Shadow Blizzard (3 page)

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.

Arrows of bronze are used by orcs,

The elves make theirs of gold.

The Golden Forest and the Black—

The song of the branches is cold.

Led by their King, the elves arrived,

The orcs were led by their Hand.

Facing each other eye to eye

Argad and the King did stand.

“This forest is ours,” said the King,

“Turn back, my friends, and go.

What use to an orc is a bleeding skin

Pierced by arrows of gold?”

“Your words will not serve you for soldiers,”

Came the answer from the Hand.

“I have two thousand bold warriors

And you but a small fighting band.

“We will take back our forest as booty,

Fortune favors the hardest blades,

Gold is the softest of metals,

And our bronze will rule the day.”

For long minutes King Eldionessa

Replied not a single word.

Then he took out an empty quiver

And smiled at his enemies’ lord.

“No arrows?” asked Argad in wonder.

“Then this is surrender, it seems.”

The King laughed: “Hand, you are dreaming,

Woe unto you and your dreams.

“Argad, your time is approaching!

Do you hear the war horns sound?

Those are men in armor arriving,

Their boots are tramping the ground.

“Indeed bronze is strong, I know.

You were right to say that, Hand.…

But I changed our golden arrows

For a fighting force of men.”

The orcs closed their ranks together

And stood with their shields raised high,

The Hand he frowned and glowered.

The King had a glint in his eye.

“Foolish elf!” Argad’s harsh words

Struck like a mighty sword blow.

“Do you think, when they finish with us,

The men will just turn and go?”

Then metal on metal sounded

As blade struck hard against blade.…

Argad fell, twelve times wounded,

And could not rise again.

“Hand, why are you now so silent?”

Asked the elf, leaning down over him.

“Gold is the softest of metals,

To lie here is good, oh King.

“Death will sharpen the meaning

Of these few words that I speak.

Fight for your home with your own strength,

Though your forces may be weak.”

Thus saying, he opened his eyes

And death stopped the breath of the Hand.

“What was it you said?” asked the Elf-King.

“How am I to understand?”

“A hard battle,” the weary man panted,

“And dearly indeed has it cost.

Orcs are stubborn and bronze is hard,

Many good men have I lost.”

Said the King: “We are most thankful.

This service will not be forgot.”

The man asked: “Are we mere servants?

Surely, my friend, we are not!

“A hired soldier is a fine thing

When he fights on distant ground,

But at home greater honor is given

To the lowly hunting hound.”

“Now what is it you seek?

You were paid! And we fought too!

You know we are not mean!

Yet more pay? Here, will this do?”

“No more pay,” proclaimed the man-soldier,

Addressing the elf with a grin.

“Gold is the softest of metals,

And we shall just take everything.”

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.

That night my nightmares came back, and at one point when my head was filled with incomprehensible hodgepodge, I opened my eyes.

Morning had already come, but everyone was still asleep, apart from Lamplighter. Hallas and Deler were dozing, having laid their own responsibilities on the shoulders of reliable Mumr. The soldier nodded without speaking when he noticed that I was awake. I lay there for a while, feeling surprised that Miralissa was not in any hurry to get up and wake the others. Perhaps the elfess had decided to let the group have a rest before the final dash for Hrad Spein?

That was probably it.

I heard Kli-Kli crooning gently somewhere at the edge of the meadow. The goblin was wandering along the line of the trees, singing a simple little song. So I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t sleep.

“What are you singing?” I asked, going up to him. “You’ll wake everyone up.”

“I’m being quiet. Want some strawberries?” Kli-Kli held out a hat, filled to the brim with fine strawberries.

The berries were giving off an amazing smell, and I simply couldn’t resist.

“You were groaning in your sleep again, Dancer. Bad dreams?”

“Probably,” I said with a casual shrug. “Fortunately I hardly remember them.”

“I don’t like the sound of that,” the goblin said with a frown. “Someone doesn’t want you to see them.”

“And just who is this someone?”

“The Master, for instance. Or his servant—Lafresa.”

“You certainly know how to keep your friends’ spirits up,” I told Kli-Kli. “Come on, let’s get a fire going while everyone’s asleep.”

“You go on. I’ll just finish off the strawberries and take Deler’s hat back.”

“Hmmm … Kli-Kli, surely you can see the inside is all stained with juice? You squashed half the strawberries!”

“Really? I never thought about that,” said the goblin, thoughtfully contemplating what he had done. “It’s just that I think squashed strawberries taste a little bit better than ordinary ones. Maybe I should wash the hat in the stream?”

“Please don’t, you’ll only make it worse,” I told him, and set off back.

Kli-Kli was like a little child; he didn’t seem to realize that now Deler would be yelling the whole day long about how his hat had been ruined! And the jester had made that unwelcome comment about the Master and Lafresa, too.

The Master was the nasty piece of work who had been making our lives a misery since the very beginning of our journey, but we still hadn’t found out who he was. The bastard was virtually omnipotent and vindictive, and his powers rivaled any of the gods’. But the lad obviously didn’t want to simply swat us like flies, so he just mocked and battered us, and when we ruined his latest tricky plan, it didn’t upset him at all, he simply came up with a new one even more elegant and dangerous in no time at all. The Master, like the Nameless One, was not very keen on the idea of us retrieving the Rainbow Horn from the burial chambers. But while it was a matter of life and death for the Nameless One, it was just one more whimsical fancy for the Master.

Lafresa was a servant of the Master, and although she looked like a twenty-year-old, she was several hundred years old—at least that was according to one of my dreams. (Yes, indeed, imagine that—I happened to have acquired the remarkable gift of prophetic dreams!) And Lafresa was also the most powerful shamaness (or should that be shawoman?) that I had ever seen in my life. The Master’s servant possessed the forbidden magic of Kronk-a-Mor, and she had managed to kill two of us with it after we stole the Key and left her with egg on her face. And to be quite honest …