Алексей Пехов - Shadow Chaser

“Harold, what would I do without your help?” Hallas laughed into his blood stained beard.

“Behind you!” I shouted to warn him of danger approaching.

The short little gnome jumped smartly to one side, spun round, and attacked the new enemy.

Little Bee was still standing where I had left her. I hadn’t even noticed when the fever of battle had carried me so far away from my horse. The crossbow was lying in the dirt, close to her hooves.

Kli-Kli appeared in front of me.

The goblin lowered his hands to his belt in a fluent movement, pulled off two heavy throwing knives, which performed glittering somersaults in his fingers, so that he was holding them by the blades, and then he flung them at me.

I didn’t duck, I didn’t move, and basically I didn’t even have time to feel scared, it all happened so fast.

One of the knives whistled past my right ear and the other past my left ear, almost slicing it off.

Amazingly enough, I was still alive.

I had enough wits to look round. The enemy standing behind me had already raised his ax. The goblin’s throwing knives were sticking out of his eye sockets. The orc stood there for a moment, swaying on his heels, and fell facedown, almost flattening me.

“You’ll never get even for me saving your skin.” The jester already had a second pair of knives in his hands.

I couldn’t think of anything to say. I felt too ashamed, remembering how we had all laughed at the goblin’s skill with throwing knives.

I picked up the crossbow and loaded it hastily.

“We’re losing, we only have eight against twelve!” the goblin declared.

Where does he find the time to count?

“I know!”

“Then keep your wits about you. Can you hear the shaman singing? When he finishes casting his spell, things will get really bad.”

A shaman! I turned cold, finally realizing the disaster that song could bring.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Find him and kill him! He’s hiding somewhere!”

Easily said—kill a shaman!

Little Bee suddenly lashed out at an orc who was being pressed hard by a Border Kingdom soldier. Her hoof caught him in his unprotected back and the soldier finished off the job.

“I told you she was a battle horse!” Even in this situation the jester could find the strength to smile. “I know the right gifts to give my friends!”

Suddenly horns sounded and the second detachment, under Fer’s command, struck the enemy in the rear like an iron fist. Alistan went sweeping past me and sliced the head off one of four orcs who were closing in on Eel.

I wouldn’t say the Garrakian was exactly having a hard time against four adversaries, but the unexpected help certainly did no harm. In his hands the “brother” and “sister” were fluttering about like butterflies, fusing into a single glittering blur. The “sister” thrust and the “brother” slashed. The “sister” struck from above, aiming at the head; the orc covered himself with his shield and the “brother” immediately slashed open his exposed belly.

I calmly fired a crossbow bolt into the third orc, hitting him just below the right shoulder blade. Kli-Kli ducked down and slashed the fourth one’s tendons, then Eel finished the job by killing the fallen orc.

“Miralissa!” I yelled when I saw the elfess, armed with a s’kash. Her ash-gray hair was covered by a hood of chain mail. “There’s a shaman here!”

She shouted something in orcic to Egrassa and pronounced a spell, flinging out her hands. Ice appeared under the feet of the orc running toward her and her enemy slipped and skidded forward across it, waving his arms in surprise. He was greeted eagerly by Fer, who brought down his mace on the Firstborn’s helmet. Blood spurted in all directions.

Suddenly semitransparent, poisonous-green bubbles appeared in the air.

“Keep away from them!” shouted Miralissa, forcing her Doralissian horse to turn aside sharply. “Egrassa sh’tan nyrg sh’aman dulleh.”

Without even listening to her, the elf was shooting arrow after arrow, aiming at the sound of the voice. It looked as if Egrassa was insane—why else would he be firing at an absolutely empty spot in the field? The arrows hummed through the air and stuck in the ground, the singing went on, and more and more of the soap bubbles kept appearing. One of the soldiers cried out in pain.

A sudden blow threw me to the ground and clattered my teeth together.

“Are you tired of living?” Eel roared.

The Garrakian was on the alert—he had pushed me out of the way of the shaman’s airborne curse just in time.

The elf’s next arrow stuck in midair, there was a shriek, and the chanting stopped. An orc wearing a strange-looking headdress appeared from out of nowhere, out of thin air, and fell to the ground.

“The illusion of invisibility!” Kli-Kli shouted.

With the death of the shaman, the soap bubbles instantly burst and disappeared.

The cabbage field no longer rang to the sound of clashing weapons. Everything had ended as suddenly as it had begun. I realized that we had won and by the whim of Sagot I was still alive.

“Easy, my friend, just two more stitches and I’ll be done,” said Eel as he deftly sewed up Lamplighter’s forehead with a crooked needle.

Mumr hissed and scowled, but he bore it. An orcish yataghan had caught Lamplighter on the forehead and sliced away a flap of skin. When the battle was over, the warrior’s face and clothes were completely covered in blood, and now the Garrakian was stitching the skin dangling over Lamplighter’s eyes back into place with woolen thread.

“Stop torturing me, Eel, I’ve lost enough blood already! Why don’t you call Miralissa?”

“She’s busy trying to save the men affected by the shaman’s spell,” said Eel, putting in another stitch. “And don’t worry about all the blood. It’s always like that with wounds on the face. It would be far more dangerous if they’d stabbed you in the stomach and it hadn’t bled at all.”

“Smart aleck…,” Mumr said, and scowled as Eel started tying off the thread. “Now there’ll be a scar.”

“They say they look well on a man.” Eel chuckled. “Deler, give me your Fury of the Depths.”

The dwarf stopped cleaning the blade of his battle-ax and handed the Garrakian his flask of dwarfish firewater. Eel moistened a rag and ruthlessly pressed it against Mumr’s forehead. Lamplighter howled as if he had sat on hot coals.

“Put up with it, if you don’t want the wound to fester.”

The Wild Heart nodded with his face contorted in pain and took the rag from the Garrakian.

“Are you wounded, thief?”

Milord Rat had taken off his helmet and was holding it in his hands. Naturally enough, the captain of the guard was concerned about my health. After all, Stalkon had instructed him to protect me, and today I had almost been dispatched to the light. A fine joke that would be, if Milord Alistan Markauz failed to carry out an assignment!

“I don’t think so,” I said apathetically.

The battle was over, but I still couldn’t get over the delirious fever that is born from the clash of swords. Kli-Kli and I were sitting on the ground beside Little Bee and looking at the trampled cabbage field, scattered with the bodies of orcs, men, and horses.

“You have blood on your face.”

Blood? Ah, yes! When Hallas blew the orc’s head off with his wonder-weapon, a few drops of blood had landed on me.

“Not mine, milord.”

“Here, wipe it off.” And he kindly handed me a clean piece of rag. “Well done for surviving, thief.”

I grinned sadly. I’d survived, all right, but others hadn’t been so lucky. An orcish arrow had killed Ell on the spot. Marmot would never feed Invincible again—he had been hit by the shaman’s bubbles, and killed. Honeycomb, too, had been hit by the bubble and now he was lying unconscious, at death’s door. Miralissa was trying to help him and three other warriors, but I wasn’t sure she could do anything.