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.
The corporal didn’t even reach out to take the document.
“There is pestilence in the village, milady. We have been forbidden to touch other people’s things in order not to spread the infection through the district. We have also been forbidden to allow anyone either in or out, no matter who they might be. Anyone who disobeys will be executed immediately as a traitor to the king and a propagator of pestilence. I ask you once again: Who are you and what are you doing here?”
“None of your business, you damn chasseur,” Hallas muttered to himself, but fortunately the corporal didn’t
