by Alexey Pehov
“We’ll find out who it was.”
Eel, Honeycomb, and the guardsmen left. I cautiously stuck my head out the window and looked down. Just as I thought, there was no body on the ground. Soldiers were running round the castle courtyard with torches, but I could tell that they hadn’t spotted anyone, only heard the screaming.
“Harold, is this Paleface’s?” Kli-Kli asked, holding the severed hand squeamishly by one finger.
“How should I know? It looks like his, the fingers are slim, like Rolio’s, but I can only say for certain if I see the assassin himself.”
“I see,” said Kli-Kli, casually tossing the hand out the window.
“And what in darkness made you take my ax, couldn’t you have used your mattock?” Deler grumbled, carefully wiping down the terrible blade with a little rag.
“You’re so possessive, Deler,” Hallas said resentfully. “A real dwarf. All your beardless tribe are the same.”
“Just look who’s talking,” Deler retorted. “When it comes to taking what belongs to others, you’re the champions!”
“We take what belongs to others? We do?” said the gnome, starting to get heated. “Who was it that took the books? Who was it that stole the books of magic, you tell me that?”
“What makes you think they’re yours? They’re ours, we just lent them to you for a while!”
Hallas started to choke on his indignation. The gnome was still searching for an adequate reply when Eel and Honeycomb came back. Alistan followed them in.
“Not a thing,” Honeycomb said with a wry grimace. “No body, no blood, as if there was never anybody there. The guards have combed the entire courtyard—not a trace.”
“Have you got the Key, thief?” Alistan Markauz asked.
“Yes, milord.”
“Good,” the count said with a nod, and left.
“Let’s get some sleep,” sighed Hallas, who was feeling chilly, and he closed the window. “We’ve got another day in the saddle tomorrow, and I still want a good night’s rest. Deler, lock the door and put out the torch.”
“So I’m your servant now, am I?” the dwarf grumbled, but he closed the door, after first telling Eel: “You wake us up in the morning.”
He lowered the oak beam and stuck the torch into the sandbox.
After a few minutes of peace and quiet, I heard Kli-Kli’s voice through the darkness.
“Harold, are you asleep?”
“What do you want?”
“I was just thinking, Paleface will stop bothering you now, right?”
“Maybe. That’s if it was him, of course.”
“Well, who else?”
“Listen, you guys,” Hallas hissed. “Let’s get some sleep, follow Deler’s good example.”
I could hear the sound of quiet snoring coming from the ginger-haired dwarf’s bed.
“All right, all right,” Kli-Kli whispered.
I closed my eyes, but sleep wouldn’t come. Sagot! Paleface had almost reached me tonight!
“Harold, are you asleep?”
“Now what?” I sighed.
“Tell me, what do you think? Where has Balistan Pargaid gone now?”
“You’ll have to ask him that.”
“Jut shut up, will you?” Hallas howled.
“What are you yelling at, Beard-Face? Let me sleep,” Deler muttered without waking up, and turned over onto his other side.
“I’m not yelling, they’re the ones who won’t let me sleep,” the gnome muttered. “Kli-Kli, shut up!”
“All right, I won’t say a word,” the goblin whispered hastily.
I yawned and closed my eyes.
“Harold, are you asleep?” the whispering voice asked again.
Will he ever calm down? I won’t say a word now, just to spite him.
“Harold? Harold!”
Hallas groaned and broke into a string of choice abuse in a mixture of gnomish and human language. “Kli-Kli, one more word, and I’ll lose control.”
“But I can’t get to sleep.”
“Then count something!”
“What?”
“Mammoths!” the gnome exclaimed furiously.
“All right,” the jester sighed. “The first mammoth jumps over the wall.… The second mammoth jumps over the wall.… The third mammoth jumps over the wall.… The fourth mammoth jumps over the wall.…”
Hallas started groaning again.
“The twenty-fifth mammoth jumps over the wall…,” Kli-Kli continued. “The twen-ty sev-enth mammoth jumps … over … the wall.…”
Something went whistling through the air above me and Kli-Kli gasped in fright.
“Why are you throwing your boots, Hallas?” the jester asked indignantly.
“You know why! If you don’t shut up, you’ll spend the night in the corridor!”
Kli-Kli sighed, turned over on the floor, and stopped talking. I was absolutely certain that the goblin had thought up some sly trick. But the minutes passed, and he didn’t make a sound.
I managed to get to sleep after all. Perhaps I was just tired after the long day, or perhaps the sleeping goblin’s snoring sounded like a lullaby.…
* * *
We left Algert Dalli’s castle at dawn, when the waking sun had just painted the edge of the sky a pale pink. Kli-Kli was yawning desperately and muttering sleepily, looking as if he would tumble off his saddle at any moment if someone didn’t support him.
At that early hour of the morning Milord Algert Dalli, his wife, and his daughter came in person to see us off and wish us success. Oro Gabsbarg was also there. I don’t know what Miralissa and Alistan Markauz had told the count, but we were given an escort of forty mounted men under the command of a certain Milord Fer, who turned out to be Dalli’s illegitimate son. Kli-Kli told me that in the Border Kingdom the attitude toward bastards was completely different from in Valiostr. As long as a man was a good warrior, it didn’t matter what blood ran in his veins. Fer was about three years older than Lady Alia and he looked like his father—short and sturdy.
Milord Algert had generously flung open the doors of his armory for us, and the castle’s three armorers had wasted no time in selecting suits for Hallas, Deler, Alistan Markauz, Lamplighter, and Marmot. So now our entire group felt more or less well protected, although the replacements were far from comparable to the armor that had gone to the bottom of the Black River with the ferry. Lamplighter received a personal gift from the count—the dagger with the precious handle.
Fer’s men were supposed to take us as far as a castle where a powerful garrison was quartered, ready to repulse any sudden attack from Zagraba. This castle was the final human stronghold; beyond it lay dense thickets into which no right-minded Border Kingdom warrior would wander without good reason.
Our road lay through coniferous forests with murmuring rivers and reinforced villages. The detachment was challenged from watch towers three times, and we came across five armed patrols.
The Borderland was seething with anticipation; the soldiers told us that the orcs were on the move in the Golden Forest.
“They’ve attacked two villages in the last month, Master Lamplighter,” one of the men told Mumr respectfully. “And they gave a detachment from the Foresty Hills a good hiding, too. Until recently, we only saw orcs once in every six months, and then in the distance, but now they’re testing our strength right along the border of the kingdom, searching out the weak spots. They say the Hand is gathering an army and dreaming of finally doing what they failed to do in the Spring War.”
“Could they really break through?” Mumr asked, frowning and squirming in his saddle. He had taken too much to drink the evening before, and today he had a splitting headache.
“Break through?” The soldier thought for a moment. “I don’t know, Master Lamplighter. If real trouble starts, then they’ll certainly try, only not in our lands. They’ll move past farther to the west, where there’s unbroken forest, with not many garrisons and, pardon me for saying so, the soldiers of
Valiostr haven’t really been doing their job recently. Anyone could slip by the fortresses there, even an orc, even a crowd of Terrible Flutes—if they exist, that is.”
“Sagra forbid, if there is any serious trouble, we’ll be the only ones here trying to fight it,” said another soldier. “Before the main forces get here, and your regulars are assembled in Valiostr … How long is all that going to take? I’ve already moved my family closer to Shamar. It’s safer there; after all it is the capital.”
“What about the elves? Surely the elves will support you?” Eel asked.
“Elves?” The soldier glanced warily at the dark elves riding at the head of the column. “You know what Lord Algert says about elves? He says he’s sick of them and their promises.”
“Hold your tongue, Servin,” one of the sergeants said gloomily. “Fer doesn’t like any loose talk.”
“But I’m right, Khruch. I’m right, and you know it.”
“Maybe you are, but I still don’t like the idea of a s’kash across my head.”
“The dark elves make lots of promises, but who can understand them? They’re not like us.”
“The House of the Black Flame promised to send six hundred warriors to our borders, but not one has arrived yet,” said the soldier, spitting on the ground under his horse’s hooves.
The detachment halted for lunch at a village with no name. The horses were allowed to rest and we were greeted amiably and fed without any complaints, even though there was such a great horde of us. The short break did everyone good and the detachment moved on refreshed and invigorated.
“Fir trees, fir trees, everywhere,” Kli-Kli sighed, looking round gloomily at the landscape.
“What’s wrong with you? Is Zagraba supposed to be some kind of flower garden?”
Kli-Kli snorted contemptuously.
“Harold, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Yes, fir trees grow in Zagraba, but there are other trees, too. Pines, oaks, larches, maples, golden-leafs, birches, rowans, too many kinds to mention…”
“So what harm have fir trees ever done to you?”
“I don’t like them. They’re bad trees. Dark.”
“And there’s some-one hi-ding in them,” said Honeycomb, opening his eyes in mock terror.
“That’s right, for instance Balistan Pargaid and that witch of his! She’ll jump out and shout ‘Whoo-oo-oo,’” Deler added.
“It’s such hard work talking to fools like you,” the jester muttered miserably, and he didn’t speak to us again until that night.
Although it was already the second half of August, and according to all the laws of nature the morning should have been just as hot as the previous day, the weather turned bad again, and if I hadn’t known it was August, I would have thought it was late October.
Hazy and cool—those are probably the two words that best describe the day. The sky was completely covered with swollen, grayish purple clouds, and I began to feel afraid that I would have to travel in the rain again, as I had done on the journey to the Borderland. The cool wind did nothing to improve my spirits, either. Deler grumbled about the ache in his bones, Hallas grumbled about Deler, Kli-Kli grumbled about both of them. I’m sure I don’t need to explain what kind of a din all that created.
“Look, now we’re entering the Land of Streams, as we call this area,” said Servin, the same lad who had started the conversation about orcs the day before. “We’re right on the edge of the inhabited region. In about four hours we’ll be in Cuckoo.”
“Cuckoo?” Marmot asked. “What’s cuckoo?”
“That’s the castle where the garrison is.”
“A-ah. How many men do you have there?”
“Four hundred, not counting the servants and magicians.”
“Magicians?” Hallas asked in a very suspicious tone of voice. For some reason the gnome couldn’t stand magicians of the Order.
“Yes, master gnome, magicians. We have a magician in every fortress. In case the orcs’ shamans show up.”
“If the orcs’ shamans show up, it’s simpler to just climb into your coffin than hope for any help from the Order’s cheap conjurers!” Hallas snorted contemptuously.
“Come now, master gnome, the magicians are really a great help! I remember I was in Milord Fer’s detachment when we were defending Drunken Springs, and a shaman did show up—he almost dispatched all hundred of us to the light. If we hadn’t had a magician there, I swear by Sagra I wouldn’t be talking with you now.”
Hallas muttered something to himself and changed the subject.
Ell came galloping up and said that Miralissa wanted to see me, so I had to follow the k’lissang to the front of the column. The elfess was chatting politely with Fer. But when she spotted me, she reined back her horse and asked:
“Harold, can you sense anything?”
“N-no,” I answered after thinking for a moment. “What should I sense, Lady Miralissa?”
“I don’t know,” she sighed. “Is the Key silent?”
“Yes.” The dwarves’ handiwork had not given any sign since that night at Balistan Pargaid’s house.
“I’m worried by Lafresa’s sudden disappearance. She wasn’t at Mole Castle with Balistan Pargaid, but she must be somewhere, and the count wasn’t too upset when the judgment went against his man.”
“I also got the impression that he had the ace of trumps hidden up his sleeve.”
“Ace of trumps?” She thought for a moment. “Ah, yes! Cards. Yes, you’re right, he must have some contingency plan, or he would not have given up so easily. I suspect the hand of that maidservant of the Master in this, and I thought that you ought to sense her, since you’re attuned to the Key.”
“No, I don’t sense anything, Lady Miralissa.”
“A pity,” she said sincerely. “Although, on the other hand, if you can’t sense her, then she must be somewhere far away.”
“Or close by, but the artifact cannot sense her power,” said Egrassa.
I preferred Miralissa’s explanation; it made me feel a lot safer.
“Lady Miralissa, may I ask a question?”
“Please do.”
“Balistan Pargaid is our enemy, he serves the Master, and yet you let him leave Algert Dalli’s castle without hindrance. Why?”
“Have you still not realized that the laws in the Border Kingdom are different from the laws of Valiostr? Balistan Pargaid had sat at Milord Algert’s table, and to arrest him … Here that would require more substantial evidence than just our word. And in addition, after the Judgment of Sagra, the count was entitled to leave, and no one had any right to stop him.”
I nodded, and in my heart I cursed the damned warriors of the Border Kingdom and their stupid laws.
“What was she talking to you about?” Kli-Kli asked curiously.
“Nothing important.”
The jester cast a wary glance at the gloomy sky and asked:
“Did you know that we’ll be in Zagraba today?”
“Today? But I thought that—”
“Try using your head when you think, Harold. It’ll be a lot better that way, believe me,” the jester remarked. “Time is passing, so we’ll go straight from the castle to Zagraba, and it’s much safer to go there at night.”
The forest thinned out, the gloomy fir trees shrank away to the sides, the road took a turn to the left, and a large village appeared ahead of us.
“Noble warriors, what is the name of that village?” Kli-Kli asked the soldiers with a pompous expression on his face.
“Crossroads,” Servin answered again. “From there it’s only an hour on foot to the castle.”
“A-a-ah,” the jester drawled, gazing hard at the houses in the distance.
Fer raised his clenched fist and the column halted.
“What’s happening?” asked Marmot, breaking off from playing with Invincible.
“A strange kind of village,” Eel hissed through his teeth, pulling his “brother” and “sister” closer to him.
“That’s right,” Lamplighter agreed, hurriedly tying the ribbon round his forehead. “I’d say very strange.”
“What’s strange about it?” I asked, puzzled.
“Can you see any people?”
“It’s still a bit far away,” I replied uncertainly, peering hard at the distant little houses.
“Not too far to see the people,” Marmot countered. “Look—there’s no one by the houses, no one in the street, and the watch towers are empty, too. I don’t know any village in this country that doesn’t have archers on its towers.”
The Wild Heart was right—there was no one on the towers.
“Harold, have you got your chain mail on?” the goblin asked in concern.
“Under my jacket.”
After conferring with the sergeants and Milord Alistan, Fer waved his hand, and the column slowly moved toward the village.
“Keep your crossbow close,” Deler advised me, putting on his helmet.
The soldiers’ sense of alarm infected me, too, and I took out my little weapon, set the string, and loaded the bolts. One ordinary bolt, and one with the spirit of ice. Deler pressed his poleax against his horse’s flank with his foot and also armed a crossbow, which was three times the size of mine. Several soldiers in the detachment did the same.
“Make haste slowly, lads, Fer says to keep your eyes peeled,” said the sergeant, Grunt, when the column entered the village.
The straight street was as empty and quiet as if everybody had died.
“Why isn’t there any stockade here?” I asked.
“No point, the village is too big,” Servin answered, keeping his hand on the hilt of his sword. “It would be too big a job to fence it in, and Cuckoo’s just down the road—”
“Servin, Kassani, Urch, One-Eye!” Fer called, interrupting the soldier’s reply. “Check the houses. In pairs.”
The warriors jumped down off their horses: Two of them ran to the houses on the left side of the street, and two to the houses on the right. The first soldier in each pair carried a crossbow and the second a sword. The swordsman ran to the door of the nearest house, kicked it open, and jumped aside to let the other man in. The warriors of the Borderland worked as precisely as one of the dwarves’ mechanical clocks.