Shadow Blizzard (66 page)

*   *   *

The buglers at Slim Bows almost burst their cheeks sounding the retreat. The army was withdrawing in haste, but without panic, behind the hill in the direction of Avendoom. Everybody had seen what that blow had done to the top of the hill. Everybody knew the king had been directing the battle from up there. Everybody realized that no one could have lived through that.

Honeycomb had seen the two balls of purple fire crash into the positions of the left army, but he didn’t know if any of the soldiers had survived. It was too far away, and the hill was in the way.

“The men are formed up, commander!” Rott reported.

“Leave the hailstorms, lads. Or we won’t be able to run if a thunderbolt comes our way.”

“It won’t,” said Roderick, who had stopped panicking and was calm again.

“How do you know?”

“If the Nameless One could have vaporized us, he would have done it a long time ago. Not even he’s all-powerful.”

“In any case, we have to get going. They’ll start storming us again soon. Pepper! Let’s go!”

“And the cannon? What about the cannon?”

“Let’s go! We haven’t got time to drag it along! I’ll buy you a new one later!”

“Oh no!” the gnome muttered, and started scattering powder out of a small barrel. “He’ll buy me one! Well, at least the enemy won’t get my precious darling! I’ll blow her up!”

Honeycomb was wondering how well the army would hold up at Avendoom. It had lost a battle, but not the war.

20

THE PLAYER

My laughter woke everyone up, but I just couldn’t stop. All that effort wasted, all those lives lost, and it had all been in vain! We were too late.

Kli-Kli seemed to be more frightened for me than the others. I think you’d probably be frightened, too, if some idiot suddenly started laughing in the middle of the night for no reason at all. Eel was the one who found the remedy for my laughter. He gave me a couple of hefty slaps to the face, and I calmed down.

“I’m all right,” I said, catching my breath. “You can stop pummeling me now. Sorry, lads.”

“What happened, Dancer? Not ill, are you?” Kli-Kli asked in concern.

“Everything’s all right,” I said. “It was just another bad dream.”

“Somehow I don’t recall bad dreams ever making you laugh before,” Hallas growled. “Mostly you just yelled blue murder. Come on, let’s hear what you dreamed about this time.”

So I had to tell them about the battle. Not everything, naturally, but certainly the fact that we lost.

“If the king’s dead, that’s bad. It won’t exactly inspire the army,” Mumr said pensively. He believed in my dream straightaway.

Apart from not inspiring the army, it would also cancel out my Commission. If the client was dead, the deal was dissolved. So I didn’t have to take the Rainbow Horn to Avendoom, where bloody war was just about to break out under the city walls. And I could forget about my pardon and the fifty thousand gold pieces that His Deceased Majesty had promised me.

“If the battle happened yesterday, then we still have a little time. It’s not very far to the capital now. We can try to make it.”

“We’ll make it, gnome! I swear on my house, we’ll make it! Eel, Mumr, saddle up the horses. Hallas, pay the innkeeper!” said Egrassa.

The Wild Hearts dashed to carry out his instructions.

“Listen, Harold, could you let me have the Horn just for a moment?”

“What do you want it for, Kli-Kli?” I asked, but I took the artifact out of my bag and handed it to her anyway.

She took hold of it, turned it this way and that, sniffed at it, muttered some gibberish over it, took some kind of powder out of her pocket and sprinkled some on it.

“Egrassa? What do you see?”

“I am not skilled in shamanism. I don’t see anything.”

“I didn’t see anything, either,” she sighed. “Take it, Harold. Now I understand your dream.”

“And?”

“You said there was a sound like a string breaking. That was the Rainbow Horn losing its power.”

“Do you mean to say…?”

“Exactly what I said. This is just a horn now. Nothing special about it. At least, not until the Order gets to work. The artifact has lost its power and the balance has been shaken. The Nameless One is now free to use magic here in Valiostr.”

“That means we have to hurry. Get your things, we’re moving on!” the elf said brusquely.

“Valder!” I called. “Valder! Is this true?”

“Yes,” the dead archmagician condescended to reply about a minute later. “The Rainbow Horn has lost its power.”

“But that means the Fallen Ones have escaped from the Palaces of Bone!”

“It’s not that simple, my friend. Yes, the Horn is useless, and the Fallen Ones are able to move up to the top levels of Hrad Spein, but not to leave it. The Horn is a Key. Until the Key is turned and the scales of the balance are destroyed, the Fallen Ones will not come pouring out into Siala. And only the Master can turn the Key. Or another Master, or … the Player.”

“Do you know the name of the Player?”

No reply.

*   *   *

All I remember of the days that followed is the wild galloping and the cold that crept in under my clothes. On the road to Avendoom we exhausted three pairs of horses each. We had to buy new ones. The terrible catastrophe had sent prices for all sorts of goods, and especially means of transport, soaring sky-high, but Egrassa doled out the gold without any complaints.

The news got worse and worse. Unfortunately, my dream hadn’t lied—the army had been defeated on the Field of Fairies. But it hadn’t been routed—most of the soldiers who survived the Nameless One’s attacks managed to retreat to Avendoom. The king had been killed—may he dwell in the light. Almost the entire headquarters staff of the army and at least two archmagicians had been killed along with him. The country had a new king now, the younger son of Stalkon the Ninth, Stalkon of the Spring Jasmine.

The Order was doing everything it possibly could to stop the Nameless One, but our magicians obviously weren’t having much success.

Part of the population had left the capital and the surrounding area in great haste. Anyone who didn’t intend to defend the walls of the capital and could run, ran. Personally speaking, I didn’t blame them; as far as I was concerned, trying to fight against magic was absolute madness. If not for the Rainbow Horn, I would probably have been halfway to Isilia or the Lowlands myself. I couldn’t say what it was that stopped me doing the intelligent thing and running.

*   *   *

“There’ll be another almighty blast in a moment! Listen, Egrassa! I understand everything, but it’s like an ant trying to run across a meadow where the royal cavalry’s galloping up and down! They won’t even notice when they flatten us!”

“Shut up, Hallas! We’re thinking!” Eel said in a most impolite manner.

We’d reached Avendoom early that morning, just in time for the start of the battle. The forces of the Nameless One were preparing to storm the walls. But for the time being the magicians and the shamans were still fighting a duel. Every now and then the air was sundered by the ear-splitting whistle of flying stones, the crackle of lightning, the roar of flames, and the howls of one kind of magical beast or another. All this accompanied by the booming of the cannon installed on the city walls. So far the Nameless One hadn’t joined in this game of flexing muscles. Either he hadn’t got to Avendoom yet, or he’d decided to see what his army was capable of.

We did the sensible thing and crept into a small copse of trees standing between Avendoom and the road to the south. The view was wonderful. But any fool could see that we couldn’t simply stroll across to those city towers that were so close and yet so impossibly far away. The Nameless One’s lads were all around and they would spot us right away.

Our army was formed up along the city walls. Quite a large crowd, really, but compared with the Nameless One’s forces, it was a mere drop in the ocean. The Suburb had been totally destroyed. All that was left of it was dark patch on the snow-covered ground.

As bad luck would have it, there were several hundred barbarians hanging about right in front of the copse of trees, and we had to wait until they moved on to attack our side before we could get past without being noticed.

“We’re not likely to get into the city through the gates, Egrassa,” the gnome objected irritably. “I can’t stand magicians! Look! Another spell! May they all rot in the darkness!”

Thousands of icicles suddenly descended on the detachment of barbarians that was inconveniencing us, and in just a few seconds the men were transformed into a bloody pulp. Immediately a huge flower of flame blossomed above the city walls. The enemy’s shamans hadn’t wasted any time in striking back. The two sides were systematically annihilating each other’s infantry. If it kept on like this, soon there wouldn’t be anybody but magicians and shamans left. The commanding officers of both sides were apparently of the same opinion. Horns sounded, drums started pounding, and the dark masses shuddered and started moving toward each other.

“Right, it’s time!”

“Hang on, will you, Mumr!” said Hallas, still lying on the snow and surveying the battlefield. “Let them start fighting first!”

“Harold, you used to live in the city,” Egrassa said to me. “Is there any other way to get into Avendoom apart from the city gates?”

“There is,” I replied after a moment’s thought. “But it’s no help to us.”

“Why?”

“They probably won’t let us climb up the walls on a rope. And anyway, we don’t have a rope that long.”

“Is that the only way?”

“Well, we could try going through the municipal drains, but that—”

I was forced to break off when a fiery meteorite went crashing into the next copse and incinerated a detachment of the enemy’s cavalry.

“—But that’s all closed off with metal grilles. And we’d still have to get to the walls somehow. But I do have one little idea. The city walls run into the Cold Sea. I expect the fishermen who live in the villages nearby have all run off ages ago or moved into the city. We could try to find a boat.”

“That won’t get you anywhere! There are gnomes with cannons in the Bastion that defend the entrance to the harbor. They’ll smash any boat to splinters! And we’ll end up as fish food!”

“No they won’t, Hallas!” Kli-Kli reassured the gnome. “We’ll stand you in the boat so they can see you from the Bastion and they won’t fire!”

“Me? Get in a boat? I won’t do it!”

“Oh, yes you will! If you want the Nameless One to go back home, you’ll get in a boat! And you’ll yell loud and clear in that language of yours, so your kinsmen can hear you,” said Egrassa, completely ignoring the gnome’s whinging. “Here, take your mattock and smash this.”

The elf handed the gnome a crystal.

“What is it?” Kli-Kli asked.

“Markauz gave it to me in Zagraba. He got it from Artsivus. He said as soon as we got close, we should smash it—and the Order would know we were here.”

“Well, just how much closer could we be?” Hallas muttered, swinging his mattock.

It took the gnome two attempts to break the crystal. The stone smashed like any ordinary piece of glass and … and nothing happened.

“Now what?” I asked obtusely.

“How should I know?” asked Egrassa, already in the saddle. “I was told to smash it when the time came. We’ve done that, now it’s up to the Order. Is it far from here to the Cold Sea, Harold?”

“A fair distance. We have to cross the field and go through that wood over there, then it’s about fifteen hundred yards to the shoreline.”

“We’ll get through! Everybody stick together and don’t fall back! If anyone loses their horse or just falls, yell!”

The elf was right there, the battle was raging and thundering all around, and anyone who was at the back might very easily not be heard.

We went flying out of the copse and headed toward the dark wood. Sagot save us! It looked so far away!

The space ahead of us was empty, but that wouldn’t last long. I dug my heels into the sides of my horse and concentrated on trying not to fall off. We rushed up a hill and down again, and found ourselves in the (relatively) empty camp of the Nameless One’s army. The Crayfish seemed very surprised to see us there. But only one of them tried to block our way. Eel ran the brave man down with his horse and we went flying out like a whirlwind into the rear of the enemy’s pikemen.

The lads didn’t notice us, they were too busy trying to dodge the emerald-green sparks showering down on them from out of the sky. When they hit the ground, the sparks turned into massive great serpents that spat green spheres. We had to veer to the left, and we’d almost reached the city walls when Hallas’s horse caught an arrow in the crupper. At full gallop, Mumr grabbed the gnome off the animal that was going insane with the pain (how did he manage to do that?) and dumped him across his own horse.

“Our own side’s firing at us! Out into the field,” Eel shouted to the elf.

To the right of us a battalion smashed into the tattered ranks of the barbarians and northern tribesmen. We had to rein in our horses again and go dashing back in the opposite direction. Eventually we reached the wood, but that didn’t bring us any relief. We immediately found ourselves surrounded by horsemen. At first I was afraid they were the Nameless One’s lads, but then I noticed they were wearing the gray and blue uniform of the royal guard.

“Who are you?” one of the horsemen barked.

The other soldiers sensibly kept their hands on their spears.

“We’re on your side!” Hallas panted, climbing down off Eel’s horse.

Naturally, they didn’t believe us. But, fortunately, they weren’t in any great hurry to kill us, either. The presence of an elf and a gnome in this bunch of deserters or vagabonds or spies of the Nameless One prevented them from jumping to any hasty conclusions. Without making any fuss, Egrassa took out the paper with the royal seal, which was badly crumpled after our long journey. At least that produced some effect.