Shadow Chaser (6 page)

The man came up to us, smiled, looked into my eyes, and said: “Hello, Harold!”

The only thing I could do was reply: “Hello, Bass.”

*   *   *

“Hello, Harold.”

“Hello, Bass,” I answered lazily, half opening one eye.

“Still asleep?” my friend asked.

“Yeah.”

“I’m hungry,” said Bass, slapping himself on the stomach.

“So why tell me?”

“Well, you’re my friend!”

“Sure as daylight, I’m your friend. But it’s time you learned to earn your food some other way than playing potbellied small fry at dice and cards!”

“Ah!” Bass sighed in disappointment and sat down on the edge of the straw mattress. “Just because you’re twelve and I’m only eleven, it doesn’t mean that you’re cleverer than me.”

“Well, if that’s not so, why are you nagging me about food?” I chuckled.

“There’s a job.”

“Well?” I stopped studying the ceiling and sat up.

“This man won a lot of money from Kra at dice…”

“How did you get in there?” I asked in surprise.

They didn’t like to let us into the gambling den. Kra didn’t make any profits out of juvenile pickpockets like us. We just got under everyone’s feet and cleaned out the decent customers.

“I managed it,” said Bass, screwing up his blue eyes cunningly.

Bass had earned his nickname of Snoop. He could get in anywhere at all—it was another matter that my friend quite often got in trouble for these escapades of his.

“Well, what about this man?”

“Ah! Well, basically, he was playing Kra at dice and he won three gold pieces!”

I whistled enviously. Only once had I ever managed to fish a gold piece out of someone’s pocket on the street, and Bass and I had lived in clover for two whole months. And this was three all at once!

“Do you think you can get them off him?” I asked Bass cautiously.

“I don’t think so, but you could,” my friend admitted with a sickly smile.

“Right,” I said morosely. “And if something goes wrong, it’ll be me they grab, not you.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Bass declared nonchalantly. “This character looks like a real goose. If anything happens, I’ll help. We’re a team!”

He was right there. We’d been through a lot together in the two years we had known each other and lived in the slums of the Suburbs. And there had been bad days as well as good ones in that time.

Compared with me, Bass wasn’t too good at delving into people’s pockets on the street. He didn’t really have any talent for lifting purses, and that burden was always laid on my shoulders. But then Snoop did have other talents: He could sell a bill of goods to the Nameless One himself, con and swindle his nearest and dearest, fix a game of dice or cards, and point me in the direction of a man with a pocket bulging with coins.

“All right,” I sighed. “Where is this golden gent of yours?”

“He’s sitting in the Dirty Fish, guzzling wine.”

“Let’s go, you can show me,” I said reluctantly.

We still had one silver coin and five copper ones, and there would have been no point in risking my neck if not for the three gold pieces. For that kind of money it was worth getting up off the mattress and going out into the cold.

We slipped out of the crooked old hovel that was home to more than twenty souls. The people who lived there were all homeless tramps, like us.

Avendoom was in the grip of early spring—there was still snow lying on the ground, the nights were still as fiercely cold as in January, when many people who had no roof over their head froze to death in the streets, but despite the cold weather, the unfriendly gray sky, and the snowdrifts everywhere, spring was in the air.

There was an elusive smell of opening buds, murmuring streams, and mud.

Yes, mud! The mud that appeared from out of nowhere every year in the Avendoom Suburbs. But of course the mud was a mere trifle, a minor inconvenience and nothing more. The important thing was that soon the weather would be warm and I would finally be able to throw away the repulsive dog’s-fur coat with tears in five places that I’d stolen from a drunken groom the year before.

It had faithfully kept me warm all winter long, but when I wore it I was less agile and quick, and that enforced clumsiness had got me into trouble more than once. The week before I’d very nearly ended up getting nabbed by the guards because my feet got tangled up in the thing.

The Dirty Fish, a crooked old tavern, was right in the very center of the Suburbs, beside Sour Plums Square. No sane man would ever go to the Fish to fill his paunch—the tavern’s sour wine and abundant bedbugs were enough to frighten away any decent customers.

We halted on the other side of the street, opposite the doors of the tavern.

“Are you sure your man’s still in there? What would he be doing in a puke hole like that with three gold pieces? Couldn’t he find a better place?”

“Obviously he couldn’t,” Bass muttered. “He’s there, and he has two jugs of wine on the table in front of him. I don’t think he could have guzzled all of it while I ran to get you.”

“You simply don’t know how good some people get at guzzling wine,” I retorted. “He could be more than a league away by now.”

“Harold, you’re always panicking over petty details,” Bass snorted. “I told you, he’s in there!”

“All right,” I sighed, “let’s wait and see.”

So we waited in the frost. Bass and I leapt up every time the door of the tavern opened, and every time it turned out to be the wrong man.

“Listen,” I said, losing patience after two hours’ waiting, “I’m frozen to death.”

“I’m almost frozen solid, too, but that man’s definitely in there!”

“We wait for another half hour, and if he doesn’t come, I’m clearing out of here,” I said firmly.

Bass sighed mournfully.

“Maybe I should go and check?”

“That’s all we need, for Kra to give you a good thrashing. Stay where you are.”

The frost was licking greedily at my fingers and toes, so I stamped my feet and clapped my hands, trying to warm myself up at least a little bit. Several times Bass wanted to go into the tavern to check how the owner of the three gold pieces was getting on, but every time, after wrangling with me for a while, he stayed where he was.

“Maybe the guy’s had too much to drink?” my friend asked uncertainly; I could feel my fingers turning to icicles.

“Maybe…,” I replied, with my teeth chattering. “I don’t want anything anymore except to get warm.”

“There he is!” Bass suddenly exclaimed, pointing to a man who was walking out of the tavern. I studied him critically and gave my verdict: “A goose.”

“I told you so,” my friend said with a sniff. “Oh, now we’ll really start living!”

“Don’t be in such a hurry,” I said, watching our future victim’s progress. “Did you see where he keeps his money?”

“His right pocket. That’s where his purse is.”

“Let’s go.”

We tried to behave so that he wouldn’t take any notice of us. Trying to get into his pocket just then would have been asking for trouble. There weren’t many people about, there was no way to approach him without being noticed; all we could do was wait for a convenient moment.

“Are you sure he’s drunk two jugs of wine?” I hissed, keeping my eyes on the stranger.

“Why?” Bass hissed back.

“He’s walking very steadily. Not at all like a drunk.”

“There are different kinds of drunks,” Bass disagreed. “You could never tell if my old dad was drunk or not, until he picked up a log and started chasing after my mother.”

Meanwhile the man was wandering through the winding streets of the Suburbs without any obvious goal, like a hare circling through the forest to confuse his tracks. We kept our distance and tried not to let him see us until he reached the Market Square. There were plenty of people there, and it was quite easy for us to move up close behind him.

I gave Bass a quick nod, and he darted off to one side.

I tried to breathe through my nose, match the rhythm of the man’s steps, and stop trembling with nerves. My fingers were chilly and not as nimble as usual. I would never have taken the risk if the man hadn’t had three gold pieces in his pocket.

Someone pushed me in the back and for a second I found myself almost pressed up against the man, so I accepted this gift from the gods and lowered my hand into his pocket. I felt the purse immediately, and grabbed it, preparing to scram, but just at that moment the stranger grabbed hold of my hand. “Got you, you little thief!” he hissed.

I gave a shrill squeal and tried to break free, but the man was a lot stronger than me, and my hand didn’t even shift in the grasp of his bearlike paw. The thought flashed through my mind that I was in for really big trouble now.

Bass came dashing up out of nowhere and gave the big lunk a smart kick on the leg. He howled and let go of me.

“Let’s get out of here!” Bass shouted, and legged it.

Without bothering to think, I followed him, clutching the purse. I could hear the furious guy dashing after us.

“Thieves!” he yelled. “Stop those thieves!”

We wormed our way through the crowd and dashed out of Market Square onto a narrow little street. But that damn lunk was right there behind us all the way.

It was hard to run, the fur coat kept getting tangled round my legs, and the tramping feet of our pursuer kept getting closer and closer. Bass was showing me a clean pair of heels and the distance between us was gradually increasing. I groaned in disappointment: I would have to abandon the fur coat that I had acquired with such a great effort. I stuck the purse in my teeth and started unfastening the buttons as I ran along. The warm coat slipped off my shoulders and fell into the snow. Immediately it was much easier to run—I strode out and caught up with Bass.

“Into the alley,” I shouted to him, and turned sharply to the right.

Bass followed me, and our pursuer, who was just about to grab me by the collar, went flying on past. Now we had at least a chance to disappear in the labyrinth of the Suburbs’ winding side streets.

“Oh, he’ll wring our necks!” Bass panted with an effort.

I didn’t answer and just speeded up even more, hoping very much that my friend’s prediction would not come true. We turned another corner, hearing the man threaten to pull our arms off. I was almost exhausted, but the cursed stranger didn’t seem to know what it meant to get tired.

Suddenly a pair of hands appeared out of some hidey-hole, grabbed Bass and me by the scruff of our necks, and dragged us into a dark, narrow space. Bass yelled out in fright and started flailing at the air with his hands, and I followed my friend’s example, trying to break free and give whoever had grabbed us a kick.

“Better shut up, if you want to live!” someone whispered. “Keep quiet!”

There was something about his voice that made us fall silent immediately.

Our pursuer went hurtling past, stamping his feet and setting the alley ringing with choice obscenities.

The man who had saved us still didn’t release his grip, he was listening to the silence, and I tried to take advantage of the moment to put the purse with the gold pieces away in my pocket.