Алексей Пехов: Shadow Blizzard

Hallas turned over on his side, ignoring everyone else, and immediately started snoring.

“So, are we going to hear the song?” asked Mumr, who had just had the stitches taken out of his wound by Miralissa.

Thanks to the elfess’s shamanic skills, instead of an ugly scar, all Lamplighter had as a reminder of his terrible wound was a faint pink line running across his forehead.

“Yes, just as I promised,” Egrassa replied. “But it requires music.”

“So what’s the problem? I’ve got my whistle with me,” said Lamplighter, reaching into his pocket.

“I’m afraid we need music that’s rather more gentle,” said the elf, declining Mumr’s offer. “Your whistle makes too much noise. I’ll just be a moment.”

Egrassa rose lightly off the grass, walked over to his bag, and took out a small board about the size of an open hand. There were thin silvery strings, barely visible in the moonlight, stretched across the board.

“What’s that?” Deler asked curiously.

“A g’dal,” Miralissa answered. “Egrassa likes to play it when he has the time.”

Egrassa likes to play music? Well, now, I’d never have guessed. At least, I’d never seen the elf doing anything of the kind in all the time we’d been traveling together.

The dark elf’s rough fingers ran across the fine strings with surprising agility and the strange instrument sang in a quiet voice. Egrassa kept plucking at the strings and the sleeping meadow was filled with the melody.

“Don’t forget that the legend should really be sung in orcic. It won’t sound as beautiful in human language,” Egrassa warned us, and started to sing.

Egrassa sang well, and the song flowed quietly and beautifully. The rousing words were like a furious battle in the distance and the strings wept when the Hand of the orcs died after giving his final words of advice to his kinsman and bitter enemy.

The elf’s g’dal sang its final plaintive chord and an oppressive silence descended on the meadow.

“A beautiful legend,” Deler eventually said with a sigh.

“It’s hardly surprising that the elves are not very fond of that song. Milord Alistan is right: It doesn’t show your race in the best possible light,” Mumr commented.

“And the orcs are so very noble,” Miralissa replied with a contemptuous expression.

“Not the best possible light … so very noble…,” Kli-Kli drawled. “It’s nothing but a stupid song, and nothing like that ever really happened!”

“How do you know it didn’t?” asked Deler, stretching out on his horse blanket and yawning widely.

“Because it’s nothing but a legend. Without a single shred of truth in it. When the elves appeared in the Golden Forest, there weren’t any negotiations. The orcs went straight into battle. And definitely nobody called each other ‘friend.’”

“But Eldionessa did exist. The first and last king who ruled our entire people,” said Miralissa, pouring cold water on Kli-Kli’s belligerent passion. “His children created the houses of the elves.”

“And Argad lived eight hundred years later, and he almost reached Green Leaves; you barely managed to stop his army at the edge of the Black Forest,” the goblin said disdainfully. “And men appeared in Siala one thousand seven hundred years after the events described, so Eldionessa, Argad, and the man couldn’t possibly all have met each other. And the elves are certainly not such idiots as to make their arrowheads out of gold. And the orcs are not so stupid as to forge their yataghans out of bronze. It’s nothing but a legend, Tresh Miralissa.”

“But you must admit it’s beautiful, Kli-Kli,” I said.

“It’s beautiful,” the little jester said with an amicable nod. “And very instructive, too.”

“Instructive? What lesson does it teach, goblin?” asked Alistan Markauz, stirring the fire with a stick.

“That you shouldn’t rely on men or trust them, otherwise you can lose your home forever,” the goblin replied.

Nobody tried to argue or object. This time the king’s fool was absolutely right: Give us a chance, and we’ll finish off all our enemies, then our friends, and then each other.