with some good wine.”
“Wine for the Giant, you say? Well then, let’s give it a try!” Deler spat on his hands and picked up his battle- ax.
“Ah!” Hallas exclaimed regretfully. “We should have grubbed out the first beast’s horns, too!”
“Harold!” Kli-Kli called, indicating the man’s body with his eyes.
“What?” I asked, knowing what the goblin had in mind.
“I want to see his face. Eel, coming with us?”
“Let’s go,” Eel replied curtly.
The man was lying facedown with his arms flung out.
“Harold,” Kli-Kli said warily, “you turn him over.”
“Turn him over yourself.”
“Hey, Mumr,” Eel barked. “Light a torch and get over here!”
“Coming!”
“Harold, the body won’t turn over just because you’re standing there,” said Kli-Kli, shifting impatiently from one foot to the other, as if he had a sudden urge to visit the bushes.
“Let Eel turn him over,” I said, trying to get out of it again.
“I won’t do it, I’m not interested. But at least it’s obvious he’s the same lad the flinny told us about,” said Eel.
Just as soon as there’s any dirty work to be done (say, going down into Hrad Spein to collect the Rainbow Horn, or turning over a dead body) everyone suddenly remembered Harold. Now, why would that be?
I sighed and did as I’d been asked, and just at that moment Lamplighter arrived with the torch.
“What’s all this, never seen a dead man before?” he growled ill-humoredly.
“Bring the torch closer,” Kli-Kli said instead of answering. “Pull back his hood, Harold.”
I did as the goblin said and saw the dead man’s face. This was the last thing I’d been expecting—the warrior was no more than a boy. There was no way he could have been any older than eighteen.
A pale bloodless face, thin bluish lips, chestnut hair sticking to his forehead. A torn gray cloak, a coarse shirt of undyed wool. A thick silver chain hanging down across his chest. And hanging on the chain—a long, smoky-gray crystal.
I leaned down over the dead man, trying to get a closer look at the mysterious stone.
“Kli-Kli, get Egrassa over here, quickly!” Eel suddenly blurted out.
“What for?” the goblin asked in amazement.
“I don’t like this—he was torn in half, but there isn’t a drop of blood anywhere.”
And then the dead man, who only had the top half of his body left, opened his eyes. His hand darted out as fast as a striking snake and grabbed the collar of my jacket.
“You must not … take the Horn … the balance could be … disrupted!”
I tried to break free, but his hand had a strong grip. The gray eyes were looking straight at me, and the young guy’s pupils were no larger than pinheads.
The dead man had come to life! But that wasn’t what really frightened me. The man (and it was a man lying in front of us) had four long, thin white fangs glittering in his mouth.
“Don’t take it … do you hear? The balance…,” he wheezed.
Someone pulled me back hard by the shoulders and the stranger’s hand released its grip.
Kli-Kli yelled for Alistan and Egrassa.
“Are you all right, Harold?” asked Eel.
“Yes,” I said, trying not to let my voice tremble.
The elf came running up.
“What’s happened here?”
“He came to life and grabbed Harold!” Kli-Kli babbled, nodding at the man with a frightened expression.
“Don’t talk bunk, fool,” Milord Alistan said with a frown. “He was torn in half, how could he grab anyone?”
“It’s true, milord,” I said, confirming what Kli-Kli had said, and earning myself a suspicious look from the captain of the guard.
“It’s not so very strange; they’re telling the truth,” said Egrassa, going down on his knees beside the body.
“Careful!” Lamplighter warned him.
“Don’t worry, he’s dead,” said the elf, staring impassively into the stranger’s eyes.
Egrassa was right, the veil of death had clouded the warrior’s eyes and they had a glassy sheen.
“How could he have stayed alive for so long?” asked Alistan Markauz, still unable to believe it.
“That’s easy to explain, look,” said Egrassa.
Without the slightest sign of squeamishness, the elf raised the man’s upper lip. I hadn’t imagined it—the lad really did have thin fangs, like needles.
“That’s incredible,” Milord Alistan exclaimed, stunned.
“But it’s a fact. ”
“In a single night we encounter a h’san’kor and…” Markauz hesitated.
“Why are you so shocked? A vampire, milord. A genuine vampire.”
“Vampires don’t exist!” Hallas snorted contemptuously, twirling one of the flute’s severed horns in his hands. “That’s just a story, like…”
The gnome glanced at the horn and stopped in confusion.
“A story? Then who was it that grabbed hold of me? A ghost?” I asked. My heart was still pounding away furiously.
“Vampires do exist, and if you haven’t seen them, that doesn’t prove anything. That’s why he was able to make such short work of the flute and stay alive until we got here,” said Egrassa, cautiously feeling at the vampire’s fangs.
“Harold, he didn’t bite you, did he?” the dwarf suddenly asked out of the blue.
I automatically raised my hand to my neck.
“No. I’m all right.”
“Milord Alistan, perhaps we ought to … put a stake through this … vampire … to make sure he stays quiet?”
“He’s dead, don’t talk nonsense,” Eel replied instead of Alistan.
“He’s dead now, but what if he suddenly jumps up and starts drinking our blood?”
“Hallas, you’ve heard too many horror stories. Vampires are almost like people, they’re just faster and stronger, and they drink blood. You can kill them with plain ordinary steel, but not with aspen stakes, silver, garlic, or sunlight. All that’s just absolute nonsense, like the idea that a vampire can turn into mist or a bat. All right! Now, what’s this?”
Egrassa had spotted the crystal. He took it off the body and showed it to us.
“Milord?”
“Now this is getting absolutely absurd,” said Alistan, shaking his head.
“What is that thing?” Lamplighter asked, looking at the smoky crystal as if it were a poisonous snake.
“It is the badge of the Order of the Gray Ones,” Eel answered his comrade.
Hallas grunted in shock and amazement. Deler whistled, took off his helmet, and scratched the back of his head.
The Order of the Gray Ones.
I didn’t know much about them. But then, neither did anyone else there. All my knowledge came from hushed conversations in taverns, unconfirmed rumors, and a book that belonged to my teacher For, which devoted one brief passage to the Order of the Gray Ones.
Far away in the Cold Sea there is an island that is known to the common folk as the Island of the Gray Ones. It is protected by magic and no ship can land there if the island’s masters don’t want it to. This little scrap of land got its name because it is where the Order of the Gray Ones made its home.
They say they are great warriors, invincible. They are trained from early childhood, and rumor has it that a single Gray One can take on fifteen experienced soldiers and dispatch them all to the darkness with ease. Of
