Shadow Prowler (40 page)

Realizing that the conversation was at an end, I got up, bowed, and followed the jester out of the room.

“Follow me, Dancer in the Shadows.” The depth of seriousness in the jester’s voice was ominous.

“Don’t call me that.”

“Why?” asked the goblin, peering at me innocently.

“Because I don’t want you to!”

“Oh,” the jester said considerately. “Then I won’t.”

We walked back through the massive throne room and out into the corridors of the palace.

“What would you like to see first? Your temporary quarters or a new friend?”

“What new friend?”

“Come on, I’ll show you.”

I had to walk for quite a long time. First we went out of the building and past the garden, which was now almost empty—the only Wild Heart still there was Loudmouth, already on his fourth dream, if not his fifth.

“Kli-Kli,” I said as we walked along, “these Wild Hearts, where are they from?”

“The Lonely Giant, of course,” the goblin snorted.

“No, I don’t mean that,” I snorted back. “What unit of the Wild Hearts?”

“Oh! Apart from Arnkh, they’re all from the Thorns. Arnkh’s from the Steel Foreheads.”

The Thorns . . . Now I really felt that my skin was safe. And there were any number of stories about the skill of the Thickheads, as the other soldiers called the Steel Foreheads.

Eventually the jester led me to a outbuilding standing quite a long way from the palace. Or to be absolutely precise, the goblin led me straight to the stables. There was a smell of fresh hay and dung (also
fresh, as a matter of fact). The horses in the stalls peered out curiously at the uninvited visitors. Every now and then one of them would reach its face out toward us in the hope of getting a treat.

There were about fifty horses here. Elegant Doralissian steeds, imperturbable draft horses, the powerful war horses of Nizina that seemed so terrifying to the ignorant . . .

“Here, let me introduce you,” said the jester, putting his hand on the muzzle of a large ash-colored mare. “This is Little Bee. She’s yours now.”

“Oh, yes?” I asked uncertainly.

“What’s wrong, Harold?” Kli-Kli asked with a frown. “Don’t you like the king’s gift?”

“What makes you think I don’t like it?” I asked, stroking the Nizin breed horse behind the ear when it reached its head out toward me. “I like it very much. It’s just that I’m not very good at riding them.”

“Mmm, all right, I’ll teach you today.”

I gave the jester the same look I would have done if he’d asked me to kiss a poisonous snake.

“Calm down, Harold. I really can help you. It’s fairly simple. Little Bee’s clever, she’s been trained. And what’s more, she’s a war horse, or a war mare, or a steedess. . . . Well, you know what I mean. . . . Here! Give her a treat.”

Kli-Kli took out a huge red apple from somewhere and handed it to me.

Little Bee happily crunched the treat and her amicable expression became even more kindly. I found it hard to believe that she was a war mare. . . . Damn it! Now I was doing it, too!

“Come on, I’ll show you your room,” said Kli-Kli, tugging at my sleeve. “Your things are there, by the way. A dwarf brought them, together with the ring.”

So Honchel had already brought the things I hadn’t been able to collect on the evening when I bought them from him. I meekly followed the king’s jester, realizing that he wouldn’t leave me alone today and I’d have to put up with him until tomorrow morning, when I would happily wave good-bye to the little green goblin.

“By the way, we need to go to the armorer and pick out a decent sword and some chain mail for you.” Kli-Kli was simply bursting with the desire to do something.

“Now that’s one gift I don’t need,” I said, shaking my head.

“So what’s wrong this time?”

“I need a sword like a drowned man needs a noose. I don’t know how to use it anyway. These are all I need, my dear jester,” I said, slapping my hand against the short blade at my hip and sticking my crossbow under the nose of the king’s fool.

“Well, you know best,” he said, too lazy to argue with me. “Then we’ll choose you some armor.”

“I’m not Alistan Markauz, Kli-Kli! I don’t intend to carry the work of an entire mineful of gnomes around with me.”

“Don’t get nervous. We’ll find you some light, safe armor.” The goblin was not about to give up this time.

“I don’t need it. It’s awkward moving about in chain mail.”

“Harold!” The jester pointed one finger at me and pronounced his verdict. “You’re a boring, tedious fellow.”

G
roaning in disappointment and cursing the entire world, I turned over onto my back and stared up at the ceiling. Cowardly sleep had fled from me like a healthy man fleeing from a leper. At first I thought I’d been woken by another one of the goblin’s tricks. But I couldn’t see the little jester anywhere around. I hoped very much that he was sleeping like a log somewhere as far away from me as possible, after exhausting himself during the day. After all, it must have taken a serious effort for him to give Harold a lesson in how to control a horse and then go on to wear me down with all his whining about the chain mail I hadn’t chosen, so that eventually I had to give way and go with him to select an iron shirt from the king’s armory. The delighted jester had taken himself off to his bed with a smile of triumph.

But if Kli-Kli wasn’t to blame, then what was it that had woken me up? There it was again! That was it, definitely. Those shouts. They had woken me up. And that clash of weapons.

It sounded as if there was a full-scale battle taking place in the corridors of the palace. But then who was fighting whom, and what about?

I tried to think on my feet as I searched for my trousers in the darkness and at the same time groped for the crossbow and the bag with my bolts that I had left on a chair. Outside, bugles sounded to rouse the guard. First one, then another, and after a short while the alarm signal was ringing throughout the palace grounds.

I grabbed my crossbow and dashed to the window. There was no question of lighting a candle. It would have taken too long to find one. I would have to load the crossbow by the light of the stars. Yes, I can load it in complete darkness, but it would have been annoying to confuse an
ordinary bolt with one of the magical ones, then roast myself as well as my target when I fired.

“Alarm! Alarm!” The bugles rang out, echoing each other.

Outside, people were dashing about with lighted torches—for some reason, not one of the magical lanterns the Order had installed in the grounds of the palace was lit. Several guardsmen ran past right below my window, two of them carrying a wounded man. A little farther off there was a unit of soldiers heading in the opposite direction with the points of their spears glinting menacingly in the flickering light.

Two human shadows darted out of the palace and ran off into the depths of the garden. One of the guards in the first detachment spotted the fugitives and most of the soldiers ran off in pursuit, leaving their two comrades with the wounded man.

One of the men they were chasing stopped and threw his arms up. Then he started spinning round and swaying from side to side. The guards slowed from a run to a walk, approaching the strangers cautiously, not really sure what this madman was doing. They realized the answer to the riddle too late. The man stopped his crazy spinning and flung one hand out toward the soldiers, and the guards were simply tossed in all directions like children’s straw toys.

Darkness! He was a genuine shaman!

In immediate response to the shaman’s magic, a silver streak of lightning struck from somewhere in the upper stories of the palace. I ducked down in surprise, trying to get rid of the multicolored carousel that was spinning in front of my eyes, and when I could see normally again, the fugitives no longer existed. On the spot where they had been standing there was a huge round circle of scorched earth, with the grass still burning around its edge. Some magician of the Order had really put everything into his blow against the enemy. There was nothing left of the intruders.

The bugles began calling again, sounding the alarm and calling men to arms. The din outside my door was unbelievable. There was already fighting at the end of the corridor where my bedroom was. Which meant there must be a lot more of the attackers, otherwise why couldn’t I hear cries of victory from all those guardsmen?

“The king! Stalkon! Valiostr!” The royal guard roared out their battle cry.

“The Nameless One! Vengeance!” was the reply.

So it was the supporters of the Nameless One who had resolved on this bold move!

Those rotten skunks were everywhere now. Sometimes it seemed like it would be wise to suspect your own frail old granddad of sympathy for the Nameless One, even if he wouldn’t normally harm a fly. And the stronger the rebel magician became, the more supporters he acquired among humankind.

Someone pounded hard on my door and I trained the crossbow on it just in case.

“Harold, it’s Kli-Kli! Open up, quick!”

The voice certainly sounded like the one that belonged to the king’s jester.

The battle was moving quite rapidly in my direction and if the little goblin really was outside my door, he could be in big trouble pretty soon.

I hastily opened the lock.

“I’m not alone, don’t shoot!” shouted Kli-Kli, darting past me into the bedroom like a little green mouse, with two shadows following straight behind him. They were a little bit bigger than the goblin, but a lot smaller than me.

“Close the door,” said the goblin. It was a good idea. “Deler, let’s have some light.”

I did as I had been told and turned the key, wondering if we ought to barricade the door with furniture.

A small flame flared up, and then a torch, illuminating the faces of my visitors. The jester was without his cap with the bells and his expression was unusually serious and intent. There was a dark, shallow scratch on Kli-Kli’s cheek and he was clutching an ax in both hands. Standing beside the jester was Deler, holding the torch in one hand and a double-edged poleax in the other. It had a vicious-looking half-moon blade. Unlike the goblin, the dwarf didn’t look disheveled. Even the hat with the narrow brim sat on the short fellow’s head as if it were a part of him.

The third visitor was Hallas. The gnome paid no attention to me, as if he were simply visiting his home in the Steel Mines, and ran across to the window and looked outside. He casually leaned his battle-mattock against the wall.

“This is Master Harold,” said Kli-Kli, introducing me to the warriors.

Deler politely doffed his hat; the gnome simply nodded.

“What’s happened, Kli-Kli?”

“An attack! They were trying to get through to the king, but the guards suspected something was wrong and the sparks started flying!”

“And the rotten skunks have really got cheeky!” Deler boomed. “They’re dressed up in guards’ uniforms.”

“But who are they?”

“Crayfish,” the gnome said, and spat, without turning away from the window. “Creatures of the Crayfish Dukedom. And probably other supporters of the Nameless One from among your townsfolk!”

He pulled a face that suggested he cared no more for the townsfolk of Avendoom than he did for gkhols.

“Anyway, listen, Harold,” the jester started gabbling. “One of those units is moving down the corridor toward us. Alistan’s lads are holding it up, but still falling back, the numbers are too uneven. We have to help them.”

A din as loud as the one in the corridor suddenly broke out below the window.

“Those lads are done fighting.” Hallas chuckled and slammed his fist down on the windowsill in an excess of enthusiasm. “The guards have threaded the lot of them on their spears.”

“Come away from the window, you bearded fool!” the dwarf shouted excitedly. “We have to give the others a hand now!”

“Fool yourself!” the gnome retorted to his partner, but he came over to us, picking up his mattock on the way.

“How can we help them, Kli-Kli?” I asked, pulling on my shirt and ignoring the argument between the two Wild Hearts.

Four of us against that number of men? And not forgetting that two of us didn’t even know how to hold a weapon properly. Or were the dwarf and the gnome so good that they didn’t need me and the goblin?