Alexey Pehov - Shadow Prowler

“Well, I would have argued with that,” Hallas, who was sitting beside me, muttered to himself-but quietly, so that the goblin wouldn’t hear.

“The men who were chosen to stay behind were named the Dog Swallows. I don’t know why. The main army left. The new unit was commanded by an old soldier who had commanded a regiment with Grok. He was called Hargan, and a grateful posterity later named this place after him. The defenders’ primary goal was to hold back the enemy for at least one day, no more than that. But they managed to halt the orc army’s advance for a full four. In that time not a single orc got through. Hargan’s soldiers gave Grok’s army precious breathing space, and time to prepare for the encounter at Avendoom. If not for the Swallows, there’s no knowing how the history of the kingdom would have gone.

“The subsequent events are well known to you. Grok gave battle and the orcs broke into Avendoom, but then the dark elves arrived on the scene. No one had been expecting them. Neither the men nor, in particular, the orcs. The elves forgot their quarrel with men and came to their aid at the very last moment. The dark ones could not ignore such a good opportunity to settle scores with their cousins. The Spring War was won. And that, I think, is all.”

“And this wasteland?”

“The wasteland?” the jester echoed. “The wasteland remained a wasteland. A new road appeared somewhere else, of its own accord. No one wanted to disturb the bones of the fallen warriors. But then, to be quite honest, most of them were not actually buried. People had too many other things to deal with, setting the country to rights after the war. The years passed and Hargan’s Brigade gradually began to be forgotten. The road gradually fell into disuse. Only the shepherds used it to move their sheep. The land round here is really rich, and so the grass is high. Only the name was left-Hargan’s Wasteland-and with time people even forgot where that had come from. Now not even the old men remember those soldiers’ feat of heroism.”

An oppressive silence fell round the campfire. Each of us was thinking about those men who stood firm against the crooked yataghans of the orcs and did not retreat.

“Gnomes would never have forgotten something like that.”

“Or dwarves!”

I felt shame for my race. Probably for the first time in my life I feltashamed of people for forgetting such a sacrifice…

“Come on, Loudmouth,” grunted Lamplighter, getting up off the ground. “We’re on the first watch tonight.”

No one spoke to anyone else. One by one we all went to bed, leaving only the solitary figure of the jester still sitting beside the small camp-fire, gazing at the dance of the flames…

The slanting downpour from the sky was like whips lashing at their clothes, it soaked them with its soft hands, it was cold, warm, angry, prickly, stinging, caressing, biting.

The soldiers were tired, cold, and soaked through. The bowmen squinted furiously up at the sky-moisture spoiled the bows, and no elves’ tricks for preserving the condition of the string did any good.

“Wencher!” Hargan called in a low voice, wiping his wet face with his hand.

“Yes?” responded the commander of the swordsmen, running up to him.

“Take your lads. Grab every ax you can find in the brigade and cut down the trees on that side of the ravine.”

“Very well,” said the soldier, without batting an eyelid.

“Drag the trunks over to this side, and then we’ll dismantle the bridge. We’ll arrange a pleasant welcome for the Firstborn.”

The other man gave a gap-toothed smile, clenched his fist in the military salute, and ran off to rouse his men.

Hargan sighed.

It was hard. Ye gods! It was so hard to look at them! He was an old man, almost sixty years old-he wasn’t afraid of dying. But the men fate had decided that he should command… boys. Twenty-year-old, thirty-year-old boys. He regarded them all as too young to die in front of this bridge thrown across the abyss of a nameless ravine.

The orcs had attacked suddenly. No one had been expecting this war, and during the first days of the catastrophe that overwhelmed the land of Valiostr, the army had been defeated in battle after battle. And now there was only one hope left. Hargan and his men had only one goal-to detain the enemy for as long as possible, until the main human forces could dig in at the new capital of Valiostr. The retreating army was already far behind them, and in front of them, beyond the curtain of mist, the army of the enemy was waiting.

The orcs were in no great hurry. What difference did it make if they spilled the humans’ blood an hour earlier or an hour later? They were the Firstborn, they would conquer all the lands, and men… Men would be dispatched to feed the worms. First the Valiostrans, then the men of Miranueh, then it would be the turn of the gnomes and dwarves, and finally of their detested relatives, the elves.

The rain eased off somewhat until it was no more than a gentle drizzle. The air was filled with fine drops of water. It was early morning and mist was rising from the ground in thick white streamers. Three hundred yards away, on the opposite side of the ravine, the road was concealed in a dense white shroud and they could only guess how far away the enemy was. Yesterday the scouts had reported that the advance units of the orcs were at a distance of one day’s march. But that was yesterday…

The bottom of the ravine was hidden from sight. Its walls were not actually sheer, but they could certainly not be called shallow. If you were careless going down, you could easily break your neck. Somewhere far below there was a stream tinkling; sometimes you could hear it above the rain. So after they dismantled the bridge, the orcs would first have to climb down one slippery clay slope and then climb up another. That was the only way they could reach the fortifications.

The brigade had only been named that morning, when the final soldiers of Grok’s army retreated, leaving the volunteers alone to face the foe. Nobody at all was hoping to survive the fighting, they all knew what they were doing when they volunteered. They were saying good-bye to life.

Waiting is the worst torture of all. It has broken many men, even destroyed them. And what could be worse than standing behind a low wall of logs covered with earth and peering into a dank haze for an entire day, with only one picture in front of your eyes the whole time-a road cut off by a thick white wall of fog.

The day was approaching its end, and there had been neither sight nor sound of the enemy. True, about an hour earlier something that sounded very much like the booming of the orcs’ battle drums had been heard from behind the curtain of fog, but everything had gone quiet, the alarm had come to nothing, and the oppressive silence of anticipation had descended once again.

On the slope of the ravine itself, just below the line of fortifications, the builders had set long, pointed stakes into the ground. The attackers would find it very tricky to get past this obstacle with any speed. They would probably get stuck trying to squeeze between the stakes, and the bowmen would have time to reap a bloody harvest.

“They haven’t decided to wait for darkness, surely?” the commander of the Dog Swallows asked apprehensively. “But since when has the race of the Firstborn ever been so cautious with men? They regard us as talking monkeys.”

“I’ll tell you what I’m afraid of,” croaked Fox, who was sitting beside Hargan. “What if they’ve found another route to Avendoom? Maybe through the forest or the swamps…”