Shadow Chaser

13 Crossroads

That day Lamplighter was the hero of the castle. It’s no secret that what the inhabitants of the Border Kingdom value most in a man is his mastery of a weapon, and that morning Mumr had demonstrated that he certainly knew how to use a sword. All day long the soldiers of the castle garrison treated our hero with respectful deference, as if he were made out of the finest Nizin porcelain.

In the evening Milord Algert Dalli held a feast at which all the warriors of the castle were present. Mumr was seated in the place of honor and enough food for an entire regiment was heaped up around him.

Some of Lamplighter’s glory was even reflected onto me and the Wild Hearts. We sat beside him, at the same table as all the noble-born. Frankly, I’d rather hide away in the darkest corner of a hall, at the very farthest table, otherwise I feel too exposed. I think that pair of gluttons, Hallas and Deler, took the whole thing more simply than anyone else—they just gobbled up and swilled down everything that they could lay their hands on without the slightest embarrassment, belching deafeningly and constantly striking up new arguments with each other.

All the endless toasts raised to Milord Algert Dalli, his lovely daughter, Milord Alistan Markauz, the glorious elves, Master Lamplighter, the death of the orcs, the Border Kingdom, and so on and so forth had already set my head spinning.

Deler was red-faced from so much drinking, Hallas was feeling drowsy, Marmot’s tongue seemed to be tied in knots and, to Kli-Kli’s intense delight, he roused squeals from the lovely ladies by trying to stuff Invincible into a jug of wine. The goblin was really enjoying life, and he shared his joy with everyone else around him. The only ones displeased with his performance were Algert Dalli’s own personal fools, who watched the little jester with poorly concealed envy and hatred. It looked as if they could well end up giving Kli-Kli a good drubbing by the end of the evening’s festivities.

One dish followed another, one song followed another, and when it became absolutely unbearable to sit at the table any longer, Honeycomb nudged me with his elbow:

“Did you hear? Tomorrow we set out bright and early; if the gods are kind to us, we’ll be in Zagraba in two days’ time.”

“I can’t say the idea pleases me all that much. I reckon it’s a lot safer sitting between stone walls than wandering through some gloomy old forest.”

“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.”

“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.

The seconds dragged on, and I was beginning to think the lads must have fallen into the cellar, they were gone so long. The same thing was happening on the other side of the street. Eventually the men came out of the houses and walked back.

“Nobody!” said a soldier from the first pair.

“The same on our side, commander, the houses are empty. No damage, nothing broken, food on the table, but the soup’s cold.”

“I’m sure it will be the same in the other houses, too, Milord Alistan,” Honeycomb shouted to the count.

“Maybe there’s a festival of some kind, or a wedding?”

“We don’t have any festivals,” said a warrior with a lance. “And weddings aren’t held early in the morning.”

“Orcs?” Lamplighter asked.

“It can’t be. Cuckoo’s just down the road. The Firstborn would never dare attack a village so close to a garrison.”

“Urch, Kassani, check the tower!” Fer ordered.

The tower was close by, only ten yards from the road, at the edge of a field. While the lads were checking the houses, three of the mounted soldiers had kept their eyes on it, holding their crossbows ready. An archer could easily be hiding up there.

One of the soldiers started climbing up the shaky ladder, with a knife clutched in his teeth, while another held his crossbow pointed straight up in case an enemy head should suddenly appear in the square hole in the floor. The soldier with the knife clambered up and disappeared from view for a second. Then he reappeared and shouted:

“No one!”

“Is there anything up there, Urch?” asked Fer, raising his visor.

“A bow, a quiver of arrows, a jug of milk, commander!” Urch replied after a brief pause. “Blood! There’s blood here on the boards!”

“Fresh?” shouted one of the sergeants, drawing his sword.

“No, it’s dry! And there’s only a little bit, right beside the bow!”

“Kassani, what is there on the ground?”

“I can’t see anything,” said the soldier below the tower. “Just ordinary earth, and we’ve trampled it.”

Ell rode across to the tower, jumped off his horse, handed the reins to the soldier, then squatted down on his haunches and started studying the ground.

“Harold,” the jester called anxiously, “can you smell anything?”

“No.”

“I think there’s a smell of burning.”

“I can’t smell it,” I said after sniffing at the air. “You must have imagined it.”

“I swear by the great shaman Tre-Tre, there’s a smell of something burning.”

“Blood!” shouted Ell. “There’s blood on the ground!”

The elf jumped onto his horse and galloped across to Fer, Alistan, and Miralissa.

“He was killed on the tower, probably by an arrow, and he fell.”

“I see,” said Milord Alistan, tensing his jaw muscles. He pulled his chain-mail hood up over his head and put on a closed helmet with slits for his eyes. As if on command, Ell and Egrassa put on half-helmets that covered the top part of their faces.

“There’s something bad here, oh, very bad!” said Lamplighter, looking round nervously for any possible enemy.

But the street was as empty as the houses around us. Not just empty, but dead. There were no birds singing, no cows mooing in the barn, no dogs barking.

“The dogs!” I blurted out.

“What do you mean, Harold?” asked Egrassa, turning toward me.

“The dogs, Egrassa! Have you seen one? Have you heard them bark?”

“Orcs,” one of the soldiers said, and spat. “Those brutes hate dogs and they kill them first.”

“Then where are the bodies? Did they take them with them?” asked Marmot.

“Some clans do that,” Kassani said, climbing into his saddle. “They make ornaments out of dogs’ skins.”

“Urch, come down!” one of the sergeants shouted.

“Wait, commander, smoke!” cried Urch, pointing toward the center of the village.

“Thick?”

“No, I can just barely see it.”

“What’s burning?”

“I can’t see for the roofs of the houses.”

“Come down!”

Urch climbed down the ladder and got onto his horse.

“We move forward. Stay alert. We cover our back,” said Fer, and lowered his visor with a smooth movement.

“You know, Harold,” the goblin said in a whisper. “I’m beginning to feel afraid that we’ll run into orcs.”

“Me, too, Kli-Kli. Me, too.”

We caught the charred smell twenty houses away from the site of the fire. A huge barn belonging to a well-to-do peasant was burning. Or rather, it had already burned down. What we found was a heap of ash, still smoking slightly.

The smell of smoke and ash was mingled with the smell of burned flesh.

“Check it,” Fer rumbled from under his helmet.

One of the soldiers covered his face with his hands and walked to the extinguished fire. Walking across the cold embers and stepping over burnt-out beams, he stirred the ash with the toe of his boot and ran back to us. His face was pale.

“They were all burned, commander. Nothing but charred bones. They drove them into the barn and set fire to it. More than a hundred of them.”

Someone sighed loudly behind me and someone else swore.

“How could this have happened?”

“Someone will pay for this!”

“Stop sniveling! Forward, at a walk,” Fer said harshly. “Crossbowmen move up into the front line.”

“What about the dead, commander?”

“Later,” Fer replied.

We found the other villagers on the small square, where there was an inn and a wooden temple to the gods—more than twenty-five corpses. All the bodies had been gutted, like fish, their heads had been cut off and heaped up in one big pile. The stench of blood and death hammered at our nostrils and the buzzing of thousands of flies rang in our ears. It looked as if a crowd of insane jesters had run through here, splashing blood left and right out of buckets.

One of the soldiers dismounted and puked violently. And to be quite honest, I almost followed his example. It cost me an immense effort to keep my breakfast in my stomach.

Things like this just shouldn’t happen. Things like this have no right to exist in our world!

Men. Women, old people, children … Everyone who had not been burned in the barn was lying in the square, which was covered in blood.

“There,” said Marmot, with a nod.

There were seven bodies hanging on the wall of the inn. Their hands and feet had been nailed to the planks, their stomachs were slit open, and their heads were missing. Two women had been hanged on a rope thrown across the sign of the inn, and their bodies were swaying gently in the light breeze.

I heard a chirping sound and turned my head toward it. A small creature with gray skin, no bigger than a baby, broke off from devouring flesh and raised its bloody face toward us, blinking eyes that were like red saucers. A second one noticed that we were watching it and hissed maliciously.

A bowstring twanged and the first creature squealed and fell, pierced through by an elfin arrow. The second scavenger went darting away and Ell missed it. It disappeared behind the houses, chirping viciously.

“Gkhols, a curse on them!” Deler growled.

“The corpse-eaters are already feasting…”

“Take down the bodies,” Fer ordered his soldiers.

They started cutting through the rope holding up the two women and taking down the seven bodies off the wall.

“I don’t like the smell of this place,” Kli-Kli groaned.

“I don’t either, Kli-Kli.”

“The ears have been cut off all the heads,” said Eel, examining the corpses dispassionately.

“The Grun Ear-Cutters,” one of the soldiers told us. “This is their work.”

“Ear-Cutters?” Hallas repeated, raising one eyebrow.

“Punitive detachments. They like to collect ears.”

“I see.”

“Fer, tell me, could anyone have been left alive?” Alistan Markauz asked the commander of the column.

“I doubt it,” the Border Kingdom warrior said somberly, watching his men carefully setting down the dead bodies removed from the wall. “Hasal, how long ago did this happen?”

“Yesterday evening, commander. The ash from the fire is barely smoking, the blood has all congealed.”

“We need to get to Cuckoo as soon as possible; we can still overtake the Firstborn and have our revenge.”

“We need to check the rest of the village; the orcs could still be here,” Miralissa said with a shake of her head.

“Why, Tresh Miralissa? What would they be doing here?”

“Who can understand the Firstborn, Fer? Farther on the street divides, which way do you intend to lead the detachment?”

“One-Eye, you’re from here, aren’t you?” Fer asked a soldier with a black bandage over his left eye.

“Yes.” The lad’s face was greener than a leaf in spring. “My aunt, my sisters … Everyone…”

“Pull yourself together, soldier! Where do these two streets lead?”

“They run separately to the end of the village, commander. The rich people lived farther on, and the orchards start there…”

“I’m thinking of dividing the detachment into equal halves, Milord Alistan. We need to explore both streets. What if there is someone from the village still alive, after all?”

“Dividing up your forces may not be wise.”

“But even so, I think it’s the best way.”

“Act as you think best, you are in command here.”

“Grunt, Mouth, take your platoons down the street on the left. Eagle, Torch, you come with me.”

“Yes, commander.”

“Ell, Honeycomb, Hallas, Eel, Harold, Kli-Kli, go with Grunt,” Alistan Markauz ordered. “Lady Miralissa, Egrassa, Marmot, Lamplighter, and I will follow Fer’s detachment.”

“Is it a good idea to split us up, milord?” Deler asked peevishly, testing the keenness of his battle-ax blade with his thumb.

“We can’t weaken one of the detachments. They might need our help.”

“Let’s move,” Fer commanded. “Mouth, we’ll meet at the end of the village.”

“Yes, commander.”

“If anything happens, blow your horns,” the knight said, and started his horse.

“Mind your beard, Beard-Face!” Deler boomed to Hallas.

“You worry about yourself,” the gnome replied good-naturedly, adjusting his grip on the handle of his mattock.

We moved into the street, following the two platoons of Fer’s somber and wary soldiers.

“Crud, Brute,” the sergeant said to two twin brothers, “go in front, thirty paces ahead, where I can see your backsides. Keep your eyes peeled. If you see anything, come straight back.”

The two soldiers moved ahead on their horses, trying to spot enemies.

Ell also urged his horse on and rode alongside the sergeant, holding an arrow in the string of his bow.

“I reckon this is stupid,” Hallas grumbled. “Why would the orcs wait about for us to come and tickle their bellies?”

“The Firstborn are capable of any filthy trick, master gnome,” said one of the soldiers. “And the Grun Ear-Cutters are the worst of all.”

“Harold, Kli-Kli, stay behind me. If anything happens, I’ll take them on,” said Hallas.

“You’re our little defender,” Kli-Kli giggled, but he followed the gnome’s advice and held Featherlight back a little.

The two scouts moved along slowly in front of us, but the street was calm and quiet.

The neat little houses with shutters and doors painted blue and yellow looked ominous, as if there was some threat lurking in them. The street widened out and the houses and fences painted blue and yellow became larger. The gates of a house where there were sunflowers growing in the garden had been knocked down and were lying on the ground. Somebody had used an ax to good effect here. There was a human body, bristling with arrows, lying on the porch. Like all the corpses in the village, it had no head. I looked away—I’d seen enough dead bodies for one day.

The houses on the left of the road came to an end and the orchards began. The thick bushes along the road oozed menace—an entire army of orcs could be hiding in there, and archers could easily be concealed in the branches of the apple trees, with their dense greenery. The soldiers kept a careful eye on the hedges, but the only movement was a startled wagtail that fluttered up off a branch and flew away behind the trees.

We had almost reached the end of Crossroads—three houses on the right, a small field, and then a forest of fir trees. On the left there was a field of cabbage, and Kli-Kli remarked that it would be a good idea to pinch a couple of cabbages for supper, the peasants wouldn’t have any use for them now. The goblin hinted clumsily that I ought to steal the cabbages, but after what I had seen in the square, my appetite had been completely destroyed, and I told the goblin so without mincing my words.

Disaster came when no one was expecting it. The immense gates of the last two houses suddenly collapsed and arrows came flying out through the dust raised when they hit the ground.

Screams of pain, the rustling of swords being drawn, the whinnying of horses.

“Orcs!”

“Firstborn!”

“To arms!”

“Sound the horn!”

A war horn sounded and then immediately fell silent when an arrow hit the soldier blowing it in the throat. He dropped the horn and fell under the hooves of his horse. Another horn sounded, and from somewhere behind the houses we heard the clash of weapons. We couldn’t expect any help; the other detachment had fallen into a trap, too.

“Some thieves we are!” the jester shouted, gazing at me with eyes wide in horror.

My memory of what happened after that is not very clear, and yet only too clear at the same time. I was myself, but I could see myself from the outside at the same time, as if watching what was happening around me. The entire battle is etched in my memory forever—it was like something happening in a nightmare, in a dream that is frozen in the frost, carved with an ax on separate blocks of ice.

Bowstrings twanged again and the orcs drew their yataghans and threw themselves on us. They attacked in silence, and that was probably the most terrifying thing that happened to me that day. They say fear has big eyes—in those first seconds it seemed to me that there were a lot of enemies, far more than there were of us.

We were at the very end of the detachment, and so the brunt of the first and most terrible onslaught was borne by the soldiers of the Border Kingdom … and Ell. I saw an arrow lodge in the eye slit of his helmet, I saw the elf leaning back, tumbling over …

The small number of men with crossbows started firing, and a few orcs fell, but the others came at us in silence.

The Borderlanders met the orcs with steel, repulsing the attack with swords and lances. The raucous din that filled the air was indescribable—oaths and screams, the clash of weapons, groans. The orcs were not deterred at all by the fact that their opponents were on horseback. One of them hurled himself at me. I fired and missed, then fired again and the ice bolt hit the Firstborn’s shield, releasing its magic with a ringing sound and transforming my enemy into a statue of ice.

“Honeycomb, cover me!” I roared, trying to shout above the din of the battle. I had to reload the crossbow as quickly as possible.

The orcs were still busy with the men up at the front. They weren’t really expecting an attack, and that gave those of us at the back of the column an extra twenty precious seconds to shower a deadly rain down on the Firstborn.

I don’t think I have ever loaded a crossbow so fast in life. Put the bolts in the channels, pull the lever toward me, take aim, hold my breath, press one trigger, then the other.

The battle moved from the street into the cabbage field, and before the orcs could reach me, I had taken down four of them, another three bolts had missed, and two had just bounced off our enemies’ armor as if it was enchanted. One of the orcs tried to break through to me, but he was stopped by Honeycomb’s ogre-hammer. The heavy flail caught him in the side and flung him away.

Bang! My ears were struck by a strange new sound.

Little Bee reared up in fright and I crashed to the ground. I had to roll aside in order to avoid my own horse’s hooves.

Jumping up off the ground, I found myself face-to-face with a massive orc. I had dropped the crossbow when I fell and there was no time to get my knife out. The Firstborn was clearly intending to remove my curly head and cut the ears off it. His yataghan whistled repulsively. I pulled my head down into my shoulders and my enemy’s blade passed over it, merely ruffling my hair.

The battle was raging on all sides, our enemies were pressing hard and the men were all busy trying to survive, so I couldn’t expect any help. The orc struck again, and in reply I dropped to the ground, rolled over in the dirt, grabbed the nearest cabbage, and flung it at my opponent’s head. The Firstborn contemptuously knocked the cabbage aside with his yataghan, slicing it neatly into two halves. I had to jump back again, this lad was incredibly agile and—

Bang! I heard that loud sound again.

Something went whistling past me and the orc’s head flew apart as messily as a ripe melon from the Sultanate, spraying me with hot blood.

I turned toward the sound. Hallas was standing on the ground, with his precious sack now dangling on his stomach. He was surrounded by rapidly thinning, bluish, foul-smelling smoke, and he still had his pipe in his mouth. In each hand my savior was holding a short, thick object that looked very much like a miniature cannon.

I’d never seen a wonder like that before.

Meanwhile three Firstborn came dashing at Hallas, realizing that he represented the greatest threat to them. Without any fuss, the gnome threw his terrible little cannons aside, took out another two exactly the same, raised one of them to the smoking pipe in his mouth, lit the fuse, and pointed it at one of the orcs rushing toward him.

Bang!

The enemy performed a most amusing aerial kicking movement and fell down.

Bang!

A hole the size of a fist appeared in the second orc’s coat of mail and he swayed and collapsed facedown in the dirt.

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 orc. “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?”

“That’s a gnome secret, milord,” Hallas said with a frown. “I’m sorry, I can’t tell you.”

“Don’t talk nonsense, any fool can figure that out,” Deler interrupted. “There’s the wick, and there’s the trigger. Press the trigger and it lowers the wick, lights the powder, and the ball flies out! Tremendous gnomish cunning, my foot! It’s just a little cannon.”

Hallas ground his teeth in annoyance.

“You’re a cannon, you thickhead! It’s a pistol, our new invention. Just you wait till we turn up in the mountains with weapons like these to take our land back!”

“We’re always glad to see you, call any time! If the Field of Sorna wasn’t enough for you beard-faces, we can give you more, we’re not greedy!” Deler’s voice sounded boastful, but his eyes were fixed on the pistol in Alistan Markauz’s hands.

“If we had a few hundred pistols like this, it would make fighting the Nameless One’s army a lot easier,” the captain said pensively, handing the weapon back to the gnome. “What do you think, Hallas, would your kinsmen fulfill an order like that?”

“Pardon me for speaking plainly, Milord Alistan,” Hallas said in a flat voice, putting the weapon away in his sack. “But gnomes have never been fools. If we let you have things like this, first you’ll kill all your enemies, and then you’ll come after us, out of sheer boredom. You people are not all that bright, all you want to do is fight wars and let your enemies’ blood. A weapon like this in your hands … Our rulers would never make such a bargain.”

“A shame, we’ll have to take it with our swords.”

Egrassa came back and shook his head.

“He didn’t say anything.”

“Damn the orc to the darkness! Let’s go.” Miralissa was in a hurry to get to the castle as quickly as possible. “Are you ready, Fer?”

“Yes, milady.”

The detachment set off, with the wagon wheels creaking, and we left behind Crossroads, the place that had sent another two of our number to the light.