Shadow Blizzard (52 page)

He grabbed the spear sticking in his side with his left hand, pushed it hard away from him, and was delighted to see the sharp butt end of the spear strike the orc in the chest, taking him by surprise. Then he shifted the spear to the right, giving himself the opportunity to move close to his dumbfounded opponent.

Sing, flute! Sing!

The Firstborn parted with his head, and the count pressed his left hand to his right side. It was bad. The count knew what happens when steel pierces the liver. It is the end.

Demanding hands with slim elegant fingers were laid on his shoulders. He roared furiously and jerked his shoulders to throw them off, forcing Death to step back.

“It’s not time! I can still take another one!”

The bridge came to an end. He had to hold his sword in one hand and squeeze his wounded side with the other. At least that would stop the bleeding and give him one more minute.

Sing, flute! Sing!

Make Death laugh! Gladden her with his song, so that she would remember this battle forever. How annoying that apart from her and these yellow-eyed reptiles, no one would see his finest fight of all! And the flute sang, and the Singing Steel of the sword sang its fierce and furious harmony. Step back, strike, catch on the counterstrike, step to the side. Another strike. And another. Press his back against the gates. Strike. Cover himself.

He threw his left hand out in front of himself, and the blood from his glove flew into the orc’s eyes. The orc lost momentum for an instant and the count, grasping his sword with both hands and ignoring the bleeding, chopped at the orc’s leg and charged him.

Sing, flute! Sing!

The song of the flute rang out over Zagraba and spread out across the world. He wondered if the group could hear it. Probably not, they were far away now. Very far away. The count smiled triumphantly.

Everything went dark. There was a roaring in his ears and for some reason he felt dizzy. He swung out blindly, acting intuitively, anticipating the next blow every time. Oh, just a little bit longer.

The blade of his sword struck something hard and halted for an instant, and the hilt was almost torn out of his hands, then he heard someone’s short gurgling shriek.

Sing, flute! Sing!

Well, Death, do you see? This is much better than arrows. He was going to fight a little longer. The orcs would remember this battle, and they would tell their grandchildren about him.

Why is it so dark? Why do I feel so bad? Are those your hands again, Death? It’s not time yet! It’s not time! Can you hear the flute singing? Can you hear the music?

Sing, flute! Si—

17

OUT OF THE FOREST

The next morning Sunpatch didn’t say a word about what I’d seen the night before, and I didn’t ask her any more questions. Kli-Kli obviously suspected something, because she kept giving me suspicious glances all morning, but—Sagot be praised—she didn’t try to pick my brain. The mist that had lingered in Zagraba for the last two days had disappeared overnight. Hallas was a lot better; at least he wasn’t as pale as the day before and his breathing was stable. Sunpatch whispered spells over the gnome, while Fluffy Cloud handed out fresh bread, meat, and cheese (goodness only knows where all that came from!) to our somber little band. But just as we were about to start eating, the elk came back and we were forced to eat our rations on the move—Runner in the Moonlight wasn’t going to wait while we satisfied our hunger sitting on the grass.

The four elk ran all day long, stopping only twice at the dryads’ request. Even after all that crashing through the densest thickets in the depths of the forest, the massive beasts didn’t seem to tire at all, which is more than could be said for us, although we were just sitting on their backs. The dryads hardly spoke to us, limiting themselves to brief meaningless phrases, although the little Daughters of the Forest were emphatically polite and affable with Egrassa.

The gobliness Kli-Kli had been pensive and dejected. There was no more of the tomfoolery that had become so familiar. The jester had disappeared. Kli-Kli had become herself, and I wasn’t used to that. To be honest, I sometimes caught myself thinking that I rather missed the relentlessly cheerful fool.

A brief break was followed by more furious galloping through the autumn forest. The huge creatures hurtled along as if they were fleeing from a fire, and we had to hold on tight. They didn’t stop until it was twilight, and I had the impression that our horned steeds could have run without stopping for a couple of days, and the darkness didn’t bother them at all.

*   *   *

The campfire was burning. Mumr was quietly playing his reed pipe. The dryads and the elk had disappeared into the dark forest, leaving us to ourselves.

“Where do they go off to?” asked Eel.

“To talk to the forest,” Egrassa replied after a short pause. “They find out the news, ask for advice, maybe something else as well. I don’t know.… Neither we nor the orcs have ever learned to listen to the voice of the forest. So I can’t really tell you. Maybe Kli-Kli knows more.”

“No, I don’t. I know just as much as Egrassa. The forest’s daughters are the only ones who can talk to it. Well, and the flinnies … sometimes. Our old folks say the goblins used to be able to talk to Zagraba, but that was in the distant past. Zagraba doesn’t speak to us now, the only ones we can talk to are the most gossipy forest spirits.… Too much was lost during the Gray Age.…”

*   *   *

Lamplighter had gone to see how the gnome was, and suddenly we heard him shout: “Hallas is awake!”

Lucky was sitting slumped against a tree, feeling at his bandage. When he spotted us, the gnome gave a crooked grin and then hissed at the pain.

“Who wrapped me up so nice and tight?”

“Lie down,” said Kli-Kli, darting across to him. “You were wounded.”

“Well, since I’m talking and I’m alive, it can’t be too serious,” the gnome chuckled, but he stopped fiddling with the bandage. “Who did this to me?”

“Don’t you remember anything?”

“I do remember something,” the gnome said thoughtfully. “But abyss of the depths! My head’s spinning and my face is all on fire! Why don’t you say something?”

“You’ve lost an eye,” Eel said harshly, deciding not to hide anything. “You were badly hurt. If we hadn’t had help, we’d have sung you the ‘Farewell’ by now.”

Hallas chewed on his lips and thought for a moment.

“Then I was lucky. An eye’s not a head. I’ll get over it somehow.… But where’s Deler? And I don’t see Milord Markauz anywhere, either.…”

“They weren’t as lucky as you were,” said Eel, telling the hard truth again. “They’re dead.”

“Deler … How did he…?”

Eel told him.

“Leave me,” the gnome mumbled after he heard the story, and turned away.

Lamplighter was about to say something, but Eel just shook his head gently. We all went back to the fire, but Kli-Kli stayed with the gnome, despite his request.

“They were very close. It’s strange, really,” Eel said unexpectedly. “When Lucky came to the Lonely Giant, he and Deler very nearly came to blows. And then during a raid Hallas’s platoon was caught in an ambush set by the Crayfish Duke. A magician of the Order led them into it. They were going to string the gnome up, but Deler saved him, almost took him down off the scaffold. After that the gnome got his nickname of Lucky, and he and the dwarf were absolutely inseparable, although never a day went by without them quarreling over something.…”

“Well, you please yourselves, but I’m going to bed,” Mumr sighed. “We’ll be galloping all day long again tomorrow.”

“Egrassa!” I said, taking the Key out of my bag, “I think you’d better keep this.”

The elf looked at the artifact and hung it round his neck without saying a word. Then he asked: “What are they like, Harold?”

“Who?”

“The Doors.”

I thought about it.

“I can’t describe them properly.”

“I understand,” Egrassa said, and suddenly smiled. “No one can describe them. Probably someday I’ll get the chance to go down and see what the master craftsmen of my people created. It’s very beautiful there, isn’t it?”

“Not all the time,” I replied cautiously. “I’m no great lover of beauty that can bite you, if you understand what I mean.”

“They say there are many hoards of treasure. Did you pick up anything for yourself?” Eel asked, and the corners of his mouth trembled in a faint smile of mockery.

“Not very much,” I muttered, remembering the emeralds that I’d lost. “The orcs took everything I brought out of Hrad Spein.”

“My sympathies,” said Egrassa.

I wondered if he was mocking me or being serious.

“Can I ask a question?” I asked, to change the subject.

“Go ahead.”

“Which orc clan has black-and-white badges?”

“Black and white? You must have got something confused. What made you ask that?”

“I saw the bodies of orcs in the Palaces of Bone. They had black-and-white badges on their clothes.”

“That clan hasn’t existed for a long time. They were The Lost. We wiped them out during the Gray Age.”

“The Lost?” Kli-Kli sat down beside us, caught Eel’s eye, and said, “Hallas has gone to sleep. So, The Lost … that was what you said, wasn’t it? Argad’s clan?”

“Yes, goblin, Argad’s clan. We went to great lengths to wipe it off the face of the earth.”

“Why such determination?”

“Argad led his warriors almost as far as Greenwood and we couldn’t tolerate a slap in the face like that. It took us some time, but we managed to defeat them. The last few hundred of The Lost took refuge in the Palaces of Bone, in one of the seven fortresses that served as checkpoints through which everyone who wished could pass without hindrance. It was as if the black-and-whites had gone completely insane; they started attacking everybody, even their own kinsmen. The other clans turned their backs on them, and that played into our hands. We took that fortress, and our shamans fused Argad and his generals into the central tower. Alive. Or that’s what the legends say. Since then very few have been brave enough to pass through that fortress. My forebears rather overdid things, and the spirits of the dead still take their vengeance on travelers.”

“I walked through it,” I said casually.

“You’ve seen Argad?” Egrassa asked, gazing at me incredulously.

“If one of the dead orcs fused into the tower was Argad, then yes.”

“Then you’re lucky, if you managed to walk through that accursed place safe and sound.”

“Or your legends are mistaken,” Eel retorted in a quiet voice.

“It’s just that Harold’s a Dancer, that’s all there is to it,” said Kli-Kli, offering her weighty opinion. “No one else would have got through.”

“Thank you, Kli-Kli,” I answered her sarcastically. “You’ve really convinced me of just how special I am.”

“But you really are special!” she protested. “You’re a Dancer in the Shadows! The great book
Bruk-Gruk
never lies!”

“You’re getting monotonous,” I sighed.

“The dryads are coming,” said Kli-Kli, and Sunpatch and Fluffy Cloud stepped out of the darkness into the circle of light.

“The forest has spoken with us,” Sunpatch declared, but she didn’t sit down yet. “The orcs are on the march. The war has begun.”

I gasped and Kli-Kli squealed. Mumr, who hadn’t managed to get to sleep yet, swore. Eel and Egrassa remained impassive, as if they’d been told we wouldn’t be getting sweet buns for breakfast tomorrow, not that a war had started.

“When did it happen?”

“A few days ago.”

“Is that all we’re supposed to know?”

“No, but we understand nothing about war and we cannot tell you in the way you should be told. We will only bewilder and confuse you. Babbling Brook has sent a flinny to you; he will be here soon.”

“How soon?”

Fluffy Cloud closed her eyes as if she was listening to the wind wandering through the naked branches of the trees.

“He will be here in a few minutes. And in the meantime, I think you ought to know that tomorrow we shall have to change direction.”

“How?”

“To go west. We do not wish you to leave the forest and fall straight into the hands of the orcs.”

Right. They didn’t want the Rainbow Horn to fall into the orcs’ hands. They couldn’t care less about us.

“We shall lead you to the western bank of the Black River. You will be close to a human city. Moitsig, if I remember correctly. The orcs have passed it by. The flinny will be here soon. Tomorrow we shall get you out of the Golden Forest.”

The dryads disappeared into the trees again. They obviously weren’t very fond of our jolly company.

“Now, what does that tell us?” said Lamplighter, scratching his stubbly cheek thoughtfully. “If we leave the Golden Forest tomorrow … Then at that speed we’ll get out of Zagraba in three … no, in two days?”

“Let’s hope for exactly that,” said Eel, clenching and unclenching his fists. “Things are getting hot now in the south of the kingdom.”

“But if we come out on the western bank of the Iselina, then do we go straight from Zagraba into Valiostr?”

“You always were a genius, Harold,” said Kli-Kli. “Yes, you’re absolutely right. We’ll be in the most southern part of the south—the south of Valiostr. You can’t get any farther south. From Moitsig to Ranneng is only a nine-day journey. Then a little bit farther, and we’re home.”

“Don’t, Kli-Kli,” said Eel. “Don’t ever try to guess the future. We don’t know what’s going to happen to us.”

“I thought we’d leave Zagraba on the border with the Kingdom, near Cuckoo.”

“Near Cuckoo? No, Harold, you’re way off target there. Way, way off. We’re nowhere near Cuckoo,” Kli-Kli snorted, and reached her hands out to the fire.

“When you were in Hrad Spein, didn’t you realize how far you walked, thief?” Egrassa asked, and his eyes glinted. “It was a distance of many leagues. You left the Palaces of Bone at a place far away from the entrance, and then how far did you walk with the Firstborn? We barely managed to reach the Labyrinth in time.”