Chasers of the Wind

12

Despite my fears, our new companions did not seem to be planning any trouble. They behaved meekly, just like the acolytes of Melot during a long fast. Of course, the Son of the Snow Leopard took being parted from his beloved blade quite poorly. The poor fellow was practically twitching with indignation.

Well, to the Abyss with him.

It would be downright folly to allow the redhead his sword. I’d seen how the northern people handled sharp objects. Before you have a chance to say a word, you’re kissing your head good-bye. It must be said that even without a weapon, the redhead was a dangerous opponent. I hadn’t forgetten how easily he eluded my arrows nor how he prowled in the forest.

His figure and gait gave him away as a seasoned campaigner. If he didn’t like our orders, then dealing with him would be no easier than handling an enraged snow leopard. I had no idea what to do with the redhead when we stopped for the night. We’d have to tie him up to get any sleep. It wouldn’t do to forget that all northerners are quiet and peaceful until the time comes. And when it does, they’d as soon hit you over the head as say hello. You can only stop them with a crossbow. Sometimes not even then.

And then there was Ga-Nor’s friend, a man of a completely different disposition. Nothing ominous there. At first he was as quiet as a mouse, but as soon as he realized that no one was planning to kill him, he livened up right away and came out of his shell so much that for the past two hours he’d been chatting away nonstop, happy to have found himself an appreciative audience in Layen.

My sun listened to his story of the fall of the Gates of Six Towers and their subsequent meanderings through the forest with interest. When I heard him mention the Damned, I also pricked up my ears. If the man was lying, he did it well. But, judging from his description, Rubeola did not at all resemble the girl who attacked us in the village. Layen caught my gaze and with just her lips whispered, “Typhoid.”

So that’s who confronted us. Well then, the murderer of Sorita, if it really was her, had received a most unpleasant death as payment for all her crimes.

In the meantime, Luk continued to hold forth. Shen was not paying the slightest attention. He brought up the rear, sullen and somber. It was not at all to the Healer’s liking that I chose to accept the strangers into our group. As usual, I spat on his opinion and his discontent.

There was an opening in the trees ahead of us. We descended a low pitched hill covered in spruce trees and then we were at the road.

“We made it!” Luk exclaimed triumphantly. “We made it, screw a toad!”

He had this habit of interjecting his toad whether it was appropriate or not. Odd.

“Why are you so happy? We still have a long way to march.” Ga-Nor did not share his comrade’s enthusiasm.

“But along a road, not through the forest!”

“Uh-huh. That’s what I meant.”

“What are you talking about? Someone might pass by and give us a lift.”

“Exactly.” Taking advantage of the halt, Shen was shaking a pebble out of his boot. “A Nabatorian patrol, for example. I’m sure they’d be happy to give you a lift to the nearest cemetery.”

“I don’t think we need to worry about Nabator,” disagreed Layen. “They’re not yet interested in taking Al’sgara.”

“I wonder why that is?” I interjected. “The city is much closer than Okni or Gash-Shaku.”

“I really don’t know. But for now they’re leaving Al’sgara alone. So the road there should be free. But it’s going to be a while before we find horses. ’Til we get to Bald Hollow, at least.”

“How far do we have to go?” Ga-Nor approached her too quickly, but his hands were in sight and I wasn’t about to get twitchy over a trifle. “How many days?”

“As many as we need,” I replied. “The sooner we set off, the faster we’ll get there. So let’s not delay uselessly.”

The rain had stopped a while ago, but the road was studded with puddles and there was so much mud that we had to walk on the shoulder, where it was a bit cleaner. The thick spruce forest continued to stretch on to our right, but it soon dropped away to the left, giving way to the cheerless landscape of a swamp. Moss and flimsy saplings are not at all pleasing to the eye. I wanted to pass through this part of our journey as quickly as possible. I didn’t feel like feeding the mosquitoes, and there were more terrible things that could emerge from the swamp to feed on us. People say all sorts of things about these places and most of them are bad. I’m not inclined to believe in nonsense, because I know that the Blazogs are far from monsters, but besides this fairly peaceful race, there really are dangerous creatures living here as well. The sole good thing about our environs was that in the summer vast numbers of birds nested in the swampy lakes, and I held on to the hope that we might not have to go without dinner. To that end, I put a fresh string on my bow so I would be ready to shoot at any moment.

Ga-Nor didn’t look backward once the entire time we were walking. The pace the northerner set was astonishing. It was like he wasn’t tired at all, but was ready to walk across the entire Empire. Luk was humming a tune I didn’t recognize and after a while Layen began to accompany him. I snorted. The song got stuck in my head. If the Healer joined in, we’d make a pretty band of traveling musicians.

Fkhut! Shloop!

Shen, who was bringing up the rear, gave a strangled cry.

I deftly hopped forward, while simultaneously spinning around. The Healer was lying in the road, floundering in a gray slime which only by some miracle hadn’t hit him in the face.

“Hold still, you fool!” I yelled, but he didn’t heed me. He kept struggling and spewing curses. The muck he was covered in was beginning to harden.

“What is that?” Luk instantly forgot about his ditty. Without a second’s pause I gave him back his axe, which definitely convinced him that the Healer was in a lot of trouble.

“Layen, give the northerner his sword,” I said, not taking my eyes off the gloomy wall of the forest.

Right now it was better to give them their weapons. They might be needed very soon.

The gray slime clinging to Shen finally hardened and he was completely immobilized.

“What’s attacking us, screw a toad?” Panicked notes slipped into Luk’s voice.

“A shpaguk.” Ga-Nor took his sword from its sheath and stepped aside.

“A male,” I clarified. “That means that the female might be nearby. Don’t all stand together. Disperse. So it can’t reach all of us at once.”

“So what can’t reach us?” Now the soldier was looking into the forest as well.

“Its saliva.”

“What should we do about him?” Layen nodded at the Healer.

“Let him lie there. We don’t have time for him right now.”

Fkhut!

A clump flew out of the trees and would have hit Luk directly if he hadn’t jumped to the side with all the grace of a blind boar.

Shloop!

The soldier lost his footing and fell face-first into a puddle. But he immediately hopped to his feet, spitting and swearing fiercely.

Fkhut!

This time it was Layen who had to move aside, and the shpaguk missed again.

Shloop!

I finally marked where it was spitting from and randomly shot off an arrow in that direction. Of course, it didn’t connect, but the threat forced our opponent to go from spitting to attacking. It jumped out onto the road from the upper branches of a spruce tree, landing dangerously close to Shen, and croaked deafeningly.

It was short, about waist high, and as round as a saucer, with eight furry legs that ended in serrated claws. Thick green fuzz blanketed the creature’s entire body, and its two pairs of small, black eyes looked like precious stones. It clicked its formidable mandibles, and its flexible tail, tipped with a yard-long stinger, flicked up threateningly. Naturally, a man couldn’t expect anything good to come from being struck by that. As far as I know, there’s no antidote to its venom.

“Shoot him!” yelped Luk.

The first and only arrow I shot struck the shpaguk in his mandibles. He shot up into the air and landed right next to me, spitting. I could do nothing but drop down and let the saliva pass over me. I didn’t have time to jump up, and the brute was about to slam its stinger into me, but Ga-Nor leapt in front of me and used his sword to cut through the shpaguk’s tail at the very base. Then the snap of a crossbow rang out—Layen was shooting.

The creature chirred, forgetting about me, and turned to face its new opponent. I rolled away, losing my arrows along the way. Luk resolutely stepped between me and the forest creature. It was occupied with raising its front claws as it prepared to attack the northerner. With a grunt, the soldier plunged his axe into the level back of the shpaguk, and a nasty substance spurted in all directions. Our adversary croaked hoarsely and began stumbling toward the trees on shaky legs, but it never reached them. It died at the very edge of the road.

Baring her knife, Layen rushed over to free Shen. Luk just stood there staring at the animal.

“Help her!” I quickly gathered my arrows. “Come on!”

“What a monster that was.” The soldier’s face was smeared with mud and the blood of the shpaguk. “I hit him good. What? Is he going to come back to life or something?”

“The male hunts. The female waits and eats,” explained Ga-Nor as he walked past us.

“And she might put in an appearance,” I added.

That made the man move. The three of them hacked into the strong cocoon of petrified saliva and liberated Shen from his imprisonment.

Just in the nick of time.

Only a deaf man couldn’t hear that something was crashing toward us through the underbrush. Magpies soared out of the nearby trees with vile shrieks, and a new foe broke out onto the road about twenty yards from us. She was much larger than her mate. Unlike him, she was dark green, and she stood on bulky, barbed legs. Female shpaguks don’t have a tail and they don’t spit petrifying saliva, but a thing that size doesn’t really need those kinds of weapons.

The creature saw its dead mate and headed for us, croaking menacingly.

“Little pig, little pig…” An arrow struck her in the leg.

“Where are you…”

In the eye.

“… roving? Little pig…”

In the head.

“… little pig, where are… you going?… Run faster, little pig… up to the trough…. Slops there, little pig… up to the… top.”

On the eleventh shot, when the enormous female was already towering over me, I finally got her. Right in her gaping jaws. The shpaguk went into convulsions, striking out to the left and right with her claws, hoping to catch one of us. Only after several minutes did she deign to die.

Luk cleared his throat behind my back.

“Very impressive. I thought for sure she was going to rip you apart.”

“Me too. Me too,” I muttered, and peered into my quiver. There were only two arrows left in it.

“What was that you were singing?” Shen wasn’t looking at me but at the green carcass lying on the road.

“That… It was a children’s nursery rhyme.”

“I didn’t expect anything more intelligent from you.”

“Then perhaps you should have helped me, instead of hiding behind my back,” I said nastily.

“Enough!” Layen shouted at us. “When we make camp you can bicker to your heart’s content but right now we’d best get out of here. Sometimes they live in swarm.”

“Shpaguks only swarm toward mid-fall.” Ga-Nor shoved his sword into its sheath. “But it really is best if we leave.”

I didn’t bother cutting out my arrows. It would take far too much time, and plus the creature had broken almost all of them with the short claws that grew near her mouth. However, I did stop by the male’s tail.

“You want to take the venom?” Ga-Nor asked as he noiselessly walked up to me.

“I’m thinking about it.”

“It’s a good thought,” he approved. “It doesn’t get old. Always works.”

“I know.” I cut into the flesh around the stinger. I pried up the plates with the edge of my dagger, revealing a refluent, blue sac that resembled a fish’s air bladder.

“That’s enough to poison an entire fortress.” Luk peered at it over our heads. “It would have been handy to drop that in the cooking pot of a Nabatorian regiment.”

“That wouldn’t work. You could drink the whole thing and nothing would happen to you. It kills only through the blood.”

“Ah,” he drawled disappointedly and walked away to Layen, who was waiting impatiently for us.

I carefully pricked the wall of the bladder with my knife and held my flask under it, from which I had first emptied the water. A few drops of transparent venom landed on my hand but I didn’t pay them any attention. My hands could be washed once the priceless poison had been transferred from its unstable sac to my container.

“You shoot fairly well, Gray.” Ga-Nor was attentively observing my actions. “You’ve got good speed.”

“I can’t complain.”

“Were you taught by a southerner?”

“I wouldn’t have thought you’d have an eye for different styles of archery,” I said, chuckling, in no hurry to reply.

“Somewhat.” He did not bother to deny it. “The Imperials have a completely different stance. And they draw their strings differently. And if you had picked it up from my people, you would never carry a bow like that.”

“You’re correct,” I capitulated. “A southerner taught me. A Sdisian, curiously enough.”

“I figured as much.” Ga-Nor nodded, not at all surprised. Then he asked, “Did you soldier in Sandon?”

“Is it so obvious?”

“I just recall that some Sdisian mercenaries served there. In the Arrows of Maiburg. One of those lads could easily have taught you a few lessons.”

“That’s ancient history.” I smiled crookedly.

“I hope you aren’t waiting for me to give my sword back to you.” He swiftly changed the topic of conversation and I raised my eyes to him.

“So you won’t give it back?”

“No.”

“All right, carry it yourself.” I shrugged my shoulders. “It’ll be easier on Layen.”

For some reason he laughed cheerfully and finally left me alone. I called out to him, “Hey, ginger!”

“Yes?”

“Thanks for saving my hide. I owe you one.”

For a moment he looked at me intently and seriously, and then he broke into a smile, which caused his already threatening face to become downright predatory.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

We passed through two hamlets, so small they didn’t even have inns, came to the shore of a slow river overgrown with reeds, made our way across the river on a small ferry, and finally found ourselves on a low hillock overlooking a small town with an absurd name: Dabb’s Bald Hollow. The road traveled down alongside a large cemetery, right beyond which the settlement began.

It grew up on the intersection of four roads. One came from the east—we arrived on it; another came from the west, from Al’sgara; the third came from the north, from Okni; and the fourth came from the south, from the mining villages that were located a week’s ride away in the Boxwood Mountains. It was from the western part of that mountain range that merchants transported iron and silver ore to the southern part of the Empire. Essential goods passed through Bald Hollow and then traveled throughout the country. Before the silver mines near the Gates of Six Towers had been exhausted, the eastern road had been no less lively than the southern. But now it was desolate and the merchants who had lost their principal source of income in the region rarely traveled through the Forest Belt.

In my estimation, Bald Hollow should have been teeming with people, even though the Feast of the Name had long since passed and the main summer fair was over. People have a hard time dispersing to their homes after a weeklong drinking spree.

“It’s as quiet as the grave,” said Luk, looking around.

“Open your eyes! We are walking by a cemetery.” Over the past few days Shen’s mood had not taken a turn for the better.

“It’s you who should open his eyes,” objected the soldier. “The dead can not only make noise if they’ve a will to, but they can run quite quickly as well. I saw it myself, screw a toad.”

“Be silent,” I admonished him. “Do you want to draw them down on us?”

He shut up.

We traveled along the cemetery road, passed by the standing stone at the intersection of the four roads, and approached the town. Ahead of us was a low, gray wall, two wooden towers for archers (now empty), and the gaping panels of the gate. Three guards in beribboned jackets holding crossbows were next to them. They didn’t pay any attention to us. Not even the presence of the northerner intrigued them. The men were dead drunk from too many toasts with reska (melon vodka).

“Good little defenders, aren’t they?” Luk twisted up his face as if all his teeth had suddenly started aching. “Don’t they know about the war?”

“It’s very strange, all of it,” said Ga-Nor.

“What’s strange?” asked Shen.

“Where is the army? Why are there no patrols here and only three drunk degenerates? It’s not all that far to Dog Green. The enemy wouldn’t need much time to attack. A few swift assaults, and the road to Al’sgara is open. I don’t see a single soldier. There wasn’t even a measly roadblock.”

“The army is keeping the enemy in check in the north. Apparently, they agreed that the Steps of the Hangman are more important than Al’sgara right now. Besides, why do you think anyone would care about this town? The army isn’t deployed here, and all our fortifications are westward.”

“I know. Crow’s Nest holds the eastern road to Al’sgara.”

“There you have it. It’s no wonder that Bald Hollow has been left to its own fate. It’s not the right place to stop the enemy.”

“That’s idiotic,” disagreed the northerner.

“I think the Imperial commanders have a better idea of what’s idiotic and what’s not. You’re nothing more than a soldier—”

“And you lecture too much. To each his own, Shen,” I interrupted him.

“What are you insinuating by that?”

“There’s no need for a healer to meddle in the business of warriors. If you want to fight a war, enlist in the army.”

“Perhaps I will do that. Unlike you all, I love my country.”

“You all?” Luk scowled. “Just who do you have in mind, lad, screw a toad?”

“He means Layen and me. This has nothing to do with you. You can keep your peace.” I chuckled meanly. “To the front, Shen! To the front! You do know that if you decide to go away no one will cry for you.”

“Oh, no. We’re getting to Al’sgara together.”

“As you wish. But if you suddenly decide to go into soldiery, just give a whistle. I’ll happily find a recruiter for you.”

“You’re very kind.”

“I know.” I stepped closer to him and whispered so that Luk and Ga-Nor wouldn’t hear me, “But it would be better for you if you didn’t test my kindness. Do we understand each other?”

“Entirely.” His eyes were hard. “I’ll remember your words.”

“I really hope so. And I’ll remember that you remember them.”

At times we understood each other perfectly.

“Shen, do you have a dream?” Luk interrupted our conversation.

“What?” he asked suspiciously.

“Oh, nothing. I was simply trying to encourage conversation. I, for example, dream of a real bed, some chow, clean clothes, a barrel of shaf, and hot water.”

“What a fastidious guy you are!” The Healer laughed. “I wouldn’t have thought!”

“If you had crawled around forests and bogs with me, ran from the Damned, dead men, and Burnt Souls, well then, you’d want the same thing.”

“You forgot about something, Luk,” said Ga-Nor as he kicked a pebble in the road. “Where will you get the money from?”

“Well,” he said, embarrassed. “I have one soren. I think it’s enough for you and me.”

The redhead raised his eyebrow in surprise, but he remained silent. It was clear that he hadn’t expected his friend to have any money.

“If it’s not enough, we’ll happily treat you,” offered Layen.

Now it was my eyebrows that crawled upward. I hadn’t anticipated such sudden generosity from her. Of course, we had a lot of money; we could feed a whole squadron of northerners for five years, but Layen rarely offered help to outsiders. Should I take this to mean that she had decided to accept this pair into our team?

No matter. I was not against it. Unlike Midge and Bamut, they weren’t too bad. And I didn’t expect them to play any nasty tricks on us, unlike our Healer.

Even though Pork was rolled up in a warm blanket, he still shivered softly. The fire was no use at all and the forest hanging over the road seemed sinister. The cowherd was expecting a forest monster to come out of the darkness at any minute and devour him. The two horses standing by the stream whickered softly every once in a while, and each time the peasant flinched.

The village idiot was horribly terrified, and he very much wanted to cry, but he didn’t, fearing that Mistress would wake up and he’d have to do things he didn’t want to again. And then he’d wake from a trance in some nightmarish place. Like a graveyard. Or the lair of a man-eating gove.

He could not imagine how he found himself so far from his native village. At some point he’d heard Mistress command him to go to sleep and not bother her until morning. But Pork couldn’t get to sleep. Next to him lay the living corpse that used to be called Gry. The dead man watched the miserable cowherd with lifeless eyes. This made everything even more frightening. The half-wit recalled how the lady forced him to go up to the gallows and cut the rope, and then she disappeared from behind his left shoulder and the dead guy came alive and sat up, startling all the Nabatorians. Pork wanted to run away, but Mistress, who was crouched in the carcass of the hanged man, would not let him run far. The sobbing cowherd and the living corpse left the village together.

The first night, when the dead man stopped moving and was apparently asleep, Pork tried to flee. He didn’t succeed. The enraged lady suddenly appeared behind his shoulder and then he was punished. After the insane pain, the pathetically whimpering cowherd crawled back to the fire on all fours; the terrible woman returned to the body of the dead man and he heard nothing more from her before morning. But the fool didn’t even consider running anymore.

He just sat there, his eyes dilated in terror, peering into the darkness, waiting apprehensively for morning.