Алексей Пехов - Shadow Chaser

“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.

After Upper Otters, the weather started to improve. The gods in the heavens snapped their fingers and in a single night a strong wind drove the clouds away. The sun peeped out in the morning and started drying out the land with its warm caress, freeing it of all that superfluous moisture. I was finally able to take off my cloak and revel in the glorious weather.