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 Ranneng, at the inn called the Learned Owl," Miralissa told them in farewell.
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.
The road wound between the low hills, sometimes climbing up onto one of them and then immediately, without pausing, diving downward again. Smooth ascents alternated with equally smooth descents, and the journey continued like that for quite a long time.
The forest along the sides of the road grew thicker and the trunks of the trees crowded closer together, hiding almost all the sky behind their leaves. The low, crooked pines gave up their place in the sun to aspens and birches. All the ground in the forest along the road and on the surrounding hills was covered with bushy undergrowth. Now at last, thanks to the dense wall of trees, we had some blessed coolness-the weakened rays of the sun no longer lashed our shoulders like red-hot whips; everybody heaved a sigh of relief and Arnkh hurried to put his beloved chain mail back on, now that he had the opportunity.
For the next hour we rode in the relative coolness of the welcoming forest.
But our good mood didn't last for long. How could it? As yet, we still knew nothing about the missing Tomcat and Egrassa, or about Alistan and Eel. What reason did we have for feeling jolly?
And so everyone was tense and taciturn. Lamplighter completely forgot about his beloved reed pipe. Kli-Kli didn't crack any of his eternal dim-witted jokes, and even Deler and Hallas stopped arguing, which was something absolutely unheard of since the very beginning of our journey. The dwarf glowered and stroked the blade of his enormous poleax; the gnome puffed away on his pipe, exhausting his final reserves of tobacco. Uncle growled and tugged on his beard. Loudmouth snarled good-naturedly.
As soon as the road climbed the next low hill and the wall of the forest no longer blocked the view, one of my companions was certain to look back. But the road was still empty, and we rode on, gradually becoming ever more sullen.
Miralissa and Ell talked about something in low voices and she occasionally chewed on her lips, either in frustration or fury. Waiting is the worst thing of all. I know that from my own experience.
At a place where a stream crossed the road, Miralissa said, "We'll stop on that hill." She glanced back over her shoulder at the empty road for perhaps the hundredth time that day. "We'll make a halt there."
"Alrighty," said Uncle, supporting the elfess's proposal. "We need a rest. It'll be evening soon, and we're still riding hard."
Uncle was right. My back was aching outrageously after galloping for so long. What I really wanted to do was get down off Little Bee, lie on the grass, and have a good stretch.
"Harold," said Lamplighter, riding up and distracting me from my daydreams, "do you think Milord Alistan will manage to catch up with us?"
"I don't know, Mumr," I replied wearily. "It's not evening yet."
"I hope Miralissa won't be foolish enough to send anyone else on these dubious reconnaissance missions."
I was also hoping very much that the dark elfess's sense of reason was in good working order. If anyone else left the party, our numbers would be reduced to a laughable level. Our group needed to stay together for as long as possible.
The road started running up a hill, and the forest reluctantly slipped downward-the hill was too tall for it, and the time had not yet come for the trees to climb to its summit.
"A halt," said Loudmouth, jumping down smartly from his horse to the ground.
"I don't think so," said Miralissa, shaking her head. "Get back in the saddle."
I followed her gaze. Up ahead of us, a little more than a league away, there were several columns of thick smoke rising up out of the forest.
"What is it?" asked Uncle, screwing up his eyes.
"As far as I recall, it's Vishki, a small village, maybe forty or forty-five households," Honeycomb replied.
"And what's there that could burn like that?" asked Deler, reaching for his poleax again without even realizing it.
"Well, it's definitely not the houses, the smoke's too black, as if they're burning coal," said Hallas, puffing stubbornly on his pipe.
"Get ready, lads! Put your armor on, and we'll find out what the fire's eating down there!" Uncle instructed.
"And I'd like to know what swine lit it!" said Lamplighter.
The moment there was something to do apart from the hard riding that the soldiers had grown so sick of during the last few days, they all livened up. Any goal was better than being left in a state of total uncertainty for days on end, not knowing where the enemy was and which foul creature you could feed a yard of steel to in order to improve your own foul mood. I could understand the men perfectly; for soldiers, inactivity is the worst possible torment.
"Harold, do you need a special invitation?" asked the goblin, riding up to me on Featherlight. "Where's your chain mail?"
"What chain mail?"
"The chain mail we chose for you," Kli-Kli responded irritably.
"I'm not going to cover myself in metal," I said rudely.
"You really ought to," said Marmot, who had already taken his chain mail off the packhorse and was putting it on over his shirt. "Armor, you know, can be quite wonderful for saving your life."
"Ordinary chain mail won't save you from a crossbow anyway. A sklot will shoot straight through it."
"Not everybody has sklots, and the enemy doesn't just use crossbows. It'll stop you getting scratched, if nothing else."
Rip me into a hundred pieces, but I have a prejudice against wearing metal on my body. I've been used to managing without armor all my life, and I feel no better in chain mail than some people do in the grave. Cramped and uncomfortable.
"Just look at all the others," Kli-Kli persisted.
The warriors of the platoon were already dressed up in the armor that had so far been left on the packhorses because of the rather hot weather. But in my view an ordinary fire, even if it was rather big, didn't merit such precautions.
The elves were sporting dark blue chain mail and steel breastplates with the emblems of their houses engraved on them. Miralissa had the Black Moon and Ell had the Black Rose. He put on the helmet that hid his face and Miralissa threw a chain-mail hood over her head, concealing her thick braid and fringe. Hallas, dressed up in something that looked more like fish scales, was helping Deler button up his steel leg plates. The dwarf set his hat aside and put a flat helmet on his head. It had protruding sections at the front to cover his cheeks and nose.
To avoid being the odd Doralissian out, I had to take my "packaging" out, too. It weighed down uncomfortably on my shoulders and I winced in annoyance. Because I wasn't used to it, it felt cramped and uncomfortable.
"Ah, stop going on like that. You'll soon get used to it," Lamplighter consoled me.
He was wearing armor that consisted of strips of steel fitted closely together. Catching my curious glance, he smiled: "A magnificent thing for anyone who likes swinging a bindenhander from side to side. It doesn't cramp your movements and your grips."
Instead of a helmet, Mumr tied a thin strip of cloth round his forehead to prevent his hair from getting into his eyes.
"Are we off?" asked Uncle, looking at the elfess.
"Yes," she commanded tersely, but then she thought for a moment and added: "You take over command."
Uncle accepted the suggestion as only natural. Unlike the platoon sergeant, Miralissa didn't know what his men were capable of.
"Hallas, Deler-to the front! You have the strongest armor, in case ..."
Uncle didn't say any more. Everybody understood in case of what. If disaster struck, the soldiers in the strongest armor might survive a hit from a heavy crossbow bolt and distract the crossbowmen's attention from their less well-protected comrades.
"Have you forgotten about me, sergeant?" I heard a muffled voice say behind me. "I'm with them."
I turned round to see who it was. Instead of his old chain mail, Arnkh had put on heavy armor. Plus a helmet that looked like an acorn and completely covered his face, with narrow slits for the eyes. Then there were the leg pieces, shoulder pieces, chain-mail gloves, and the round shield. A real wall of steel.
In fact, almost everybody had a shield, including Lamplighter, Honeycomb, and the elves. My companions were all set for a good fight, and they would be very disappointed if it turned out that the fire in the village was just another ordinary blaze caused by the negligence of some drunken peasant.
This time we didn't hurry, but moved along slowly, gazing attentively into the undergrowth, anticipating a possible trap. There was already a smell of smoke and soot in the air, and we still had a long way to ride to Vishki. Kli-Kli was pulling faces as if he had a toothache-the smoke was tickling his throat and stinging his eyes. And, by the way, the goblin himself was not wearing any chain mail. Since when has a traveling cloak been considered any kind of protection?
"Kli-Kli, why did you pester me like that and not put anything on yourself?" I hissed, jabbing a finger at the chain mail covering my chest.
"Oh, they don't have a size to fit me anyway," the goblin answered casually. "And apart from that, I'm very hard to hit. I'm too small."
"Quiet there!" Loudmouth hissed in annoyance.
We crossed a wooden bridge over a wide stream, or a little river, whichever you prefer. The water was flowing under it at the speed of an obese snail, and the streambed was overgrown with some kind of swamp grass. A bend and a sudden halt.
"Mother of mine!" Uncle explained with a quiet whistle.
The road was blocked with tree trunks. The straight, neat young pine trees with their branches trimmed off had been placed on top of each other and there were banners waving in the air behind them. The first was gray and blue-the banner of the kingdom-but the sight of the second set the hair on the back of my neck stirring. A yellow field with the black silhouette of an hourglass.
The flag of death. The banner of the most terrible illness that existed in the world of Siala-the copper plague. I also saw thirty soldiers dressed in white jackets and crimson trousers. The Heartless Chasseurs in person. The nose and mouth of every soldier was covered with a bandage.
As soon as they spotted us, the men behind the barricade raised their bows at the ready. And behind our backs pikemen crept out of the trap that we had not even noticed and lined up quickly and busily, like ants, cutting off the road.
"Halt!" a harsh voice shouted. "Keep your hands in sight! Who are you?"
"We come in the name of the king!" Miralissa shouted, and to confirm her words, she waved a paper with the gray-and-blue seal of the royal house of Stalkon.
Even at the distance of thirty yards that separated us from the blockage, the seal was clearly visible. The bows in the soldiers' hands relaxed a little.
My first fright at the unexpected encounter passed. These were not bandits, and they would listen to us before they sent arrows whistling past our ears. And as for the banner ... Who could tell what was going on here? Perhaps the peasants were in revolt. Perhaps they hadn't been able to find any other banner, so they'd taken this one out, and there wasn't any plague in the village at all.
"How do I know that royal seal isn't false?" the same voice called out.
"I'll draw you a dozen as good as that one!" one of the pikemen standing behind us shouted.
No one was in any hurry to come out to us.
"Then take a look at this!" Uncle barked. "Or do you want me to ride closer?"
Despite his chain mail, the platoon leader had managed to bare his arm up to the elbow. The tattoo on it was clearly visible.
"Or will any of you white-and-crimson lads dare to say that the Wild Hearts don't serve the Stalkons?"
No one said so. How could they? If the Wild Hearts were traitors, then who could you trust? Nobody even doubted that the tattoo was genuine. As I said earlier, impostors usually had their tattoos removed together with their arm. Or even with their head.
The bows and pikes were lowered, no longer threatening us. But the chasseurs were in no hurry to put their weapons away. They kept hold of them, just in case they might come in handy.
A soldier with a corporal's badge on his sleeve came out to us.
"You're a long way from the Lonely Giant," he said. "Who are you and what are you doing here?"
Like the rest of them, the corporal had his face hidden behind a bandage.
"Is there plague in the village?" Miralissa asked unhurriedly.
"Yes."
How could some ordinary piece of rag save you when not even the much-vaunted magic of the Order was any help? There was only one thing that anyone who caught the copper plague could do-try to dig his own grave in the time he had left. In ancient times entire cities had died of this terrible illness. Not just cities-entire countries! It's enough to recall one of the most terrible epidemics, when the still unified Empire was hit by the plague. Nine out of ten people died. And then half of the survivors died. And the next year half of those who were left followed them.
Nothing had been heard of this curse for a very long time. No one had thought about the plague for more than a hundred and fifty years. And now the old disease had reappeared all of a sudden, out of the blue, in the very heart of Valiostr? There was something fishy going on here.
The plague usually appears on the borders of the kingdom, brought in by refugees from another state, and then spreads like wildfire into the central areas of the country. But on the other hand, it has to appear somewhere first. For instance, if some clever dick digs up the old burial sites. ...
"Everything is written here," said Miralissa, holding up the royal charter.