Shadow Chaser (2 page)

“The king, may he reign for a hundred years, has given orders to increase our vigilance. So we’re doing our best.”

“If an army of orcs went tramping past them, they wouldn’t even notice,” Kli-Kli whispered quietly in my ear.

The goblin was right, because it was highly doubtful that your average guardsman would be able to recognize a supporter of the Nameless One even if he walked right under his nose. As yet, the traitors who sympathized with Valiostr’s main enemy didn’t actually look any different from perfectly peaceable citizens.

The crowd at our backs started murmuring more loudly.

“What is all this?”

A dour-looking soldier wearing a corporal’s stripes came toward us from the gates. He was obviously not in the mood for pleasant conversation.

“Hang on there, Mis,” the talkative guardsman said, ignoring the corporal’s rank. “Can’t you see the lady elfess is inquiring after the news?”

The corporal almost fell over when he got a good look at our motley group. A green goblin with blue eyes; three dark elves; a dour knight; nine warriors, one of whom appeared to be an angry gnome; and a dwarf in an absurd bowler hat. Plus a skinny rogue. Not the kind of company you meet in the city every day of the week.

“A-ah…,” the corporal drawled, trying to choose the right words. “Well, if that’s how it is…”

“We don’t wish to detain you,” said Miralissa, with another smile. “May we pass?”

An elf’s smile can put a man who isn’t prepared for it into a prolonged stupor, especially if it’s the first time he has seen those two sharp white blades protruding from over the lower lip.

“Of c-course you can p-pass,” said the corporal, gesturing toward the gates so the guards would let us through. “But remember, only the municipal guard and elves have the right to carry weapons within city limits.”

“But what about nobles and soldiers?” asked Eel, raising his eyebrows in surprise as he broke his silence for the first time.

“Daggers and knives of an acceptable size—that’s the only exception.”

“But we are in the king’s service! We’re not a detachment of mercenaries.”

“I’m sorry, but the law’s the same for everyone,” the corporal responded.

I’d heard about this law. It had appeared about three hundred years earlier, when brawls used to flare up in Ranneng with the speed of forest fires. Those were troubled times, with three noble houses squabbling over power; when the king set aside his important affairs to intervene in the fracas, there were more bodies in the streets than on the Field of Sorna after the battle between the gnomes and the dwarves.

Half of the counts, barons, marquises, and other riffraff with royal blood running in their veins expired right there in the streets. Unfortunately the other half were left alive, and the houses known as the Boars, Oburs, Nightingales, and their supporters still nursed their grudges against each other to this very day.

And so anyone who walks round town carrying a blade the length of a man’s palm or, Sagot forbid, a crossbow, risks a large fine and a couple of days’ rest in an uncomfortable prison cell. This has had quite a remarkably sobering effect on noble gentlemen. After spending a little time in places that were damp and unbearably bleak, their lordships became as meek and mild as lambs … for a while.

“But that can’t be right,” Lamplighter exclaimed: His very heart and soul protested against the idea of such a law.

Mumr, our beloved Lamplighter, was never parted from his immense bidenhander, and now it seemed that in Ranneng the master of the long sword would have to hide his fearsome weapon and make do with a short-bladed knife.

“I’m not asking what business has brought you to our city and which house you intend to serve here,” the guardsman said, giving us a suggestive look.

“We have no intention of entering service with the noble houses,” Milord Alistan snapped.

“It’s all the same to me, milord knight,” said the corporal, raising his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “If you choose not to serve, then don’t. That’s your right. It’s just that the first thought that comes into my head when I see a band of people bearing arms in the city is that one of the houses has hired itself a few more cutthroats.”

“Is there unrest in Ranneng again?” Miralissa asked, tossing her thick ash-gray braid behind her shoulder.

“Just a bit,” the soldier said with a nod. “The Nightingales and the Wild Boars had a set-to just recently in the Upper City. There were two barons slit open from neck to navel. Mmmm … I beg your pardon if I have affronted you, lady elfess.”

“No, indeed, and thank you for answering my questions, kind sir. So, may we pass?”

“Yes, milady. Here’s a paper for you, it will help you to avoid questioning by the patrols.” The corporal took a rolled-up document out of a wooden case hanging at his hip and handed it to the elfess. “It says that you are newly arrived in our glorious city. Welcome!”

“This is for you. For services rendered,” said Egrassa, leaning down from his horse and putting a coin in the corporal’s hand.

“Why, thank you, kind—,” the guardsman began, but when he saw what coin the elf had given him, he broke off and froze, like a statue in the royal park.

It’s not every day that a corporal got to hold a full gold piece in his hand. I had a feeling there would be a party in the guardhouse that evening, and not a single guardsman would be left standing at midnight.

We left the delighted guards and rode in through the gates … with our weapons, though we would have to be careful about carrying them around.

From the lane that began at the city gates, we turned onto a broad street leading into the very heart of the city. The inn to which Miralissa was taking us was located on one of the hills, and as we made our way there I turned my head this way and that, studying the surroundings.

On a small street that began with a monument to the defenders of Ranneng who fell in the Spring War, we were stopped by a patrol of guards, but they left us in peace when they saw the paper that the corporal had given us.

“All right,” said Loudmouth. “I have to go and see how my relatives are getting on. See you at the inn!”

“Greetings to the girlfriend!” Arnkh shouted, not believing his story about relatives, but Loudmouth had already melted into the crowd, leaving his horse in the care of Lamplighter, who was rather annoyed to be given this gift.

The people were as thick on the ground as gkhols in an abandoned graveyard.

“Is this some kind of holiday?” Lamplighter muttered, surveying the crowd with a not entirely friendly glance.

“Certainly is!” replied that know-it-all Kli-Kli. “Exam week at the university. The whole city’s making merry.”

“Very clever of us,” I said drearily. “I can’t stand crowds.”

“I thought you were a thief,” the goblin said.

“Well, so I am,” I replied, not quite understanding what he was getting at.

“I thought thieves loved a crowd.”

“And just why should I love a crowd?”

“I thought a crush was handier for stealing purses,” Kli-Kli said with a shrug.

“That’s a bit below my level,” I snorted. “I don’t deal in purses, my dear fool.”

“Right, you deal in Commissions,” the detestable goblin giggled. “But you know, Harold-Barold, I reckon that pilfering purses with coppers in them from the pockets of halfwits is better than the Commission you have now.”

“Go and annoy Hallas,” I snarled.

Kli-Kli had pricked me in a sore spot. Okay, there was no point in crying over spilt milk. I’d accepted the Commission—I must have been slightly insane at the time—and now there was no way back.

“Harold!” Lamplighter shouted, jerking me out of my moody reverie. “What’s got you so miserable?”

“That’s just his usual state of mind,” the king’s jester interrupted arrogantly. “Our Dancer in the Shadows has been far too glum and gloomy recently.”

“But then, someone else has been far too cheerful and chatty,” I muttered. “Make sure you don’t regret your blathering later.”

“Loudmouth’s the one who blathers,” Kli-Kli retorted. “All I ever do is speak the truth.”

“And you also quote the prophecies of goblin shamans who guzzled magic mushrooms,” I teased the jester. “All their prophecies about a Dancer in the Shadows aren’t worth a rotten sparrow’s egg.”

“Too late to get stubborn now. You accepted the title of Dancer in the Shadows, just like in the prophecy. The
Bruk-Gruk
has never lied!” Kli-Kli began testily, but then he realized I was only teasing him and lapsed into offended silence.

Kli-Kli’s weak point is his beloved goblin
Book of Prophecies,
which he knows from cover to cover. And now, you see, I wasn’t Harold the thief any longer, but a walking prophecy, who was destined to save the kingdom and the entire world. Yeah, sure. If I had my way, I’d rob it, not save it.

“Kli-Kli,” Arnkh put in, “why don’t you tell us if this little book of yours by the shaman Tru-Tru…”

“Tre-Tre, not Tru-Tru, you great ignoramus!” the goblin interrupted the bald warrior resentfully.

“Written by the shaman Tre-Tre,” Arnkh went on as if nothing had happened, but the goblin interrupted him again: “The
great
shaman Tre-Tre!”

“All right. Written by the great shaman Tre-Tre. So, is there anything in it apart from your beloved prophecies?”

“For example?” The native son of the Border Kingdom seemed to have succeeded in catching the goblin off balance.

“Well, for example, a cure for a gnome’s toothache?”

Hallas, who had drawn level with our little group again, heard the conversation and pricked up his ears, although he tried to pretend he wasn’t interested at all.

Kli-Kli spotted this and gave one of his now-watch-what-happens smiles—a clear sign that he was about to play one of his rotten tricks.

The jester paused so theatrically that Hallas started squirming in the saddle with impatience. When the gnome’s fury was just about to reach the boiling point, the goblin spoke.

“It does.”

“And what is it?” I asked, tugging desperately at my bridle and trying to steer Little Bee out of the space between Kli-Kli and Hallas.

As sure as eggs were eggs, the goblin had some rotten trick in mind, and I had no wish to be caught in the line of any heavy objects when the bearded gnome decided to spill the royal jester’s blood

“Oh!” Kli-Kli declared in a mysterious voice. “It’s a very effective remedy. In principle it could have been applied at the very beginning of Hallas’s ailment, and the tooth would have stopped hurting immediately. I swear by the great shaman Tre-Tre’s hat, Harold, it’s the truth.”

“Then why didn’t you say anything?” the gnome roared, setting half the street fluttering in alarm.

Uncle turned round and waved his fist at us, then pointed in Alistan’s direction and ran the edge of his hand across his throat.

“Cut the clowning, Kli-Kli,” Marmot said good-naturedly. “People are looking.”

“All right, not another word,” the goblin promised solemnly, gesturing as if he were locking his mouth shut.

“What d’you mean, not another word?” the gnome asked indignantly. “Deler, tell that green-skinned lout that if he doesn’t give me the remedy, I won’t answer for myself!”

Kli-Kli gazed at the gnome with his blue eyes and said with a very doubtful air, “I’m not so sure you’ll like the goblin remedy for a toothache, Hallas.”

“Can’t you just tell me, Kli-Kli?”

“You won’t use the method anyway,” said Kli-Kli. “And I’ll simply have revealed a goblin secret for nothing.”

“I promise that I will use your method this very moment!” said the gnome, struggling desperately to hold himself back from wringing the goblin’s neck.

A broad smile split Kli-Kli’s green face from ear to ear, making him look exactly like a wickedly contented frog.

I worked away even more desperately with my bridle, holding Little Bee back until I was beside Lamplighter, and the goblin and the gnome were ahead of me. My brilliant maneuver did not go unnoticed by Marmot, Deler, and Arnkh, who repeated it precisely. Hallas and Kli-Kli were left on their own: None of us wanted to be caught between the hammer and the anvil.

“Remember, you promised to use the goblin method,” the prankster reminded the sick man. “Well then, in order to cure a sick tooth, you have to take a glass of ass’s urine and hold it in your mouth for an hour, then spit it out over your left shoulder, preferably into your best friend’s right eye. Your toothache will disappear instantly!”

Hallas gave the goblin a baleful glance, spat juicily on the ground under the hooves of his horse, and urged it on. I think Kli-Kli was rather upset. Like everyone else, he’d been expecting thunder and lightning.

“Tell me, friend Kli-Kli,” I asked the downhearted goblin. “Have you ever tried that remedy yourself?”

The jester looked at me as if I were demented: “Do I look like an idiot, thief?”

I just knew he was going to say something like that.

*   *   *

“Behold and tremble, Harold,” said Honeycomb.