitting down on a bench and pulling a plate toward him.

  “Sleeping, he’s not feeling well,” said Hallas, stuffing a piece of sausage into his mouth and chomping on it.

  “Is he all right?”

  “A slight fever,” said Eel, taking a sip of beer. “He’ll be fine in a couple of days. I’m more worried about Honeycomb.”

  “Miralissa will do everything possible to save him,” said Egrassa, without raising his eyes from his plate.

  The rest of supper was spent in silence.

  When the elfess joined us, Egrassa jumped to his feet and moved up a chair for her. Lady Miralissa nodded gratefully, and it was clear that she was absolutely exhausted. She had dark shadows under her eyes and deep creases running across her forehead; her hair was loose and tangled.

  Milord Alistan poured her some dark wine without speaking, but she merely shook her head and smiled sadly.

  “Wine and food can wait, I have another job to do. Egrassa?”

  “Yes, the men have already made everything ready. We can begin.”

  “Have you eaten?” she asked, turning to us.

  “We are ready, milady,” Milord Alistan answered for all of us.

  Kli-Kli nodded hastily, with his mouth full.

  “Let us go,” she said briefly, and stood up. Egrassa dashed to her and supported her by the elbow.

  “Lady Miralissa,” Hallas said plaintively. “You haven’t said a word about Honeycomb. Is he all right?”

  “Yes, the danger has passed, the warrior will live. He is sleeping now, but I am afraid he will not be able to continue on the journey. It will be two weeks before Honeycomb can get out of bed, and we cannot afford to wait that long. We will leave him in the castle.”

  “Where are we going, Kli-Kli?” I asked the goblin, when Miralissa had left the hall.

  “They’re going to have Ell’s funeral now, so hurry up, Dancer. And don’t forget to pick the ling up off the table, or someone will think he’s a rat and kill him.”

  I grabbed Invincible and set him on my shoulder. I had no idea what I was going to do with him now.

  It was completely dark outside, but the gates of the castle were not locked. The detachment of soldiers that we had met on our way here had only just returned. They had four people from Crossroads with them—the only ones who had managed to hide in the forest when the orcs attacked the village.

  Miralis
sa led us out through the gates and down to the river. On the other bank Zagraba rose up as black as an inkblot against the starry sky. A funeral pyre had been built right at the water’s edge. They had been generous with the wood, and the heap was two yards high. Ell’s body lay on the very top, clad in a black silk shirt. His s’kash and bow lay beside him.

  We halted at a distance, watching as Miralissa and Egrassa approached our dead comrade.

  “And now one more has left us,” said Alistan Markauz.

  “Two, milord,” Eel corrected the count. “Tomorrow we shall have to commit Marmot to the earth.”

  “I’m afraid we shall not even have time for that; we leave at dawn,” the captain of the guard said with a guilty shake of his head.

  “But a funeral—,” the dwarf began. Alistan Markauz interrupted him:

  “They will take care of Marmot’s body, Deler.”

  Miralissa and Egrassa walked back to us.

  “Sleep well, k’lissang. Egrassa and I will take care of your kin,” Miralissa said, and snapped her fingers.

  The fire took immediately. The flames roared up to the sky like a red horse that became a red dragon, roaring as it consumed the wood and the body of the dead elf. Reflected in the water, the magical fire strained upward toward the stars, it howled and wailed, bearing the elf’s soul away into the light. The pyre was more than twenty yards away, but we all moved back, because the heat was unbearable.

  The flames gave a sudden sob, the burnt-out platform on which Ell was lying collapsed down into the open jaws of the heat, and the pyre tossed a shower of sparks up to the cold stars.

  Miralissa began singing in a low, throaty voice, chanting the song that elves sang over a deceased kinsman.

  Nobody said a word until the pyre had been reduced to a heap of winking coals radiating heat.

  “That is all,” said the elfess. She made several passes with her hands and a sudden gust of wind picked the coals and Ell’s ashes up off the ground and swirled them up into the air, filling the night with hot fireflies, then tossed the remains of the pyre into the river.

  The river hissed and snorted in alarm, its calm waters heaved and spat out steam and then swallowed up the remains of our companion.