“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!”
