Shadow Prowler

And with that he flung aside the flaps of his cloak to allow us to see a belt with four heavy throwing knives hanging on it—two on the right and two on the left.

Nothing important happened for the next few days. We carried on heading south, stopping for the night in the fields round about.

The nights were warm and nobody suffered at all from the vagaries of the weather. If it had been the usual kind, that is, the same as it had always been in July for the last ten thousand years, we would all have felt a bit chilly at night. But as it was, you could quite happily sleep on the grass, or lie there looking up at the starry sky. If not for the mosquitoes, who had gone absolutely crazy in this unexpected warmth, life would have been splendid.

The reason we had spent the night in the fields was simple. For two days now the highway had avoided all the villages as it looped elegantly round to the southeast. We would only reach the next village on the road in the evening of the next day. Amazingly enough, out in the open air Mumr didn’t snore. Marmot told me that Lamplighter only performed his raucous concerts when he had a roof over his head. So by now I had completely caught up on my sleep.

Little Bee and I had gradually grown accustomed to each other and, to my great delight, I discovered I didn’t feel any fatigue even after an entire day’s riding. No, that’s a lie. I did feel some fatigue, but it was by no means fatal. Not the sort of fatigue that makes you want to collapse on the ground and lie there for four years and not get up again for all the jewels in the kingdom.

At first Markauz didn’t want to take the jester with him, but the goblin, with a perfectly i

The jester’s horse was every bit as large as Alistan’s mount, and while the undersized Hallas and Deler looked—how shall I say it?—rather amusing on horses, the goblin looked simply comical on the huge black monster that had been dubbed Featherlight. Kli-Kli’s feet didn’t even reach the stirrups. But I must say that Kli-Kli felt perfectly confident in the saddle, and Featherlight responded to all his master’s commands at the first asking.

The jester was incredibly quiet. By “quiet” I mean that when you woke up in the morning, there was no need to be afraid of a snake in your boot or a briar in your horse’s tail. But the little goblin creep spent all day long dashing from the head of our unit, stretched out along the road, to its tail, and then back again from its tail to its head. Kli-Kli had time to get everywhere. In the course of the day he could be seen singing songs with Deler and Hallas, telling one of his stories to Tomcat and Eel, conducting an abstruse discussion with the elves, or arguing with the unyielding Alistan Markauz until his throat turned hoarse.

On the third day after Kli-Kli’s arrival we came into a town. And that’s when disaster struck.

The tavern in this little village was a lot worse than in Sunflowers. But there was no choice. And after the nights under the open sky I was glad to accept any bed.

The villagers cast curious glances at us—it wasn’t every day that they saw so many new people and nonpeople. The elves and the goblin provoked the most oohs and aahs, but the other races were only rare visitors to the lands of Valiostr, so the locals felt that they had to drop everything else and come ru

The master of the nameless i

“A rabid rat!”

In the tumult that followed, Invincible was almost trampled underfoot, while Kli-Kli was honored with a cuff round the back of his head from Marmot. After that the goblin sulked and he wouldn’t talk to anyone. At the end of supper the jester expressed a desire to sleep in the same room as Harold and Lamplighter, and he was very surprised when nobody raised any objections.

“Harold.” Egrassa had approached u

I got up from the table and followed the tall elf.

A word? What about? And why now, not earlier? Lucky Harold, going to see elf royalty, but, really, I was intrigued by her invitation.

There in the room with Miralissa were Markauz, who was gazing thoughtfully out of the window, and Ell, who was peeling an apple with his knife.

“Good evening, Harold.” The elfess’s slanting golden eyes sparkled in the candlelight. “Do you know what this is?” she asked, holding out some object to me.

As I took it, I barely managed to stop myself exclaiming out loud in admiration.

“Is it not beautiful?”

I could just manage a nod as I examined the precious item that was lying in my hands.

It was a key, the size of my palm and very heavy. But more than a key, it was a genuine work of art. The blasphemous thought flashed through my mind that people who knew about such things, the kind who collect old artifacts, would be willing to pay me several mountains of gold for the right to possess this key.

The ancient item looked as if it were made of crystals of ice, so frail that I was afraid to breathe on it, in case it might melt. But I knew that even if I took Deler’s poleax and battered the trinket nonstop all day long, nothing would happen to it, but I would have to buy a new poleax.

“Dragon’s tears? Is it dwarves’ work?”

“Yes, you’re right,” Egrassa said with a nod. “This is the handiwork of dwarves; only they can work this mineral like that. Do you see how delicate the work is?”

Delicate was not the word for it! It was ideal, elegant, perfect, and ancient. In our time no one would be able to create anything like it. Working that most rare of minerals, dragon’s tears, which possesses the enduring strength of the very mountains that created it, requires magic in addition to the usual tools. And unfortunately the magicianship of the dwarves was in a state of decline and not even the masters would be capable of such creations. Far too much had been forgotten during the Purple Years.