Shadow Prowler

“A ling. From the Desolate Lands. It’s tame. I tried to feed it some carrot a couple of times. It actually scratched me,” the goblin said.

“You were unlucky,” I sympathized.

“I was really lucky,” Kli-Kli disagreed. “If Marmot had caught me when I was feeding his little animal rotten carrots, he wouldn’t have given me a pat on the head. I swear he would have flattened me!”

At this point I couldn’t restrain myself any longer and burst into laughter.

“Now I understand why you’ve decided not to go with me, Kli-Kli! Almost everyone who’s traveling has a grudge against you. They’d throw you into the first ditch at the edge of the road!”

“Nothing of the sort,” the goblin protested with a sniff. “It’s Artsivus and Alistan. They don’t want to let me go.”

Kli-Kli shook his fist at the sky in a

“Hey, Marmot, don’t happen to feel like going to the kitchen, do you?” the Wild Heart who hadn’t spoken so far asked his friend stretched out on the grass.

Judging from the chain mail and the lack of hair on his head, the soldier was a native of the Border Kingdom. Only they would be prepared to burden themselves with metal even in this blazing sun. The man from the Borderland had just stopped sharpening his sword, and now he was looking for something to do.

“What for? What is there I haven’t seen in the kitchen?” Marmot asked in a lazy voice.

“You can feed Invincible; he’ll die from hunger soon. He doesn’t do anything but sleep and sleep.”

“He sleeps because it’s hot, but let’s go to the kitchen anyway, I know what you’re after.”

“We all know that,” Tomcat put in, getting up off the grass. “The cooks are really tasty!”

Honeycomb and Uncle started laughing merrily and the Wild Heart who had suggested the walk joined in the laughter.

“Well, are we going then?” asked the Borderman.

“That’s Arnkh,” said Kli-Kli, introducing the man to me. “It means ‘scar’ in orcish.”

“He doesn’t look like an orc.”

“He’s a man, blockhead! It’s just a nickname.”

There was the thin white line of a scar ru

“Listen, Kli-Kli,” I said impatiently. “The lieutenant brought me here and told me to wait until someone came to get me. How long do I have to wait? I’m about ready to melt in this heat.”

“I came to get you,” the jester giggled.

“Then what are we waiting for?”

“Hang on, Harold, what’s the hurry? The king’s lecturing his subjects, giving them what for, and they’re all silent, pale, and sweaty. Why would you want to be there? Look over that way; I still haven’t told you about the last Wild Heart.”

The last of the ten Wild Hearts was sitting under a spreading apple tree, clutching a massive bidenhander with both hands. It looked to me as if the two-handed sword was too heavy for this short and apparently not very strong man. There was a golden oak leaf on the hefty black handle of the sword.

“Is he a master of the long sword?” I asked the goblin in disbelief.

“You can see the handle, can’t you? Of course he’s a master, unless he stole that lump of metal from someone.”

“But that thing weighs more than he does!”

“No it doesn’t,” the goblin objected. “But it is heavy, that’s true. I checked that myself.”

“Don’t tell me you tried to pinch the lad’s sword!”

“Naah, I just wanted to know how much it weighs. There was a real crash when I couldn’t hold it any longer and dropped it on the dwarf’s foot.”

I didn’t answer; I was busy studying the man. He wore a fu

“He’s called Mumr. But everyone calls him Lamplighter. Oh no!”

Kli-Kli’s final phrase was not addressed to me. Lamplighter had taken out a little reed pipe, set down the bidenhander, and was about to play.

“Anything but that!” the goblin wailed.

Mumr blew, and the pipe gave out an excruciating, hoarse screech. The jester howled and pressed his hands to his ears. If there had been any dogs nearby, they would certainly have started howling, or died in torment.

“I’m going to throw this at him!” Kli-Kli said, grinding his teeth and shaking the stub of the carrot in his hand.

“Hey, Uncle!” Deler called to the leader of the Wild Hearts. “Tell Mumr to shut up!”

“That’s right!” Hallas agreed, raising the bottle to his mouth.

“Let me get some sleep, will you?” Loudmouth muttered sleepily, turning over onto his other side.

Without interrupting his game of dice, Uncle found a small stone beside him and flung it at Lamplighter. In order to dodge the flying missile, Lamplighter had to break off tormenting his poor whistle.

“You ignoramuses,” he said, a

“And that’s what it’s been like all week, Harold,” Kli-Kli said, taking a deep breath.

“And, of course, you know about Miralissa,” he said. “It doesn’t take a wizard to see that your interest has been awakened. La-la, she is something, isn’t she?”

“Jester, you must be hallucinating. I think these Wild Hearts have bopped you one time too many.”

I hadn’t noticed Kli-Kli reaching into my unguarded bag. Now he was holding one of the little magical bottles in his hand, one that contained a dark cherry colored liquid with gold sparks floating in it.

“Put it back,” I roared at the goblin, but it was too late.

Kli-Kli nimbly dodged my outstretched arms, dashed across to the gnomes, who had finally loaded the ca

What in the name of the Nameless One had possessed me to buy a transport spell from Honchel? (Does carrying a mountain of things seem too much like hard work? Nothing could be simpler! Break one little bottle against your load, and it simply disappears. Break another, and it appears again.) I’d been keeping that magic for Hrad Spein. Just in case I stumbled across any old heaps of diamonds or emeralds. Farewell, treasures of the dead! I’ve inherited the gnomes’ ca

A shocked silence hung over the garden. Even Eel stopped twirling his swords. But the silence didn’t last for long. It was shattered by the insane howling of the furious gnomes. Kli-Kli didn’t bother to wait for their retribution; he came dashing back to me at full tilt, bells jingling.