Shadow Prowler

“If possible, but that was not the main goal. Tomcat said that it was not far, only three leagues away at the most. By any calculations, they should already have caught up with us.”

“There’s a hostile shaman somewhere nearby?” I guessed.

“Yes, you’re right. But even I didn’t sense anything.” She reached up and gently picked a small leaf from my shoulder. “If not for Tomcat’s caution, we would already have been attacked from behind.”

“And how long are we going to run like this?”

“Certainly as far as Ra

“Pardon me, milady. But I do not agree with you there,” I said, and shook my head. “If they could get into the king’s palace, they will certainly get into Ra

“Do you suggest that we should not enter Ra

“It could be that they are trying to lure us there.”

“Why?” she asked, looking at me curiously.

“Let’s just call it a premonition.”

“Like Tomcat’s?”

“No—unlike Tomcat, I am sometimes wrong.”

Miralissa’s black lips smiled sadly.

“Perhaps you are right. But we ca

“I won’t fall asleep now.”

“I have to compile a few spells. Just in case. I sense there may be trouble ahead.”

“Then I will not disturb you. Good night.”

A slight bow of the head and she had already picked up her stick from the ground and was drawing signs in the ashes.

I went back to my place and straightened out my crumpled blanket. As morning approached it had turned cooler and the first, topaz-like drops of dew had appeared on the stalks of the grass.

“Why aren’t you asleep?” Uncle asked me peevishly as he made his round of the camp. “Even the horses are sleeping like logs, and here you are making a racket. Ah, you’re as green as they come. In your place I’d be glad of every free minute I could get.”

He walked away, muttering quietly.

Well, what the Wild Heart had said made sense. I lay down on my improvised bed, and immediately leapt back up, trying not to shout out. Some swine had put a briar in my blanket! I cast an angry glance at the jester, but he was sleeping calmly. Or at least pretending with consummate skill.

No point expecting a leopard to change his spots. I stopped worrying, threw the briar as far away as possible, and lay down. And at that very moment I almost choked on my own laughter. Someone had come off even worse than me, only he didn’t realize it yet. Loudmouth was still sleeping with his mouth wide open, and there was a dandelion stalk sticking out of it.

The last thing I saw before I fell asleep again was Miralissa, a solitary figure sitting beside the fire, drawing incomprehensible signs on the ground. I wanted to go to her, but knew I could never follow this road where it might lead . . . even if she let me. She is what she is—an elfess and a royal one, no less, and a magic user. Harold is what he is—wolf-single, thank you, and pla

23 VISHKI

Guess who was to blame for the general tumult and commotion the next morning? Why, Kli-Kli, of course. Miralissa caught the goblin just as he was writing “eensy weensy spider” in the ashes beside the elfess’s magical signs. Naturally, she almost tore his hands off for his artistic efforts. And so all morning the goblin tried to keep as far away from her as possible.

“Harold!” he whined guiltily, not having found any more willing listener in our little party. “I really didn’t mean anything by it! I thought they were just scrawly scribbles and that was all! Please talk to her for me. She’s very mad at me.”

“I think you should talk to her yourself. I don’t have any influence with her.”

“You do. You have the most influence on her royal elfess majesty.”

“Oh, really? The elf princess listens to the thief? The madhouse is just down the road, they’re expecting you.”

“Harold, she doesn’t think of you as a thief, she thinks of you as a Dancer.”

I looked at him blankly for a moment, then shook my head. A Dancer.

Eel was already in the saddle, waiting for the count.

“We’re setting off now. Follow this road and do not turn off anywhere. We’ll try to catch up with you by evening.”

“If we do not meet along the way, look for us in Ra

Alistan nodded, then he and Eel dug their heels into the sides of their steeds and went galloping back to the place where Egrassa and Tomcat ought to be.

“Come on, men,” Uncle said with a clap of his hands. “Mount up.”

That day was the hottest of our journey so far. The sun was so pitilessly fierce that even the stalwart and obstinate Arnkh removed his chain mail. Honeycomb stripped completely down to the waist, exposing his bulging muscles, with their abundant display of scars and tattoos. Many others followed his example. Kli-Kli borrowed some rag from Marmot and tied it round his head, after first moistening it with water from a flask.

The road set our backs to the hot sun and wound between open fields and thickets of low, scrubby bushes. There were no clouds and the azure blue of the sky was so painfully bright in our eyes that we had to squint all the time. Apart from the imperturbable elves, the entire party looked like a herd of cockeyed, delirious Doralissians.

The syrupy, incandescent air flowed into my lungs in a clammy, scorching wave. I would have given half my life if only it would rain.

After about two hours of uninterrupted galloping under the unblinking eye of the intense sun, the broad fields fell away behind us and fused into the horizon, giving way to a hilly area with a generous scattering of low pine trees. Instead of the smell of wild grasses and flowers, the constant buzzing of insects and chirping of crickets, we caught the sharp scent of pine resin and heard the serene, impassive silence of the forest.