Shadow Chaser

14 On The Border

The detachment moved as fast as it could. The elfess rode alongside one of the wagons, constantly checking the condition of the wounded men.

“I hope Honeycomb’s going to be all right,” Hallas muttered.

“Everyone hopes so, Beard-Face,” Deler replied, and took a sip from his flask. “Want some?”

“All right,” the gnome replied after a moment’s thought. “Since there’s nothing else, dwarf swill will have to do.”

Fer sent two horsemen on ahead to Cuckoo to warn the magician, the healers, and the garrison. Everyone held their weapons at the ready, in case any of the orcs we hadn’t killed were lying in ambush in the forest.

“Torch!” a soldier with his left arm bandaged shouted to his sergeant. “Servin’s dead!”

“May he dwell in the light,” whispered one of the soldiers.

“Harold!” said Eel, holding out Invincible to me. “You keep him, the little beast is used to you.”

I took the shaggy little rat that had just lost his master and tucked him inside my jacket. Ling sniffled as he settled down and then fell quiet. We could decide what to do with him later.

A horn sounded—it was the messengers sent on ahead by Fer coming back. A detachment of eighty horsemen came with them.

Their commander, an elderly warrior with a wispy beard, asked, “Is there anyone left alive in the village?”

“Not as far as I know. But the villagers who were killed need to be buried.”

“We’ll deal with that. I’ll leave twenty horsemen to accompany you. It’s no more than four leagues to the castle, you’re expected.”

“Thank you,” said Fer, with a curt nod.

Cuckoo—a reddish gray hulk with three towers, double walls, and six earthen ramparts—was seething like a disturbed anthill. It was hard to believe that only an hour’s ride from here the orcs had wiped out a village, and the soldiers had known nothing about it.

“Healers!” Fer barked as soon as we were in the castle courtyard.

Men came running up to the wagon, some of them brought stretchers, and first aid was given to the wounded on the spot, leaving the men who had been hurt by the orc’s magic to Miralissa’s care.

A tall man with a bald head walked up to the elfess, who was still whispering spells. He was dressed in the black chain mail of a simple soldier. There was a sword hanging on his belt and he was holding the staff of a magician of the Order.

The magicians in the Border Kingdom weren’t all that different from ordinary soldiers. They were as skilled in handling a sword as in magic. Nothing like our Valiostrian idlers.

“A ‘soap bubble,’ milady?” he asked, putting his hand on Honeycomb’s forehead, which was covered in sweat.

“Yes, it’s the Khra-z ten’r,” she replied with a nod. “To whom do I have the honor of speaking?”

“Wolner Gray, magician of the Order of the Border Kingdom, at your service…”

“Miralissa of the House of the Black Moon. Can you help me?”

“Yes, Tresh Miralissa. Hey, lads!” the magician called to the soldiers. “Get stretchers and carry the stricken into the hospital hall.”

The magician and the elfess walked away. The soldiers carried the wounded after them.

“Young lad!” said Deler, grabbing hold of a stable boy by the sleeve. “Do you have a shrine to Sagra here?”

“Yes, master dwarf, over there.”

“What’s this, Deler? Turned devout all of a sudden?”

“Don’t be a fool, Beard-Face. I’m going to pray for Honeycomb’s health.”

Hallas scratched his beard and shouted: “Hang on, Hat-Head, I’ll go with you, or you’ll only get lost.”

“But I’m not going anywhere,” said Lamplighter, who was feverish from his wound. “Eel, help me stagger over to the healers, I’m feeling a bit shaky.”

Mumr leaned on his bidenhander and got to his feet. Without speaking a word, the Garrakian offered him his shoulder and led him toward the healers bustling around the wagons. Kli-Kli and I were left on our own.

“Come on, Dancer, I’ll show you something,” the jester called out to me.

“Where are we going?” I asked him suspiciously.

“Come on, you won’t regret it.”

There was nothing to do, evening was drawing in, and I didn’t think we would be going to Zagraba today, so I followed the goblin. Kli-Kli walked over to a hoist beside the wall.

“Where are you going, greeny?” asked the man who was loading stones for a catapult into the hoist.

“Would you be so kind, my dear man, as to raise the two of us up onto the wall together with these most remarkable stones that match the color of your face so well?” Kli-Kli asked.

“What?” the worker asked, wide-eyed.

“Can you hoist us up, blockhead?”

“The steps are over there!” said the man, jabbing a dirty finger toward the wall. “Use your legs, I’ve got work to do, I’ve no time to be giving you a lift as well.”

Kli-Kli stuck his tongue out at him and stomped off angrily to the steps that led up onto the top of the wall.

“Kli-Kli, can you tell me why I should climb twenty yards up a wall?” I asked the goblin.

“It would spoil the surprise. Have you ever regretted listening to what I say?” The goblin was already climbing briskly up the steps.

“Yes,” I replied quite sincerely.

I followed him anyway. It was an easy climb, because the steps wound round the wall. The palace courtyard sank lower and lower below us, and the men, the horses, and the wagons all shrank.

“Tell me this,” I asked Kli-Kli as he ambled along in front of me. “Where did you learn to handle throwing knives so neatly?”

“Why, did you like it?” asked Kli-Kli, glowing at this unexpected praise. “I have just as many hidden talents as you do, Dancer.”

“You don’t say?”

“I’m a jester,” he said, and shrugged. “Throwing knives is no harder than juggling four torches or doing a triple reverse somersault.”

“You’ve got a tough job, old friend,” I laughed.

He stopped, looked down at me, and said in a serious voice, “You can’t even imagine how tough it is, Harold. Especially when I have to look after fools like you!”

“So you’re the one who’s looking after me!”

“There, that’s human gratitude for you,” said the goblin, raising his hands imploringly to the sky. “Wasn’t I the one who saved you from that dog’s teeth?”

“Well, yes,” I had to agree.

“And today? Today, whose knives stopped the orc’s ax?” the goblin went on as he completed another turn of the stairway.

“Yours,” I sighed.

“Oh!” said the goblin, raising one finger didactically without turning to face me. “That’s exactly the point. Are you thieves all like that?”

“Like what?”

“With such a short memory for the good things that other people do for you.”

“All right, calm down, Kli-Kli. I remember that I owe you for one time.”

“What do you mean, for one time!”

“You saved me from the dog, and I saved you from the river, so I still owe you one rescue,” I chuckled.

“Maybe I know how to swim, and I was only pretending?” Kli-Kli suggested, narrowing his eyes cunningly.

“Well, then you really are a fool.”

“All right, I admit it, I can’t swim. And by the way, we’re here.”

I hadn’t realized that I was on the wall. It was broad, with immense battlements, loopholes, and blue sky. The walls gave no protection from the wind up here, and it blew straight into my back. I could imagine what it was like being up here in winter or during a storm. Invincible crept out from under my jacket and clambered onto my shoulder.

“So what was it you wanted to show me?” I couldn’t spot anything interesting up there, just a catapult, a few bowmen standing watch, and one craftsman, reinforcing the stones of the wall.

“Look over that way!” said Kli-Kli, dragging me across to a loophole and almost pushing me off the wall in his enthusiasm. “Over here!”

The castle stood on a low hill, and the view was magnificent. Out there, beyond the castle’s earthen ramparts and three moats, beyond a small river with a lazy current and a field about three hundred yards across, overgrown with scrubby bushes, the forest started.

Zagraba.

The massive wall of trees gazing back at me from the far side of the river was magnificent and beautiful. A forest whose size rivaled the whole of Valiostr. It stretched on for thousands of leagues.

There before my eyes was the land where the gods had walked at the dawn of time, the kingdom that had existed in Siala before the times of the Dark Age, when orcs and elves had not even been heard of. The mysterious, fabulous, magical, enchanting, and also bloody, terrible, and sinister Forests of Zagraba.

How many legends, how many myths, how many endless stories, riddles, and mysteries were hidden beneath the green branches of the forest country? How many beautiful, outlandish, and dangerous creatures roamed its narrow animal tracks?

The beautiful towns of the elves and the orcs, the famous foliage and the labyrinth, the abandoned idols and temples of vanished races, the remains of the cities of the ogres, almost as old as time itself and, of course, the wonder and the horror of all the Northern Lands—Hrad Spein.

“My homeland,” Kli-Kli declared in a ringing voice. “Can you just feel that smell?”

I sniffed the air. There was a cool, fresh smell of forest, honey, and an oak leaf crushed in the palm of your hand.

“Yes.”

“It’s wonderful, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is,” I answered quite sincerely.

The immense carpet of green stretched out in front of us all the way to the horizon, disappearing into the evening mist.

Zagraba seemed to be endless. I screwed up my eyes, and for a moment I thought I could see the majestic summits of the Mountains of the Dwarves wreathed in violet haze and propping up the sky. Of course, I only imagined it; the great mountains were hundreds of leagues away and impossible to see from there.

“Why do they call it the Golden Forest?” I asked Kli-Kli, who was pressed right up against the loophole.

“Golden-leaf trees grow there,” the jester said with an indifferent shrug.

“It’s getting dark, let’s go back,” I said, casting a last glance at Zagraba. “I don’t want to break my legs on the way down.”

Twilight was creeping up on the castle and torches were lit in the courtyard. There were not many men there, the bodies of the dead had already been unloaded from the wagon and carried away. I couldn’t see Eel, or Alistan, or Miralissa.

“Now how can I find our group? I don’t intend to go wandering all over the citadel like a fool.”

“We’ll think of something,” Kli-Kli said cheerfully.

An old man in a baggy, shapeless robe came up to us:

“Master Harold, Master…”—a brief pause—“… Kli-Kli?”

“That’s right.”

The old man gave a sigh of relief and jerked his head.

“Follow me, they’re waiting for you.”

He shuffled into one of the towers, led us through a long hallway where the walls were hung all over with weapons, and turned onto a narrow spiral staircase, from which we emerged into a hall where the Wild Hearts, Milord Alistan, and Egrassa were already eating.

“Where’s Mumr?” asked Kli-Kli, sitting down on a bench and pulling a plate toward him.

“Sleeping, he’s not feeling well,” said Hallas, stuffing a piece of sausage into his mouth and chomping on it.

“Is he all right?”

“A slight fever,” said Eel, taking a sip of beer. “He’ll be fine in a couple of days. I’m more worried about Honeycomb.”

“Miralissa will do everything possible to save him,” said Egrassa, without raising his eyes from his plate.

The rest of supper was spent in silence.

When the elfess joined us, Egrassa jumped to his feet and moved up a chair for her. Lady Miralissa nodded gratefully, and it was clear that she was absolutely exhausted. She had dark shadows under her eyes and deep creases running across her forehead; her hair was loose and tangled.

Milord Alistan poured her some dark wine without speaking, but she merely shook her head and smiled sadly.

“Wine and food can wait, I have another job to do. Egrassa?”

“Yes, the men have already made everything ready. We can begin.”

“Have you eaten?” she asked, turning to us.

“We are ready, milady,” Milord Alistan answered for all of us.

Kli-Kli nodded hastily, with his mouth full.

“Let us go,” she said briefly, and stood up. Egrassa dashed to her and supported her by the elbow.

“Lady Miralissa,” Hallas said plaintively. “You haven’t said a word about Honeycomb. Is he all right?”

“Yes, the danger has passed, the warrior will live. He is sleeping now, but I am afraid he will not be able to continue on the journey. It will be two weeks before Honeycomb can get out of bed, and we cannot afford to wait that long. We will leave him in the castle.”

“Where are we going, Kli-Kli?” I asked the goblin, when Miralissa had left the hall.

“They’re going to have Ell’s funeral now, so hurry up, Dancer. And don’t forget to pick the ling up off the table, or someone will think he’s a rat and kill him.”

I grabbed Invincible and set him on my shoulder. I had no idea what I was going to do with him now.

It was completely dark outside, but the gates of the castle were not locked. The detachment of soldiers that we had met on our way here had only just returned. They had four people from Crossroads with them—the only ones who had managed to hide in the forest when the orcs attacked the village.

Miralissa led us out through the gates and down to the river. On the other bank Zagraba rose up as black as an inkblot against the starry sky. A funeral pyre had been built right at the water’s edge. They had been generous with the wood, and the heap was two yards high. Ell’s body lay on the very top, clad in a black silk shirt. His s’kash and bow lay beside him.

We halted at a distance, watching as Miralissa and Egrassa approached our dead comrade.

“And now one more has left us,” said Alistan Markauz.

“Two, milord,” Eel corrected the count. “Tomorrow we shall have to commit Marmot to the earth.”

“I’m afraid we shall not even have time for that; we leave at dawn,” the captain of the guard said with a guilty shake of his head.

“But a funeral—,” the dwarf began. Alistan Markauz interrupted him:

“They will take care of Marmot’s body, Deler.”

Miralissa and Egrassa walked back to us.

“Sleep well, k’lissang. Egrassa and I will take care of your kin,” Miralissa said, and snapped her fingers.

The fire took immediately. The flames roared up to the sky like a red horse that became a red dragon, roaring as it consumed the wood and the body of the dead elf. Reflected in the water, the magical fire strained upward toward the stars, it howled and wailed, bearing the elf’s soul away into the light. The pyre was more than twenty yards away, but we all moved back, because the heat was unbearable.

The flames gave a sudden sob, the burnt-out platform on which Ell was lying collapsed down into the open jaws of the heat, and the pyre tossed a shower of sparks up to the cold stars.

Miralissa began singing in a low, throaty voice, chanting the song that elves sang over a deceased kinsman.

Nobody said a word until the pyre had been reduced to a heap of winking coals radiating heat.

“That is all,” said the elfess. She made several passes with her hands and a sudden gust of wind picked the coals and Ell’s ashes up off the ground and swirled them up into the air, filling the night with hot fireflies, then tossed the remains of the pyre into the river.

The river hissed and snorted in alarm, its calm waters heaved and spat out steam and then swallowed up the remains of our companion.

“Hmm…,” said Deler after a short silence. “I’d like to be buried so…”

“Beautifully,” Hallas concluded for him.

“We have a belief that when an elf dies in battle, a new star lights up in the sky,” said Egrassa. “Foolish, but beautiful. Ell deserved his star.”

“Like all those no longer with us,” Alistan replied. “Let’s go back to the castle, it’s late.”

And the river flowed on as quietly and lazily as ever, with nothing to show that a few minutes earlier it had swallowed up the remains of a funeral pyre.

“Harold, this is yours.” Kli-Kli jabbed one finger at a sack with two shoulder straps that was standing beside my bed.

It was barely dawn outside, but the group was already up. Zagraba was waiting for us, and I had a chilly feeling of anticipation in my belly. But whether what was coming was good or bad, I couldn’t tell.

“What’s in it?” I asked, fastening on my crossbow.

“Your things. Blanket, rations, and a few odds and ends. I took the liberty of transferring all this junk from your saddlebags, plus a few things from the general heap…”

“Who asked you to do that?” I asked in a threatening voice.

“Oh, Harold,” Kli-Kli said dismissively. “No need for gratitude, I got up a lot earlier than you, so it was no bother for me.”

“Kli-Kli, don’t pretend to be more stupid than you really are. Why did you empty the bags?”

“Because you won’t carry them on your back. You’re not a horse, are you? It’s easier to walk through Zagraba with a sack. The trappers and a few hunters who dare to go into the forests take exactly this kind of sack with them.”

“Mmm…,” I began warily. “Kli-Kli, I thought I heard you use the word ‘walk.’ Did I mishear?”

“Not at all, that’s right, I said ‘walk.’ The horses are staying at the castle.”

“What!”

“Harold, I can see that you’ve never gone roaming through a forest before,” Kli-Kli chuckled, tightening the knot on his sack. “Just you try galloping through fallen trees, bogs, and darkness knows what else on a horse. It’s no fun. We’re going on foot. The elfess says that from here to Hrad Spein is exactly seven days’ march. That is, one week. The entrance to the burial chambers is in the Golden Forest. If the gods smile on us, we’ll soon be there.”

It was surprising, but I didn’t want to leave Little Bee. After a month and a half of traveling, I couldn’t imagine how I could get by without my own horse. And now I would have to wear my legs out dragging a massive load around on my back.

I didn’t really believe that Kli-Kli had packed my things properly, so I turned the contents of the sack out onto the bed. It would have been just like the goblin to slip five weighty cobblestones in with my things out of the sheer goodness of his heart. Sagot be praised, there weren’t any cobblestones, but I did find a stack of useless heavy things.

“What are you doing?” Kli-Kli asked, watching skeptically as I set the superfluous things aside.

“Sparing my back unnecessary suffering,” I muttered, tossing away a cast-iron cooking pot.

The pot was followed by a collection of assorted cutlery, a candlestick and candles, a ball of string, a hammer, two pairs of boots, spare chain mail, and all sorts of other miscellaneous nonsense. When I was through, the sack was a lot lighter. Now I could take it on a journey with an easy mind, without being afraid that I might suddenly break down at the wrong moment.

“All that hard work for nothing,” Kli-Kli sighed mournfully.

“You don’t have to carry it, so don’t whine,” I said, packing the blanket.

“Let’s get a move on,” said Hallas, glancing into the room. “It’s time.”

“Let’s go and say good-bye to Honeycomb,” said Kli-Kli, and skipped out through the door.

On the way we ran into Lamplighter. The Wild Heart was pale and the welt on his forehead looked terrible, but he was perfectly steady on his feet.

“So you’re still alive, then?” Kli-Kli asked the warrior sympathetically.

“You can’t bury me yet, fool,” Lamplighter said with a crooked grin, and then frowned at the pain. “I still intend to get back to the Lonely Giant. Are you on your way to Honeycomb?”

“Yes, do you know where he is?”

“Yes, I’ve just come from there. Go out of the tower, across the courtyard, in at the door on the left, up the stairs to the second floor, and it’s the third door on the right.”

“Thanks. If Alistan comes looking for us, tell him you haven’t seen us. Come on, pick up those feet, Harold, time’s passing!”

Mumr gave me a pitying look—when Kli-Kli gets his hooks into someone, no power on earth can shake him off.

We found Honeycomb’s room without any trouble. In one night the warrior had lost as much weight as if he hadn’t eaten anything for a month, and he had changed from the husky giant of a man we all remembered to a skeleton. A bundle of bones wrapped in parchment skin that looked ready to split apart, eyes with a feverish glow, yellow hair that looked as if it had been bleached by the sun. If I didn’t know it was Honeycomb on the bed, I’d have thought I was looking at an old, old man. The orcs’ shaman had done a really good job, and if Miralissa and the Border Kingdom magician hadn’t been there to help him, our comrade would have been lying in his grave alongside Marmot.

When he saw us, he gave a weak smile.

“How are you feeling?” squeaked Kli-Kli.

“Rotten,” Honeycomb chuckled. “I managed to get in the way of that shaman’s free handout.”

“Don’t worry about that. The main thing is that you’re still alive.”

“Thank you, Harold, that’s a great comfort,” he snorted in reply. “Deler let slip that Marmot and Ell … Is it true?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“Well then, in that case, I really did get off lightly. You’re leaving, I see.”

“Yes,” Kli-Kli said with a quick nod.

“It’s a pity I won’t be able to go with you,” Honeycomb sighed.

“Don’t worry about that, you just get well,” Kli-Kli said fussily. “Look, I brought you this, so anyway, recover.”

Kli-Kli took a large ripe apple out from under his cloak and put it on the table beside Honeycomb’s bed. Then he thought for a moment and added a carrot to it.

“From the heart.”

“I know, Kli-Kli,” Honeycomb said with a serious nod. “You’re a good lad.”

“Of course I am,” the goblin said with a grin. Then he gave me a mischievous glance, leaned right down to the warrior’s ear, and whispered something to him.

Honeycomb’s eyes opened wide and gaped at the goblin in surprise.

“I’m not lying,” Kli-Kli said, perfectly serious. There were demons of mischief dancing in the jester’s eyes.

I don’t know where Honeycomb got the strength, but he suddenly burst into raucous laughter:

“What a hoot! Well … and no one knows?”

“Na-ah.” The goblin grinned.

“What are you talking about?” I asked, bemused.

“Oh, nothing. We’re just, you know…,” said the goblin, baring his teeth in an idiotic leer.

Honeycomb started laughing even louder. Mmm, the goblin’s really in top form today.

“Will you look after him?” I asked, taking Invincible off my shoulder and putting him on the table beside the carrot, which immediately attracted the ling’s interest. “He’ll be a lot better off here than in the forest with us.”

“Of course, let him stay.”

“Well, time for us to go, be seeing you.”

“Get well.”

“Hey,” he called as we were walking out. “Come back with flags flying.”

“Definitely. We’ll definitely be back!”

I don’t know why, but I felt strangely confident that despite all our enemies I was going to defy fate and get that cursed Horn for the Order.

We were escorted to the border by Fer and ten of the soldiers who had traveled with us from Mole Castle. Zagraba greeted us with the silence of a slumbering forest in which morning is still several hours away.

“You’ll have to walk on from here alone,” said Fer. “I don’t know what it is you’re looking for in this forest, but in any case I wish you luck.”

“Make sure that Marmot is given a fitting funeral,” said Lamplighter, shouldering his bidenhander.

“I shall see to it personally,” the knight replied with a solemn nod.

“Expect us at the end of September,” said Miralissa.

“Very well, Tresh Miralissa,” replied Algert Dalli’s illegitimate son, then he swung his horse round and set off back toward the castle.

I felt as if I’d left behind an entire familiar world that I loved passionately. And waiting ahead for me was Zagraba. Dark, unwelcoming, and alien.

When I turned back from watching the men riding away, almost all our group had disappeared into the forest.

“Harold, have you decided to stay behind?” asked Kli-Kli, hopping impatiently from one foot to another. The goblin had a small sack hanging behind his shoulders.

“All right, Kli-Kli, you show the way, I’ll follow you.”

The goblin grinned and disappeared into the trees. I took a deep breath and stepped forward into a place where I thought I would never go for love or money. I stepped into Zagraba.