Shadow Blizzard (38 page)

When I drew level with him, he said, “My brother told me we ought to give you a jacket.”

I must admit, I didn’t know what to make of that.

“I’d be very grateful,” I said cautiously.

“I don’t need any monkey’s gratitude,” the orc snapped. “You’re inferior beings, and the most amusing thing is that you don’t even realize it.
Fagred, skell drago s’i llost!
” [Fagred, give him your jacket!]

Darkness only knew what Bagard had barked, but Fagred moaned discontentedly behind me:
“Prza? Shedo t’na gkhonu!”
[What for? He’s going to croak anyway.]

“Not yet. The Hand might have some use for him, or do you want the monkey to freeze to death on the way?”

The huge orc immediately stopped arguing and a minute later he handed me a leather jacket with a hood that he had fished out of his shoulder bag. It turned out to have a fur lining as well. This was a day full of surprises! Of course, the jacket was a bit bigger than necessary, but, naturally enough, I didn’t complain. I started feeling warmer straightaway. But the expression in Fagred’s eyes somehow didn’t suggest that he was overjoyed about sacrificing his jacket.

We made three halts to rest. Once they actually fed us, and then drove us back onto the track. By the time evening came we’d covered quite a distance, and when Bagrad halted the detachment for the night, I collapsed on the ground.

“It’s not sleeping time yet, little monkey!” said Fagred, planting a painful kick in my side. “First you have to make up your bed.”

I had to get up, grinding my teeth in anger at the orc, and scrape the fallen leaves together into a heap. Then Mis and I were told to break branches off the fir trees, and after that the orcs left me alone. Shokren showed up, made a few passes with his hands, and cleared off again.

“What was that?”

“A kind of alarm,” Glo-Glo explained reluctantly. “If you step outside the circle, there’ll be a loud noise, and all the orcs will come running.”

Darkness fell. The orcs lit a campfire and seemed to forget about us. And why shouldn’t they? Shokren’s magic did all their work for them. Then the Firstborn started cooking supper, and I started drooling. But surprisingly enough, when the food was ready, Olag and another orc came over, and they left us a decent serving of meat and a flask of water. So, the Firstborn certainly weren’t planning to starve us to death.

We got talking as we ate. Glo-Glo started pestering me about the Rainbow Horn, and I had to give the pushy little goblin the short, edited version of the adventure. The old shaman seemed satisfied with my story and he left me in peace.

“And how did you get here, Mis?” I asked the Border Kingdom warrior when we finished our food.

“Well, these…,” the elderly warrior began reluctantly, nodding toward the Firstborn. “Do you know what a long-distance raid is?”

“I have a good idea,” I answered. “Isn’t it something like that game the Wild Hearts play when they march all the way to the Needles of Ice?”

“That’s it,” Mis agreed morosely. “The very thing. But for us a long-distance raid is an outing to the Golden Forest to see if the orcs are behaving themselves or if they’re thinking of getting up to some of their tricks. Well, anyway, me and the lads got into a fine mess. This lot dropped down on us out of the trees like overripe pears and finished everyone off like sitting ducks before we even had time to say boo. But that sorcerer of theirs tied me in a knot. Just for the fun of it.”

“I see,” I said sympathetically. “Glo-Glo, you still haven’t told me why they want us alive and where they’re taking us.”

“Why they need you alive is obvious enough. They’re going to have a serious talk with you. But they want us alive to amuse themselves with, though I think you’ll probably suffer the same fate,” the goblin replied, lounging back on the fir-tree branches.

“What do you mean?”

“As if you couldn’t guess!” Glo-Glo cackled merrily.

“Believe it or not, but I don’t understand a thing.”

“They’re taking us to the Labyrinth. The Labyrinth, lad! Have you heard of it?”

“Yes, I have,” I said, frightened out of my wits.

“He has,” the goblin teased me. “These yellow-eyed rats have their mid-autumn festival soon. And what kind of festival would it be without a goblin in the Labyrinth? Do you think they’re kind-hearted, just because they haven’t killed us all yet? They’re saving me for their shitty Labyrinth, that’s why they’ll put up with any crap I throw at them.”

“Hey you! Monkeys! Have you eaten? Then sleep, we’re marching again tomorrow!” one of the sentries growled.

*   *   *

It was the middle of the night, and I still couldn’t get to sleep—that was obviously the effect of the news that they were going to stick us in the Labyrinth.

The Rainbow Horn was in the hands of the orcs, I was a prisoner, the somber prospect of the Labyrinth was looming on the horizon, and my friends and brothers-in-arms couldn’t come to my rescue because the shaman had melted my bracelet. Trying to escape was impossible, at least as long as Shokren and Fagred were around. And where would I run to anyway? There was thick forest on every side, and the orcs were at home here, they’d find me in no time, and then it would be good-bye, Harold. And the shaman would still have the Horn.… What did that leave? All I could do was wait for my chance and hope that fortune would smile on me. I fell asleep, still trying to console myself with this pale illusion of hope.

*   *   *

The next day was no different from the one before. The lousy drizzle was still falling, but I was feeling quite comfortable, because Fagred’s jacket protected me against the whimsies of the autumn weather. We tramped on through the yellow and red forest that still hadn’t fully woken from its slumber.

“I hope there’s going to be a halt soon,” said Mis, who was walking behind me. He spat, earning himself a dig from Fagred.

“Tired, little monkeys?” the orc inquired. “Just let me know and I’ll put an end to your suffering. Forever.”

Naturally, no one thought of answering him. No one wanted another clout from that massive brute.

“It’ll be dark in half an hour,” Mis muttered.

“We’re almost there,” said the goblin, rubbing his aching back. “You’ll see for yourselves in a moment.”

Less than ten minutes later, the bushes gave way to red maples, then they gave way to mighty oaks. The rocks stopped looking like rocks and started looking like ruins. And a few minutes after that I was walking through a city, although that city was in a far worse state than Chu.

All that was left on the ground were the skeletal outlines of the old foundations of buildings and massive blocks and slabs of stone scattered around among the trees. I didn’t see a single complete building. I only saw a fallen column once, more than half buried in the ground. We reached a point with oaks growing so close it was like a solid wall, and I had to squeeze through between the trunks to get into the center of the ring formed by the trees.

Another of nature’s jokes, or had these trees been planted by someone’s caring hands? This place reminded me very much of the ring of golden-leafs at the entrance to Hrad Spein. If I’d been wandering around here on my own, without the orcs keeping a keen eye on me, I’d never have guessed anything could be hiding behind the trees.

Right in the center the wide clearing that was overgrown with young oak saplings, there was a round raised stone platform, with a tall, brilliant-white, needle-like obelisk growing up out of it. It seemed to absorb the light from all around, and even against the background of majestic oaks it looked absolutely perfect.

“The only thing that has survived in this city,” said Glo-Glo, nodding indifferently toward the building, with no sign of the admiration that Mis and I felt at the sheer beauty of the place. “Time has reduced everything else to rubble.”

“Is this the city of Bu?” I asked the old goblin, remembering what Kli-Kli had once told me.

“No, this is the Nameless City,” Glo-Glo replied. “But how do you know about the city of Bu?”

“A goblin I know enlightened me.”

“Ah, yes, some people have goblin friends. What did you say his name was? Kli-Kli?”

“Yes.”

“And where is he now?”

“Somewhere near the entrance to the Palaces of Bone.”

Glo-Glo frowned discontentedly, but he didn’t say anything.

We prisoners had been seated right at the edge of the circle of oaks, and Shokren had traced out his magical circle again so that we wouldn’t—may the gods forbid—slink off. Nobody intended to let the monkeys go near the obelisk. A pity. I really wanted to touch that strange stone. I could physically feel the warmth radiating from it.

“Glo-Glo, do you know who built this wonder?” I asked the goblin, who was already settling down for the night.

“Those who were here before the orcs and the ogres,” the shaman answered. “Let’s sleep, I don’t think they’re going to feed us today.”

Glo-Glo was wrong. Exactly an hour later they brought us food and—may the gods of Siala save me—wine! Genuine orcish wine, which not many men have ever tried.

So when it got dark, we had a real little feast. Olag was even kind enough to bring a torch on a long pole and set it up beside our prison with no walls or bars.

“The Firstborn have even decided to give us light for our meal,” said Glo-Glo as he chomped on the food (he’d woken up in an instant when it arrived).

“Wait!” snorted Mis, sniffing at the wine in the flask. “This is to make it easier to keep an eye on us!”

“The man’s no fool!” Glo-Glo chuckled, stuffing a huge piece of meat into his mouth.

“Why are they so generous all of a sudden?” I asked, looking at the obelisk glowing in the darkness.

That was a real sight, let me tell you!

“We’re valuable prisoners. And tomorrow we don’t have to walk. We’ll probably hang about here for at least six days. We can relax.”

“But how do you know all that, greeny?” asked Mis, handing me the flask. I nodded in thanks.

“I’m a shaman, after all,” the goblin said resentfully. “Two hours ago, just after the swamp, a raven arrived with a message for Shokren.”

“Can you read at a distance, too?” I asked in amazement.

“Of course not!” Glo-Glo retorted. “But we goblins have good hearing. Much better than you hulking brutes. I heard Shokren telling Bagard about it. Basically, the instructions were to lead the detachment into the Nameless City and wait at the Obelisk of the Ancients for another detachment to arrive. And that detachment is still at Bald Hills, so they have to walk for at least six days to get here.”

“By the way, you don’t happen to know how far it is from here to the Eastern Gates of Hrad Spein, do you?” I asked the shaman, trying to sound casual.

Glo-Glo shot a quick glance at me from under his knitted brows and answered, “If you mean in your leagues, I don’t know; I don’t understand your distances. But in days … well, you’d be tramping for two full weeks or more, but I’d get there in a week and a half, if I really wanted to. And the orcs and elves could do it in a week, if they were desperate. Do you think your friends are still waiting for you?”

I shrugged. “Even if they are, they think I’m still underground.”

“Or dead,” Glo-Glo said to cheer me up. “Your bracelet’s been destroyed, and the one who gave it to you might think you’re deceased.”

“Couldn’t you get a message to them?” I asked the goblin, hoping the shaman would work a miracle for me on the spot.

“How? Ask a little bird, or a moth? Things like that only happen in fairy tales. Come on, let’s get some sleep. We can talk as much as we want tomorrow. It’s almost midnight.”

*   *   *

Nightmares are the bane of my life. And after Hrad Spein there wasn’t a night that passed without some beastly horror descending on me. That night I dreamed I was back in the room with the ceiling moving down, only this time there was no hole in the floor, and all I could do was run from one corner to the other, waiting to be flattened.

I woke up. Judging from the moon, there were still about three hours to go until dawn. The torch left by Olag had gone out, and no one had thought to replace it with a new one. Four campfires were blazing away merrily in the clearing, and the obelisk was giving off quite enough light for me to see the orcs lying around here and there. The only one not sleeping was the one tending the fires.

Everyone was asleep, and it would have been a magnificent chance to escape, if not for Shokren’s cursed magical circle. I wondered if Glo-Glo could have broken the orc shaman’s magic, if he didn’t have the mittens on his hands. I’d been pondering a crazy idea for two days, thinking about freeing the old goblin from his magical shackles. Unfortunately, on closer inspection, the locks holding the mittens on the goblin’s hands had proved to be pretty tricky, and there was no way I could ever get them open with an ordinary sliver of wood. I needed some thin piece of metal, and neither I nor Mis nor Glo-Glo happened to have a little trinket like that. There was nothing I could do but wait for a stroke of luck that would allow me to open the miniature locks.

Purely by chance, I happened to glance at the remains of our meal, and my jaw dropped open. Sitting there on a piece of fried salmon was a dragoatfly. And nearby there was a flinny, struggling to open the tightly closed top of the flask of wine. My heart started pounding furiously. Whatever I did, I mustn’t frighten him off!

I cautiously propped myself up my elbow and whispered, “Hey, flinny!”

He jumped and swung round, pulling out his miniature dagger. The dragoatfly also abandoned its meal and flew across to its master, trembling slightly. Unfortunately, this flinny was a stranger and he didn’t look anything at all like Aarroo g’naa Shpok. Even the little fellow’s curly hair was black, not gold.

“Push off, beanpole!” the flinny said, waving his ridiculous little weapon menacingly.

“I didn’t think flinnies were thieves.”

“I’m no thief!” the lad exclaimed resentfully. “This food doesn’t belong to anyone!”

I clicked my tongue reproachfully. “It belongs to me, and you know that perfectly well.”