Alexey Pehov - Chasers of the Wind

“I don’t believe it,” stammered the soldier.

“You mean that I returned from the other world and decided to get my debt from you?” said Ga-Nor, smiling wearily.

“If you’re a dead man, you’re a lot worse than these bastards. At least they didn’t ask me for money.”

“Indeed. Though they’d have been quite happy to suck out your heart.”

The soldier shuddered at the prospect.

“How did you get here?”

Ga-Nor didn’t reply; he turned his head back in the direction from which he’d come, listening intently to the patter of the rain. Luk did the same but unlike the northerner he didn’t hear anything suspicious and so he dared to ask a question. “What is it?”

“Shut up,” snapped the Son of the Snow Leopard.

In the twilight his face sharpened, heavy shadows gathered under his eyes, and he himself began to resemble a corpse. Luk shivered involuntarily. A minute went by, another began. The rain came down even harder, even though this seemed completely impossible. The tracker didn’t have any rain gear, and he’d been soaked through for a long time, but still he peered into the darkness and scented the air. Luk tried this as well, but he only smelled the stench emanating from the dead bodies.

“Come on, what’s the matter?”

“We’re leaving.”

“What?”

“We’re leaving. Quickly.”

“But…”

The Son of the Snow Leopard glared at him angrily.

“I’m not going to bargain with you. Either you come with me or you stay here to greet your guests.”

Luk only needed a second to realize what kind of guests he was talking about. The ones with the glowing green eyes.

“I’m coming with you,” he said quickly, and looked around in alarm, expecting dark figures to leap out of the dense forest at any moment.

“I’ll be walking quickly. We need to shake them. Watch your feet. Keep up.”

Luk nodded frantically and, glancing back one last time, hurried after the northerner.

Regardless of the wet firewood, they managed to make a fire without too much difficulty. The flames crackled and threw up sparks, and the thick smoke wafted up through a hole in the ceiling. And that, right now, was the most important thing. Luk was as frozen as a dog and this was the first opportunity he’d had to warm up and dry out his clothes.

They’d run through the forest for half the night. They walked down a slope, only to climb up the next, and then they walked along the ridge of the next hill and descended another slope. Then for a long time they plodded their way upstream against the current of an icy river. Luk slipped on the wet stones three times and fell, cursing, into the water, and three times the strong arms of the northerner pulled him out by the scruff of his neck and set him back on his feet.

The Son of the Snow Leopard surpassed even the unrivaled, now deceased captain of the Tower of Ice. Even that man had never driven his subordinates through an obstacle course like this one. Luk was exhausted, his legs hurt something fierce, his breathing was labored, his axe seemed unspeakably heavy, he wanted to collapse and shove it all up his toad’s ass, or better yet, up the ass of the northerner’s little god, but he didn’t. His fear urged him on. And so the exhausted soldier doggedly trotted behind Ga-Nor.

The man hardly spoke at all, constantly changing directions, slipping between tree trunks and streams, circling around copses, every now and then pausing to listen, smell the air, and then continue on. At one point it seemed to Luk that they were going in circles. Finally, just when the soldier had decided he couldn’t care less if a corpse wanted to suck his heart out or not, they arrived.

In a grove of old sycamores, in the midst of tall blackberry bushes, stood a hunter’s cabin. It was ancient, covered in moss and shelf fungus, with a partially fallen roof, broken windows, and an insecure door. Inside it smelled of rotten wood, humidity, and the droppings of wild animals. The floor creaked awfully and the tiny stove was being used as a nest by mice. It was obvious that no one had been here for a long time.

Luk did not know if Ga-Nor already knew about this refuge or if he stumbled upon it by accident. But, contrary to his habit, he wouldn’t ask any questions, because he thought that spending the night here was far better than out in the rain.

The tracker still wouldn’t say a single word. He silently kindled the fire using a pile of sodden wood that was lying in the corner. Then he closed his eyes and apparently went to sleep. The soldier considered doing the same, but with all his questions he couldn’t manage it. He stood up quietly and tried to push the door closed.

There was no latch. So the guard fashioned a makeshift one out of the trunk of a young tree. It was still unsound. The rotten planks of the door could not even withstand two good blows. Luk understood this but for some reason he felt much calmer with a closed door. At any rate, if they tried to break in here then he would at least be forewarned and not find out about it when their enemies were already standing over them.

All that remained were the windows. He studied them quickly. They were small. Luk wouldn’t be able to crawl through them, but for someone thin enough it would be easy. There were no decent boards, no nails, and no hammer here. The only thing he could do was hope that all their enemies were big and fat.

“What happened at the Gates?”

The sound of Ga-Nor’s voice ringing out caused Luk to flinch.

“Screw a toad! You’ll drive me to my death!”

“Then you’ll rest with Ug.”

“You can rest with Ug all you like, but I intend to live,” grumbled Luk as he checked his drying clothes and sat down by the fire. “Do you have anything to eat? I haven’t eaten in over twenty-four hours.”

The northerner rummaged in the bag that he’d taken from the saddle of the Nabatorian horse. He extracted sugar, an onion, a small hunk of cheese, and a quarter of rye bread from it.

“I trust you’re capable of eating and talking at the same time?” asked Ga-Nor as he sliced the onion with his dagger.

His companion nodded and told his story as he ate. The Son of the Snow Leopard listened attentively. Everything was far worse than he thought. The Damned were involved in this business! Rubeola’s name used to terrify him as a child. And it probably wasn’t just her. How many of them were there? Six or eight? The Damned would be far more trouble than all the others. If, of course, Luk wasn’t lying, as was his habit. But he was clearly not lying.

Nabator had been wanting to conquer the south of the Empire for centuries. And now that long-awaited event was coming to pass.

“Surely someone else must have escaped.”

“Maybe,” replied Luk listlessly. A blind man could see that he didn’t really believe it. “Rek and I managed to get out because we ran from the walls along the southern stairwell. It’s not far from there to the fifth portal. I just don’t think that anyone followed us. A swarm of Nabatorians fell on them. And Morts, too. We barely got through.”

“Did the Walker really die?”

“Yeah,” said the soldier mournfully. “The Damned hit the wall so hard that…”

He didn’t finish, and he didn’t really need to. A heavy silence fell. Both men watched the flames of the fire and thought their own thoughts.

Luk considered himself lucky. Ga-Nor was an excellent tracker and not a bad swordsman. The chances of living were far better with him than if he were alone. If the northerner hadn’t come to his rescue, he would already be dead.

“Ga-Nor? What now?”

The Son of the Snow Leopard answered reluctantly, “We will have to get through on our own. Going to El’nichi Ford makes no sense. I’m sure they’ve already taken it. I think that Nabator will head for Okni and Gash-Shaku. That would deprive Al’sgara of support. And it will give them the opportunity to gather up their forces to strike at the heart of the Empire. As soon as we leave the foothills, we need to head west.”