Shadow Chaser (49 page)

“There are no safe places, Harold,” Honeycomb chuckled. “Death will creep in even through stone walls, it just depends what fate was written down for you when you were born. I remember there was a witch who predicted that Arnkh would drown. Arnkh just laughed at her, but now you see the way things have turned out.… If you’re afraid of wolves, don’t go to Zagraba.”

“If there were only wolves there…”

“True enough,” the giant agreed, taking a mouthful from his mug of beer. “Like I said—it’s fate.”

“I’ll go and get some sleep,” I said, getting up from the table. “I can’t sit here any longer.”

“Stay there, Harold-Barold, swig your wine,” said Kli-Kli, jumping to his feet. “No point in tempting fate!”

“Meaning what?” I asked, puzzled.

“There’s a rumor going round the guards at the gates that Balistan Pargaid has left.”

“So what?”

“When he arrived here with his men, there were twenty of them, but when he left, somehow there were only eighteen. One was run through by Mumr, and that leaves nineteen. Where’s the other one got to?”

“Paleface!” I felt my mouth turn dry instantly. “Maybe I’ll stay and drink a little more after all.”

“That’s right,” the goblin said with an approving nod, “wandering around the castle on your own would not be good for you.”

“Have they tried to find him?”

“Are you joking? They’ve crept into all the nooks and crannies.… But in a humungous place like this, you could hide a mammoth and no one would find it until it died and started to stink. So imagine how hard it is to find a man.”

“And you didn’t tell me this before?”

“I didn’t want to upset you and spoil your appetite,” Kli-Kli said, giving me an innocent look.

“Scat, get out of my sight. You’re worse than the plague.”

“Don’t take it so badly, Dancer, after all, we’re with you. I think I’ll take a drink as well, to keep you company. Do you think they’ll bring me some milk if I ask?”

“Maybe…” The only thought in my head right now was of Paleface.

For some reason I never doubted for a second that he had stayed behind after the count’s detachment left in order to dispatch your humble servant into the light. Thoughts like that did nothing to improve my mood, and I could barely wait for the end of this dreary rigmarole of pompous speechifying and singing to the health of all the warriors. When I did finally get back to my room, to settle my nerves I checked the windows, the doors, and the chimney. The chimney was too narrow; there wasn’t much chance Paleface would be able to get in that way. The bar on the door was a hefty oak beam, and the windows were fifty yards above the ground; there was no way Paleface could climb up that way—not unless he could fly, that is.

Kli-Kli, Hallas, and Deler had fallen asleep long ago, but I still couldn’t nod off. I just lay there on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, until eventually sleep overcame me, too.

*   *   *

I was woken by a fiendish howl of pain that made me tumble out of bed, grab my crossbow, and squat down. I swung my head around drowsily, trying not to make myself a target and wondering what exactly was going on.

“What happened?” yelled Deler.

“Hey! Is everything all right in there?” someone shouted outside the door.

“Who screamed like that?” Deler asked again.

“Let’s have some light!”

“Open the door!” Honeycomb shouted, pounding on it with his fists.

There was a scraping sound and a shower of sparks, and a candle lit up in Hallas’s hand.

“Why are you yelling like fishwives at the market, it’s all over,” the gnome grumbled, lifting the candle to light a torch.

“Hey, you! Do you hear me? Open the door!” Honeycomb shouted, straining his lungs to the limit.

“Stop yelling! Just a moment!” said Hallas, moving the bolt to open the door and let Honeycomb and Eel into the room. Some of Algert Dalli’s soldiers peeped in at us from the corridor.

“What happened in here?”

“Some mountain-climber tried to get through the window and I swelped him with Deler’s ax, to teach him not to go disturbing decent folks at night by climbing in their windows,” Hallas muttered.

The window was open, Deler’s bloody ax was standing by the wall, and there was a severed hand lying on the floor. Someone had just lost the end of his left arm.

It turned out that Hallas had woken up in the night and taken a walk to answer a gnomish call of nature. When he came back to the room, he had decided to light up his pipe, but he opened the window so that the room wouldn’t get smoky. Literally a minute later a hand had appeared from outside, followed by another. Hallas had quite correctly decided that normal people sleep at that time of night, and don’t go climbing up sheer walls like spiders, so he’d picked up the dwarf’s ax and hit the hand that was nearest to him.

“And then you lot started yelling,” the gnome concluded.

“Honeycomb, let’s go and check,” said Eel, making for the door.

“What for?” Hallas asked in amazement. “After a tumble from this height, he’s not just going to get up and walk away.”

“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.”