Shadow Chaser

by Alexey Pehov

  The third orc stopped as if he was suddenly rooted to the ground, and was immediately run through with a lance by one of Fer’s soldiers.

  One-Eye could barely stay on his feet as one of the orcs crashed an ax down onto his shield. I pulled out my knife and committed the most insane act of my life. I took a run, jumped up, and hit the foul creature in the back with my feet, so that I ended up on the ground again. The orc, who wasn’t expecting anything like this, dove forward, fell to his knees, and immediately parted with his head.

  One-Eye nodded gratefully and jumped into the next scrimmage.

  Darkness, I had to get back and pick up my crossbow.

  “Die, little monkey!” Two orcs in helmets had noticed the solitary, innocuous man with a knife. I despairingly flung the knife at one of them, but he playfully knocked it aside with his shield.

  “Harold, behind you!” called Honeycomb, leaping over to me. “Pick up the ax!”

  I sprang back to make way for his ogre-hammer. The battle-flail swung low. Honeycomb was aiming for the legs. The Firstborn jumped up smartly, trying to avoid the heavy studded club. The Wild Heart changed the angle of his blow and the flail flew upward, putting an end to the less agile of the two orcs. The second orc tried to attack, but I was already there with the dead orc’s ax. I struck out clumsily, but put everything I could into it.

  The ax sliced into his shield and stuck there.

  “Get out of there!”

  The orc took a step back, taking my weapon away with him. I took the Wild Heart’s advice just in time and jumped aside. In desperation the Firstborn held his yataghan out in front of him in an attempt to fend off Honeycomb’s blow. The striking head of the ogre-hammer flew higher this time, wound its chain round the orc’s yataghan, and stopped, tying the two weapons together.

  Honeycomb tugged, but the orc kept his nerve and started tugging, too. Honeycomb let go of the handle of his ogre-hammer, stepped forward, and stabbed his dumbfounded opponent with his dagger just below the helmet, in his chin.

  “Harold, what did I tell you? Clear out, go back to your horse!” Honeycomb had already picked up someone else’s sword and was fighting the next Firstborn. The entire cabbage field was seething with clashing weapons, shouts and screams, and blood. The battle had only been going on for a minute, or maybe two, but it seemed to me like an eternity since the start of the attack.

  I picked my knife up off the ground, looked round, spotted Little Bee, and made a dash for her. One of the orcs flung a spear that pierced the links of Sergeant Mouth’s chain mail and stuck in his back. Another two orcs finished off Servin, who was desperately trying to hold them off. One distracted his attention and the other chopped off his arm with an ax.

  I was overwhelmed by fury.

  May the darkness take me, I swear by Sagot that I am a calm man, not given to suicidal acts, but this really got to my liver! Our men were being killed, and I was just rushing round the field, dodging the Firstborn’s yataghans.

  I jumped up on the back of the one with the ax and literally drove the knife into the back of his head. He shuddered, went limp, and started to fall.

  His comrade howled in fury and rushed at me. I was saved by the shield that had fallen from the hands of the orc I’d killed. I held it up in front of me, using both hands. The Firstborn struck once, twice, three times. His yellow eyes were blazing with fury.

  Somewhere in the back of my mind I realized there was plaintive singing in a language I didn’t know weaving itself into the noise of the battle. With every blow that descended on the shield I took several steps back. The orc was beginning to enjoy it, and I could barely manage to raise the shield fast enough against his yataghan. Chips of wood were flying everywhere—this lad ought to have been a woodcutter, not a soldier. I trod on a cabbage, slipped, and almost fell.

  Clang-bash! Clang-bash!

  After the tenth clang-bash, when the accursed shield started pulling my arms out of their sockets and the orc had just swung back for another blow, I resorted to cunning: I didn’t defend myself against the blow, but simply stepped aside when the next attack came.

  The orc put all his strength into the blow, and when he didn’t encounter the usual resistance, he went flying forward, growling viciously. To avoid falling to the ground, the Firstborn took a few more steps, and I smashed the shield against his back. The blow distracted him and then Hallas turned up to help me out.

  The back section of his battle-mattock, the part that looked so much like a punch for working metal, pierced the Firstborn’s armor with a resounding cla-ang and killed him on the spot.

  “Harold, what would I do without your help?” Hallas laughed into his blood stained beard.

  “Behind you!” I shouted to warn him of danger approaching.

  The short little gnome jumped smartly to one side, spun round, and attacked the new enemy.

  Little Bee was still standing where I had left her. I hadn’t even noticed when the fever of battle had carried me so far away from my horse. The crossbow was lying in the dirt, close to her hooves.

  Kli-Kli appeared in front of me.

  The goblin lowered his hands to his belt in a fluent movement, pulled off two heavy throwing knives, which performed glittering somersaults in his fingers, so that he was holding them by the blades, and then he flung them at me.

  I didn’t duck, I didn’t move, and basically I didn’t even have time to feel scared, it all happened so fast.

  One of the knives whistled past my right ear and the other past my left ear, almost slicing it off.

  Amazingly enough, I was still alive.

  I had enough wits to look round. The enemy standing behind me had already raised his ax. The goblin’s throwing knives were sticking out of his eye sockets. The orc stood there for a moment, swaying on his heels, and fell facedown, almost flattening me.

  “You’ll never get even for me saving your skin.” The jester already had a second pair of knives in his hands.

  I couldn’t think of anything to say. I felt too ashamed, remembering how we had all laughed at the goblin’s skill with throwing knives.

  I picked up the crossbow and loaded it hastily.

  “We’re losing, we only have eight against twelve!” the goblin declared.

  Where does he find the time to count?

  “I know!”

  “Then keep your wits about you. Can you hear the shaman singing? When he finishes casting his spell, things will get really bad.”

  A shaman! I turned cold, finally realizing the disaster that song could bring.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Find him and kill him! He’s hiding somewhere!”

  Easily said—kill a shaman!

  Little Bee suddenly lashed out at an orc who was being pressed hard by a Border Kingdom soldier. Her hoof caught him in his unprotected back and the soldier finished off the job.

  “I told you she was a battle horse!” Even in this situation the jester could find the strength to smile. “I know the right gifts to give my friends!”

  Suddenly horns sounded and the second detachment, under Fer’s command, struck the enemy in the rear like an iron fist. Alistan went sweeping past me and sliced the head off one of four orcs who were closing in on Eel.

  I wouldn’t say the Garrakian was exactly having a hard time against four adversaries, but the unexpected help certainly did no harm. In his hands the “brother” and “sister” were fluttering about like butterflies, fusing into a single glittering blur. The “sister” thrust and the “brother” slashed. The “sister” struck from above, aiming at the head; the orc covered himself with his shield and the “brother” immediately slashed open his exposed belly.

  I calmly fired a crossbow bolt into the third orc, hitting him just below the right shoulder blade. Kli-Kli ducked down and slashed the fourth one’s tendons, then Eel finished the job by killing the fallen orc.

  “Miralissa!” I yelled when I saw the elfess, armed with a s’kash. Her ash-gray
hair was covered by a hood of chain mail. “There’s a shaman here!”

  She shouted something in orcic to Egrassa and pronounced a spell, flinging out her hands. Ice appeared under the feet of the orc running toward her and her enemy slipped and skidded forward across it, waving his arms in surprise. He was greeted eagerly by Fer, who brought down his mace on the Firstborn’s helmet. Blood spurted in all directions.

  Suddenly semitransparent, poisonous-green bubbles appeared in the air.

  “Keep away from them!” shouted Miralissa, forcing her Doralissian horse to turn aside sharply. “Egrassa sh’tan nyrg sh’aman dulleh.”

  Without even listening to her, the elf was shooting arrow after arrow, aiming at the sound of the voice. It looked as if Egrassa was insane—why else would he be firing at an absolutely empty spot in the field? The arrows hummed through the air and stuck in the ground, the singing went on, and more and more of the soap bubbles kept appearing. One of the soldiers cried out in pain.

  A sudden blow threw me to the ground and clattered my teeth together.

  “Are you tired of living?” Eel roared.

  The Garrakian was on the alert—he had pushed me out of the way of the shaman’s airborne curse just in time.

  The elf’s next arrow stuck in midair, there was a shriek, and the chanting stopped. An orc wearing a strange-looking headdress appeared from out of nowhere, out of thin air, and fell to the ground.

  “The illusion of invisibility!” Kli-Kli shouted.

  With the death of the shaman, the soap bubbles instantly burst and disappeared.

  The cabbage field no longer rang to the sound of clashing weapons. Everything had ended as suddenly as it had begun. I realized that we had won and by the whim of Sagot I was still alive.

  * * *

  “Easy, my friend, just two more stitches and I’ll be done,” said Eel as he deftly sewed up Lamplighter’s forehead with a crooked needle.

  Mumr hissed and scowled, but he bore it. An orcish yataghan had caught Lamplighter on the forehead and sliced away a flap of skin. When the battle was over, the warrior’s face and clothes were completely covered in blood, and now the Garrakian was stitching the skin dangling over Lamplighter’s eyes back into place with woolen thread.

  “Stop torturing me, Eel, I’ve lost enough blood already! Why don’t you call Miralissa?”

  “She’s busy trying to save the men affected by the shaman’s spell,” said Eel, putting in another stitch. “And don’t worry about all the blood. It’s always like that with wounds on the face. It would be far more dangerous if they’d stabbed you in the stomach and it hadn’t bled at all.”

  “Smart aleck…,” Mumr said, and scowled as Eel started tying off the thread. “Now there’ll be a scar.”

  “They say they look well on a man.” Eel chuckled. “Deler, give me your Fury of the Depths.”

  The dwarf stopped cleaning the blade of his battle-ax and handed the Garrakian his flask of dwarfish firewater. Eel moistened a rag and ruthlessly pressed it against Mumr’s forehead. Lamplighter howled as if he had sat on hot coals.

  “Put up with it, if you don’t want the wound to fester.”

  The Wild Heart nodded with his face contorted in pain and took the rag from the Garrakian.

  “Are you wounded, thief?”

  Milord Rat had taken off his helmet and was holding it in his hands. Naturally enough, the captain of the guard was concerned about my health. After all, Stalkon had instructed him to protect me, and today I had almost been dispatched to the light. A fine joke that would be, if Milord Alistan Markauz failed to carry out an assignment!

  “I don’t think so,” I said apathetically.

  The battle was over, but I still couldn’t get over the delirious fever that is born from the clash of swords. Kli-Kli and I were sitting on the ground beside Little Bee and looking at the trampled cabbage field, scattered with the bodies of orcs, men, and horses.

  “You have blood on your face.”

  Blood? Ah, yes! When Hallas blew the orc’s head off with his wonder-weapon, a few drops of blood had landed on me.

  “Not mine, milord.”

  “Here, wipe it off.” And he kindly handed me a clean piece of rag. “Well done for surviving, thief.”

  I grinned sadly. I’d survived, all right, but others hadn’t been so lucky. An orcish arrow had killed Ell on the spot. Marmot would never feed Invincible again—he had been hit by the shaman’s bubbles, and killed. Honeycomb, too, had been hit by the bubble and now he was lying unconscious, at death’s door. Miralissa was trying to help him and three other warriors, but I wasn’t sure she could do anything.

  The other detachment had also run into orcs, but there were far fewer of the Firstborn there, so Fer and his men had managed to deal with their enemies and come to help.

  “They gave us a good mauling,” Fer said to Alistan.

  “How many?”

  “Eighteen killed, not counting your two men, milord. Hasal, how many wounded?”

  The healer looked up from bandaging a casualty.

  “Slightly wounded—almost everyone. Four seriously. They chopped off Servin’s arm and pierced his stomach. I’m afraid he won’t last the night, commander.”

  “And how many orcs?”

  “No one’s counted them,” Fer said, with a grimace. “No more than thirty.”

  “Thirty orcs after an advantage of fifty. We got off lightly after all.”

  “Commander, what shall we do with the two prisoners?” One-Eye shouted.

  “We’ll deal with them in a moment,” Fer said somberly.

  “Come on, Harold, let’s take a look,” said Kli-Kli, jumping to his feet.

  I wasn’t really interested in looking at orcs. I’d have preferred to dispatch them straight to the darkness, it’s a lot safer that way.

  “Oh, come on!” he said, tugging on my arm. “What’s the point of just sitting around?”

  Cursing the restless goblin to the high heavens, I got up off the ground and plodded after him.

  The two Firstborn had been wrapped round with so much rope that it looked as if they had fallen into some gigantic spider’s web. One was wounded in the leg and the blood was still flowing, but no one had bothered to bandage the wound. Four soldiers were keeping a close watch on the prisoners, one of them holding the point of a lance right against the neck of a Firstborn. Egrassa was standing beside them, toying with a crooked dagger.

  Orcs and elves. Elves and orcs. They look so much alike that at first glance it’s hard for someone inexperienced to tell the two races apart. Both of them have swarthy skin, yellow eyes, ash-gray hair, black lips, and fangs, and they speak the same language. The differences are too small for a casual observer to notice.

  Firstborn and elves are blood relatives. Orcs are a little bit shorter than elves, a little bit stickier, their lips are a little bit thicker and their fangs are a little bit longer. And sometimes that simple “little bit” can cost a careless man his life. The only clear difference is that orcs never cut their hair and weave it into long braids.

  “If you want to die quickly, answer my questions. We’ll start with you,” Fer said to the wounded orc.

  The orc set his jaws, jerked, and gave a gurgling sound. Blood poured out of his mouth.

  “Sagra!” one of the soldiers exclaimed in horror. “He’s bitten off his own tongue!”

  The orc suddenly arched over sideways, and the point of the lance that was just pricking his skin ran right through his neck. The Border Kingdom soldier swore and recoiled, pulling out the lance, but it was too late—from the fountain of blood shooting up toward the sky it was clear that the Firstborn was dead.

  “Kassani, darkness take you! Stop acting like a little kid!” Fer swore at the soldier.

  “They’re all crazy, commander! He stuck himself on it,” said the soldier.

  “Well then, your friend has departed for the darkness, but I won’t give you the chance to do the same,” Egrassa said to the remaining o
rc. “You will answer this man’s questions, or our conversation is going to last for a very long time.”

  The orc looked contemptuously at the elf and spat in his face.

  “I don’t talk to lower races.”

  Egrassa calmly wiped the gob of spittle off his face and broke one of the orc’s fingers. The Firstborn howled.

  “You will answer, or I will break all the rest of your fingers and toes.” The elf’s voice was as cold as the frozen Needles of Ice.

  I turned and walked away. It doesn’t make me feel good watching someone’s fingers get broken. Kli-Kli came with me.

  “Harold, I still can’t believe that we survived.”

  “Well then, pinch yourself on the ear,” I advised him.

  The soldiers who were still on their feet had already put the bodies of the fallen on a wagon found in one of the yards. They put the wounded into another one.

  Honeycomb was still as pale as ever, and grim-faced Miralissa was whispering spells over him and the other warriors who had been hit by the shaman’s spell.

  “How is he?” Kli-Kli asked anxiously.

  “Very bad. The life is leaving him, I can see that, but I can’t stop it. We need a magician’s help here. And as soon as possible.”

  “There’s an experienced magician at Cuckoo, milady,” said one of the wounded soldiers on the wagon.

  “Crud, take some lads and harness horses to the wagons!” Fer shouted.

  The soldiers set to it and led over horses that had lost their masters in the fighting. I went back to the Wild Hearts.

  Hallas was sitting on the ground, carefully tipping gunpowder out of a large silver horn into his little cannons.

  “So that’s what you’ve been hiding in that sack all this time.” Deler sniffed disdainfully. “What other fantastic nonsense have you lot invented now?”

  “We invented what we wanted,” the gnome muttered, and started hastily packing his mysterious weapons away in the sack.

  “Hallas, would you mind?” Alistan Markauz asked, reaching out his hand.

  The gnome gave the Rat a resentful look, but there was no way he could refuse the count, and he reluctantly handed him one of his toys. Milord Alistan turned the little cannon over in his hands and asked, “How does it work?”