Shadow Chaser

11 The Soulless One

All the following week we drove our horses hard to the southeast, moving ever closer to the Borderland, the area adjoining the Border Kingdom and Zagraba.

An undulating, hilly plain extended for tens of leagues around us, crisscrossed with narrow rivers, loud-running brooks, and sparse mixed forest. There were not many villages in the area; during the last two days we had only seen one, and we gave it a wide berth, not wishing to make our presence known to the locals.

The earth in these parts was fertile and rich, and the grass reached up for the sun. But there were few people who wished to cross the Iselina and settle this part of the kingdom. Just ahead of us lay the Borderland, and beyond that the eastern forests of Zagraba and the famous Golden Forest, where the orcs lived.

Alistan kept veering more and more to the southeast, avoiding the trading routes running between Valiostr and the Border Kingdom. As I understood it, he was hoping to get us to the border between the two states in a week, and then take our group in a straight line from there to the Forests of Zagraba.

All the packhorses had been killed on the ferry, which had taken our provisions and our armor to the bottom of the river. Hallas and Deler bewailed this loss for a long time, but of course there was nothing to be done. We only had the chain mail that had been on the horses that had crossed on the first trip, and the elves had kept their armor, with the crest of their houses engraved on the chests.

Marmot and Lamplighter had been left without any kind of armor at all, apart from their jackets of stone-washed leather with metal plates sewn onto them. The provisions, spare clothing, and much else besides had been left behind forever at the bottom of the river. But we did not go hungry; there was plenty of game in these parts, and there was always meat roasting on our fire.

On the fourth day after the ill-starred crossing of the Iselina, the weather finally turned bad and the rain came lashing down. It tormented us for seven whole days, and I had to wrap myself in a cloak kindly lent to me by Egrassa.

The continuous rain poured down from the low, gray clouds, and the conditions were always damp, cold, and vile. It was especially hard getting up in the morning and lighting the fire. Our arms and legs were stiff; it felt as if we had been sleeping on snow and not on grass, with a cloak of waterproof drokr to keep off the interminable rain falling from the sky. Kli-Kli caught a cold and he coughed and sniffled all the time. Marmot treated him with herbal concoctions, which made the goblin spit and gag, saying that he’d never tasted anything so bitter in all his life.

The rain just kept pouring down.

The ground turned into a huge lake of mud, and every now and then the horses slipped and stumbled in this mush, threatening to throw their riders to the ground. The dozens of tinkling brooks and little rivers that crisscrossed the terrain all swelled up and overflowed their banks. On low-lying land there was genuine flooding, and sometimes the water was as high as our stirrups, so that we had to search for a long time to find an elevation above the plain where we could make camp for the night.

It was only after the heavy downpour stopped that the water started to recede a little, but the rain was still sprinkling down. When we approached the Borderland, Alistan gave orders for everyone to put on their chain mail. I couldn’t stand any kind of metal garments—they made me feel like I was in a coffin—they were so cramped and heavy, and they made it so uncomfortable to move. But in this particular case there were no objections raised on my side—I really didn’t want to take an arrow in the stomach from an orc who happened to have wandered far from Zagraba. When Kli-Kli saw me putting on the mail, he nodded approvingly.

“Kli-Kli, I thought you told me you didn’t need chain mail, because you’re such a small target that you’re hard to hit,” I teased him, remembering how the goblin’s armor had almost dragged me down to the bottom of the river.

He looked out at me from under his hood and said: “I may be small, but I still have to look after my health. I got it ’specially in Ranneng…”

Just when does this little weasel manage to get everything done?

Bass didn’t have any chain mail. During the last few days, he had been as dour as the sky above our heads. The rain was no help to Snoop’s state of mind, and I could understand how he must be feeling. Being dragged off to someplace you don’t even know about with a tight-lipped elf riding beside you is very definitely bad for the nerves. Ell was still following my former friend about all the time, and I couldn’t spot a single spark of sympathy in those yellow eyes.

My former friend …

Yes, I suppose that’s how it was.

There was no friendship left between us. Yes, we were still bound by a great many things, but these things were only memories, no more than that. During the time when we had not seen each other, Bass and I had both changed a great deal. We had followed different paths through life. And I still hadn’t forgiven him for that trick he had pulled so long ago, when he ran off, leaving me and For, stealing the money that belonged to all of us.

Kli-Kli with his cold was not the only one who had a hard time because of the rain. Hallas’s pipe refused to light, and the gnome was absolutely furious with the whole wide world. Deler huddled up under his short green cloak, muttering the ancient songs of the dwarves to himself. This really drove Hallas wild, but the weather was not conducive to arguing, and the gnome just grunted irritably and made yet another unsuccessful attempt to light his pipe.

Honeycomb was now the Wild Hearts’ commander, and his mind seemed to be roaming somewhere very far away. The yellow-haired giant’s eyes had acquired a thoughtful, weary look. He had been too close a friend of Uncle’s and simply could not accept that he was gone. Alistan paid no attention to anything at all, he just looked straight ahead and drove his battle horse on toward Zagraba. Egrassa and Marmot stopped the squad often in order to ride back and check if there were any pursuers. But the horizon was empty, and when the elf and the soldier returned they shook their heads.

When the rain took a short break, everybody cheered up a bit. Even the horses seemed to start moving more quickly and easily, taking no notice of the clouds that had still not dispersed. But sunshine was no more than a distant dream.

It wasn’t long before we saw a pillar on one of the lower hills that was overgrown right to the top with tall coarse grass. It was made out of black basalt, but not even that had saved it from the ravages of time. As far as we could tell, the pillar must have been set up at least a thousand years earlier.

“The Borderland,” Milord Alistan announced, and urged his horse on again.

The Borderland was an immense territory where the land belonged to the border barons. This was where my new friend Baron Oro Gabsbarg lived—the one who had invited me to drop in to see him.

During one of the halts, when everyone was busy with his own business, I went up to Miralissa, who was sitting all alone beside the spluttering fire, and asked the question that had been bothering me for almost two weeks: “How did they manage to find us, Lady Miralissa?”

She understood immediately who I was asking about.

“I don’t know, Harold. Recently there have been many things that I don’t know. They shouldn’t have been able to find us so quickly, I put up defenses.…” She sighed. “Perhaps that woman can sense the Key.”

I immediately felt like tearing the artifact off my neck.

“Or perhaps that has nothing to do with it, and there is some other sign that they use to track us.”

There was another question I was very curious about.

“Was the thing that hit the ferry Kronk-a-Mor?”

“Yes, the ogres’ most dangerous magic, and now a human being has control of it. But Lafresa doesn’t have the experience of the Nameless One, and what she created on that day should have killed her on the spot.”

“But it didn’t kill her.”

“No. The House of Power is capable of defending its servants,” said Miralissa, looking hard at me.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” I said, shaking my head. “The House of Power is no more than an empty phrase to me. Isn’t it time to stop playing at riddles?”

“The time for answers has not yet come, Dancer in the Shadows,” said the goblin, who had crept up behind me unnoticed.

“I’m afraid that when the time does come, it will be too late, fool,” I replied rather angrily. “I’m sick of mysteries! I’m sick of my dreams!”

“You are the Dancer in the Shadows, and that is why you have these dreams.”

“Just at the moment you’re not much like a royal jester, more like a fat priest spouting sacred nonsense to fleece the worshipers of a few more coins.”

“What do you want to know, Harold?” Kli-Kli sighed, sitting down beside me.

“Everything.”

“A praiseworthy aspiration,” the goblin giggled. “But what’s impossible is impossible. It’s good that you’re no longer a child and I think you’re capable of understanding.… I’ll tell you about the Four Great Houses and the Creation. This story was told to me by my grandfather. We goblins remember things that the orcs and the elves have forgotten; we remember things that you humans never even knew.”

“Yet another goblin fairy tale?” I asked him rather churlishly.

“A fairy tale? I suppose so. But you’ve got nothing against that, have you? I thought not. Where should I begin? When the world was young … No, not like that.… When Siala did not yet even exist, when even the gods were carefree children, and no one had ever heard of ogres, only one world existed throughout the entire universe. Now it is called the World of Chaos. It was the First, the Primal World, and in it there lived —” The jester hesitated for a moment. “—people, probably. One day, one of them discovered a secret—that creatures were living in the shadows of their world, even if they were rather different. The shadows were the seeds, the prototypes of other universes. And if a man knew how to control them, that is, if he could ‘dance’ with them, he could take any shadow in Chaos and build a new world. His own world. Or at least, he could try to build it—it might not work out too well for everyone. Not everybody was capable of doing this, only one in a hundred million, or perhaps two hundred million, but in those hoary old times there were a lot more of them than now. Those who were capable of creating worlds out of shadows came to be known as Dancers in the Shadows.”

I shuddered.

“Are you trying to tell me that I can take any shadow and make something like Siala out of thin air?”

“You can deny it if you like, Harold, but you are the Dancer, and there’s no way you can get away from that. And as for the shadows, the answer is no, you can’t. I told you. A new universe can only be created from shadows of the World of Chaos. The shadows of our world are only shadows of shadows of shadows of shadows of the Primal World. They are dead and not capable of dancing.”

“But if I did end up in Chaos, then I could manage it?”

“How would I know? It’s only a fairy tale, after all, and you don’t know how to wander between different worlds…”

“And Sagot be praised for that,” I said with a sigh of relief. “Carry on then, let’s hear a few more lies.”

“Where was I, now? Ah, yes! The Dancers took the shadows, and thousands and thousands of new worlds appeared, thanks to them. But in creating new worlds, the Dancers took away a little part of their own world, and the time came when the World of Chaos died. There were no shadows left there. It was filled with the darkness and the fire of the Elemental Time. The people left it and settled in other worlds, and the way to the Primal World was forgotten. None of the Dancers in that time tried to save the World of Chaos, although they could have done it. What for? With so many new and unusual universes all around, why bother trying to restore an old piece of junk?”

“What are you thinking about, Harold?” asked Miralissa, who had kept quiet all this time.

“About the joker who created our world. So, Kli-Kli, you say that Chaos can no longer be restored?”

“No. The way to it has been forgotten. And if there was a way to get there, you need a shadow from that world in order to breathe life into it.”

I remembered the three female shadow-friends dancing on the crimson tongues of flame and asking me to save their world. I got an itchy feeling in my stomach—maybe the jester was right? Maybe there was an element of truth in his fairy tale?

“Why are you telling me all of this? I have enough trouble sleeping at night already. And just how does the House of Power fit into your story?”

“This is only the prehistory.… To be honest, Harold-Barold, I don’t really know anything about these houses.… My grandfather said there were Four Great Houses, and that they were supposedly created by the Dancer who gave life to our world. But no one knows why he created these houses. The goblin books don’t even hint at the reason.”

“But it is mentioned in the Annals of the Crown,” said Miralissa, joining in the conversation again. “In the very first pages of the chronicles there is a small paragraph about the houses. There were four of them, absolutely different and quite unlike each other: the House of Love, the House of Pain, the House of Fear, and, finally and most importantly, the House of Power. It is said that those who have visited them became immortal. No matter how many times you kill these people, sooner or later they are reborn in the House of Love. Someone who has been through the four houses can be killed forever only when he is in one of the houses. But I don’t know which one.”

“What were they created for?”

“You must understand that we know nothing for certain and can only guess. That one short paragraph in the annals, written by an unknown author, has provoked controversy among our historians for thousands of years. Entire works of scholarship have been written, based on that fragment, but how reliable are they? We only know that someone who has passed through all the Four Great Houses is no longer simply a man, an elf, or a dwarf—he is something completely different. I have no idea what they do in the Houses of Love, Pain, and Fear. The only thing we do know is that those who are in the House of Power are exceptionally powerful in magic, or rather, in its initial aspect—shamanism. And that is all I know, Harold.”

“That is all you know?” I repeated like an echo. “And you hid this knowledge from me? A stupid story about how our world was supposedly created, and assumptions based on some tiny little paragraph? Is this the greatest and most terrible secret of the goblins and the elves?”

I was amused. Go into any tavern and you’d hear a better story than that. And it would sound a lot more plausible than what Kli-Kli and Miralissa had told me.

“This knowledge is very dangerous,” the elfess rebuked me gently. “Especially for certain people—when they learn that they can become even greater than the gods and create their own world.”

“I beg your pardon, milady, but this is nonsense.”

“I told you it was still too early and he wouldn’t understand a thing,” said the goblin, looking reproachfully at the elfess. “The Order would pay us a wagonload of gold for the story that we’ve just told you.”

“That does not speak well for the wizards,” I said.

“Pah, you fool,” the jester said irritably, and walked away.

I thought he was reacting a bit too sensitively to my skepticism.

“Perhaps you will understand some time later, Harold,” Miralissa sighed, also standing up.

“Wait,” I said to her. “Why did you think that I might know something about the House of Power?”

“You are the Dancer in the Shadows.… But take no notice, I made a mistake.”

“And the Master? Why did you decide that the Master is in this House of Power?”

“He has a distinctive magical signature.… You would not understand that, Harold, you have no skills in shamanism. The things that attacked us in Hargan’s Wasteland, the thing that struck the ferry … They are quite different, nothing like our magic … Things like that can only be created with the help of the legendary and mythical House of Power.”

She walked away, treading gently on the soaking wet grass, and I was left alone.

To think.

After what the elfess and the goblin had told me, there were even more riddles, not fewer.

Ranneng was awash with flowers. Sweet-scented roses of every possible color had invaded the entire town. The festival was in its second noisy day, and those who could still stand had spilled out into the streets, bawling out songs and dancing together in circles, gorging themselves on the free food laid out on tables and washing it down with the wine or beer that gushed out of huge barrels in torrents. It had always been this way and it always would be. Once a year, at the end of August, all the people glorified the gods.

Voices singing and yelling, the laughter and the music, the smells of wine, fine fresh bread, and roasted meat—it all mingled together into an atmosphere of vital festive joy.

Djok Imargo was walking down the street with a smile on his face.

He was a tall young man with broad shoulders and a firm jaw, brown eyes, absolutely black hair, and a mischievous smile. He radiated a feeling of calm confidence and high spirits.

People recognized him and waved to him, they shouted to him, inviting him to join one group or another, to drink a mug of beer or take a turn in some antic dance. It was hard not to notice him—tall and well-built, with a quiver of arrows on his hip and a powerful two-yard bow in his hands. Who did not know Djok Imargo, everybody’s favorite, the champion bowman at the last four royal tournaments?

“Hey, Djok, come over here!”

“Djok, dance with me! Oh, Djok!”

“Djok, it’s the royal tournament today! Good luck.”

“Hey, Djok! Let’s have a beer!”

“Five in a row, Djok!”

He smiled, nodded, waved his hand in response to the greetings, but he didn’t stop. Right now he wasn’t really interested in mugs of beer with foaming heads, or accommodating young beauties. At five o’clock today, he would become the champion archer for the fifth time, and only then would he be able to relax and celebrate his success.

It was still too early as yet—the tournament was not due to begin until after midday, and the archery contest was supposed to take place before the final jousts between the knights, just after the general combat and the swordsmen’s competition. Djok still had time to spare, and at the moment he was following the call of his heart.

The Street of Fruits was as crowded as every other part of town. People called to him a few times and slapped him on the shoulders, but he politely refused their invitations.

Djok stopped outside a large shop trading in fruits and vegetables, then pushed open the door and went inside. The bell jingled in greeting to let the owner know that he had a new customer. But then, it was a holiday, and no one was actually selling anything. The center of the room was occupied by a table, with people sitting round it and drinking beer.

“Ah, Djok, my boy!” said one of the men at the table, waving in greeting. “How good to see you! Come on in, don’t be shy. Someone pour the lad a beer.”

“Thank you, Master Lotr, but not just now. I have to keep a clear head today.”

The shopkeeper clapped a hand to his forehead.

“And I forgot, what a memory! Well then, my boy, will you show them all again?”

“I’ll try my best,” Djok replied.

“Plant one in the bull’s-eye for me,” said the scrawny Lotr, handing Djok a peach.

“It’ll be tough for you today, lad,” croaked the innkeeper whose establishment was next door to Master Lotr’s shop. “With a challenger like that!”

“Don’t talk nonsense, pudding head. Where will they find anyone to challenge Djok Imargo?” asked Lotr, raising his mug of beer.

“Nowhere, among the men, but the elves, now … I wouldn’t put my gold piece on Djok, begging your pardon, lad.…”

“What are you talking about, may the gods save you? What elves?” Lotr chuckled.

“The usual kind. Perfectly ordinary dark elves, with fangs. They fire bows much better than men do.”

“But what have elves got to do with the tournament, darkness take you!” the owner of a meat shop put in.

“You mean you still haven’t heard? Don’t you know that there’s a legation of dark elves arriving today to see the king, from the House of the … what is it now … the House of the Black Rose, that’s it. And who’s leading the legation? The crown prince of that house, with a name darkness only knows how to pronounce. And this crown prince has expressed a wish to take part in the tournament; to be precise, in the archery competition. And that’s why you’ll have a tough time of it, ay, lad. You won’t find an elf that easy to beat.”

“We’ll see,” Djok said with an indifferent shrug. He didn’t really believe in the rumors going round the town. “Master Lotr, where’s Lia?”

“In the garden. Go and see her,” the girl’s father replied amiably.

When Djok left, the innkeeper grinned and said: “Did you see how upset he was when I told him about the elf?”

“Ah, nonsense. Djok’s a good lad, he wasn’t upset at all.”

“You know best, Lotr. It’s your daughter he’s chasing, not mine.” The innkeeper chuckled, getting up from the table. The fat man had nothing more to do here, he had said what he had been told to say, and the Master would be pleased with him.

Lotr had the reputation of being a rich shopkeeper. Selling fruit had proved a profitable trade; he supplied his goods to the tables of many noblemen in the capital, even to the king’s. The money poured in, and there was nothing strange about the fact that the inner yard of the shop had been transformed into a flower garden with three gently murmuring fountains. A girl was sitting on a bench beside one of them.

She was busy with her embroidery, and a bloodred poppy and a sky blue harebell had already blossomed on the white fabric. A boy about seven years old was sitting beside the girl. He was launching a little boat into the fountain.

“Lia?” Djok called.

She looked up from her task, smiling the smile that he loved so much.

“Djok! How glad I am to see you!”

“Surely you didn’t think I’d forgotten you?” he asked.

“No, but the royal tournament is today, and you have to be there.”

“Your eyes are worth more to me than any tournament.”

Lia lowered her gaze modestly and smiled. Then she put down her embroidery, got to her feet gracefully, and took a strawberry out of a huge dish of fruit.

“Do you want it?”

“Thank you, your father gave me a peach.” He showed her the succulent fruit with its velvety skin.

“A pity, it’s very good,” said the girl, taking a bite out of the ripe strawberry.

“I’m going to win this tournament for you, Lia,” Djok said, sitting down with her little brother, who was completely absorbed in playing with his boat.

“Ah, Djok! But haven’t you heard what they say about the elf?”

“I’ve heard. But elf or no elf, I’m going to win this tournament for you. Everyone in the town knows that Lotr’s daughter Lia is the most beautiful girl in Ranneng. No prince is going to put my arrow off its mark!”

Lia picked a flower from one of the beds and started pulling off its petals.

“What are you doing?”

“Fortune-telling. To see if you’re going to win today.”

“That’s nothing but a flower.”

“You’re right,” she said with a sigh. “I’m so nervous. Let’s not trust a stupid little flower. Lun, Lun, come here!”

“What is it?” Lia’s brother asked in annoyance, looking up from his game.

“Come over here quickly, Djok’s going to show us how he fires his bow.”

The little boy immediately abandoned his game and ran across to them.

“Here’s an apple. You see that statue of a soldier right down at the end of the garden? Put the apple on his spear and run back here.”

“Just a moment,” said Lun, running off to do as his sister asked.

“What are you doing?” the young bowman asked in surprise.

“I made a wish—if you hit that apple, it means you’re going to win the royal tournament.”

“It’s a lot closer than the target at the field will be,” said Djok, shaking his head.

“Oh, please! Do it for me!” Lia begged him.

Djok smiled and nodded. He put on his glove, set the string on his mighty bow, and took an arrow out of the quiver. The flights were purple with gold stripes. Everybody knew what Djok Imargo’s arrows looked like. Lun came running back, leaving the apple behind, a green spot on the end of the statue’s spear.

Djok set his arrow on the string, pulled the string back smoothly, held his breath, and released the string just as gently. It slapped loudly against his glove and the arrow took off with a furious buzz. A second later it split the apple in two and disappeared into the garden.

“Hooray,” Lun cried merrily, jumping up and down.

“Ah, well done!” cried Lia, clapping her hands happily. “You’re going to win that tournament. You’re bound to! Where are you going?”

“To get the arrow.”

“Wait!” She grabbed hold of his hand, stood up on tiptoe, and whispered, “Leave it. I’ll give it back to you later.”

He gave her a look of joyful surprise. Lia smiled, kissed him on the cheek, and cooed: “And now go! We’ll celebrate your victory tonight.”

He was going to say something else to her, but the girl put her finger to his lips, smiled enchantingly once again, and walked to the fountain without looking back. Djok hesitated for a moment and left the garden. It was time for him to prepare for the tournament, and Lia was expecting him to win.

The girl waited for five minutes, then walked down the garden. She pulled up the arrow that was stuck in the ground and examined it carefully.

Excellent. Lun was busy with his little boat, her father was with his friends, nobody would miss her for a while.

She had to get the arrow to a certain person as quickly as possible, and then there would be a reward waiting for her from the Master. She smiled the smile that Djok loved so much.

“What do you make of this town, Eroch?” Endargassa asked.

“A barbarous place, Tresh Endargassa,” the elderly guard riding beside the prince replied deferentially.

Eroch was an elf of the old school, and his attitude toward humans was highly disdainful. Endargassa did not agree with his old friend and k’lissang. The houses of the dark elves had to maintain relations with humans. No matter how strange, uncultured, aggressive, and treacherous people were—they had power, and only their warriors, acting together with the elves, were capable of annihilating the orcs.

And this was why the leaders of the nine dark houses had taken counsel together and decided that the time had come to unite the forces of men and elves into a single army to oppose those who dared to call themselves the Firstborn. This was why the eldest son of the head of the House of the Black Rose had come to Valiostr with a formal missive for the king. This was why Endargassa’s younger brother had been sent on a similar mission to the Border Kingdom.

“You are wrong, Eroch; men hold power, and without them we will never finally deal with our cousins.” This was not the first time that Endargassa had begun this conversation.

“Perhaps they do hold power, Tresh Endargassa, but men are avaricious, cruel, and very dangerous. We will deal with the orcs without their help.”

“Thousands of years of war with the Firstborn prove that this is not true, my friend Eroch. We are equally matched, and nobody can gain the upper hand. The army of men is the force that can alter the course of centuries of war in our favor.”

“Men fight in ranks, they have cavalry, they are not accustomed to fighting in the forest. Or at least, most of them are not.”

“Then we shall have to drive the orcs out of the forest,” Endargassa said with an indifferent shrug.

“Before he sent us on our way, your father should have remembered ‘The Legend of Soft Gold,’” Eroch sighed.

“‘Best defend your own house yourself’?” the prince cited. “Of course, I remember that. But that is only a song. And the events in it never really happened.”

“Of course, Tresh Endargassa, of course. But the legend expresses the wise lesson that one should not trust men. Otherwise, after the orcs they will set about us.”

Endargassa merely grinned. Eroch was certainly no great supporter of an alliance with men.

“Men can be dangerous. And you haven’t even put on your armor!” The bodyguard’s words had a reproachful ring to them.

Endargassa was dressed in a light silk shirt with a black rose embroidered on the chest, and he certainly looked vulnerable among his forty-nine-warrior escort, with their glinting armor of bluish metal.

“If you wish to swelter in a case of iron in this heat—that is your business,” said Endargassa. “And then you are here with me, so what could possibly happen?”

Eroch did not say anything, he just assumed an even more somber expression and glanced around with his yellow eyes at the human crowd that had lined the streets in order to gaze at the honored guests.

“And here is the reception party,” said Endargassa when he saw a group of twenty horsemen clad in heavy armor galloping toward his party.

“Tresh Endargassa, in the name of our glorious King Stalkon of the Broken Heart, I am happy to welcome you and your companions to the capital of Valiostr!” declared a horseman in white and green armor. “I am Count Pelan Gelmi, captain of the royal guard, and I have been instructed to escort you to the royal palace.”

“Very well,” said the elf with a nod. “We will follow you, Milord Gelmi.”

The knight nodded, and they rode on. The horsemen parted the festive crowd, making way for the honored guest. Milord Gelmi reined back his horse and rode alongside the prince.

“As you may have noticed, Tresh Endargassa, today is a holiday in our town, that is why the streets are so full of people.”

“And I thought they had all come out to welcome me,” the elf jested.

“Naturally, that as well,” Milord Gelmi replied, embarrassed. “Are you aware that today is the annual royal tournament? His Majesty has invited you to join him in the royal box.”

“Most certainly.”

“At the end of the tournament our bowmen will try their skill. They say you are a fine shot, Tresh Endargassa. Would you care to join the contest?”

“No, thank you,” said the prince, with his features set in a faint smile. “I think that would not be entirely honor—”

There was a sudden movement in the air, and an arrow struck Endargassa in the neck. The elf swayed, clutched at his throat, gasped, and fell from his steed onto the street.

The dark elves grabbed their s’kashes, the men clutched their swords, the crowd scattered wildly, trampling each other underfoot, someone dashed to the body, hoping to stop the blood, but it was already too late. Endargassa, the crown prince of the House of the Black Rose, was dead.

“The marksman’s on the roof,” someone shouted.

“Men will answer for the death of my lord!” roared Eroch, holding the body of his prince tight against himself.

Count Pelan Gelmi was pale-faced and frightened. He was surrounded by fifty grim and furious dark elves, who had just lost their noble kinsman.

We have to act, or swords will be drawn! he thought.

“Chuch! Cut off the street! Brakès, gallop to the king with the news. Darkness, find that marksman! Paru, summon the entire guard here! Don’t just stand there! Do something!”

The men went dashing off to carry out their orders; the count dismounted and leaned down over the dead elf. Eroch was kneeling in a puddle of blood, with his s’kash lying beside him. He had broken the arrow and pulled it out of Endargassa’s neck, and the two harmless pieces were lying in the blood.

“If you do not find the assassin, we shall take our own revenge for the death of Tresh Endargassa,” Eroch said with bitter hatred.

The count picked up the pieces of the arrow, getting bloodstains on his expensive formal gloves.

“Chuch!”

“Yes, milord.” One of the knight’s men rode up and reined in his horse.

“Do you recognize that?” the count asked the lieutenant of the guard, sticking a piece of the arrow under his nose.

“Ye-es…” Chuch was just as surprised as the count. “That arrow…”

“I think we shall catch your lord’s killer within the hour,” Lord Gelmi interrupted, turning to Eroch.

“We will wait … for an hour.”

There was still at least an hour to go until the beginning of the royal tournament, but Djok was already hurrying on his way to the field where the main competitions were due to be held. For one thing, he was curious to find out who would compete in the general combat, and for another, he needed to prepare—check the wind and inspect the area where all the competitions would take place.

There was something wrong as he walked along the street leading to the field, but Djok couldn’t work out what it was. Then he realized—it was the people! There were far too few of them for the day of the royal tournament! For some reason there were no townsfolk hurrying to take their seats on the benches.

Everybody was discussing something that had happened near the Muddy Gates. Apparently one of the elves had been killed, but Djok didn’t give it a thought, he was completely focused on the victory he was going to win and not concerned about anything else. For the last hour all the bowman had seen in his mind’s eye was the red and white target with the bull’s-eye into which he had to plant at least eight arrows.

Djok walked the final hundred paces to the end of the street and the beginning of the tournament grounds completely alone. Everybody seemed to have vanished into thin air. There was not a soul to be seen, apart from some soldiers of the royal guard standing ahead of him. Djok frowned. Firstly, what were these guardsmen doing here, when usually the municipal guard was used? And secondly, there were far more soldiers than necessary.

There were at least twenty men on foot, half of them with lances and half with crossbows. And ten men on horseback, all in full armor and looking very belligerent. Djok assumed that the knight in white and green armor was in command; at least his armor was the most finely finished.

The men waited in silence as he approached without speaking and no one moved. Djok slowed down and gasped—the tournament flags and the blue and gray royal banner had been lowered to half-mast.

“Has the king died, then?” he muttered in amazement.

That certainly would explain why there had been no one hurrying to the tournament and why the people had looked so worried and frightened.

The guardsmen’s faces were dour and tense. Djok walked up to the men who were blocking his path and turned to one soldier with whom he had drunk beer a few times: “Tramur, what’s going on?”

“Well, just look, he’s come to us!” the soldier said with a crooked grin, taking a tighter grip on his lance. “Drop that bow, you vermin!”

“What?” said Djok, startled. He glanced at the knight in white and green, but the knight didn’t speak.

Tramur struck Djok in the stomach with the handle of his lance. The young man doubled over in pain and dropped his bow. Tears sprang to his eyes and he was completely winded.

The second blow landed on his neck, and the surface of the road swayed, then leapt up and hit him hard in the face. His mouth filled up with blood, his head was full of swirling fog, he tried to get up and ask why they were beating him, but someone kicked him under the ribs and he collapsed back onto the stones of the road.

They beat him for a long time in silence. He tried to protect his head with his hands and curled up like a baby in its mother’s womb, but he couldn’t get away from the blows, there was nowhere to hide. The blows just kept on showering down. Powerful, painful, desperate.

The archer could no longer taste the blood in his mouth, there was too much of it. The noise in his ears was turning thick and dull, like a muddy swamp. Eventually somebody’s voice roared: “That’s enough! Enough, I say! The elves don’t want a dead man.”

Djok didn’t hear any more after that. He dove into the shelter of oblivion.

He spent the next few days in a foggy daze, waking up in a narrow cell, a genuine stone box, where three men with bored faces, wearing the emblem of the Royal Sandmen, asked him strange, frightening questions.

At first Djok tried to explain, to tell them that he was innocent, but then the beatings started again. Nobody wanted to listen to him.

All the Sandmen wanted was confession, otherwise the dark elves, who were insane with fury, would turn the kingdom into a bloodbath. And then the torture began. He broke down at the third session and confessed to all the outrages that they attributed to him. He no longer cared what happened to him, just as long as they left him in peace for at least a little while.

Djok’s face had been smashed into a bloody pulp, his nose was broken in several places, his fingers had been shattered and his ribs broken and he was covered all over in bruises and cuts. He could barely even move when they tossed him onto the urine-soaked straw in his cell; all he could do was breathe and whine and go to sleep

Sometimes the door of the cell would open and he would have visitors. At those moments he groaned quietly and pitifully, because they started beating him again. Then oblivion returned and for more than a week he was on the brink of death.

But they did not let him die. A magician of the Order helped to bring him back out of the dark.

Djok often had dreams. He was asleep and dreaming, somewhere far, far away from the stone box that some evildoer had had him thrown into. The archer hardly remembered any of his dreams, except for one.…

In this dream a guard came and opened the door of the cell and said with a cheerful smile that he knew Djok was innocent and the crime had been committed by the servants of the Master. The Master was waiting.… After that Djok wept and squirmed about on his straw. And then he fell asleep again.

Afterwards there was a very hasty trial, which he could hardly even remember. Just bright light in his eyes, the pale blobs of lots of faces, and voices talking. They asked him about something and he answered.… One man showed the tall judge his quiver of arrows and then took out an arrow that was broken and covered in dried blood.

“I’m not guilty,” Djok whispered. But no one listened to him and the clerk of the court scraped his pen across his paper. “It was the servants of the Master.…”

The court questioned Lotr, who was red-faced and sweaty, and so frightened that he stammered as he looked around and spoke. Yes, Djok was at my house that day.… Yes, he was upset when he heard that the elfin prince, may he dwell in the light, wanted to take part in the tournament.… Yes, there was something about the look in his eyes.… Why didn’t I notice that immediately, old fool that I am?

And there were other people, too.… Friends, acquaintances, relatives … Yes, he had wanted to win.… Yes, he could have lost to the elf.… Yes, all his life he had been a vain and malicious fellow. Yes, what a terrible disgrace!

Then there was Lia. Yes, Djok had told her he would do anything to win the tournament that day.… He didn’t listen to any more after that, he just kept on whispering one word through his broken lips: “Lia … Lia … Lia.”

It was over very quickly. Everything—his signed confession, his arrow with the blood on it, the testimony from a dozen witnesses—rapidly led the Royal High Court to the only possible conclusion.

When the wooden mallet descended and the old, skinny judge in the black robe and the absurd white wig pronounced the single word, “guilty,” Djok saw the elf who had sat through the whole trial as if he were made of stone look at him and smile. Djok’s trousers were suddenly soaking wet—that smile frightened him far more than all the beatings he had received from men.

They did not execute him, they did something far more terrible than that—they handed him over to the dark elves. An old elf with faded yellow eyes and hair as dry as straw, the same elf who had frightened Djok so badly at the trial, took charge of him in person.

They put him on a cart with shackles on his feet and drove him out of Ranneng.

For Djok the journey to Zagraba was a single, unbroken thread of squeaking wheels, the sky above his head, the guttural voices of elves, and pain. It came every day, biting into his flesh like red-hot pincers, as soon as evening arrived and the elves halted for the night.

This was when Eroch came to the prisoner and took out a little box of steel needles. The elf never spoke, but every time after the torture, Djok thought that his time had come and he was about to die at any moment. And he waited for his death to come with joyful anticipation.

But the elves were too careful to lose their prisoner as a result of torture. When the pain became absolutely unbearable, when it threatened to expand and shatter his head open, an elfin shaman appeared and relieved his suffering. And the next evening it was repeated all over again. Day after day Djok suffered absolutely unbearable torment, dying, cursing the gods, coming back to life, weeping, and dying again. There was no end to this terrible dream.…

He did not remember much about Zagraba … green leaves, tinkling brooks, cold, and pain.… They took him somewhere, showed him to someone, hundreds of elfin faces with fangs, an old elf with a black coronet on his head, silence, and more pain.…

For some reason all the trees here grew upside down. So did the grass. And the sun set upward. The elves walked upside down on the ground with their heads downward.

For a long time he couldn’t understand what was happening. He only realized the truth when he noticed that the blood oozing feebly from a cut on his cheek was falling on his forehead instead of his chin, and then dripping off onto the ground that was above his head.

It was very simple; he was hanging head down on a tree with his feet securely tied to a thick branch. How long had he been there like this? An hour? A day?

It turned dark and night came to the forest, and stars began shining through the crowns of the trees down below.

There was nobody guarding him. There was no need. He could never escape from the elfin spider web rope, and how far could a man half dead from torture run through a strange forest?

The archer plunged back into oblivion, trying to overcome the pain. He was woken by a quiet rustling in the grass, and when he opened his eyes he saw a dark female silhouette.

An elfess, he thought.

The person standing there said nothing, and neither did he. He was indifferent; he had already grown used to the fact that many elves came just to look at him. Let her look, as long as she didn’t beat him. Suddenly she laughed.

“Who … are you?”

It was hard for him to form the words; he hadn’t spoken for a long time. Most of the time he simply howled in pain.

“You poor thing,” the woman sighed.

“Lia? Is that really you?” he gasped, unable to believe his ears.

“Lia? Well, you can call me that if you like,” she said, walking out of the shadow into the moonlight.

She was just as beautiful as she had been in the garden, on that cursed day when the elfin prince was killed. Light brown hair, blue eyes, high cheekbones, full lips.

Lia. His Lia. The one who betrayed him.

“But … How?”

How could this girl be here, so far away from home, in the heart of the country of the elves?

“The servants of the Master can do much more than that.”

“The Master? I’m not guilty! I couldn’t possibly have done it!”

“I know,” she said with a smile.

“You know. Then why didn’t you say anything? You have to tell the elves, you have to explain to them—”

“It’s too late. The elves won’t listen to anyone, they’re thirsting for vengeance. They won’t try to find out if you’re really guilty or not for at least a few months. But unfortunately you don’t have that much time. The elves have decided to make an exception—tomorrow the Green Leaf is waiting for you.”

Djok squirmed on his rope and started swaying like a pendulum. He sobbed in terror. He did not want to die like that.

“But you have a choice, you fool.” Lia walked up close to him, and he caught the scent of her strawberry perfume. “Either the dark elves will make an example of you with a form of execution that they have only ever used on the orcs before or…”

“Or?” Djok repeated like an echo.

“… or you will become a faithful servant of the Master.”

She spoke for a very long time, and when she finished, Djok said only a single word.

“Yes.”

Hatred blazed up in his eyes.

The girl took a crooked elfin knife out of the folds of her dress, stood up on tiptoe, and slit the man’s throat with a gentle movement.

The hot cataract poured down onto her hair, face, neck, and dress. She stood there, accepting this terrible baptism in bloody dew … smiling. When it was all over, the girl looked at the body hanging in front of her and said:

“You will be born again, born in the House of Love, and become the very first, the most devoted servant. You will be Djok the Winter-Bringer.”

A moment later the forest glade was empty, apart from a dead man swaying slowly on a rope.

“You slept badly last night. More nightmares?” Kli-Kli asked me as he wrapped himself in his cloak against the chilly morning air.

“Yeah,” I replied morosely, rolling up my blanket.

“What about this time?”

“Djok the Winter-Bringer.”

“Oho! Tell me about it!” the goblin said eagerly.

“Leave me alone, Kli-Kli, I’ve no time for you now.” After the previous day’s conversation round the campfire and my new dream, I had plenty to think about.

Kli-Kli grunted in disappointment and wandered off to pester Lamplighter, who was saddling our horses.

That morning the weather turned bad again and there was a light drizzle. The drops were so fine that I could barely even see them.

At least it wasn’t the kind of downpour we had had before. We were all thoroughly sick of that cursed rain. It’s hard to say which is worse—stupefying heat or this kind of dank misery.

The fire had burnt out completely overnight and the fine rain had extinguished the coals left behind. There was no point in lighting a new one, it would take up far too much time. We ate a bite of the cold meat from some partridges that Ell had shot the day before and set off on our way.

The dreary plain with its low hills stretched on and on with no end in sight. The clouds and the semidarkness made us all feel very depressed. After an hour and a half of galloping, Alistan led our group out onto an old road, half washed away and barely visible under the puddles.

“There will be a village about three leagues ahead,” said Ell.

“We need to lay in some stores and buy horses,” Alistan Markauz said with a nod.

“If they will sell any,” Ell said in a doubtful tone of voice.

“The peasants need every animal they have,” Honeycomb put in.

“We’ll see when we get there,” said Alistan, and led the group on along the road.

We started moving more slowly, the horses’ hooves slid in the mud and the puddles that were seething with rain. There was a shroud hanging over the world, and we could only see a hundred or a hundred and fifty yards ahead.

The road started going down the slope of yet another hill. Streams of water ran down past us, flowing into an immense puddle, where it looked as if we might have to swim again—the horses were up to their knees in water. We lost our way because we couldn’t see the road and found ourselves at an old, flooded graveyard.

The tops of the monuments on the graves stuck up out of the water like little islands. We rode past them, trying to make the horses follow each other so that, Sagot forbid, they wouldn’t fall into some deep pit that could easily be concealed under the layer of water.

“Now where have we got to?” Honeycomb asked gloomily, talking to himself.

“The land of the dead, can’t you see?” muttered Hallas, who didn’t understand that some questions are simply rhetorical.

“What would a graveyard be doing in a place like this, one that gets flooded?” asked Honeycomb, casting an indifferent glance at a half-submerged coffin floating past us: It had obviously been washed out of a recent shallow grave.

“The village is near now,” replied Marmot, adjusting the edge of his hood to protect Invincible from the rain.

“The sooner the better,” said Deler, whose hat had long ago been reduced to a shapeless, sodden mass. “I want to be inside, in the warm, with a fire and mulled wine and a warm bed and all the pleasures of life.”

“I don’t think we’ll be able to find you an inn out here in the back of beyond. Be grateful if they let us spend the night in the barn,” Marmot replied, wiping the drops of rain off his face.

“This rain’s set in to last for the rest of the day,” Bass said in a hoarse voice, trying to get his horse to walk alongside Little Bee.

“Do you want to end up in a grave? Either get back or move up,” I told him.

He gave me an angry glance from under his hood and reined back his horse.

The graveyard ended as suddenly as it had begun. Something that looked like a road appeared from under the water, rising up to the top of the next hill.

I took an instant dislike to the village—about fifty low wooden houses standing along the wall of a black forest of fir trees. Soaking wet fields that had been cleared and turned, thick mud in the streets, smoke from the stove chimneys hanging over the roofs, and the rain into the bargain.

A boy walking toward us with a bucket dropped it into the mud when he saw our group, and ran off, howling. Bass swore through his teeth, apparently not realizing that armed men on horseback suddenly appearing from behind a curtain of rain might be enough to frighten a grown man, let alone a ten-year-old boy.

When we reached the center of the village, all the locals were sheltering from the rain and the street was deserted. The raindrops trickled down the roofs, drummed on our hoods, splashed in the puddles. We were surrounded by their quiet whispering. A big hefty man with an ax came out of one house and looked at us in alarm.

“What is the name of this village?” Honeycomb asked him.

“Upper Otters,” the peasant replied glumly, toying nervously with his ax. “We don’t want any trouble.”

“You won’t have any. Is there an inn in the village?”

“Straight on, about two hundred yards. The gray house with the sign. You can’t miss it.”

Honeycomb gave the man a nod of thanks and set his horse moving. We rode in the direction the man had indicated. I couldn’t resist glancing back, but the peasant with the ax had already disappeared.

The inn was as dreary and unprepossessing as all the other houses in Upper Otters. There was a tin signplate hanging above the door, but I couldn’t make out what was written on it—it was too old, the paint had worn off ages ago, and the innkeeper hadn’t bothered to paint it again.

“Wait here,” said Alistan Markauz, jumping down into the mud and holding out his reins to Marmot. “Let’s go, Honeycomb.”

They went into the house, leaving us outside, soaking in the rain. Deler was groaning, dreaming about a hot fire and hot food. Hallas asked the dwarf to be quiet in a most unusually polite manner.

Alistan and Honeycomb came back out looking glum and angry.

“The inn’s closed, we can’t spend the night here. Nobody in the village sells anything, especially not horses. They have less than a dozen of them.”

“And if we insist?” Egrassa inquired.

“I think, my cousin, that that is not a good way to win the love of men,” Miralissa replied to the elf.

Egrassa’s face made it clear what he thought of the love of men.

“But will they let us in for the night or not?” Bass interrupted. “I’m sick to death of this rain!”

“We’re all sick of the rain,” Honeycomb boomed as he mounted his horse. “Milord Alistan, perhaps we could try to find a place in the houses? Someone might agree to take us in for five pieces of gold?”

“It’s not worth the risk. The innkeeper said these are Balistan Pargaid’s lands.”

Marmot swore out loud.

“Let’s get out of here.”

But before we had gone a hundred yards, the street was blocked off by a crowd. A surly, angry, silent crowd. Almost all the inhabitants of the village were there, and many of them were holding pitchforks, axes, scythes, flails, or clubs.

“Oi!” the jester squealed quietly.

I immediately looked back—the road was blocked off by two wagons. Very smart.

“What is the problem?” Alistan Markauz shouted.

The man we had seen with the ax stepped forward out of the crowd.

“We don’t want any trouble!”

“We are leaving the village, let us through!”

“Gladly, but first throw down your weapons and give us the horses!”

“What!” roared Hallas, waving his mattock in the air. “No gnome hands over his weapon to a pack of mangy, stinking peasants. Never!”

The crowd began buzzing threateningly and moving toward us.

“We’ll break through,” said Alistan Markauz, striking his horse on the hindquarters with the flat of his sword.

The massive warhorse bounded forward at the men and flattened the ones who were at the front. The sword flashed, repulsing a blow from a flail. The peasants howled and ran in all directions.

I set Little Bee moving forward, trying not to fall behind the others. Our group sliced through the peasants like a hot knife through butter. Those who were too slow to jump aside were trampled.

One lad there almost managed to stick a pitchfork in my side. But Hallas split his head open with his mattock before I even had time to feel afraid. A second later, I had broken out of the crowd, desperately pounding my heel against Little Bee’s sides and leaning down low on her neck.

The menacing cries were left behind and we hurtled along the line of gloomy gray houses, keen to get out of this cursed village as quickly as possible. What had gotten into them? I wondered. There was a kind of crossroads ahead of us, with about fifteen men standing directly in our path. Unlike the peasants, though, these men were armed with lances and bows. And they were dressed a lot better, too—in wool and steel.

Alistan set his horse hurtling to the left, past the lances held out toward him. Miralissa managed to burn up one of our enemies with a spell. While the rest of them were blinking their eyes and yelling in fear, our group darted past after Alistan. I was galloping along last but one, immediately after Hallas, and I saw the sharp tips of the lances flash by just five inches from my face. Little Bee reared up on her hind legs and whinnied. It was a miracle that I wasn’t thrown out of the saddle into the mud.

“Oh, bravo!” roared Bass, when he saw that the road to the left was already blocked off by men with lances.

With an effort, I managed to make Little Bee follow Snoop’s horse. The two of us would have to break through together. Now we were galloping in the opposite direction from our comrades. I heard the twang of bowstrings behind me, and one of the arrows whistled past just above my ear and bit into the hindquarters of Bass’s horse, which was galloping ahead of me. It reared up and threw its rider to the ground.

“Take my hand!” I shouted, leaning down in the saddle as I dashed up to him.

Snoop grabbed hold of my hand and jumped; I tossed him up onto Little Bee behind me and he clung on to me like a leech.

“We have to get out of this place! Move!”

I didn’t need to be asked twice. Arrows whistled through the air again, but this time they missed. We galloped the entire length of the village without coming across anyone at all from our side or the other.

I only pulled up Little Bee when Upper Otters was far behind us, hidden behind the curtain of rain.

“Unfriendly fellows, why were they so upset with us?”

“We could go back and ask them,” said Bass, jumping down off Little Bee.

“We have to find the others.”

“In this rain? You won’t even notice them until you trip over them.”

“And what do you suggest?”

“I’d make a run for it, if we weren’t so deep in the Borderland. But you can’t get far on your own here.”

I dismounted from Little Bee and turned toward him:

“You’re wrong, we have to find the others as soon as possible. The village is over that way, we have to circle round until we come across the group.”

“Two of us on one horse?” he said, turning round and looking thoughtfully in the direction of Upper Otters.

And that was when I saw it.

Two arrows were sticking out of Bass’s back. Shafts as thick as a finger, with white flights—one was stuck right under his left shoulder blade, and the other was a lot lower and farther to the right. The heart and the liver. Nobody lives with wounds like that. But Snoop didn’t seem to feel any pain or know that the arrows were there, and there wasn’t a single drop of blood on his clothes.

“So what do you think? Harold, I’m talking to you!”

“What?”

Something must have shown in my eyes, because Bass looked at me keenly and asked:

“What’s wrong, old friend?”

“You know,” I said warily, “those lads were good shots, after all.”

“Why do you say that? We’re still alive, aren’t we?”

“You’ve got two arrows sticking out of your back. Can’t you feel them?”

Keeping his eyes on me, he felt for one of the arrows behind his back and chuckled grimly.

“Darkness! If only you knew what bad timing this is,” Bass said with a crooked grin, and then, suddenly appearing right behind me, he punched me in the solar plexus.

Little Bee whinnied in fright and shied. I doubled over and fell down.

“All I had to do was watch you and tell the woman where you were,” Snoop said, with a pitiful note in his voice. “Now the Master will punish me.”

I felt my heart skip a beat.

Bass had no eyes anymore; where the pupils and irises ought to be, there was a sea of darkness. His eyes were like the eyes of the old man from the Master’s prison.

The knife sprang into my hand of its own accord and I sank the long blade into his belly, but he didn’t make a sound. I didn’t notice how he hit me, the pain just exploded in my chest, even under the chain mail, and I was on the ground again.

“You know,” Snoop said in a bored voice as he pulled my knife out of his stomach and weighed it in his hand, “Markun’s lads really did drop me in the water under the pier that day when I stole the money from you and For. I was unlucky. Being dead is very bad, Harold. But the Master brought me back to life, I became a Soulless One, and all I had to do was keep an eye on you. Well, now what are we going to do with you?”

Zing! A black arrow hit him in the heart.

Zing! An arrow in the throat.

Zing! An arrow in the belly.

Ell was standing no more than ten yards away from us, methodically shooting arrow after arrow into Bass.

It was pointless!

“I’m not that easy to kill,” Bass growled, flinging himself at the elf. “I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time!”

Ell threw his bow aside and took his s’kash off his shoulder. My knife was a lot shorter than this crooked blade, but that didn’t worry Snoop at all, and he pounced on the elf like a spring hurricane.

Heavy breathing, flashing blades, the clash of steel on steel. Bass lost his left arm from the elbow down, but he kept attacking. Not a drop of blood oozed from the stump, and his black eyes remained impassive.

I planted a crossbow bolt in the back of his head and it passed right through. But this didn’t upset the Soulless One at all.

I remembered what the Messenger had told Lafresa.

“Ell!” I shouted as I reloaded the crossbow. “His head! Cut off his head!”

Bass roared, turned away from his opponent, and came running at me with the knife. The elf dashed up to him from behind, the crooked sword whistled through the air and severed the head of what had once been my friend from its body.

The head fell into the mud and rolled away. The body, with the arrows stuck in it, waved its remaining arm desperately from side to side, trying to catch one of us with the knife. The foul beast was still alive and dangerous.

Ell jumped across to the head and struck twice at the black eyes with a dagger drawn from the top of his boot. There was a sound like an eggshell breaking, the eyes burst, and the body twitched convulsively once again before it collapsed into a puddle and lay still.

Wasting no time, the elf went across to the body and, using his s’kash again, started dismembering it, cutting off the other arm and the legs. I was still standing there with my crossbow lowered when Ell handed me back my knife. I took it warily, looked it over, and put it back in the scabbard. There wasn’t a single drop of blood on the blade.

“I never did like him.” Ell’s yellow eyes glinted.

“What was that?” I asked, dumbfounded.

“One kind of ghoul created from someone who is dead. A faithful servant. They think, talk, eat, and they remember everything that happened to them before they died. It is almost impossible to tell them apart from ordinary people. Ask Miralissa if you want to know more.”

“How did you find us?”

“I told you, I never did like him,” Ell repeated. “Catch your horse and let’s go. The rain’s getting worse.”

I whistled to Little Bee. It was a trick that Kli-Kli taught me. The horse was still frightened and she squinted at the dead man lying in the puddle, but she came to me when I called.

“Thank you,” I said as I climbed into the saddle. “You saved my skin today.”

“I hope I do not have to feel sorry about it,” said Ell.

“What are you talking about?”

“I can see how you look at Miralissa.”

“Isn’t that my business?” I asked softly.

“When it touches dark elves then it is not only your business. You do realize that both of you have nothing in common? You’re a man and she is an elf. You’re a thief, she is possibly an heir to the throne. Our traditions do not allow anything like that. I advise you as a friend, do not overstep the line. If you do not think about yourself, then think about her. Everyone will get in trouble.”

I looked at Ell and said:

“Don’t worry. I wouldn’t do that to her.”

“Thank you,” he said. “I hope our conversation will remain confidential.”

“Of course,” I said drily. “I promise.”

He didn’t answer, just nodded. I rode round the Soulless One’s body and didn’t look back once all the way to our group.