Shadow Blizzard

18 The Margend Horseshoe

“Are you certain there aren’t any orcs here, Egrassa?” Lamplighter asked the elf.

“Yes,” Egrassa replied, but he kept hold of his bow.

That made me feel a bit nervous—and the others, too. We were used to trusting the dark elf’s instincts. And right now Egrassa was tense and focused, as if we were about to be attacked at any moment.

“What makes you so sure?” Kli-Kli asked.

“You heard the flinny say there weren’t any orcs near Moitsig, didn’t you?”

“But when was that? From Maiding to Moitsig is five days’ riding. The orcs don’t like horses, but they’re quite capable of covering the distance in that time. It’s a long time since we saw the flinny, so I wouldn’t be surprised if everything’s changed ten times over by now and these lands are teeming with Firstborn.”

“Don’t talk disaster,” Hallas told Kli-Kli good-naturedly. The gnome was walking in front of me.

“I’m not talking disaster, I’m just feeling a bit anxious.”

“Then stop whinging, or I won’t hear when an orc creeps up on you,” the gnome advised the gobliness.

Our group lapsed into silence. We were all too busy looking for any signs of possible danger, and the conversation petered out of its own accord.

Early that morning, our raft had landed on the left bank of the Iselina. It was no more than three hundred yards from there to the edge of Zagraba. The dryads were the first to disembark from the raft, then they waited until we were all on the bank and led the group on. Early in the night it had stopped raining, and in the middle of the night there had been a light frost, so now the ground and the tree trunks were covered with hoary rime. The rare puddles were covered with a crust of ice.

A few more minutes, and we were out of Zagraba. Ahead of us a hilly plain stretched out for as far as the eye could see, covered with open woodland. Our group was on the southern border of Valiostr.

The dryads exchanged a few words with Egrassa in orcic. Then they nodded to us without speaking, glanced for a brief moment at the bag with the Horn in it, and walked away into the forest. I thought I saw bushes and the bare, leafless trees part to let the Daughters of the Forest pass.

Egrassa straightened his silver coronet and led us out of Zagraba in silence. After we’d gone about five hundred yards, I couldn’t help looking back. It wasn’t likely I would ever see the legendary forest again.

Zagraba was a dark, silent wall behind us. It was quite different now from the land teeming with greenery that I’d seen from the battlements of Cuckoo, and it certainly didn’t look anything like a golden kingdom of autumn any longer. Just an ordinary forest, even if it was a big one. November had devoured all its colors. No wonder the elves and the orcs called it the gray month.

We had a very real chance of running into Firstborn now. In the two hours since we left Zagraba, everything had been quiet and peaceful. There was no indication that an army of many thousands had passed this way—there weren’t any tracks on the ground apart from our own. Egrassa was leading the group along the river, and by his reckoning we should soon reach Moitsig, which stood on the left bank of the Iselina. We couldn’t avoid the city, because we needed horses (I could just imagine how the prices must have soared once the war started) and news of what was happening on the borders of the kingdom.

This war had come at a bad time. Even if we stood firm and the Firstborn didn’t drive us back to the Cold Sea, the losses would be too great, and the army might not recover from the blow in time for spring. Our only hope was Artsivus and the Order. Maybe they would be able to do something with the artifact and then the Nameless One wouldn’t come swooping down on us.

After walking down a low hill covered with aspens, we came out onto a wide road. The frost had frozen the mud created by the previous day’s rain into a whimsical pattern of bumps and hollows. It wasn’t very easy to walk on, but still a lot better than the liquid slush that would have delayed us for a long time if the weather hadn’t turned cold. I’d already regretted that we didn’t have any horses four times at the very least. I’d had quite enough of tramping about on my own two feet. Sagot be praised that the cobbler hadn’t deceived me, and my boots hadn’t fallen to pieces somewhere in the Labyrinth.

“Have you noticed anything strange?” Eel suddenly inquired.

“You have the right idea,” Egrassa responded. “I don’t like it, either.”

“What do you mean?” asked Kli-Kli, puzzled. Just in case, she snatched out one of her throwing knives.

“We’ve been walking along the road for an hour, but we haven’t met anybody,” Eel explained.

“What’s so strange about that?” said Mumr, shifting the bidenhander from one shoulder to the other. “Who’d want to go to Zagraba? That’s where the road leads, doesn’t it?”

“Some people would,” Egrassa objected. “As I recall, there are several fishing villages along the edge of Zagraba, and this is the time when the fisherman should have sold their fish and be on their way home from Moitsig.”

“Maybe the fish weren’t biting? Or they don’t need to sell any fish?” I suggested.

“When there’s a war on? The prices for grub should shoot up so far that any fisherman could make his monthly earnings in a single day! Skipping into town and selling is exactly what they need to do!” Hallas droned.

“Then I don’t know…”

“I do! I swear on my mountain mattock, Harold, there’s something not right here. We’re about to get clobbered! I swear by the Fury of the Depths that we are!”

“Now you’re the one who’s talking disaster,” Kli-Kli teased the gnome.

“We have to do something, and not just wander along the road like a flock of sheep. Any bowman could pick us off here! Egrassa, why don’t I go on ahead? That way, if we run into trouble, I’ll have time to warn you.”

“No,” said the elf after a brief moment’s thought, and he shook his head. “Eel and I will go. You stay on the road for now; we’ll give you a sign if anything happens. Harold, hold the spear.”

The elf handed me the krasta and he and the Garrakian went running on ahead. We waited for the two warriors to disappear over the top of the next hill before we moved on. For half an hour nothing happened, and then we heard a whistle.

For a moment my heart dropped into my boots, but Lamplighter dispelled my fears.

“That’s Eel. Let’s get a move on. There’s something interesting up there.”

“And doesn’t interesting mean dangerous?”

“If it was anything dangerous, he’d have whistled in a completely different way. But try to keep behind me just in case.”

“I promise not to stick my neck out. And I’ll keep hold of Kli-Kli so he doesn’t get under your feet.” Whatever anyone might say, I do have heaps of good qualities, and the most important one is common sense.

We hurried forward as the road climbed the next low hill. Eel appeared on the top and waved to us. When we got up there, we saw what had attracted our scouts’ attention—there was the city of Moitsig ahead of us.

“And who was trying to tell me the Firstborn hadn’t come this far?” Hallas growled.

His question went unanswered. From up on the hill there was an excellent view of the river, a huge uneven open space with scattered patches of open woodland, and the city, just a quarter league away from us. Towering up on the right, between the open space, the city, and the river, were the mighty gray walls of a small fortress. I knew there were another two fortresses on the other side of Moitsig. The reason for building them like that was to have the city at the center of a triangle of three citadels. Quite a good defensive arrangement—before you could storm the city walls, you had to deal with the outposts, otherwise you had a good chance of being hit on the flanks or from the rear by soldiers from the castles making a sortie while you were busy trying to break down the city gates.

But storming one of the bastions was risky, too. While you were dealing with one, help could arrive from another, and the soldiers in the city wouldn’t let a chance to take a lunge at you pass them by. So Moitsig was a genuinely tough nut to crack. It was practically impossible to take by storming it head on, unless you launched simultaneous attacks on all three castles and the city, using a very big army. If all the orcs had gone for Moitsig and not split up into three separate armies, they would have had a chance, but this way—this way was obviously hopeless, as the scene on the open field made clear.

It was absolutely littered with corpses. The scene was too far away for me to make out the details, but a blind beaver could have seen that the orcs had tried to storm the nearest castle and then been hit with a blow on their flank by forces from Moitsig and the other two bastions. The citadel they tried to take had stood firm, but parts of its walls and three of its six towers had been destroyed. I wouldn’t have been surprised if that was the work of orcish shamanism. But not even magic had helped the Firstborn, and they had been overwhelmed by the army of men. I never doubted for a single moment who had won this battle.

“How many are there?” I asked unthinkingly.

“Without counting, no more than three thousand,” said Hallas, screwing up his only eye. “They got a right royal battering. It’s a pity we didn’t get here in time to join in the scrap.”

Personally speaking, I didn’t have the slightest regret that we’d arrived late for the massacre. Darkness only can understand these gnomes, always so desperate to break someone’s armor open with their mattocks.

“I don’t think there are three thousand,” Lamplighter objected.

“What point is there in guessing? Let’s go and take a look! Or, better still, ask someone!”

“Slow down, Hallas! I reckon we’d better not stick our noses in! Our own side could take us for deserters, and that would be the end of us. If this is the way things are, I suggest we ought to avoid the city. Why go sticking your own head in the noose?”

“We’ll have to go in, Mumr. It will take us too long to reach the next town without horses.”

“What do we need a town for, Egrassa? We can call into any village and buy horses.”

“Uh-huh!” said Kli-Kli, positively radiating skepticism. “Sure, they’ll sell you horses. And throw in smart bridles and saddles to go with them. You should try using your head sometimes! You won’t find a single worn-out nag in any of the villages around here! All the horses have been commandeered for the army, and if they haven’t, the peasants won’t let you have their own plow horses.”

“So Harold will have to steal the horses from them,” Mumr parried coolly.

“I’m no horse thief,” I exclaimed, and added hastily, “Anyway, they could regard it as looting and string us up from the nearest tree.”

“We’ll have to go in,” said the elf. “Right now information is far more important than horses. We have to listen to what they know here before we set out for Avendoom. The Firstborn could have the whole area ringed off, and this detachment might be no more than the advance guard.”

And so saying, Egrassa started walking down the hill. The rest of us followed him. Kli-Kli took hold of my sleeve just to be on the safe side, but this time I didn’t try to free myself from her tenacious fingers.

“What were they hoping to achieve?” I asked out loud. “It’s almost impossible to take a fortified city like this with three thousand soldiers.”

“Why is it impossible?” said Eel, who had heard me. “It’s quite possible. If I remember my military history and the history of the Spring War, two thousand Firstborn took Maiding at a trot when they surprised an army of men three times that size, and then they held the city until their main army arrived. These lads probably thought they could repeat the heroic feat of their ancestors.”

“But they bit off more than they could chew,” Hallas concluded pitilessly. “What were they thinking of? Trying to break through defenses like these! Even dwarves would have realized the city must have heard about the orcs moving down the east bank of the Iselina and had plenty of time to prepare! These Firstborn are real oafs! Only the Doralissians could be more stupid!”

“The Firstborn weren’t stupid,” the elf objected. “They were young, and youth tends to be overconfident.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Egrassa’s eyesight is better than yours,” Kli-Kli explained to the gnome. “Wait until we reach the battlefield, then you’ll understand.”

“Maybe we should go round the battlefield?”

“What’s the matter, Harold?” Lamplighter asked with a frown. “Since when have you been afraid of corpses?”

Ever since I took a stroll through Hrad Spein! I thought to myself, but I wisely said nothing. I just didn’t understand why we had to barge straight in and walk over the dead bodies when there was a perfectly open patch of ground if we just kept a bit farther to the left.

Egrassa seemed to think the same as I did, because he turned off the road, and when we approached the battlefield we left most of the dead on our right, but what we did see was more than enough.

The elf was right. As far as I could tell, the orcs really were young. Very young. Mere boys, in fact. And they had met their death attempting to repeat the great feat of their ancestors.

“Boys…,” Kli-Kli whispered. “It’s strange, Harold. They’re our enemies, our bitter enemies. They hate everyone who’s different from them, but now I feel sorry for them.”

“You’re right, jester. Children shouldn’t be fighting where real warriors should take up the sword. What made them do it? Why make this stupid attack? They knew they had no chance of victory,” said Eel, trying not to look at the faces of the dead.

“Maybe they were surrounded and forced to give battle?” I suggested.

“The signs tell a different story. No one surrounded them, and anyway, Zagraba’s not far away. They could have broken out of encirclement.”

“I wonder when this battle took place?”

“Slaughter, Harold, not battle,” Egrassa corrected me. “This is a field of slaughter, not a battlefield. The foolish young pups weren’t given a chance. Can you sense it, Kli-Kli?”

“Yes.”

“What in the name of darkness are you talking about?”

“Magic, Hallas. Magic was used here.”

“I’m not blind, goblin. The gods be praised, I still have one eye left! Just look at how battered the castle is!”

“Men did that.”

“What?” Lamplighter and I asked in a single voice.

“There was no shamanism here. Only wizardry. And that means it was the work of men or light elves. And, as you realize, the latter is not very likely.”

“Then why did they damage their own castle, smart aleck?”

“That was the backlash, Hallas, the price paid for using wizardry. They used one of the Order’s most powerful spells here. I assume that some abomination descended on the orcs and immobilized them all for a while. But the spell must have been so powerful that they couldn’t control the backlash, and it hit the castle. Only the orcs took most of the blow. Do you see the depressions in the ground and what happened to the bodies?”

“I thought they’d been trampled by cavalry,” Eel hissed.

“There aren’t any hoofprints.”

“I see that now, Kli-Kli. But there are plenty of prints from metal-shod boots.”

“Aha, those who weren’t caught by the backlash were finished off by the defenders. The Firstborn were unable to resist in any case, and they were dispatched into the darkness. The men didn’t fight a very fair battle here.”

“If you ask me, that’s no more than the orcs deserve,” said Mumr, spitting down at his feet. “They should stay in their Zagraba and leave our kingdom alone. And as for war … Well, this is war, Kli-Kli, and in war any means are fair. You can demonstrate your nobility in a duel and allow your opponent to pick up the sword that he’s dropped. Here, if you lose your sword, then you lose your head as well. It doesn’t matter why you went to war, what age you are, and how noble you are—you either win and snatch victory, or you rot on the battlefield. In war there is no third way.”

“But even so, it’s not fair,” Kli-Kli argued stubbornly. “They didn’t even have a shaman with them. Weapons should be fought with weapons, not with magic.”

“And Sagra be praised that they didn’t have a shaman,” Lamplighter said furiously. “If they did, three times as many of our men would have been killed. This is war, Kli-Kli. Maybe you’ll understand some time.…”

“I do understand,” the gobliness said reluctantly.

While we were talking, we came back out onto the road leading to Moitsig and moved away from the half-ruined castle—we could see that there wasn’t a single soul in it—and the field of death. The city came closer and closer.

“How long ago was the battle?” I asked, breaking the heavy silence.

“Judging from the fact that they haven’t burned the orcs’ bodies yet, and the crows can still fly—yesterday evening at the earliest,” Eel answered.

“Why, the gates of Moitsig are standing wide open!” Kli-Kli exclaimed in amazement. “Either the townspeople have stopped being afraid after the battle, or something’s happened.”

“Nothing’s happened!” said Eel, screwing up his eyes. “Just look how many people there are up on the walls!”

Well, if those black dots running along the wall were people … We were still too far from the city for me to see.

“I think we’ve been spotted!” said Egrassa, watching a detachment of horsemen come flying out of the gates.

“Hardly surprising,” Lamplighter said with a shrug. “We’re in open territory here, anyone can see us. Keep back, Egrassa. You never know…”

Lamplighter didn’t bother to finish what he was saying, the meaning was clear enough. The lads hurrying toward us might turn out to be just a bit too hot-blooded and keen to hand out punishment. At a passionate gallop it was easy to confuse an elf with an orc.

Egrassa’s eyes flashed at Mumr’s words but—Sagot be praised—he didn’t reach for his s’kash. I don’t think Lamplighter realized he had mortally insulted the elf.

“I am not used to hiding behind the backs of others!”

“Don’t be angry, Egrassa!” Eel put in hastily. “The Master of the Long Sword is talking good sense. It’s best for a bowman to stand in the second line.”

“Do you intend to fight?” the elf asked, raising his right eyebrow mockingly.

“No.”

“Then it makes no difference,” said Egrassa, putting an end to the difficult conversation.

I was starting to feel a bit nervous. “Hallas!” I called. “Don’t go for your mattock!”

The riders were coming closer. Four of the warriors directed their horses to the left and started going round our little group. All four of them were armed with bows. The main group came rushing straight at us, making no effort to restrain their horses. I liked the look of this less and less. Unfortunately, Egrassa had the krasta, and you can’t really fight a man on horseback with a dagger, especially when he’s armed with a lance. One of the riders pressed his spurs into the flank of his horse and moved up two lengths ahead of his comrades. What was this lad intending to do? And why had he lowered his lance?

The ground started to tremble under our feet.

“Stop, Harold!” Kli-Kli hissed, clinging on hard to my clothes. “If we run, he’ll hit us with his lance! Stay here.… Stay here.…”

The horse—a huge black beast that could have emerged straight from the darkness—came flying at us. At the very last moment, just when it seemed that its massive carcass would crush us, the horseman reined in his mount. It reared up on its hind legs, flailing at the air with its front hooves and almost splitting Eel’s head open. The Garrakian ducked to one side, keeping his eyes on the rider, but the horseman had eyes for only one target—Egrassa. As soon as the horse’s front feet touched the ground, the unknown warrior thrust with his lance with all his might, aiming for Egrassa’s chest. The elf would have been spitted if not for Lamplighter. In some miraculous manner the puny Wild Heart managed to get between the rider and the dark elf. The bidenhander sliced through the air with a hiss and collided with the lance, knocking it up and away to one side, and then swung into the next stroke, which should have ended with a blow to the enemy’s unprotected side, but at that point the other horsemen rode up.

The first one struck hard with his lance at the shield of the man who had attacked us. The warrior hadn’t been expecting anything of the kind and he lost his seat in the saddle. I caught a momentary glimpse of a white face with an expression of absolute amazement as the lad went crashing to the ground, right at Lamplighter’s feet.

“Are your brains completely addled, Borrik?” one of the riders barked. “Or have you gone blind?”

The warrior lying on the ground stared wild-eyed and gulped frantically. He’d obviously taken a hard fall when he left the saddle.

“Forgive my man, Tresh Elf,” the same rider said to Egrassa.

“Elf?” the one who was called Borrik finally gasped. “I thought it was one of the orcs.”

“You thought! I’ll send you up onto the wall to count ravens! I won’t let you back in the saddle for a year! Let me apologize again most humbly for this misunderstanding, Tresh…”

“Egrassa. Egrassa of the House of the Black Moon,” the dark elf replied, glaring at Borrik as he tried to get up off the ground.

If there hadn’t been so many horsemen present, the warrior would already have tasted the elf’s s’kash. But Egrassa thought it better for the moment not to put any more strain on relations, and he postponed his vengeance on the young lad for a better time.

“I am Neol Iragen, lieutenant of the Moitsig Guard,” the horseman said.

Neol Iragen was over forty years old. Eyes like a cat, thick eyebrows that met on the bridge of his nose, and the despondent features of a petty nobleman that didn’t fit with the piercing blue glint of those eyes and the confident pose in the saddle.

“Are these, er … people with you, Tresh Egrassa?” The lieutenant stumbled over the word “people,” because it was hard to apply it to a goblin and a gnome.

“Yes, these are my warriors.”

I don’t know what Neol Iragen thought, but Kli-Kli and I certainly attracted a couple of suspicious glances. It couldn’t be helped; the gobliness and I just didn’t look like warriors.

“What brings an elf to our city, when the Black Forest is ablaze?” asked the lieutenant, trying to make his question sound polite.

“Orders from the king,” said Egrassa, taking out Stalkon’s decree, the same one that we’d shown to the two magicians in Vishki. He handed it to the horseman.

The warrior took the document and studied the royal seal carefully. I must say that Milord Neol was certainly surprised, but it hardly showed in his face at all—his thick eyebrows merely quivered.

“When the war began, we were ordered to check any unusual and unexpected travelers,” the lieutenant began cautiously as he returned the document to the elf. “There are all sorts walking the roads now. Including deserters and spies. Your appearance here is very strange, and then these papers … You understand, Tresh Egrassa, we can’t simply let you go just like that?”

“What do you suggest?”

“We need to check everything, and it would be best if we took you into the city, to the commander of the garrison.”

“We have nothing against that,” Egrassa said with a casual shrug.

“Well, that’s marvelous!” Neol Iragen said with a sigh of relief when he realized that the elf had no intention of being stubborn. “Borrik, give Tresh Egrassa your horse!”

The lad had recovered by this time, and he led the large black beast over to Egrassa without a murmur. Another five riders dismounted to give us their horses. They didn’t offer Kli-Kli a horse. The gobliness was about to take offense and make a scene, but I put her up in front of me, and she seemed quite content with that arrangement.

As we rode toward Moitsig, we found ourselves in the center of the detachment of riders, who surrounded us, seemingly by chance, just in case these strange travelers might decide that they didn’t really want to visit the city and try to make a run for it.

“What’s happening with the army? Is Maiding still holding out?” asked Eel, breaking the long silence.

One of the warriors opened his mouth to answer, but caught a glance of warning from Neol Iragen and swallowed the words that had been on the tip of his tongue.

“Wait for a little while, soldier,” said the lieutenant. “The commandant will tell you everything.”

Eel nodded and didn’t ask any more questions. I couldn’t understand the reason for all the secrets. Didn’t he trust the royal decree? To think of us as deserters was stupid, to say the least. And we didn’t fit the role of spies. Orcs would never use men as spies. Or would they? When I remembered the First Human Assault Army that had gone over to the orcs during the Spring War, the concerns of the citizens of Moitsig didn’t seem so strange.

“Lamplighter!” Egrassa suddenly called to the Wild Heart.

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

Mumr hadn’t been expecting any gratitude from the elf. He screwed his eyes up in satisfaction and grinned from ear to ear.

Moitsig was a seething hive of activity. It was only half the size of Ranneng, and it couldn’t bear any comparison at all with Avendoom, but that didn’t prevent the inhabitants of this southern city feeling for a day that they were the luckiest folk in the Universe.

The festive atmosphere that filled the squares and streets would have been the envy of any city in the world. The holiday feeling hung in the air—we heard it in the conversations of the townsfolk and the guards at the gates, it rang out in the songs of the revelers at the inns and taverns. It was as if there was no war. Today the inhabitants of the city were victorious. They, and they alone, had crushed a force of three thousand (or perhaps even more) orcs, and what difference did it make how the victory had been snatched from the jaws of fate? The victors are never judged—isn’t that what they say? Today the people were rejoicing and trying to enjoy everything life had to offer, for tomorrow the bleak times would begin again and the war would continue.

We didn’t ride through the streets crammed with people for very long. Neol Iragen led our group to the municipal barracks. There were as many soldiers here as there were civilians out in the streets. The warriors seemed to be preparing for a march. They were all dashing about from one corner to another. The captains and sergeants were yelling orders, some men were packing their kit, others were saddling horses.

Were the lads getting ready to give someone a good roasting? Well, it was high time.

They brought us to the barracks and left us in the company of some soldiers. Egrassa and Eel went off together with the lieutenant of the guard to see the commandant, and we passed the time at the table. The gods be praised, they didn’t intend to starve us to death. Kli-Kli didn’t eat anything, and the moment I let her out of my sight, she disappeared. She must have gone running off after the elf or decided to sniff out some news.

“I don’t like all this,” Hallas said, chomping away and at the same time fishing a particularly appetizing piece of meat out of the pot. “Celebrations are all very well, a victory should be celebrated, but it’s not good to go playing the fool. What on earth, I ask you, is the point of leaving the city gates wide open? The orcs have always been famous for their rapid attacks. There’ll be a real panic when they turn up, you mark my words, Harold! The guards might not even have time to close the gates, and then what do we do? It’s a lot harder fighting in the streets than up on the walls.”

“Don’t be so nervous. Everything will be just fine,” Lamplighter said philosophically, and gave a long, drawn-out belch. “This Neol doesn’t seem like a fool. If the gates are open, then there’s nothing to be afraid of. I’m sure the area round the city is crawling with scouts, like fleas on a mangy dog. They’ll spot any orcs a league away.”

“Why can’t you understand, Mumr?” the gnome exclaimed indignantly. “There has to be order in everything! If the gates are open, that’s gross negligence! We gnomes would never commit a stupidity like that.”

“If Deler was here—may he dwell the light—he’d soon give you an answer,” Lamplighter retorted.

Hallas suddenly lost interest in the conversation, started stirring the soup round with his spoon, and then pushed the pot away.

“They’ve been gone a long time. I hope this commandant isn’t some kind of petty tyrant who wants to keep us here longer than necessary.”

“Who’s going to keep us here when we have papers from the king?” Mumr asked in amazement, like a little child.

“Who’s going to keep us here?” the gnome echoed, mocking his comrade. “A lot of good those papers did us at Vishki! Those magicians never even looked at them properly. If they’d felt the urge, they would have wiped their backsides with them. If it wasn’t for that hand monster, darkness only knows what would have happened to us. Who can guarantee that everything will be all right this time round? Nothing to say? That’s right! No one can give us any guarantee. How about you, Harold? What do you think?”

“Nothing much, really.”

“Nothing much?” Hallas exclaimed. “Don’t you have an opinion on the matter?”

“Hallas, stop blathering,” I said, trying to calm the gnome down. “What’s wrong, don’t you trust Egrassa and Eel?”

At that the gnome just glared at me with his one eye and tightened his grip on the spoon, preparing to use it on me.

“Look,” I said soberly, drawing a line under the conversation. “There’s nothing to be worried about. Egrassa and Eel will manage to persuade the commandant somehow.”

Hallas glowered at me from under his bandage and pulled the pot back toward him.

“Just the same, they’re all slackers here. They left us without any guards.”

“Where are you going to run to, if you don’t mind telling me?” asked Mumr, licking his spoon. “There are men all around; you wouldn’t get away without being spotted.”

“Hey!” said one of the soldiers who was walking past our table. “I know you!”

The three of us gaped at him. Just an ordinary soldier like any other. I would have sworn I’d never seen his face before. But the crest sewn on to the warrior’s jacket was familiar. A black cloud on a green field—the crest of my dear old friend, Baron Oro Gabsbarg. So this lad was one of the baron’s soldiers. But what wind could have blown him so far from home?

“But we don’t know you,” Lucky muttered rather disagreeably. “We’ve never met.”

“You’re mistaken, honorable sir! Late summer, at Mole Castle. Do you remember now?”

“No.”

“I was in Milord Gabsbarg’s retinue. Agh! Listen, you’re the lad who pinned Meilo Trug to the ground!” said the soldier, talking to Lamplighter now.

“Well, yes,” Mumr admitted reluctantly.

“Hey! Lads!” the soldier yelled, loud enough for the whole barracks to hear, attracting everybody’s attention to us. “This is the master of the long sword I was telling you about. He wiped the floor with Trug in Kind Soul Castle!”

And then it began! Apparently every soldier in the kingdom had heard about Lamplighter’s heroic exploits. Anyway, a dense crowd gathered round our table, and every man was trying to pat Mumr on the shoulder. Those who couldn’t reach Mumr made do with me or Hallas, as if the gnome and I had also swung double-handed swords around in the courtyard of Algert Dalli’s castle during that memorable duel at the Judgment of Sagra. Hallas even thawed a bit and started grinning when he found himself the center of attention.

The lad wearing Gabsbarg’s crest was almost busting a gut as he told the story of the duel for the hundredth time. The men listened delightedly. A gray-haired veteran squeezed his way through the crowd besieging our table from all sides. He had a massive two-hander nestling on his shoulder, and the gold oak leaf was clearly visible on the hilt. A master of the long sword. The warrior bowed respectfully. Mumr kept up the good tone and replied with a bow of his own.

The warrior respectfully requested Mr. Lamplighter, when he had the time, of course, to give him a few lessons. Mumr agreed. Hallas grunted and hinted rather casually that it would be rather nice to have some beer, maybe. One of the young soldiers went dashing out of the barracks and less than five minutes later we had several potbellied mugs of beer standing in front of us.

Ah, darkness! In all that wandering around Zagraba I’d forgotten what beer tasted like. So I just relished it, leaving Hallas, surrounded by eager listeners, to get on with telling his tall stories. Puffed up with pride, the gnome told the whole world how he had singlehandedly dragged me out of the Labyrinth and how—with this very mattock—he had nailed ninety-eight orcs and one h’san’kor in the Golden Forest. He was just bullshitting with the number of orcs, of course, but they believed him. How could they not believe him, when as proof he showed them an absolutely genuine horn from the forest monster?

By the end of this epic tale every soldier in the barracks would have walked through fire for the gnome. I was sure that in three days’ time the entire army would know Hallas’s fairy tales. The gods be praised that he didn’t think of throwing in a dragon and a princess just to round things off.

I was beginning to catch inquiring glances directed my way. Probably some of those present assumed that since I was traveling with highly respected daredevils like Hallas and Deler, I was a legendary hero, too, and at the very least I must have wrung the Nameless One’s neck with my bare hands. If the lads had only known that I’d walked right through Hrad Spein and now I had the Rainbow Horn in my bag, they would have been absolutely convinced that we were three great heroes from the Gray Age.

The gnome was working his way into his third mug of beer and he hadn’t stopped talking for a moment. I seized my chance to attract the attention of Gabsbarg’s soldier.

“How did you end up here?” I asked him.

“I’m an adjutant now, and milord’s personal envoy!” the lad replied proudly. “I was sent here to get help.”

“Help? Has something happened to the baron?”

“Baron?” the soldier chortled. “Think again, my friend!”

But just then, as bad luck would have it, Kli-Kli showed up.

“Wind it up, Egrassa wants us!”

Everybody wished us good luck, and started thumping us on the back all over again. When I eventually followed the gobliness out through the crowd, my shoulders were aching.

“Where are you taking us?” I asked Kli-Kli.

“Somewhere a bit quieter. Where we can talk properly,” she answered.

“You mean Egrassa doesn’t want us?” the gnome asked with a frown.

“Of course not!”

“What did you want to talk to us about?”

“Lots of things. I’ve found out a thing or two that you’ll find interesting. Eel’s already waiting for us.”

“What about Egrassa?”

“He was invited to dine with the commandant.”

“Which means that everything’s been settled?”

“I’ve always said our Dancer was an absolute genius!” Kli-Kli chuckled as she led us out into the courtyard.

“And this is what you call privacy?”

“At least here no one will take any notice of us. Will there be any more questions?”

“What’s that sack you’re lugging about? Are you sure you won’t rupture yourself?”

“You worry about yourself,” she snorted. “Anyway, we’re here.”

The gobliness led us over to a building, casually kicked the door open, and we walked into a spacious room. Eel was enthroned at a table, gnawing on a chicken leg. And I should say that there was certainly plenty of food.

“My, aren’t you doing well! Who paid for all this?” said Hallas, asking the question closest to the heart of every gnome.

“No one. Milord Commandant was so kind as to provide us with food from his own table and give us a room, while Egrassa dines in the company of His Grace. Do join me in the feast.”

“Well, actually, we already ate in the barracks,” said the gnome, trying halfheartedly to decline.

“All right, that’s up to you. There’ll be all the more for me.”

At that Hallas rubbed his hands together and walked straight to the table.

“All right, you lot eat your fill, and I’ll tell you about what’s happened in Valiostr while we were walking through Zagraba. Eel already knows everything. Eat, Hallas, eat. It’s better than we thought.”

“How much better?” I asked Kli-Kli cautiously.

“A lot. The orcs are getting their butts kicked on all fronts!” she informed us with a delighted look on her face.

“Wha-a-at?” Hallas exclaimed, gaping in amazement with his one eye.

“That’s the way of it, my dear gnome. Apparently we’re not such pushovers after all. Somehow we found out about the invasion two days before the war started. Most of the border garrisons had enough time to prepare and they withdrew.”

“Withdrew?” I didn’t quite catch the connection between the words “prepare” and “withdrew.”

“Oh, yes. The Borderland Kingdom’s forces weren’t going to retreat anywhere, but our men pulled back, and the glorious army of Valiostr came to meet them. The Heartless Chasseurs, the Hounds of Fortune, the Unyielding Ones, the Tramps, Gimo’s Clowns, the Loons of Fate, and many, many more. At Upper Otters—a familiar name that, isn’t it? They went into battle at Upper Otters and gave the Firstborn such a thrashing that it took them two days to recover. And by that time our army had vanished into thin air. We fell back again, this time beyond the Iselina. The orcs seemed to lose their senses; they advanced and got another thrashing for their efforts. By this time the northern army had arrived, too. There was a full-scale engagement near Ranneng and the orc army was split into three parts. The first part, the biggest, was driven all the way back to the Border Kingdom, but we don’t know what happened there yet. The remnants of the second part managed to limp back somehow to their beloved Golden Forest, and the third part was caught and surrounded in Margend County, which is only a stone’s throw from here. You can’t imagine how delighted I am! The central army of the orcs has been smashed to smithereens!”

“Mm, yes,” I said, unable to believe my ears. “Is all this definite?”

“Of course it’s definite, blockhead! The commandant himself told Egrassa! The moment he saw the papers with the royal seal, he turned as smooth as silk. If you don’t believe me, ask Eel.”

This time the valiant army of Valiostr really had proved itself to be valiant, and the nightmare of the Spring War had not been repeated. The enemy had been stopped and thrown back. Ha-ha! That was what you could do with timely information and the northern army of forty thousand men that the king had assembled as a welcoming committee for the Nameless One.

“And how are things with the orcs’ second and third armies?”

“The Borderlanders seemed to be standing firm and they’ll hold out until our forces reach them. So the Firstborn are to be pitied. Soon they’ll clear off back to their Golden Forest and won’t stick their noses out for another three hundred years. They’ll remember a crushing defeat like this for a very long time. As for the third army, that’s all quite simple. The elves have rallied, and the latest information is that the situation in the Black Forest has stabilized. And as for the orcs who attacked Maiding”—Kli-Kli laughed conspiratorially—“they were in for just as big a surprise as the ones who went for Ranneng and ran into the Wild Hearts and the Heartless Chasseurs and the border garrisons. Our lads were expecting them, and then help arrived, and—”

“Wait, Kli-Kli!” Lamplighter interrupted, speaking for the first time. “Where did help come from there?”

“Have you forgotten about our fifteen thousand men permanently stationed on the border with Miranueh?”

“I haven’t forgotten, but I’m sure Miranueh didn’t forget them, either. The whole of the west is under the command of the Carp now.” (This was a disdainful name for the inhabitants of Miranueh.)

“Don’t worry about that! Everything’s just great there as well! Twenty thousand Firstborn advanced against Maiding. The King of Miranueh couldn’t bear the sight of such injustice and he added ten thousand of his pikemen and four thousand cavalry to our fifteen thousand.”

“Wha-a-at!” This time all three of us gaped in amazement.

“Uh-huh. The orcs had really got up His Majesty’s nose one way or another, and His Majesty decided to intervene to help his neighbor to the north.”

“I don’t believe it! I’ll believe anything, but not Miranueh! All these centuries we’ve been squabbling over the Disputed Lands, and then this!”

“Don’t the priests say that you should be generous, Harold?” the gobliness giggled. “Darkness only knows what made the king of Miranueh act so generously at just the right moment, but our own obliging Stalkon bowed gratefully and handed Miranueh the Disputed Lands.”

Hallas choked on his wine and started coughing. Eel thumped the gnome on the back.

“No great loss. All those years spent haggling over twenty leagues of swampy land that’s no good to anyone … Only northerners would do that sort of thing.…”

“Well, in Garrak you’ve got plenty of land to spare, but it’s in short supply up here,” said Lamplighter, springing to the defense of his native kingdom. “But what’s done is done. So the orcs were driven back from Maiding?”

“Not just driven back, but surrounded and wiped out!” the gobliness positively sang. “Victory on all fronts! And the allied army didn’t stop at that, it went into the Black Forest, to help our brothers the elves. If our generals have any brains at all, they’ll clear the Firstborn out of the Golden Forest completely.”

“For which—three cheers,” said Hallas, raising his glass.

“So the ones who attacked Moitsig were a surviving fragment of the central army?”

“No, Mumr. They were lured out of Zagraba. Our soldiers were lucky, they picked up the clan chief of the Grun Ear-Cutters himself as he and his rabble were making their way back to their native forest. And they strung him up on the city gates, as a lesson to anyone who doesn’t want to stay quietly at home in the Golden Forest. And those young pups didn’t understand the message and crept out under the eye of Sagra. They wanted to retrieve the body. Well, they were massacred.… Right, Harold. And now for you. While you were cooling your heels in the barracks, I managed to run a couple of errands and pick up a few things.” And so saying, the gobliness reached into the sack and set a crossbow on the table, together with twenty short bolts. “There … without a decent weapon you’ll soon pine away.”

I picked up the crossbow. Of course, it wasn’t my little beauty, the one I’d left behind in Hrad Spein, but it wasn’t bad at all. I used to have one just like it before. A “wasp”—a light weapon, and very reliable.

“Where did you get it?”

“I filched it, of course. From their armory,” she said, bursting with pride.

“And what if they catch me with it now?” I chuckled, amazed at Kli-Kli’s sheer cheek in stealing a weapon from right under a soldier’s nose.

“If they catch you, Dancer, then you’ll have to deal with it. I’ve done my bit. All the rest is your problem.”

“Thanks a lot, Kli-Kli,” I said sarcastically to my “benefactress.”

“Don’t mention it,” she answered in the same tone of voice, and grinned gleefully. “And by the way, all of you, better get those jaws working, I’ve still got to take you to get some warm clothes. Winter’s almost here, and you’re still prancing about in those rags.”

“Are we all going thieving together?” Hallas inquired, rolling his one eye.

“You have a very poor opinion of goblins, Lucky,” the gobliness said resentfully. “Why do we have to go thieving? Egrassa’s settled everything with the commandant. All we have to do now is pick up some warm things and we can hit the road. When we reach Avendoom, the real frosts will start to bite, and then all of you will say thank you to the little goblin, yes you will, for the nice warm clothes, because, if not for me, you would all have frozen to death.”

“I thought you just said that Egrassa made the arrangements for the clothes, not you,” Eel remarked innocently.

“But who do you think told him?” Kli-Kli asked spitefully.

“You told me,” Egrassa replied as he walked into the room. “Get ready, there’s an armed detachment leaving Moitsig in an hour. We’ll leave with them.”

“Why with them?” Hallas asked with a scowl. “Are we likely to lose our way?”

“You’re forgetting that although the orcs have been routed, the chances of running into scattered units of Firstborn are still very high. Would you like to lose your second eye, too?”

The gnome’s answer to that was to brag that he’d like to see the orcs try to get anywhere near him, and that if they did, a certain mattock would smash their skulls in for them.

“Are the Moitsig warriors going to Ranneng, too?”

“No, Eel. They’re in a hurry to get to Margend County. Part of the central army of the Firstborn has been surrounded only one day’s journey from here. Neol Iragen’s detachment is going to take part in the forthcoming battle.”

“Are there many orcs?” Lucky inquired, stroking his beard.

“About five and a half thousand.”

“That’s enough for me,” the gnome said with a decisive nod, and Deler’s hat fell down over his eyes. “Why are you all sitting there? Let’s get moving, or they’ll finish off all the orcs without us!”

I would have liked to say that would be for the best, but I kept my mouth shut. Why upset the gnome? Hallas was as happy as a child who’d just been promised a toy.

We left Moitsig an hour and a half later to loud howls of acclamation from the townsfolk, who were seeing their warriors off on their victorious campaign (no one had any doubt that they would be victorious). The commandant had been kind enough to present us with horses as well as warm clothes.

I’d been given a dark brown stallion with a marked inclination to try to kill his masters. In any case, the beast kept attempting to break into a gallop and dispatch his unfortunate rider directly to his grave. By some cruel jest of the gods, it was a cavalry horse, whose only aim in life was to go dashing forward at breakneck speed, preferably to the sound of a bugle. After my gentle Little Bee, this example of the equine species filled me with anxiety and creeping horror. It cost me an incredible effort just to hold the hothead back and not tumble out of the saddle. Eel watched with a compassionate expression as I struggled in vain to subdue the demon of frenzied unreason that possessed the horse, until finally he couldn’t stand it anymore and offered to swap horses with me. Before the Garrakian could change his mind, I slipped out of the saddle and mounted a gentle, rather shaggy, and well-fed horse of indeterminate breed.

Now this was a horse that really suited me! She would only run if I wanted her to, or if there was an ogre chasing her.

“What’s she called?” I asked.

“Horse,” said the Garrakian, smiling.

One of the soldiers riding behind us overheard the conversation and roared with laughter. I don’t know what he found so funny.

“All right then, Horse it is,” I chuckled, patting the animal on the neck. “The name really suits her.”

“Look, Harold, over there? Those men over there, in the gray cloaks.”

“The members of the Order, you mean?”

“Those are the ones. It was that six who stopped the orcs at Moitsig.”

“Well, good for them.”

I personally felt no interest at all in the magicians.

But then I wondered what they’d say if they found out about the Rainbow Horn. And for a moment I felt the urge to hand the magical artifact over to them and never have anything more to do with magic again. I had to struggle with myself not to get rid of the Horn there and then.

The road led northward and, according to that know-all Kli-Kli, it would take us directly to Ranneng, but first we had to get past the small county of Margend, which ran along the west bank of the Iselina almost as far as Boltnik.

A detachment of mounted men six hundred strong set out from Moitsig. Two days earlier one and a half thousand heavy infantry from the Cat Halberdiers and the Rollicking Rogues had left the city in the direction of Margend. The Halberdiers had arrived in the city from Maiding immediately after the orcs in that section of the front were routed and forces had to be shifted urgently to the east, toward the Iselina. The Rollickers had been quartered in Moitsig and were spoiling for a fight.

Baron Gabsbarg’s soldier was riding in our unit, and he told me all the soldiers’ gossip. The lad jabbered away without a break, but just when I was going to ask about the baron he was called up to the front to Neol Iragen, and I had to postpone my questions for some other time.

In the way of things, our large mounted detachment ought soon to overtake the infantry and the large transport column wending its way toward the Second Army of the South that had encircled the remnants of the Firstborn. From what the soldiers were saying, we should arrive in the afternoon of the next day, in time to help our forces drive the orcs into the river. Egrassa was riding somewhere up at the head of the detachment with Neol Iragen, so we were left to our own devices. Or, rather, the gobliness was. Deprived of the elf’s oversight, Kli-Kli decided to slip back into the role of the king’s favorite jester. An hour later a good two hundred of the soldiers were laughing heartily at her jokes and songs and verses and other fancy tricks.

Ten minutes after that, the entire detachment had heard about the little sharp-tongued goblin traveling in the first unit. Naturally, the other five units started vying with each other to get Kli-Kli to join them. She was the life and soul of the honorable company once again, and she amused the soldiers until twilight fell, when the detachment halted for the night at a large village completely untouched by the war.

The locals turned out to be expecting us, and although there weren’t enough houses for such a great horde, the local baron, who had come dashing from the nearest castle, complete with his numerous retinue, had made everything ready to receive his victorious guests. Thanks to Egrassa, we were even given a house where we could spend the night.

While Eel and the elf and I were settling into the new place, Kli-Kli managed to slip off. Hallas and Lamplighter didn’t stay around for long, either. They were almost carried off shoulder-high to the center of the village, where the festivities in honor of the arrival of the glorious warriors were due to begin. I thought how many listeners the gnome would have now. The soldiers invited us as well, but I declined and Eel thought about it for a moment, then shook his head, too. Egrassa was invited to dine at the baron’s festive table and he went in order to be polite.

It was dark outside. I breathed in the cold air that felt wintry already.

“Smells like the first snow,” said Eel, as if he was reading my mind.

“It’s cool, all right,” I agreed. “November’s a cold month in the south this year.”

“Is this cold? It’s nothing but a light frost,” he chuckled. “See how pale the stars are? In a serious frost they burn like the jewels in the royal crown.”

“Our Stalkon doesn’t have all that many precious stones in his crown.”

“I meant the Garrakian crown.”

“Oh!” I said, realizing I’d said something stupid.

We said nothing for a while, listening to the happy shouting and laughter ringing out in the night.

“They’re making merry, as if there was no war at all,” I murmured.

“And why not? There’ll be war and a battle tomorrow, but today they have a chance to forget about everything. Is that such a bad thing?”

“Why no,” I said, embarrassed. “It’s probably a good thing.”

“What’s bothering you, Harold?”

I paused, trying to find the right words. Unfortunately, as usual, the ones I really needed didn’t come to mind.

“It’s not that easy to explain. What the Gray One said, the Master, the Rainbow Horn, and, of course, the balance and all the consequences that follow. It’s not very nice to think that without even wanting to, I might be carrying around the deadliest snake of all in my bag.”

“Just don’t think about it.”

“What?”

“Look here. What do you see?” He took the “sister” out of its scabbard.

“A weapon,” I muttered stupidly.

“That’s right, a weapon. Is it dangerous right now?”

“No,” I replied after a moment’s thought.

“That’s right. The ‘sister’ is in my hands. Everything depends on who’s holding the weapon and what he wants to use it for. The Rainbow Horn is a weapon just like the ‘sister,’ and it’s in your hands. I don’t believe you want to consign the world to oblivion.”

“But I won’t always have it.”

“The Order will take care of the Horn. Or don’t you trust magicians any longer?”

“I do, but what the Gray One said…”

“What the Gray One said is just words, that’s all. My old granny, may she dwell in the light, always used to say that prophecies never come true if we don’t want them to.”

“That’s very reassuring,” I said with a bitter grin, but I don’t think the warrior could make out my pitiful grimace in the dark. “Why don’t we go and join the others? Maybe they’ll leave some wine for us?”

“I doubt if the lieutenant will allow the soldiers to drink much. And they’re no fools, anyway: There’s not much pleasure in going into battle with a hangover. So you and I can’t count on anything more than a mug of beer. But let’s hurry, or Hallas will guzzle our share.”

The cavalry detachment left the village when the horizon in the east was marked out by a pearly-crimson thread of dawn.

“It’s going to be a clear day,” Lamplighter said, and a cloud of steam billowed out of his mouth.

“And very, very cold,” croaked Kli-Kli, who had managed to get a sore throat. “Which of you two bright sparks was it that prophesied snow? A-agh…”

The first snow of the year wasn’t very plentiful, and it only turned the ground into a brown and white patchwork blanket. Kli-Kli was wrong; it was cold now, but by midday the sun would be strong enough to melt the snow and transform the road into a muddy quagmire.

The detachment had been traveling at a gallop or a trot since first thing in the morning. Several times we had stopped or made the horses walk, in order to give them at least some kind of rest. On our right the Iselina glinted with bright patches of light as the sun climbed higher into the sky.

According to Kli-Kli, we were in Margend County. The gobliness’s assumption was soon confirmed when we came across burned houses. The war had certainly reached this village—unlike the one where we had spent the night.

We watched the slaughter of the orcs at the Margend Horseshoe—to our great surprise the army of humans and elves was commanded by none other than my old friend Oro Gabsbarg, who was now a duke—and a week after the battle, we were in Ranneng. Duke Gabsbarg had given us forty mounted men before his army started crossing the Iselina. The precaution proved to be unnecessary—on the way to the southern capital we didn’t encounter the slightest sign of danger. At almost every crossroads and in every village that hadn’t suffered from the war we saw soldiers wearing white and crimson tunics over their armor, and warm jackets. The Heartless Chasseurs were standing vigilant guard over public order.

Several times we came across bodies hanging beside the roadside. The Heartless Chasseurs were heartless—they hanged looters, deserters, rapists, speculators, and other villains without benefit of trial or investigation. It was a bit cruel, perhaps, but highly effective.

While we were on our way to Ranneng, the real winter set in, even though it was only the middle of November. A lot of snow fell, and the weather was so cold I could happily have worn a second pair of gloves. Sitting on a horse in weather like that wasn’t very enjoyable—after a few hours you couldn’t feel your own hands and feet anymore. Following Lamplighter’s example, I wrapped a scarf round my face, and that at least gave me some protection from the cold wind. I promised myself that if I ever went traveling again, it would only be in summer. I’d rather feel the sun baking my head and neck than the frost burning my hands and feet.

Gabsbarg’s horsemen escorted us as far as Ranneng and went rushing back without halting, in order to rejoin the Second Army of the South. There are crazy people like that in Siala—they just couldn’t wait to go dashing into battle of their own free will.

To be quite honest, after our adventures in the summer, I didn’t really feel any great affection for Ranneng. And what I saw now only confirmed my belief that the southern pearl of Valiostr had nothing to offer us.

The city was choking on an influx of refugees driven out of their habitual haunts. For some reason, everyone had decided that the city walls offered reliable protection against the orcs and it would be easier to survive here than in some remote little village. More people had come pouring in than you could squeeze into the most terrible nightmare. Naturally, the municipal guard had stopped allowing all comers in through the gates, and tents large and small, dugouts, and anything else that could pass for a home had appeared under the city walls with catastrophic speed. There were fires everywhere, and the fuel was not just timber from the local forest, which was looking significantly sparser, but anything at all that came to hand. There was filth all around, and I started worrying that despite the cold weather some particularly repulsive plague was likely to break out in Ranneng in the near future. And the Copper Plague was all we needed to make our happiness complete.

“What now, Egrassa?” Kli-Kli inquired in a skeptical voice. “Surely you aren’t desperate to stay in a rubbish heap like this?”

“No, let’s try to get inside the city walls.”

“They won’t let us in, I wager my beard on it! We won’t get anywhere! The place is so crowded, it’s not even worth trying. Maybe we could find an inn outside the city walls? There used to be a lot of them.”

“I’m not sure they’ll have any free places, Hallas. But let’s try anyway.”

The horses squeezed through the filthy crowd thronging the road. There was a stench of smoke from all the fires and of rotting refuse. Someone was cooking supper beside the nearest dugout. I couldn’t see properly, but I thought they were roasting a rat.

As Egrassa had suspected, all the places in the inns were taken. But at the sixth one we were offered a night’s lodging in the stable for only three gold pieces. Hallas almost swallowed his own beard, but Egrassa paid without thinking twice. This was no time for economy. We had to lay out the same sum for a sparse and miserable supper.

I dreamed there was a sword slowly coming down on my head. I tried to break out of this vague, hazy dream and run away, but I couldn’t, and death was getting closer and closer all the time. Then the sword blade fell and I woke up. It turned out to be Eel, shaking me frantically by the shoulder. It looked like the middle of the night to me, but the others were all wide awake. Lamplighter and Egrassa were hastily saddling the horses by the meager light of the oil lamp. Kli-Kli and Hallas were packing up our things.

“Harold, get up!” said Eel, shaking me again.

“What’s happened?” I asked, confused. “What’s all the hurry about?”

The Garrakian’s cheek twitched.

“The Lonely Giant has fallen!”