Alexey Pehov - Shadow Prowler

“Okay, it’s a deal. You can stay for the time being.” I had come to the conclusion that the archmagician’s help could come in useful after all. “But only until I leave the Forbidden Territory. Agreed?”

“Yes! Thank you.”

“So how do I deceive this blind beast with big ears?”

“Try to pick up a stone and throw it as far away from yourself as you can. And then run.”

Remarkable, a brilliant plan. And I was foolish enough to think I would get really useful advice. Although I supposed I could try it. If I ran fast, I could end up beside the statue of Sagot, and For told me it was absolutely safe there, no evil beast would dare to touch me.

I picked up a small round stone and threw it into the window closest to the mist. The stone flew into the darkness and bounced off the wall, and then the mousetrap snapped shut. The cloud hurtled toward the sudden sound as fast as an arrow fired from an elfin bow and disappeared into the house, and I darted past the dangerous spot as fast as I could run. Out of the corner of my eye I saw that my trick hadn’t been a complete success. The white bundle of mist, looking more like a worm now, was rapidly pouring back out into the street.

And it was clearly intending to play tag with my own humble and frightened personage. I concentrated all my energy into a wild gallop.

“Faster!” Valder advised me, entirely unnecessarily.

I collapsed beside the granite pedestal and watched as the worm that was pursuing me, as crazed with hunger as a starving gkhol, gave out a melodic crystalline note and shattered into a thousand tiny shreds that burned up in the air with a crimson flame.

Well now, my teacher For was right, as always. Sagot’s statue really is a safe spot.

I got up off the ground, brushed the dust and small pieces of rubbish off my jacket and trousers, and turned round to see the face of my god at long last.

I gasped in amazement.

The ancient artist had done a really good job in depicting the patron god of thieves. Sagot was sitting on a granite pedestal with his legs crossed, wearing boots on his feet. He looked very slightly tired, like a traveler who has finally completed a long journey. He had elegant hands with slim fingers-they looked too young for a forty-year-old man.

The pointed nose, high forehead, slight stubble on the cheeks, cunning eyes and smile were equally suitable for an old man made wise by experience, or a mischievous boy.

I had seen this man before. And even paid a gold coin for his absurd advice.

Sitting before me was the beggar from the empty pedestal at the cathedral.

I had heard several legends from the brothers of the night about Sagot supposedly liking to wander the earth occasionally and talk to those who appealed to him at difficult moments: to help them, advise them, punish them, or play jokes on them. But I’d never thought that anything like that would ever happen to me.

“You see, I am carrying out the Commission,” I said, addressing the statue. “But I still don’t understand your advice about Selena. Keep laughing-you bamboozled me out of a whole gold piece.”

But the god said nothing and merely continued to look down mockingly. Why should he bother to reply to the cheeky comments of some little insect by the name of Harold? I sighed. Sagot had protected me from the irilla, but it was time to be moving on.

“Good-bye, Sagot.” I controlled my insolence and bowed. “I’ll try to get that Horn.”

I turned round and walked toward the Street of the Sleepy Cat, sunk deep in the darkness of night, and left the statue of the god behind me. After spending just a little while beside it, I had a confident, calm feeling. I was going to complete this Commission.

I felt as if I had just been granted the god’s approval, although he hadn’t said a single word to me.

The street was as endless as the hatred between elves and orcs. I had already been walking along it for twenty minutes. I wanted to get the job over and done with and get out of this place.

But clearly that was not to be just yet.

First I caught that smell that cannot possibly be confused with anything else. That stench can drive a hungry gkhol insane-the stink of decomposing corpses. I started breathing through my mouth, trying to ignore the unbearable aroma.

A couple of moments later I heard the crackling and chomping-sounds very familiar to those who engage in robbing ancient graves. They were what always gave the vile creatures away.

Dead men, brought back to life by the shamanism left behind by the ogres, which had still not disappeared from the world of Siala after thousands of years. That was who it was.

The magic that brings corpses back to life hinders the process of decay, and the dead men can quite easily exist for several decades before time takes pity on them and kills their flesh. Like many other creatures of the darkness, they cannot bear sunlight. It makes their bodies evaporate, like a lump of sugar in hot tea. And so these zombies mostly live in abandoned caves, mine shafts, earthworks, the basements of old buildings, and, of course, burial chambers. They only come out of their refuges at night, in search of prey.

In principle, a good swordsman can deal with any ordinary returnee from the grave. “Fresh meat” is agile and nimble, while the half-rotten remains can barely move about, owing to the absence of most of the muscles and tendons, or even the bones. The most important thing is not to end up in the grappling-hook embrace of their arms, or things will go badly for you. These guys sink their teeth into their prey as securely as any imperial dogs.

The one thing I couldn’t understand was how the zombies happened to be there. It was quite a long way to Graveyard Street. What kind of dead men could hold out for two hundred years? In that time any decent corpse who had come back to life ought to have fallen to pieces, whether he wanted to or not.

I held the meat that I had brought in my left hand and my knife in my right. If necessary, the silver border on the blade would give me temporary protection.

No, silver doesn’t kill zombies, it just makes them clumsier and very lazy. Sometimes one of the creatures that has received a silver arrow in the chest won’t even take any notice of a person walking by.

I could hear wheezing coming from round the corner of the next brick building. The windows of this building were closed off with massive steel shutters, and the heavy steel door would have withstood a direct hit by a ball from one of the gnomes’ cannon. Written in huge letters on the façade was the following:

HIRGZ… N & S… NS B… NK.

Even to a Doralissian it would have been obvious what was meant: “Hirgzan and Sons Bank.” A very well-known and rich gnome family.

So this was the gnomes’ bank. For had got as far as this point, but had failed to get inside and turned back. I cautiously peeped round the corner, trying not to make any noise. My nose was assailed by the overwhelming stench of rotting flesh and my gaze encountered a dead man peeping round the corner in exactly the same way from the other side.

The dumb scene that followed was worthy of the very finest dramatic production on Market Square. Finding myself nose-to-nose with a living corpse, I behaved like a small, defenseless animal when it runs into a predator in the forest-I froze on the spot.

The creature was not exactly fresh. One arm was completely absent, the ribs on the right were exposed and gleamed a dull white in the misty moonlight. The skin was a dirty gray-green color and one eyeball was missing. The lips had rotted off long ago and the sparse teeth, coated in fresh blood, were exposed in the vacant grin of a village idiot. There was another horrible brute standing there with its back to me.