Kitabı oku: «Honour Among Thieves»
Honour Among Thieves
Book Three of
The Ancient Blades Trilogy
David Chandler
Dedication
For J.R.R.T. and G.R.R.M., the Epic Overlords.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication Page
Map
Prologue
The Free City of Ness was known around the world…
Part 1
Under the Flag of Parley
Chapter One
On the far side of the Whitewall mountains, in the…
Chapter Two
There was a mountain, and then there was no mountain.
Chapter Three
At dawn—as promised—Croy returned, looking a little tousled after riding…
Chapter Four
On a map the fortress of Helstrow would have resembled…
Chapter Five
Inside the common room of the inn, food and wine…
Chapter Six
Bursting out into the sunlight, Malden turned his head wildly…
Chapter Seven
The marketers all fled or pressed into the doors of…
Chapter Eight
When Malden burst out of the inn, Cythera leapt to…
Chapter Nine
They dragged Malden through the gate to the inner bailey,…
Chapter Ten
“This way, sir knight, milady,” the castellan said, and ushered…
Chapter Eleven
Ulfram V was a year younger than Croy, but the…
Chapter Twelve
“Is this true, Croy?” the king demanded. “Did you—in fact—make…
Chapter Thirteen
Instantly Ghostcutter came to Croy’s hand. Beside him he saw…
Chapter Fourteen
After Mörgain left, no one spoke for some while. Croy…
Chapter Fifteen
After darkness fell, Malden and Croy headed back into the…
Chapter Sixteen
He made a point of saying no more until they…
Chapter Seventeen
Cythera stood by the window in their room at the…
Chapter Eighteen
Malden never actually lost consciousness, but between the pain in…
Chapter Nineteen
The bridge across the river Strow began and ended within…
Chapter Twenty
In the king’s own chapel in the keep at Helstrow,…
Chapter Twenty-One
The day after the gates of Helstrow were sealed, the…
Chapter Twenty-Two
Malden put his hand on Acidtongue’s hilt, but kept the…
Chapter Twenty-Three
T he woman from the milehouse turned out to be…
Chapter Twenty-Four
Croy’s rounsey whickered and bucked as he climbed onto its…
Chapter Twenty-Five
The king walked his horse up to where the two…
Chapter Twenty-Six
The king of Skrae spluttered in rage. Croy didn’t blame…
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Behind the portcullis, soldiers shouted at one another and men…
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Berserkers crashed up against the gate, straining and howling as…
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Where do we take him?” Orne asked, when they were…
Part 2
The Sleeping King
Interlude
There was a place in the Free City of Ness…
Chapter Thirty
Helstrow burned for days. The barbarians were too busy celebrating…
Chapter Thirty-One
Just outside the gates of Ness a recruiting serjeant had…
Chapter Thirty-Two
Cythera found her mother down in Swampwall, where the river…
Chapter Thirty-Three
After Cythera went to find her mother, Malden led Slag…
Chapter Thirty-Four
“That’s ridiculous,” Malden said. How could he be Cutbill’s most…
Chapter Thirty-Five
“Alright,” Malden said. “Well, that’s got me up to date.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Croy brought the whetstone carefully up the iron edge of…
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Through the stout oak door, Croy could hear the voices…
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The river Skrait twisted through Ness, carving its way between…
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Walking through the brambles surrounding Coruth’s shack was disincitement enough,…
Chapter Forty
Malden moved out of the way as Coruth swept into…
Chapter Forty-One
When dinner was finished Malden took his leave. He was…
Chapter Forty-Two
The thieves of Ness gathered just before midnight, when the…
Chapter Forty-Three
A few murmurs drifted up from the crowd regardless of…
Chapter Forty-Four
Perhaps there was a second reason why Cutbill had chosen…
Chapter Forty-Five
“I have grand plans for the people of Skrae,” the…
Chapter Forty-Six
The sky glowed a deep blue-black that made Malden’s head…
Chapter Forty-Seven
The air in Coruth’s house felt like it had been…
Chapter Forty-Eight
Mörget whirled his axe through the air and brought it…
Chapter Forty-Nine
The bandit camp proved a sorry affair. Two dozen men…
Chapter Fifty
Barbarian pickets controlled the road between Helstrow and Redweir, but…
Chapter Fifty-One
The Baron sighed and looked down at his maps and…
Chapter Fifty-Two
Money kept coming in, as it always had, and that…
Chapter Fifty-Three
It didn’t take long for the thief-takers to make their…
Chapter Fifty-Four
Slag followed Malden all the way across the Sawyer’s Bridge…
Chapter Fifty-Five
“Protection?” Malden repeated, when Herwig had told him what she…
Chapter Fifty-Six
Croy knelt low in the brambles by the side of…
Chapter Fifty-Seven
I didn’t want this job, Malden thought. I never asked…
Chapter Fifty-Eight
It wasn’t easy getting the word out so late in…
Chapter Fifty-Nine
An old fishwife with a face like a rotten parsnip…
Chapter Sixty
Coruth did not wait to hear if he would follow.
Chapter Sixty-One
In a muddy field just off the Helstrow road, Baron…
Chapter Sixty-Two
Mörgain’s barbarians were distracted by the archers and turned outwards…
Chapter Sixty-Three
Spittle flecked their red-painted lips. They came running with blood…
Part 3
A Change of Station
Interlude
“Halt, here,” Mörgain said, and the paltry remnants of her…
Chapter Sixty-Four
Malden grabbed onto a window ledge and hauled himself upward.
Chapter Sixty-Five
Malden leaned down and kissed Cythera gently. She wrapped her…
Chapter Sixty-Six
Loophole would never walk easy again. When the mob seized…
Chapter Sixty-Seven
He already knew what his Helstrovian second-in-command wanted, but still…
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Dead bodies littered the forecourt of Easthull manor. Not a…
Chapter Sixty-Nine
“The king is dead,” Coruth said, plucking at long blades…
Chapter Seventy
A thousand barbarians marched north, pulling wagons full of books…
Chapter Seventy-One
“The Godstone is cracked. The cracks need to be repaired.
Chapter Seventy-Two
“Be of good cheer, lad,” Slag said, as he led…
Chapter Seventy-Three
Croy kept his horse to a walk as they crept…
Chapter Seventy-Four
Malden reached up and grasped the snout of a gargoyle.
Chapter Seventy-Five
Malden lowered himself through the trap door by his hands.
Chapter Seventy-Six
Malden’s candle fell from his hand and flickered out instantly.
Chapter Seventy-Seven
Malden closed the door behind him and bent low to…
Chapter Seventy-Eight
“Malden, no one loves me,” Cutbill said. He poured two…
Chapter Seventy-Nine
“The barbarians will arrive within the week,” Cutbill told Malden.
Chapter Eighty
Mörget tramped up the frost-crackling hill, naked axe in hand,…
Part 4
The Siege of Ness
Interlude
In theory there were no officers in the Army of…
Chapter Eighty-One
North of Helstrow, Croy took to the road.
Chapter Eighty-Two
“Nock! Draw! Fire!” Herwig the madam shouted, beating time against…
Chapter Eighty-Three
“Halloo! Halloo! Ness! People of Ness! Is someone in charge…
Chapter Eighty-Four
“Get me out of this ridiculous stuff,” Malden growled, trying…
Chapter Eighty-Five
Malden hurried through the streets, headed for the bridge to…
Chapter Eighty-Six
“Fascinating. In the space of one night they built three…
Chapter Eighty-Seven
Bethane slumped down to sit on a rock and rub…
Chapter Eighty-Eight
The whispers became murmurs. The murmurs became disgusted looks in…
Chapter Eighty-Nine
The rocks kept coming, though not as frequently as when…
Chapter Ninety
The rider had come very close, now. He could descend…
Chapter Ninety-One
The Skilfinger knight wore a byrnie of chain mail that…
Chapter Ninety-Two
Mörg was no fool.
Chapter Ninety-Three
The workshop stank of brimstone and urine, enough to make…
Chapter Ninety-four
“They’re scaling Ditchwall now, and there’s no one to stop…
Chapter Ninety-Five
There seemed to be no end to the berserkers willing…
Chapter Ninety-Six
Malden followed the dwarf down a flight of stairs to…
Chapter Ninety-Seven
Croy could stand, and if he used Ghostcutter as a…
Chapter Ninety-Eight
A single trebuchet stone arced over the city that day.
Chapter Ninety-Nine
Malden wrapped a loaf of bread in a silken cloth—the…
Chapter One Hundred
The Lemon Garden could no longer hold all the supplicants…
Chapter One Hundred and One
The wailing of Mörgain’s female warriors set Mörget’s teeth on…
Chapter One Hundred and Two
“Come forth! Step up, and receive Sadu’s bounty! Food for…
Chapter One Hundred and Three
Croy rode at the head of an army of two…
Chapter One Hundred and Four
Mörget raced back into the camp, Balint at his heels,…
Chapter One Hundred and Five
Malden ordered Velmont to search for other survivors in the…
Chapter One Hundred and Six
Malden looked to Cythera. She was drained, and worse than…
Chapter One Hundred and Seven
In her bed, Coruth struggled for every breath. Her hair…
Chapter One Hundred and Eight
On the march, it is far too easy to slip…
Chapter One Hundred and Nine
There was no time to think on all that had…
Chapter One Hundred and Ten
“Get that iron off him,” Velmont commanded. His eyes stayed…
Chapter One Hundred and Eleven
An hour before dawn, the snow burned a deep blue.
Chapter One Hundred and Twelve
As soon as Malden could stand on his own two…
Chapter One Hundred and Thirteen
The crowd of devout citizens gasped and ran as a…
Chapter One Hundred and Fourteen
Croy brought Ghostcutter around and disemboweled a gray-bearded reaver, then…
Chapter One Hundred and Fifteen
When Ryewall collapsed Malden was thrown from his feet. He…
Chapter One Hundred and Sixteen
“What in the Lady’s name was that?” Hew asked.
Chapter One Hundred and Seventeen
Slag crowed and danced and shouted up to Malden where…
Chapter One Hundred and Eighteen
Mörget shouted in pain and for a moment froze in…
Chapter One Hundred and Nineteen
Smoke from the explosion of Slag’s weapon hung in the…
Chapter One Hundred and Twenty
The Lemon Garden was far enough from Ryewall that Malden…
Epilogue
He’d made his decision. He’d been forced to pick between…
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Other Books by David Chandler
Copyright
About the Publisher
Map
PROLOGUE
The Free City of Ness was known around the world as a hotbed of thievery, and one man alone was responsible for that reputation. Cutbill, master of that city’s guild of thieves, controlled almost every aspect of clandestine commerce within its walls—from extortion to pickpocketing, from blackmail to shoplifting he oversaw a great empire of crime. His fingers were in far more pies than anyone even realized, and his ambitions far greater than simple acquisition of wealth—and far broader-reaching than the affairs of just one city. His interests lay in every corner of the globe and his spies were everywhere.
As a result he received a fair volume of mail every day.
In his office under the streets of Ness he went through this pile of correspondence with the aid of only one assistant. Lockjaw, an elderly thief with a legendary reputation was always there when Cutbill opened his letters. There were two reasons why Lockjaw held this privileged responsibility—for one, Lockjaw was famous for his discretion. He’d received his sobriquet for the fact he never revealed a secret. The other reason was that he’d never learned to read.
It was Lockjaw’s duty to receive the correspondence, usually from messengers who stuck around only long enough to get paid, and to comment on each message as Cutbill told him its contents. If Lockjaw wondered why such a clever man wanted his untutored opinion, he never asked.
“Interesting,” Cutbill said, holding a piece of parchment up to the light. “This is from the dwarven kingdom. It seems they’ve invented a new machine up there. Some kind of winepress that churns out books instead of vintage.”
The old thief scowled. “That right? Do they come out soaking wet?”
“I imagine that would be a defect in the process,” Cutbill agreed. “Still. If it works, it could produce books at a fraction of the cost a copyist charges now.”
“Bad news, then,” Lockjaw said.
“Oh?”
“Books is expensive,” the thief explained. “There’s good money in stealing ’em. If they go cheap all of a sudden we’d be out of a profitable racket.”
Cutbill nodded and put the letter aside, taking up another. “It’ll probably come to nothing, this book press.” He slit open the letter in his hand with a knife and scanned its contents. “News from our friend in the north. It looks like Maelfing will be at war with Skilfing by next summer. Over fishing rights, of course.”
“That lot in the northern kingdoms is always fighting about something,” Lockjaw pointed out. “You’d figure they’d have sorted everything out by now.”
“The king of Skrae certainly hopes they never do,” Cutbill told him. “As long as they keep at each other’s throats, our northern border will remain secure. Pass me that packet, will you?”
The letter in question was written on a scroll of vellum wrapped in thin leather. Cutbill broke its seal and spread it out across his desk, peering at it from only a few inches away. “This is from our man in the high pass of the Whitewall Mountains.”
“What could possibly happen in a desolated place like that?” Lockjaw asked.
“Nothing, nothing at all,” Cutbill said. He looked up at the thief. “I pay my man there to make sure it stays that way. He read some more, and opened his mouth to make another comment—and then closed it again, his teeth clicking together. “Oh,” he said.
Lockjaw held his peace and waited to hear what Cutbill had found.
The master of the guild of thieves, however, was unforthcoming. He rolled the scroll back up and shoved the whole thing in a charcoal brazier used to keep the office warm. Soon the scroll had caught flame and in a moment it was nothing but ashes.
Lockjaw raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.
Whatever was on that scroll clearly wasn’t meant to be shared, even with Cutbill’s most trusted associate. Which meant it had to be pretty important, Lockjaw figured. More so than who was stealing from whom or where the bodies were buried.
Cutbill went over to his ledger—the master account of all his dealings, and one of the most secret books on the continent. It contained every detail of all the crime that took place in Ness, as well as many things no one had ever heard of outside of this room. He opened it to a page near the back, then laid his knife across one of the pages, perhaps to keep it from fluttering out of place. Lockjaw noticed that this page was different from the others. Those were filled with columns of neat figures, endless rows of numbers. This page only held a single block of text, like a short message.
“Old man,” Cutbill said, then, “could you do me a favor and pour me a cup of wine? My throat feels suddenly raw.”
Cutbill had never asked for such a thing before. The man had enough enemies in the world that he made a point of always pouring his own wine—or having someone taste it before him. Lockjaw wondered what had changed, but he shrugged and did as he was told. He was getting paid for his time. He went to a table over by the door and poured a generous cup, then turned around again to hand it to his boss.
Except Cutbill wasn’t there anymore.
That in itself wasn’t so surprising. There were dozens of secret passages in Cutbill’s lair, and only the guildmaster knew them all or where they led. Nor was it surprising that Cutbill would leave the room so abruptly. Cautious to a nicety, he always kept his movements secret.
No, what was surprising was that he didn’t come back.
He had effectively vanished from the face of the world.
Day after day Lockjaw—and the rest of Ness’s thieves—waited for his return. No sign of him was found, nor any message received. Cutbill’s operation began to falter in his absence—thieves stopped paying their dues to the guild, citizens under Cutbill’s protection were suddenly vulnerable to theft, what coin did come in piled up uncounted and was spent on frivolous expenditures. Half of these excesses were committed in the belief that Cutbill, who had always run a tight ship, would be so offended he would have to come back just to put things in order.
But Cutbill left no trace, wherever he’d traveled.
It was quite a while before anyone thought to check the ledger, and the message Cutbill had so carefully marked.
CHAPTER ONE
On the far side of the Whitewall mountains, in the grasslands of the barbarians, in the mead tent of the Great Chieftain, fires raged and drink was passed from hand to hand, yet not a word was spoken. The gathered housemen of the Great Chieftain were too busy to gossip and sing as was their wont, too busy watching two men compete at an ancient ritual. Massive they were, as big as bears, and their muscles stood out from their arms and legs like the wood of dryland trees. They stood either side of a pit of blazing coals, each clutching hard to one end of a panther’s hide. On one side, Torki, the champion of the Great Chieftain, victor of a thousand such contests. On the other side stood Mörget, whose lips were pulled back in a manic grin, the lower half of his face painted red in the traditional colors of a berserker, though he was a full chieftain now, leader of many clans.
Heaving, straining, gasping for breath in the fumes of the coals, the two struggled, each trying to pull the other into the coals. Every man and woman in the longhouse, every berserker and reaver of the Great Chieftain, every wife and thrall of the gathered warriors, watched in hushed expectation, each of them alone with their private thoughts, their desperate hopes.
There was only one who dared to speak freely, for such was always his right. Hurlind, the Great Chieftain’s scold, was full of wine and laughter. “You’re slipping, Mörg’s Get! Pull as you might, he’s dragging you. Why not let go, and save yourself from the fire? This is not a game for striplings!”
“Silence,” Mörget hissed, from between clenched teeth.
Yet his grin was faltering, for it was true. Torki’s grasp on the panther hide was like the grip of great tree roots on the earth. His arms were locked at the elbows and with the full power of his body, trained and toughened by the hard life of the steppes, he was pulling as inexorably as the ocean tide. Mörget slid toward the coals a fraction of an inch at a time, no matter how he dug his toes into the grit on the floor.
At the mead bench closest to the fire a reaver of the Great Chieftain placed a sack of gold on the table and nudged his neighbor, a chieftain of great honor. He pointed at Torki and the chieftain nodded, then put his own money next to the reaver’s—though as he did so he glanced slyly at the Great Chieftain in his place of honor at the far end of the table. Perhaps he worried that his overlord might take it askance—after all, Mörget was the Great Chieftain’s son.
The Great Chieftain did not see the wager, however. His eyes never moved from the contest. Mörg, the man who had made a nation of these people, the man who had seen every land in the world and plundered every coast, father of multitudes, slayer of dragons, Mörg the Great was ancient by the reckoning of the east. Forty-five winters had ground at his bones. Only a little silver ran through the gold of his wild beard, however, and no sign of dotage showed in his glinting eyes. He reached without looking for a haunch of roasted meat. Tearing a generous piece free, he held it down toward the mangy dog at his feet. The dog always ate first. It roused itself from sleep just long enough to swallow the gobbet. When it was done, Mörg fed himself, grease slicking down his chin and the front of his fur robes.
A great deal relied on which combatant let go of the hide first. The destiny of the entire eastern people, the lives of countless warriors were at stake—and a debt of honor nearly two centuries old. No onlooker could have said which of the warriors, his son or his champion, Mörg favored.
Torki never made a sound. He did not appear to move at all—he might have been a marble statue. He had the marks of a reaver, black crosses tattooed on the shaved skin behind his ears. One for every season of pillaging he’d undertaken in the hills to the north. Enough crosses that they ran down the back of his neck. Not a drop of sweat had showed yet on his brow.
Mörget shifted his stance a hair’s breadth and was nearly pulled into the fire. His teeth gnashed at the air as he fought to regain his posture.
Nearby his sister, herself a chieftess of many clans, stood ready with a flagon of wine mulled with sweet gale. Mörgain, as was widely known, hated her brother—had done since infancy. No matter how hard she fought to prove herself, no matter what glory she won in battle, Mörget had always overshadowed her accomplishments. Letting him win this contest now would be bitter as ashes in her mouth. Nor did she need to play the passive spectator here. She could end it in a moment by splashing wine across the boards at Mörget’s feet. He would be unable to hold his ground on the slippery boards, and Torki would win for a certainty.
“Sister,” Mörget howled, “set down that wine. Do you not thirst for western blood, instead?”
Mörg raised one eyebrow, perhaps very much interested in learning the answer to that question.
The chieftess laughed bitterly, and spat between Mörget’s feet. But then she hurled her flagon at the wall, where it burst harmlessly, well clear of the contest. “I’ve tasted blood. I’d rather have the westerners alive, as my thralls.”
“And you shall, as many of them as you desire,” Mörget told her, his words bitten off before they left his mouth.
“And steel? Will you give me dwarven steel, better than the iron my warriors wear now?”
“All that they can carry! Now, aid me!”
“I shall,” Mörgain said. “I’ll pray for your success!”
That was enough to break the general silence, though only long enough for the gathered warriors to laugh uproariously and slap each other on the back. The shadow of a smile even crossed Torki’s lips. In the east the clans had a saying: pray with your back turned, so that at least your enemies won’t see your weakness. The clans worshipped only Death, and beseeching Her aid was rarely a good idea.
“Did you hear that, Torki?” Hurlind the scold asked. “The Mother of us all pulls against you now. Better redouble your grip!”
The champion’s lips split open to show his teeth. It was the first sign of emotion he’d given since the contest began.
And yet it was like some witch’s spell had been broken. Perhaps Death—or some darker fate—did smile on Mörget then. For suddenly his arms flexed as if he’d found some strength he’d forgotten he had. He leaned back, putting his weight into the pull.
Torki’s smile melted all at once. His left foot shifted an inch on the boards. It was not necessarily a fatal slip. Given a moment’s grace he could have recovered, locking his knees and reinforcing his strength.
Yet Mörget did not give him that moment. Everyone knew that Mörget, for all his size and strength, was faster than a wildcat. He seized the opportunity and hauled Torki toward him until the balance was broken and the champion toppled, sprawling face first on the coals. Torki screamed as the fire bit into his skin. He leapt out of the pit, releasing the panther skin and grabbing a mead jug to pour honey wine on his burns.
The longhouse erupted in cheers and shouts. Hurlind led a tune of victory and bravery against all odds, an old kenning every man and woman in the longhouse knew. Even Mörgain joined in the refrain, Mörgain of whom it was said her iron ever did her singing for her.
In the chaos, in the tumult, Mörget went to his father’s chair and knelt before him. In his hands he held his prize, the singed pelt. Orange coals still flecked its curling fur.
“Great Chieftain,” Mörget said, addressing the older man as a warrior, not as a parent, “You hold sway over the hundred clans. They wait for your instructions. For ten years now you have kept them from each other’s throats. You have made peace in a land that only knew war.”
Ten years, aye, in which no clan had feuded with another. Ten years without warfare, ten years of prosperity. For many of those gathered, ten years of boredom. Mörg had united the clans by being stronger than any man who opposed him, and by giving the chieftains that which they desired. Instead of making war on each other, as they had since time immemorial, the clans had worked together to hunt such game as the steppes provided and to raid the villages of the hillfolk in the north. Yet now there were murmurs in the camps that what every warrior wanted was not ten more years of peace but a new chance to test their mettle. Mörget had been instrumental in starting those murmurs but he had only fed a fire that was already kindled by restlessness. Eastern men, eastern chieftains, could not sit all day in their tents forever and dream of past victories. Eventually they needed to kill something, or they went mad.
Mörg the Great, Mörg the Wise, had pushed them perhaps as far as he could. As he turned his head to look around at his chieftains, how many eyes did he meet that burned with this new desire for war? Now that the mountains lay open to them, how long could he hold them back?
“All good things,” Mörg said, looking down at his son again, “should come to an end, it seems. Just as they say in Old Hrush. You’ve won the right to make your say. Tell me, Mörget, what you wish.”
“Only to stand by your side when we march through this new pass into the west, and crush the decadent kingdom of Skrae beneath our feet.”
“You lead many clans, chieftain. And I am not your king. You do not require my permission to raid the west.”
It was true. It was law. Mörg was the Great Chieftain, but he ruled only by the consent of the clans. “I have the right, aye, to raid the west. But I don’t wish just to scare a few villagers and take their sheep,” Mörget explained. “For two hundred years that’s all we’ve done, ever since the Skraelings sealed off the mountain passes. Now there is a new pass. Once, long before any of us were born, our warriors spoke not of raiding but of conquest. Of far greater glories. I wish, Great Chieftain, to make war. To take every mile of Skrae for our people, as has always been their destiny!”
Alone in that place, Mörg carried iron, in the form of a sword at his belt. All other weapons had been stacked outside, for no warrior would dare bring a blade into the house of the Great Chieftain. Should he desire it, if his wishes countered those of his son, Mörg could draw his sword and strike down Mörget this instant. No man there would gainsay him for it.
They called him Mörg the Wise, sometimes, when they wished to flatter him. Behind his back, they called him Mörg the Merciful, which was a great slander among the people of the east. If he struck the blow now, perhaps those whispering tongues would be silenced. Or perhaps they would only grow into a chorus.
The chieftains wanted this. They had made Mörget their spokesman, and sent him here tonight to gain this audience.
And Mörg was no king, to thwart the will of his people for his own whims. That was the way of the decadent west. Here in the east men ruled through respect, or through fear, but always honestly—because the men who served them believed in them. Mörg was no stronger than the chieftains he’d united. He lived and died by their sufferance. If he did not give them what they wanted, they had their own recourse—they could replace him. And that could only be done over his dead body. Great Chieftains ruled for life, so murder was the sole method of their impeachment.
On his knees, Mörget stared up at his father with eyes as clear and blue as a mountain stream. Eyes that never blinked.
Mörg must decide, now. There was no discussion to be had, no council to call. He alone must make this decision. Every eye watched his face. Even Hurlind had fallen silent, waiting to hear what he would say.
“You,” Mörg said, rising and pointing at a thrall standing by the door. “Fetch boughs of wet myrtle, and throw them on the fire. Let them make a great smoke, that all will see, and thereby know. Tomorrow we march through the mountains to the west. Tomorrow we make war!”
CHAPTER TWO
There was a mountain, and then there was no mountain.
It had been called Cloudblade, for the way its sharp summit had once cut through the sky, and it had possessed a long and storied history. It stood at the eastern frontier of the kingdom of Skrae, tallest of the Whitewall Range. Beneath it, in centuries long gone, the dwarves had built a city they called the Place of Long Shadows. Later on, elves—the last of their kind—had moved into that hollow below the world. For eight hundred years they had hidden there, unknown to the humans above.
Then five fools from the west came along and ruined everything.
Cythera climbed up a high pile of rubble, picking her footholds carefully, testing each rock with her hands to make sure it was stable before she put her weight on it. She was sweating by the time she reached the top. There she could see the new valley that lay where Cloudblade once stood. It ran as wide as a road right through the Whitewall, and a constant chill wind coursed over the endless field of stones like a river of air. Over there to the east lay the great steppes where the barbarians ruled. Behind her, to the west, lay Skrae, the country of her birth.
“How many years did Cloudblade stand? When we first saw it, I would have thought it could last forever,” Malden said, coming up behind her.
She turned and saw the thief leaping from one rock to another as nimbly as a goat. She couldn’t help but smile at the ease with which he moved. He was a small man, and skinny as an alley cat, but he had an effortless grace that always made her gasp.
“Cloudblade stood longer than you can imagine,” Cythera said. She was the daughter of a witch and thus privy to some of the secrets of the universe. She knew if she tried to explain to Malden just how long an eon was his eyes would simply glaze over. Which was not to say he was a simpleton. He was bright enough in his own way, if reckless. “Here,” she said, and held out a hand. He took it, holding her fingers as delicately as he might a bundle of flowers. When he had climbed up beside her he kissed her fingertips, one after another.
“Don’t,” she said, though her heart wasn’t in it. She wanted to embrace him, to drag him down behind these rocks and … well. She had to be careful now, at least for a while. She took her hand back and turned to face the west. Down there below the foothills of the Whitewall she could still see the column of elves as they made their way toward a distant forest. They were on foot but they moved quickly, desperate to reach any shelter from the blue sky. They found the broad stretch of the heavens terrifying, for none of them had ever seen it before. “Do you think they’ll make it?” she asked. The forest they headed for was only the first stop on a long journey.
“Their ancestors ruled this land before we came along and took it from them,” Malden pointed out. “They’re tougher than they look. And they have Slag to guide them.”
Cythera nodded. She’d been sad to see the dwarf go, but the elfin queen wouldn’t have followed anyone else.
“Croy will ride ahead of them for a while, to make sure they aren’t spotted,” Malden added. If any human authorities saw there were elves abroad in the kingdom again it could only end in bloodshed. There was a reason the elves had hidden so long under Cloudblade. “He told me he won’t be back until tomorrow dawn.” Malden’s eyebrows lifted in what he must have thought was a suggestive leer. “It’s just the two of us left here now. I’m supposed to look after you while he’s away.”
He moved closer and reached out one hand to touch the small of her back.
For the second time she shied away, despite what she might have preferred. “We need to talk,” she said. “I’m still betrothed to Croy.” That had been the whole point of this adventure. The whole reason she’d left the Free City of Ness. Croy—Sir Croy—had made her promise to marry him. She’d demurred and evaded him as long as she could, but eventually the appointed day had come. At the last minute she had decided she needed to see some of the world first, before he took her to his castle and she had to spend the rest of her life birthing his heirs. She hadn’t expected Malden to come along—frankly, he’d been a temptation she was trying to escape. Life, it seemed, could never be simple. “I made a promise to him—a legally binding promise.”
The expression on his face shifted through a complicated series of emotions. Everything from hope to fear to deep confusion. But then his eyes narrowed and he nodded sagely. “I see.”
“You do?”
Malden dropped his hand to his side. “Down below the mountain, when you thought I was going to die—when we thought we were all going to die—you told me you loved me. Sometimes people in dangerous situations will say things that they wouldn’t, otherwise.”
“You think me so inconstant?” she asked, hurt despite her better judgment.
“I’m trying to be noble,” he told her, in that frank way he sometimes had. Another endearing quality—a man who could speak honestly to a woman was as rare, in Cythera’s experience, as a hen with teeth. “I’m trying to give you an opportunity to change your mind.”
She smiled at him. His love for her came without conditions. He would never want to take away her freedom. It was why she had come to love him back. “Croy won’t be back before dawn, you said.” She looked up and saw the sun was still well above the horizon. “We have all that time?”
Later, in the dark of a night with no moon, he kissed the sweat from her cooling body, while she simply tried to get her breath back. She knew she was playing a dangerous game but she couldn’t help herself. “Do you still think I want to change my mind?”
“You frightened me with all that talk of betrothals,” he said.
“As I meant to.”
He drew back a little. In the dark she couldn’t read his face. “Tell me you’ll break your promise to him. Tell me you love me. Please.”
“I do,” she said, and there was no part of her that disagreed. “And I will. But you know it can’t be so easy. From the moment I tell Croy about us he’ll be determined to kill you.”
“You think I’m afraid of him?”
“I think you should be.” Croy had trained all his life in the military arts. He would be one of the most dangerous men in the world if he wasn’t bound by an iron code of honor. Which in itself was the problem. “He won’t want to do it. He thinks of you as his best friend. Honor will require it, though. And you know how he is about anything that touches his honor.”
“Let him try me! I can’t stand the idea of you marrying him. Not anymore,” Malden protested.
“I’ll tell him everything. I’ll renounce the betrothal and beg his forgiveness,” Cythera said, rearing up to kiss his cheeks and chin. “I swear it. But Malden—I’ll only do it when we’re back in Ness. And when I’m sure you have a generous head start.”
CHAPTER THREE
At dawn—as promised—Croy returned, looking a little tousled after riding in the woods all night. He was all blond hair and muscles and stupid grins but Malden did his best not to hate the man. After all, Croy had already lost the game for Cythera’s heart—he just didn’t know it yet.
The three of them returned to the abandoned hill fort where they’d left their horses and their prisoner. Balint the dwarf looked angry enough to spit blood, but they’d kept her bound and gagged so she couldn’t get into mischief. They threw her over the back of Croy’s saddle and headed out, toward Helstrow. Balint was the last errand they had to run before they could finally head back to Ness.
Riding west toward the king’s fortress proved far less tedious than the voyage east had been. Back then they’d had to ford the river Strow at one of its wilder bends but now they could approach the fortress directly. The sun had not even reached its apex by the time they saw Helstrow’s towers rising above the rolling hills.
Malden was thrilled by the prospect of returning to civilization, but just outside the gates Croy called a stop. The riders stood their horses in the road so they could watch a field full of archers lift bows all at once and take aim.
Bowstrings twanged and a hundred arrows lifted into the sky, the thin shafts spinning and tumbling, some clattering together in mid-air. Others flew true and arced downward to slam into a pile of rusted armor on the far edge of the field. Their wicked points cut through the old iron as easily as through parchment and lodged in the earth below.
Watching from a safe distance atop his horse, Malden jerked back in surprise.
“What are they doing?” he asked.
“Practicing, I think,” Sir Croy replied, bringing his rounsey up level with Malden’s jennet. “There was a time when every male peasant in the kingdom was expected to know how to draw a bow and hit a target at one hundred yards. The law required them to practice for an hour every day, to keep their arms strong and their eyes true.”
The line of peasants—villein farmers, Malden judged, by their russet tunics and the close-fitting cowls they wore—each nocked another arrow and drew back on their strings. A serjeant in leather jack and a kettle helmet shouted an order, and once more the bowmen let fly.
Most of the arrows landed well short of the target. One, knocked off course in mid-air, came directly for Malden. He flinched, but its momentum was already spent and it landed twenty yards from his horse’s feet. The jennet didn’t even look up.
Cythera shielded her eyes with one hand and looked at the pile of armor. Only a handful of arrows had reached the target. “They’re … not very good.”
Croy shrugged. “The law requiring them to practice every day was repealed a long time ago. Before these men were born, in fact. Most of them have probably never seen a bow before. And no archer hits the mark on his first try.”
“Why did they stop the practice?” Cythera asked.
“No reason to keep it up. In the early days, Skrae was always at war with one enemy or another—first the elves, then with upstarts who would seize the crown. Skrae always prevailed. The Northern Kingdoms were beaten into submission, turned against each other until now they only fight amongst themselves. The barbarians were forced back across the mountains, sealed behind the two mountain passes. Now there are no enemies left to fight. Skrae hasn’t gone to war in a hundred years. There’s been no more than a border skirmish in the last ten,” Croy explained. “The king’s grandfather saw no need to keep a cadre of trained bowmen around. The peasantry were better used by spending that extra hour a day in the fields, feeding a growing populace.”
Malden frowned. All that was probably true, but he could guess another reason. He’d seen what the longbows did to the armor when they actually struck home. No knight in shiny coat of plate would ever really be safe with such weapons arrayed against him, not if the aim of the archer was skillful. He imagined the king had been more afraid of an insurrection of highly trained peasants than a foreign invader.
So why was the practice being resumed? This wasn’t some bit of makework to keep idle peasants from getting into trouble—the training was in deadly earnest. When they’d shot a dozen arrows each, the hundred men standing on the field were replaced by a fresh hundred, with more waiting to take their turn. Clearly every villein in the environs of Helstrow was to be given a chance to learn this skill.
Something was up.
As the three riders headed up the perfectly straight road toward the fortress of the king, they passed through the village where the prospective bowmen had their houses. The three on horseback drew more than the usual stares. Women leaned out of the doors of their cottages, distaffs and kitchen knives still in their hands, to get a good look at the riders. A reeve carrying the white wooden baton of his station leaned on the signpost of a tavern and watched them with wide eyes. Children dashed out of the street as they approached.
These people were afraid, Malden saw. Afraid someone was going to come along at any moment and take away the pittance they had, the tiny scrap of safety and wealth they’d managed to accumulate. Even the village blacksmith closed the shutters of his shop as they drew near, though the heat inside his forge made the autumn air shimmer.
What had them so scared?
Of course, they might just have been surprised to see Balint roped and secured atop Croy’s palfrey. It wasn’t every day you saw a dwarf trussed up like a bird in a roasting pan.
Balint would draw stares in any human village. Dwarves were a rare enough sight outside the big cities, and female dwarves almost unheard of—most of their women remained in the north, in the dwarven kingdom, while their men traveled south into Skrae to make their fortunes. This one stood out on her own merits, too. Balint was accounted a great beauty among her people, but then dwarves had a different notion of loveliness than humans. Balint stood just under four feet tall and was as skinny as a starveling dog. Her hair stuck out from her head in thick braids that looked like the spikes of a morningstar. Her eyebrows met above her nose in a thick tangle of coarse dark hairs and there was a sparser growth of hair on her upper lip. Her eyes were squeezed down to dark beads, the lids pressed tight. As a nocturnal creature she found the sun unbearable.
Even if she’d been more pleasing to the eye, she still would have drawn attention by how she was bound. Once dwarves and humans had been vicious enemies, but a treaty between their two kingdoms had changed that long ago. Now by law no human could touch a dwarf in an offensive manner—not unless the human wanted to be tortured to death. The dwarves had proved too useful as allies to risk the peace between them and humankind. They were too valuable to the king, as they were the only ones who knew the secret of making good steel for weapons and armor and a thousand other uses. That a dwarf should be tied up and brought to justice like a common criminal was unthinkable.
Yet Balint was a criminal, and a particularly vile one. The same treaty that ended the war between dwarves and humans included another law, one that said no dwarf was allowed to use a weapon inside the borders of Skrae. Not even in self-defense, not even one they’d made with their own hands. Balint had broken that law without compunction or remorse. Sir Croy had been quite adamant that she be brought to Helstrow and made to account for her crimes. In all likelihood she would be banished from Skrae—and maybe even exiled by her own people. Where she would go at that point was not to be guessed.
Malden liked it not, even though he was the first person Balint had assaulted. She’d struck him across the face with a wrench with clear intent to kill him and he wanted revenge badly enough. Yet he was a thief by trade, a flounter of the law himself. He lived by a certain code of dishonesty, and the first rule in that code was that you didn’t betray another criminal to the authorities, ever, under any circumstances.
She had turned Malden into a snitch. And for that, he would never forgive her. What if word of it got out? His reputation would be dashed on the rocks of gossip.
He tried not to think about it. Ahead of them lay the first gate of the fortress, a massive affair of stone and iron that towered over every house in the village. Guards in studded leather cloaks stood there blocking the way with halberds. High above, amidst the battlements of the gate house, a pot of boiling oil was prepared to spill down hot death on anyone who attacked the guards. A dozen loopholes in the gatehouse wall hid crossbowmen ready to pick off anyone who even dared approach.
“I had expected a friendlier reception,” Croy called out, as the guards refused to stand aside to let him pass. “Though of course, I’m not flying my colors today. Perhaps you don’t recognize me. I have been gone for a long time. I,” he said, placing one leather-gauntleted hand on his breast, “am Sir Croy, a knight of the realm. With me are Cythera, daughter of Coruth the Witch, and Malden, a—well—a—”
“His squire,” Malden announced, patting the sword tied to his saddle. He couldn’t very well announce himself as Malden the Thief here, not and expect to pass the gate. More than once Croy had offered him the position of squire, and though Malden could imagine few things he’d less rather do for a living—collecting dead bodies for mass graves, perhaps—it was a simple enough ruse.
“Yes. He’s my squire,” Croy said, and it barely sounded at all like a lie coming out of the knight’s mouth.
“Bit old for it, ain’t ’e?” one of the guards asked, studying Malden with a yellow eye. But the guards weren’t there to challenge subjects of Skrae. They were waiting for something else. “That dwarf ye got,” the guard went on. “Is she—”
“An oathbreaker. I’ve come to present her for the king’s justice.”
There was a great deal of murmuring and surprise at that, but the guards stood back and the portcullis was raised. The three of them—plus one disgruntled dwarf—passed through without further incident.
CHAPTER FOUR
On a map the fortress of Helstrow would have resembled an egg cracked open and let to spread across the top of a table. Its center, its yolk, was the inner bailey—the center of all power in Skrae. Inside a stout wall lay the homes and offices of all the court, as well as the keep and the king’s palace. The buildings there stood tall and crammed close together, some so near that a man could reach out of a window and shake his neighbor’s hand. The white of the egg—the outer bailey, which had its own wall—sprawled in all directions. The houses and workshops and churches there weren’t as tall or as densely packed, yet twenty times as many people lived there, commoners for the most part, all the servants and tradesmen and merchants who fed and clothed and tended to the highborn folk of the court. Malden tried to imagine the place in his head, to secure his first look at it so that he could start to assemble a mental map of the place.
Once they were through the gate, into the outer bailey, any thought of orienting himself was forgotten. The three riders and the dwarf were funneled into a narrow street that curled away ahead of them into a marketplace of countless stalls and small shops. Half-timbered houses loomed over it all, their upper stories leaning out over the streets to shadow the ground level. Malden was thrust immediately into a chaos of color and life, wholly unlike the placid farm country they’d traveled in for so long. His senses were assaulted and for a while all he could do was stare and try to get their bearings.
Smoke from braziers and open fires sent gray tendrils seeking through the crowded, close streets. The horses picked their way through ordure and startled a covey of pigs who went scurrying down a dark alley. Malden wheeled his jennet to the side as a merchant in a russet jerkin went chasing after the pigs with a stick. He nearly knocked over a noble lady, fat and scrubbed pink, as she was carried past in a litter, a pomander of lilies held close under her nose. Malden could barely hear himself think. Everywhere there were the cries of barkers and hawkers, beckoning those with a little coin toward stalls where could be purchased roast meats, fresh apples, fine fabrics, measures of barley or flour or ink or parchment or wine.
“Ah,” Malden said, sighing deeply. “Civilization! It’s good to be back.”
Cythera laughed. “You didn’t enjoy your time out in the countryside? All the fresh air? The green hills and the quiet of the forest?”
“You mean the endless rain and the constant itching from insect bites?” Malden asked. “You ask if I enjoyed sleeping on the cold ground with a rock for my pillow, or perhaps eating meat cooked on an open fire—burned on one side, half-raw still on the other? No, a place like this is where I belong.”
It was true. Malden had spent his entire life until recently in the Free City of Ness, a hundred miles west of here. He’d grown up in twisting cobbled alleys like these. He knew the rhythms of city life, knew where he stood in a crowd. His recent adventures in the wilderness had left him saddle sore and weary. To be back in a city—any city—was a great relief. It would not be long before they left again, and headed back into the farmlands, but he planned on enjoying this brief respite in a place that felt familiar.
The riders made their way carefully through the crowd, headed deep into the maze of streets. The going was slow and they had to stop and wait many times as traffic surged across their path. At one point Croy’s horse pulled up short and Malden’s jennet obediently fell into line. Malden wasn’t ready for the stop and he crashed forward across his horse’s neck. He had only just recently learned to ride, and was far from proficient at it yet. He saw why Croy had halted, though, and was glad the jennet was wiser than he. A procession of lepers was winding its way through the street ahead. They were covered head to toe with cloth, as the law demanded, and carried wooden clappers that they flapped before them in a mournful rhythm. Croy tossed a gold royal to their leader, who caught it with unthinking ease and hid it away instantly. The hand that had emerged from the leper’s robe had only three fingers, and Malden was glad he could not see the rest of the man.
When the lepers were past Croy got them started again, but they didn’t go much farther. He took them down a lane that curled up toward the wall of the inner bailey and ended in the wide, muddy yard of an inn. There a stable boy took their horses, and welcomed them with honeyed words.
As Malden slid down off the jennet’s back, he groaned for his aching muscles and his bowed legs. He’d never gotten used to riding and he was glad to be on his own feet again, even if he felt decidedly unsteady. The whole world still seemed to rock with the swaying gait of the jennet.
All the same, he was surprised by their destination. He had not expected them to spend the night in Helstrow. He would welcome a night in a real bed stuffed with straw, true, but he was more interested in getting to Ness as quickly as possible. He and Cythera would never be alone together again until they were back home, after all. “An inn?” he asked. “Must we spend the night here? I thought we had only to turn Balint over to the local constable and then be on our way again.”
Croy leaned backwards, stretching the muscles of his back. “We need to make sure she receives justice from the king’s own chief magistrate. It may be many days before we can gain audience with him.”
“Days? How many days?” Malden demanded. “Two? Three? As many as a sennight?”
Cythera reached over and brushed road dust off his shoulders. She gave him a knowing look. “Are you in such a hurry to return to Ness? What’s there, waiting for you?”
Malden said nothing, and kept his face carefully still. She was teasing him—after all, she knew exactly why he longed to be back in Ness, where all secrets could be revealed. Yet he had another good reason to return home as quickly as possible. He could not help but reach up to the front of his jerkin and touch a piece of parchment folded carefully and held next to his heart. The others did not need to know what was written there, or the betrayal it tokened. The message on the parchment must remain his alone, for now.
CHAPTER FIVE
Inside the common room of the inn, food and wine was brought to them before they’d even asked for it. Malden was sure they’d be charged for it whether they wanted it or not, so he ate greedily of the cold meat and fresh bread he was served, and drank his first cup of wine down before it touched the table. Riding had left him with a deep thirst.
Croy lifted Balint up onto a chair and let her sit upright, though he left her hands bound. The innkeeper stared but said nothing as Cythera drew the gag away and held a pewter cup toward the dwarf’s mouth.
Balint stared at the cup as if it held poison. “Aren’t you all going to take turns spitting in it first, before I drink? Not that I could tell the difference, not with human wine. I’ll bet it tastes like something you drained from a boil off one of those lepers’ arses.”
There was a reason they had kept her gagged.
Cythera started to take the cup away, but Balint’s head snaked forward and she grabbed at its rim with her lips. She sucked deeply at the drink, then leaned back and belched. “I’ll take some of that food, now.”
Malden frowned at her but he broke off a crust of bread and held it so she could take bites from it. “If you bite my fingers,” he told the dwarf, “I’ll pick you up by your feet and shake you until we get the wine back.”
Something like grudging respect lit up Balint’s eye as she chewed. Curses and oaths were all the dwarves knew of poetry. They competed with each other for who could be more vulgar or rude, and counted a good obscenity as a fine jest. Clearly Malden had scored a point with her.
Cythera didn’t seem to see it that way. “Be more kind,” she said, “please. Balint may be guilty of much, but she still deserves some respect.”
“Ask the elves how much,” Malden said.
“The elves,” Croy said, shaking his head. “That makes me think—when we meet the magistrate, what do we tell him of the elves?”
“If he’s to know of her crimes,” Malden pointed out, “we’ll need to say something. After all, it was their city Balint toppled—nearly killing all of them in the process, not to mention us.”
“Once the king knows the elves are at large in his kingdom, though, I shudder to think what he’ll do. Send his knights to round them up, surely, and then—no. No, I won’t even think of that.” Cythera put her head in her hands. “Can we not just tell him that the elves all perished when Cloudblade fell?”
“And get me cooked for mass murder?” Balint said, her eyes wide. “You know that’s a lie. The elves survived. Most of them, anyway.”
“A blessing you had no hand in achieving,” Croy said. “You did not seem to care if they did all die, when you toppled Cloudblade.”
Malden shook his head. “It matters little. Our king has no authority to have you hanged. The worst he can do is send you north,” he pointed out, “which he’s bound to do anyway, no matter how many of them you killed. So it doesn’t matter what crimes we heap upon you, since the punishment will be the same.”
“I’ll take my lumps for what I did. I acted in the interest of my king, that’s all,” Balint insisted. When the humans didn’t relent and free her on the spot, she shrank within her ropes. “It’s been a long ride and I need to make water,” she said, then, looking away from their faces. “Which of you brave young men wants to pull down my breeches for me?”
Croy recoiled in disgust. That was what Balint had wanted, of course. She smiled broadly and tried to catch Malden’s eye.
It was Cythera who responded, however. “I’ll take her to the privy,” she said, rising from her seat. Once standing, however, she let out a gasp.
Malden spun around in his chair and saw a pair of men coming toward them, pushing their way through the common room. They were not dressed in the cloaks-of-eyes the city watch of Ness wore, but he knew immediately they were men of the law. Each wore a jerkin of leather jack with steel plates sewn to the elbows and shoulders, and each of them had a weapon in his hand. They had gold crowns painted on their cloaks as insignia of office.
Even without their uniforms he would have recognized them as lawmen, just from the smug looks on their faces. They were bigger than anyone else in the room and that look said they knew it. Their rough features and tiny eyes marked them as men who wouldn’t back down from a fight, as well. Malden had spent his whole life learning how to recognize such signs—and learning how to avoid the men who showed them.
“Good sirs,” Croy said, rising and spreading his arms wide in welcome. “I thank you for coming. We’d planned on bringing her to the keep directly, but perhaps you can save us the journey.”
One of the kingsmen—the one who still had most of his teeth—stared down at the dwarf and frowned. “What’s this?”
“Nobody said nothin’ ’bout a dwarf girl,” the other one said, looking at his comrade. A bad scar crossed his neck, just one side of his windpipe.
“This,” Croy said, “is Balint, late of the service of the dwarven envoy at Redweir. She’s broken her oath, and—”
“We didn’t come for a dwarf,” the first one, the toothy one, told Croy.
Malden slowly pushed his chair back from the table. He tried not to make a sound as its legs dragged across the floorboards. So occupied, he failed to notice that he was backing up into a wall. When the back of his head struck the plaster, he looked to either side, searching for windows he might jump out of. He found none.
The scarred one spoke next, saying exactly what Malden expected—and dreaded—to hear. “We’re here,” he announced, “for yer thief.”
Malden jumped up onto his chair. He looked up toward the rafters and saw they were too high to reach, at least ten feet above his head. The two kingsmen had by reflex moved to flank the table on either side, blocking off his escape that way, as well.
“Hold,” Croy said, rising to his feet. “What’s the meaning of this?”
“He was spotted comin’ in through the gate today under false identity. Somebody knew his face, and passed along the particulars. Now we’re to take him in.”
Malden had thought he would be safe here. Though he was well known in Ness he was a stranger in Helstrow. He’d assumed no one here had so much as heard of him. That foolishness had made him lax, made him forget his usual caution.
Cursing himself, he tried to decide which way to run. Normally when he entered a public building like this he would take a moment to memorize all the exits. This time he’d been so tired from the day’s riding he hadn’t bothered.
“But what’s the charge?” Cythera demanded.
Toothy looked at Scar, who looked back at him, as if they couldn’t decide between the two of them which one should answer. “Suspicion of bein’ a thief,” Toothy said, finally. “Now, which one of ye is called Malden?”
Balint began to laugh. Croy started to turn to look at Malden, giving him away.
Malden dropped his hand to his belt, where his bodkin used to be. It hadn’t been a good knife, really, but it had been his. Now it was gone—and in its place was a sword. A sword that should never have been his, a sword Croy had given him under false trust. A sword, more to the point, that he’d never learned how to use.
“Look out, Halbert—he’s got a cutter,” Scar said.
“Hand it over, boy,” Toothy—Halbert—said.
“What, this thing?” Malden asked. Then he drew the sword from its scabbard and let it taste the air. “It’s harmless.”
The sword had a name. It was called Acidtongue. The name came from the fact that while the blade looked like an old piece of iron, pitted and scored by age, it was in fact quite magical—on contact with the air, it secreted a powerful foaming acid that could burn through just about anything.
In olden times when demons walked the land, the sword had been made to fight against them. It was one of the seven Ancient Blades, brother to the one Croy wore at his own belt, and it had magic woven into its very metal. It could sear through demonic flesh that would resist normal iron weapons and cut through even the thickest armored shell or matted, brimstone-stinking fur. Malden knew from personal experience it worked just fine on more worldly substances as well.
With both hands on the hilt, Malden brought the blade around in a tight arc. The blade passed through the middle of a pewter tankard as if it were made of smoke. The top half of the tankard fell to the table with a clink—even as the wine it had contained splashed out across the table in a hissing wave.
Halbert and Scar both jumped back as if he’d thrown a snake at them. They also jumped a little to the side—Halbert to the left, Scar to the right.
Malden split the difference and dashed between the two of them, headed straight for the door.
CHAPTER SIX
Bursting out into the sunlight, Malden turned his head wildly from side to side, looking for any avenue of escape. His foot slipped on a pile of horse droppings and he slid wildly for a long second before he got his feet under him again. Scar and Halbert were already emerging from the inn’s door when he finally spotted his next move.
A low wall ran along one side of the innyard, a pile of unmortared stone attached to the side of the stables. It sloped gently upward toward the thatched roof of the stables and to one as fleet as Malden it was as good as a staircase. He danced up the rocks, hearing them tumble and crash as Scar tried to follow him. It was hard to be light-footed when you were covered in armor.
Malden grabbed a double handful of thatch and hauled himself up onto the roof. From there he looked out on a sea of rooftops belonging to the half-timbered houses he’d seen on the way to the inn. Most had slate shingles—which were hard to run on, as they tended to crack and shift under one’s feet. Far to his left, though he could see the lead-lined roof of a church.
If he could reach the church he could make some real speed. He jumped across a narrow alley to the top of the house nearest the inn and landed on his feet on the sloping roof. He’d come down hard on his left ankle but Malden merely switched his weight to his right foot and kept running. He heard the watchmen shouting for him to halt, but paid no mind. He’d yet to meet a watchman anywhere who could run along roof ridges as nimbly as he.
He was wise enough, however, to know he wasn’t free yet. As he jumped to the next roof he passed over an alley choked with workmen and beggars—and two more kingsmen, who gestured upward with their weapons as he passed. Up ahead he could see a public square where women were gathered around a well, washing clothes. More kingsmen were stationed there.
By Sadu’s eight index fingers, Malden swore, how many men had they sent for him? But then he saw other figures mixed in with the kingsmen. Smaller men, wearing no armor—their hands tied together before them. They had bruised faces and some were limping. They looked broken, and Malden understood.
The local watch wasn’t just after one thief who had entered the gate under false pretenses. They were sweeping up every criminal they could find. He had seen it happen before, in Ness, when the Burgrave of that city wanted to convince the populace of the grip he held on the streets. There was no better way to show one’s passion for law and order than rounding up a dozen thieves and hanging them all together in the market square.
He’d stumbled right into a mess, coming to Helstrow when he did. What an ignominious way to end his career. He hated to think he’d be brought down by something so crass.
Malden had no intention of being taken by the law, especially by the law of a town where he’d never actually committed a crime. He knew exactly what he would have to do, and having a plan put him a little more at his ease. For a while he would have to abandon his friends. He would have to find a cheap hostelry where he could lie low for a few days, then meet up again with Croy and Cythera once their business was done. He could join up with them after they’d dropped Balint off in front of a magistrate, when they were ready to leave again. Croy would probably urge him to turn himself in, but Cythera would smooth things over and the three of them could make a discrete exit from Helstrow fortress. If things got too hot in the meantime he could always climb over the wall and hide among the peasants outside.
But first he had to actually get away. Looking back, toward the inn, he saw that Scar and Halbert had procured a ladder and were even at that moment preparing to come up and catch him.
Had this been Ness, Malden would have known instantly which way to turn. He would have known some blind alley where he could lose his pursuers, or where the nearest bridge might be found so he could leap into the river, or he would remember the location of a root cellar where no one would ever think to look for him. But this was Helstrow, which he knew not at all.
The church he’d been running toward was out of the question. It fronted on the square where the kingsmen were gathering their catch. So he turned instead and headed north, toward the wall that separated the outer and inner baileys. It was the highest point he could see, and he always felt safest up in the air.
Leaping to a thatched roof he tucked and rolled, knowing the tight-packed straw would offer only spongy, uncertain footing. Spitting dry husks from his mouth he started running toward the rough stones of the wall—and then stopped in his tracks.
Up on the wall, between the crenellations, he saw royal guards in white cloaks looking down at him. One of them had a crossbow and was busy cranking at its windlass. In a moment the weapon would be ready to fire.
Crossbow bolts were designed to penetrate steel armor and pierce the vitals beneath. At this range, the shot would probably skewer Malden—who wore no armor at all—like a roasting chicken.
Backpedaling in horror, Malden dashed to the far side of the roof and grabbed its edge. He swung down toward the street and let go to drop the last few feet. He landed in the stall of a costermonger, amidst barrels of apples and pears.
The merchant shrieked and pointed at him.
“Good sir, I beg you, be still!” Malden said, leaning out of the entrance to the stall and looking up and down the street. “The kingsmen are after me, and—”
“Thief! Thief!” the coster howled. He plucked up a handful of plums and threw them at Malden with great force. Sticky juice splattered Malden’s cloak and the side of his face.
Holding up one arm to protect his eyes, Malden ran out of the shop and into a street full of marketers. They turned as one at the sound of the costermonger’s shout and stared at Malden with terrified eyes.
“Murder!” the fruit merchant shouted. “Fire!” The man would say anything, it seemed, to get the blood of the crowd up.
Malden had made a bad miscalculation. Had he dropped into a similar stall in Ness, he would have received a far warmer welcome. The coster would have shoved him under a blanket where he could hide until the coast was clear. But Ness was a Free City, where it was a point of civic pride that no one trusted their rulers. Here, in Helstrow, every man was a vassal of the king—his property, in all but name. And Malden knew from bitter experience that slaves often feared their masters more than they loved freedom.
“Thief! Fire! Guards!” the cry went up, from every lip in the street. A dozen fingers pointed accusingly at Malden, while shopkeepers rang bells and clanged pots together to add to the hue and cry.
“Damn you all for traitors,” Malden spat, and hurried down the street as women pelted him with eggs and rotten vegetables and children grabbed at his cloak to try to trip him. He thrust his arm across his eyes to save himself from being blinded by the shower of filth and ran as fast as he dared on the trash-slick cobblestones.
But just as suddenly as it started, the cry ceased. Malden was left in silence, unmolested. Had he escaped the throng? He’d taken no more than a dozen steps away from them, yet—
He lowered his arm, and saw a knight in armor come striding toward him, sword in hand.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The marketers all fled or pressed into the doors of shops where they could watch from something like safety. Malden was alone with his enemy in a wide open street, alone and very short on options.
The knight clanked as he walked. He wore a full coat of plate that covered him from head to toe. Even his joints were protected by chain mail. The visor of his helmet was down and Malden could see nothing of his face.
Such armor, Malden knew, had an effect on the mind of the man who wore it. It made him believe himself to be invulnerable. Which was true, for all practical purposes—no iron sword could slash through that steel. Spear blades and bill hooks would simply clash off the armor, at worst denting its shiny plates. Protected thus, men tended to think that their safety meant they were blessed by the gods, and that whatever they chose to do was also blessed.
Such armor was a license for cruelty and rapine.
Yet there were weapons that could pierce that protective shell. The bodkin Malden had once carried was designed to pierce even steel, if driven with enough force and good aim. Battle axes were designed to smash through armor by sheer momentum. An arrow from a longbow, as Malden had seen, could cut through it like paper.
And then there was Acidtongue, the sword at Malden’s belt. If he could strike one solid blow with it, the sword could cut the knight in half.
Yet that might be the stupidest thing Malden ever did. Atop the plate, the knight wore a long white tabard that hung down to his knees. Painted on the cloth was a golden crown. This wasn’t a knight errant like Croy, but a knight in full estate, a champion of the king of Skrae. Most likely he was the captain of the watch, superior in rank to all the Scars and Halberts in Helstrow.
If Malden got lucky and cut the man down, he would be pursued unto the ends of the world. You did not kill a nobleman and get away with it, not ever.
He could, of course, run away. The knight seemed agile enough even weighed down with so much steel, but Malden would undoubtedly be fleeter and the chase would not go far. He turned around, intending to do this very thing, only to find he had hesitated a moment too long.
Coming down the street from the other direction, a pack of kingsmen were advancing on him steadily. Their weapons were all pointed straight at his belly. They held their ground, not advancing with any kind of speed—clearly they intended to let the knight handle him. Yet there was no chance of getting past that wall of blades. Malden’s only possible escape was to get past the knight.
Malden wasn’t the type to pray, even in extremity, but he called on Sadu then. Sadu the bloodgod, the leveler, who brought justice to all men in the end, even knights and nobility. Then he drew his magic sword, and wished he’d bothered to learn how to swing it correctly. Or at least to hold it properly. Acid dripped from the eroded blade and spat where it struck the dusty cobbles.
The knight swore, his voice echoing inside his helmet. “By the Lady! Where’d you get that treasure, son? Did you steal it from Sir Bikker?”
Malden’s eyes narrowed. How could the knight know who had first owned Acidtongue? “Bikker is dead,” he said.
“But yours wasn’t the hand that slew him, I warrant. You’re no Ancient Blade.”
For the first time Malden looked on the knight’s own sword. No jewels decorated the pommel, and the quillions were of plain iron, though well polished. The blade was not even particularly long. Yet vapor lifted from its flat to spin in the air, and patterns of frost crackled in its fuller.
“Do you recognize my sword?” the knight asked.
“Judging by the fact I’m still in one piece, I think it’s fair to say I haven’t made its acquaintance.”
The knight laughed. “This is Chillbrand,” he said. “You’d know that, if Acidtongue was rightfully yours. No Ancient Blade is handed down to a new wielder until he’s been trained by the man who wielded it before him. He’s taught its proper use, and about the history and powers of all seven. None of us would ever let one of the swords fall into the hands of one who didn’t appreciate their traditions.”
“I’m still being trained,” Malden said, which was true enough.
The knight shook his head, though. “If you don’t know Chillbrand, you have no right to bear Acidtongue. I must assume you stole it from Bikker—or looted it from his dead body. Put the sword back in its sheath, now, and lay it gently on the ground. That’s a good boy.”
Malden’s lips pulled back from his teeth and he roared as he ran at the knight. He brought Acidtongue up high over his shoulder—vitriol pattered and burned holes through his cloak—and then swung it down hard.
The knight laughed, and easily batted Acidtongue away with Chillbrand.
“It’s not a quarterstaff, son,” the knight said, taking two steps to Malden’s right, forcing Malden to whirl around to face him again. “Don’t swing it around like a stick. That’s a waste of its strength. Cut with it. Like you’d chop the head off a fish.”
“You’d teach me to fight, even as I’m trying to kill you?” Malden asked.
“Judging by your skill it’ll take you quite a while to do that,” the knight responded. “I have to find some way to pass the time.”
Malden seethed with rage. He tried a stroke he’d seen Croy make a dozen times—feint quickly to the left, then shift all your weight to your right side and on the follow-through, bring the blade around to—
Iron clanged on iron. Chillbrand slid down Acidtongue’s blade and its point was suddenly at Malden’s throat, while Acidtongue was thrust harmlessly to one side.
“A swordsman,” the knight told Malden, “trains every day of his life. He sustains himself on wholesome food, to build up his strength. You’re puny, boy. You’ve gone to bed hungry one too many times. You’re quick on your feet, I’ll give you that, but the muscles in your arm are soft as cheese. I can feel it.”
“Will you insult me to death? Stop toying with me!”
“When two knights meet, swords in hand, they call it a conversation, because of the way the steel sounds its joy, back and forth. But you’d know that, too, if—”
Without warning, Malden brought Acidtongue around with his weight behind it, intending to run it straight through the knight’s body. Acidtongue flickered in the air it moved so quickly. Yet the knight was as ready for the blow as if he’d read Malden’s mind. Chillbrand came down from overhead and turned Acidtongue to the side like earth off the blade of a plow.
“Cut me down or let me pass!” Malden shrieked.
“If you insist,” the knight said.
Yet he would not even grant Malden the mercy of a quick death. Instead he just lunged forward and slapped Malden across the forehead with the flat of his blade.
Ice crystals grew and burst inside Malden’s brain, exploding his thoughts and freezing his senses. He felt every shred of warmth sucked from his body, drawn into the freezing sword. He started to shake and his teeth clacked together like the wooden clappers of the lepers he’d seen. His body convulsed with the cold and suddenly he could not control his fingers, and Acidtongue fell from his hand to bounce off the cobblestones.
Desperately Malden tried to wrap his arms around himself, to stamp his feet—anything to get warm. His body had rebelled against him, and he could not stop shaking.
It was the work of a moment for the kingsmen behind him to grab him up, and bind him, and haul him away. He could offer no resistance at all.
CHAPTER EIGHT
When Malden burst out of the inn, Cythera leapt to her feet fully intending to follow him. People pressed in on every side though and she just could not match the thief’s speed or nimbleness. Still she tried to push her way through the crowd—until Croy grabbed her arm and dragged her back.
“If they have a warrant for his arrest,” Croy said, “we must—”
“He’s our friend,” Cythera said, staring daggers at the knight errant. “I’m going after him!”
“If you must, then at least let’s do it the right way. We’ll speak to the proper authorities, and find out why they want him and how he can be freed. Just let me settle up our bill here, and—”
She stared at him with wild eyes. “I’ll go alone. You keep an eye on Balint.” She twisted her arm out of his grip and ducked under the elbow of the taverner, who had come to see what all the fuss was about. The people in the inn drew back when they saw the look in her face.
She would not lose Malden. Not now, when she’d just realized how she felt about him. That fate should take him away from her now was unacceptable.
Outside of the inn she sought wildly through the crowded streets, having no idea where she should look for Malden first. She knew he would likely have taken to the rooftops but she wasn’t as nimble and couldn’t follow him that way. When she heard the hue and cry go up, though, she knew to head in the direction of the shouting—and raced around a corner just in time to see Malden struck down. She called out his name in horror but couldn’t move from the spot, paralyzed in terror. She thought for certain he was dead, his head caved in by the blow, but instead he merely collapsed to the street, quaking like a man in the grip of a terrible seizure.
She wanted to run forward, to grab him up and take him away, to rescue him. But the square was full of kingsmen and the armored knight stood watchful and ready. There was no way she could help Malden now, not directly. There must be something she could do, though, something to—
“Daughter. You have been gone too long.”
Cythera’s jaw dropped. “Mother?”
Creeping dread made every muscle in her back ripple and tense. Slowly she turned around, expecting to see Coruth the witch standing in the alley behind her.
Instead there was a boy there, a little peasant boy with a dirty face. And several hundred birds.
Rooks, starlings, pigeons and doves all stood on the cobbles, or perched on the timbers of the houses on either side. More of them came down to land around the boy as Cythera watched. Some fluttered down to land on his shoulders, others to perch atop his head. The birds were all staring at her.
The boy, in way of contrast, looked at nothing. His eyes were unfocused and looked like they might roll up into their sockets. His arms hung loose at his sides and the muscles of his face were all slack, so that he slurred his words as he spoke to her again.
“You are required in Ness. You must come home immediately.”
Cythera knew what was happening. That didn’t make it any less unsettling. Her mother had set her spirit loose upon the ether, let it drift with the movements of birds, as was her wont. It allowed her to see things hidden from human eyes and to keep a watch on the entire kingdom of Skrae at once. Yet birds could not convey proper messages—their beaks and tongues were ill-formed for human speech. So Coruth must have overridden the boy’s consciousness with her own. It was a cruel thing to do and Cythera knew Coruth would only have turned to such magic if she had no other choice.
“Malden’s in trouble, mother. You and I both owe him a great debt—I can’t go anywhere until he’s safe. I just watched him get struck by an Ancient Blade.”
“Chillbrand,” the boy said. He did not nod. Coruth was controlling only enough of his functions to speak with. That was the difference between witchcraft and sorcery, sometimes. A sorcerer would have taken the boy over completely—and left him mindless and half-dead when the sorcerer was done with him. “One of the seven. Strange. I can see them all now, all seven of the swords. They are coming together, as if drawn by a magnet.”
“The swords are coming to Helstrow?” Cythera asked, intrigued despite herself.
“For a brief while. Hmm. This could be trouble. The future is not entirely clear right now. What is clear is that you must return to Ness. We must speak, you and I. Great events are unfolding. Some we care about will be brought low, while others are lifted to the heights. What was solid and eternal will become mutable. Malden … did you say Malden was in trouble? But that’s impossible. He has—he will—”
The boy’s lips pressed tightly together, and one of his hands twitched. Coruth was losing control of him.
“Mother? Mother, what are you talking about?” Cythera demanded. Coruth could see the underpinnings of reality, she could even glimpse the future, but often what she saw was so cryptic even she could make no sense of it. Cythera understood maybe one part in ten of what Coruth told her of those visions. “Mother, please. I need to know more—if this will effect Malden, or Croy, I need to know!”
But Coruth had released the boy. His eyes slowly focused and his face regained something like normal muscle tone. Cythera knelt down to put her hands on his shoulders and help him return to full control of his body by stroking his forehead and rubbing his back. “Mistress,” he said, and blinked his eyes rapidly. “Mistress, I beg your pardon—I must’a come runnin’ down here and bumped you, and scattered me wits for a moment. I—I—where am I? I was s’posed to do somethin’, but I can’t rightly recall what. I can’t remember much, tell the truth. My head aches somethin’ awful.”
“You were supposed to give me a message. You did just fine.” Cythera took a farthing from her purse and pressed it into his hand. “You do look like you’ve had a shock. Best run home now and lie down.”
The boy took the coin and headed off, scattering the birds that bobbed and scampered around the alley. Cythera hoped he would do as she’d said—the spell he’d been under would leave him drained and scattered for days, and she would hate to find out he’d come to some mischief just for helping Coruth.
Slowly she rose to her feet again. She would return to the inn and find Croy. The knight-errant was Malden’s only hope, now. Before she headed back, though, she waited until one of the birds was turned away from her. Then she darted forward and grabbed it with both hands. It was a pigeon with iridescent wings and it was not so frightened as it should have been. That meant some piece of Coruth’s mind was still inside its head. “Mother,” she whispered to the bird, “you could have been more helpful. I got your message but all you’ve achieved is to scare me a bit. If you have any idea what I’m supposed to do now, I’d love to hear it.”
The bird struggled in her hands, and she released it. Without even looking at her it took to the air and flew away.
CHAPTER NINE
They dragged Malden through the gate to the inner bailey, then up a hill to the keep. No one spoke to him, and he was still too blasted with cold to ask any questions. When they arrived inside the thick stone walls of the keep he expected to be thrown into an oubliette and forgotten. He had, after all, threatened a knight of the king. Instead, however, he was taken into a spacious feasting hall where an iron collar was locked around his throat and then chained to a staple in one wall. The hall was already full of men, mostly young, mostly with the scrawny, shifty-eyed look of dire poverty. Malden thought he recognized a few of the faces—he had seen them being rounded up in the square. These, it seemed, were his people. Thieves and beggars, the seedy underbelly of Helstrovian society. Not that this knowledge was likely to help him—they didn’t know him from the Emperor of the South. Nor was he in any shape to introduce himself. He could barely keep his teeth from breaking, they chattered so much.
For a great while, Malden curled himself about his stomach and just shivered. He felt like all of winter’s chill had gathered in his bones. He felt his heart racing, booming in his chest. His fingers turned bright red as if they had been frostbitten. A fire burned in a hearth at one side of the hall, and he longed and dreamed of going to it, of shoving his hands directly into the flames, simply for the warmth he would feel before his flesh singed and burnt. Luckily the chain around his neck kept him from doing so.
In time, the supernatural chill withdrew from his bones. He doubted he would ever truly feel warm again, but his teeth stopped knocking together so much.
Blowing warm breath on his fingers, he struggled to sit up and look around. Nothing had changed over the last hour, save that more men had been brought into the hall. Very few of them were talking to each other. Mostly they sat in dull silence and stared at things that weren’t there. They came and chained up a man next to Malden, a middle-aged starveling whose eyes were quite mad. He stared at Malden without speaking until Malden turned to the man on his other side.
“You,” Malden said, to the surly fellow. He needed information and no other source provided itself. “What did they get you for, then?”
“What’s it to ye?”
“I’m a scholar of justice,” Malden told him.
That elicited a brief laugh, though little humor. “They never said why. Just grabbed me up outta me bed. Mind, I suppose I deserve to be here more’n some.”
“You’re a thief, then?” Malden asked. The other bridled so he held up his hands for peace. “I’m in the trade myself,” he explained, “and will say as much to any man who asks.”
“Alright, then. Call me a thief, if ye like.”
Malden nodded eagerly. Then he ran his hands across the rushes on the floor. As expected there was a thick layer of dust underneath. He cleared some rushes away, then drew in the dust with his finger, sketching a heart transfixed by a key.
The other thief stared down at the image. Malden knew right away that the man recognized the symbol—he knew it for the mark of Cutbill, the master of the thieves’ guild in Ness. He had worried that the symbol might not be known in Helstrow.
The other thief slid one foot through the drawing, obliterating it before anyone else could see. “You’re his man?” he asked.
Malden nodded.
“We got our own boss here, though I shan’t say his name out loud, not in this place. You can have what they call me, though, which is Velmont.”
“Malden.”
The two of them clasped hands, but only for a moment.
The thief made a point of looking away as he spoke out of the side of his mouth. “Now maybe my boss has heard o’ your boss. Maybe they’s even friends. Well, men of business will come together, eh, and find ways to help each other out, from time to time. Still, I don’t know what you’re after, showing me that.”
Malden frowned. “Just a bit of knowledge, really. The watch here—the kingsmen—are rounding up every scofflaw in town, it seems. I’ve never seen such a complete sweep before. Unless you tell me this is a common occurrence in Helstrow—”
“It ain’t.”
“—then I can only wonder why they’re being so thorough. There must be a hundred men in this room. And why here? This looks like a banquet hall, not a dungeon. The only reason to put us here is if the gaol is already full. And that means there must be plenty more of us stashed in other places, too. Maybe hundreds of men. Surely the king doesn’t intend to hang us all. He wouldn’t need to slaughter so many just to improve public morale.”
Velmont scratched himself. “It started just a few days ago. Folks that’d been in the game far longer’n me—folks that shoulda been untouchable, like—got scooped up in the middle o’ the night. Then they started raiding the gambling houses and the brothels at dawn.” He shrugged. “No one tells us anything, o’ course. We’re just peasants, what do we need t’know? But ’twas at the same time, that all the honest men in town got taken outside the wall to learn how to shoot a bow.” The thief shook his head. “You just in town today? Your accent says you’re from Ness, is that right?”
Malden assented with a nod.
“You picked a lousy time to come see Helstrow, friend. Now, I don’t think we’re to be killed. No, not as such. But I’ve been wondering ’bout what they’re up to meself, and there’s only one conclusion I can draw. Conscription.”
“They’re going to press us into military service?”
“Give us a choice, like.” Velmont smiled wickedly. “The noose or the army. Well, I know my answer already.”
“I suppose we all do. That must be what they’re counting on. By law they can’t force freemen to fight for the king—”
“But a prisoner’s another story, aye.”
Conjecture was all Velmont had to go on, but what he said made sense to Malden. Why the king wanted an army now, of all times, Malden had no idea. The two thieves discussed various theories for some time, without coming to any further useful ideas.
They were still talking when the sun went down and darkness filled the hall. The only light they had came from the fire in the hearth. All around them men laid down as best they could and curled themselves in sleep. Those who still spoke softly amongst themselves all seemed to agree that they were to be kept in the banquet hall overnight at the very least. So when someone entered the hall with a lantern and started shining it in the faces of the imprisoned, everyone sat up and looked. Velmont and Malden fell silent and tried to look as if they’d never spoken to one another. They were in enough trouble as it was and didn’t need to be accused of conspiracy.
The lantern moved up and down the hall. The guards never spoke, just played their light over each face and then moved on, clearly not finding what they sought. As the guard with the lantern came closer, Malden somehow knew they were coming for him. When the light hit his face, he refused to blink. The guard beckoned to someone else—a kingsman—who came rushing up out of the darkness. Then the guard pointed one accusing finger at Malden. “Him.”
CHAPTER TEN
“This way, sir knight, milady,” the castellan said, and ushered them inside a low-ceilinged room. “Please wait here until you are officially presented.”
“What are we waiting for?” Cythera asked. “I don’t understand. We wanted to talk to the magistrate, so we could find out where our friend is being held.”
“I was bidden only to bring you here, where you may await your audience,” the castellan told her. Then he stepped backward out into the hall and closed the door behind him.
Croy stared at the doors, wondering exactly what was going on. Why had they been brought here, of all places? Why now?
Cythera turned to him and asked, “This doesn’t look like a law court. Where are we?”
The knight cleared his throat. “The privy council chamber. This is where the king consults his closest advisors.”
“And—our audience? Who have we been summoned to see? One of those advisors?”
Croy could barely speak for the emotion he felt. This room—this very room. “I don’t know why we were brought here,” he said at last.
Cythera sighed deeply and went to sit down. It had been a very long day for her, Croy thought. They’d had to run from office to office in the inner bailey, looking for anyone who might tell them where Malden might be, or who might take charge of Balint so they didn’t have to keep looking after her. They had at least succeeded in the latter goal. They had been allowed to turn the dwarf prisoner over to the king’s equerry, of all people—the official in charge of the royal stables. It seemed there was nowhere else in the inner bailey that wasn’t already full of prisoners.
No one could tell them anything about Malden. But after they had approached the keep, where they were told some prisoners were being held, the castellan himself had come looking for them, and he had brought them here.
Here. To this room.
Croy had been inside the privy council chamber before, many times. There had been a time he had stood in this room every day. The Ancient Blades had been forged to slay demons, but by the time Croy received Ghostcutter from his father there had been too few demons left to justify having five knights just for that purpose. Instead the bearers of the Blades had been commissioned to be the personal bodyguards of the king—the previous king, Ulfram IV.
It was in this room that Ulfram IV had died. A villainous councilor had slipped poison into his mutton. The Ancient Blades had caught the councilor before he could escape but it was already too late. It was also in this room that his son, Ulfram V, current sovereign of Skrae, had blamed the bodyguards for his father’s death, and stripped them of their commission. He would have done far more to them, if he’d been able to prove they had anything to do with the assassination, but everyone knew the sacred honor of the Blades. All he could do was send them forth from Helstrow in disgrace.
Croy remembered that day very well. It had been the worst day of his life. In some ways he would have preferred to have been hanged rather than face that shame. That was the day he became a knight errant—a servant without a master.
He had never expected to enter this room again.
He looked around him and saw how little had changed. The shields hanging on the walls were a bit rustier than they had been. The upholstery on the chairs that lined the walls had been changed from red to green, that was all, really. Then he spotted the one significant change.
A tapestry map covered one wall of the chamber, a cunning depiction of the natural and political features of Skrae picked out in minute embroidery of silken floss. The Whitewall—the mountain range that formed Skrae’s eastern border—had been stitched from thread of silver, and it glittered in the firelight. Except for one dull patch.
Croy approached the map and looked more closely. It was as he expected. Someone had used the point of a knife to pick out all the threads that had made up the image of Cloudblade, the kingdom’s tallest mountain. Which only made sense, since the mountain wasn’t there any more.
Croy blushed to think of the part he’d had in that.
“Croy,” Cythera said, turning to him to speak in a hurried whisper, “I don’t know what we’re doing here. But I’m certain that once it’s done we should leave Helstrow as soon as possible. My mother sent me a message today, telling me to come home.”
“She sent a message here? How did the messenger find you?”
“She didn’t send me a letter,” Cythera pointed out. “She has other methods of getting her point across. It doesn’t matter how it was done. She said that things were about to change, that all seven of the Ancient Blades were coming here. She said many things I didn’t understand. We need to find Malden as soon as possible and—”
She stopped because there was a knock on the door, and then two prisoners were brought inside. Balint and Malden, both of them in chains. Croy rushed toward Malden’s side, intending to ask his friend what had happened, but he was not given time. The same guard who brought in the prisoners had an announcement to make.
“All bow for His Majesty Ulfram Taer, Fifth of that Name!”
It was to be a royal audience, then. They had been brought here to wait for the king himself. It made no sense. Yet Croy knew exactly what to do. He drew his sword and held it before him with the point on the floor, then knelt behind it. He lowered his head as far as it would go.
“Oh, do stand up, Croy,” the king said. “And put that thing away before you scratch up the floorboards.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Ulfram V was a year younger than Croy, but the strain of ruling a nation had aged him prematurely. The hair on his chin had turned gray since the last time the two had seen each other, and a constant diet of rich foods had swollen his belly. It was held almost in check now by a steel breastplate and gorget that he wore over his state robes.
When Croy saw the king’s armor, he knew at once the explanation for many of the strange things he’d seen since coming to Helstrow. The king of Skrae only wore such protection in times of war.
“My liege,” Croy said, “I beseech your mercy, and honor your rank, for—”
“Shut up,” the king said, in a tone that could not be argued with. “I told you never to come back here, didn’t I? Don’t bother answering. I know I did. But here you are. I could have you hanged, right now. Unfortunately for me, however, it turns out I have need of you, Croy. So I’m going to let you live.”
Croy said nothing, only lowered his head further.
“I have very little time for this audience, so we’ll dispense with formal salutations, I think,” the king told him. “I seem to recall that when I took away your commission, you said some pointlessly devout thing about never forgetting your vows anyway. Is that right?”
“It is,” Croy said, and dropped to one knee again. “The vow I made to you is a sacred bond. I swore it on the name of the Lady, and to break that promise would cost me my utter soul. I will forever be your vassal, your majesty.”
The king sighed and waved for Croy to stand again. “Very well. As of now you’re reinstated as one of my knights. I suppose you’ll want a ceremony for that or something, but I don’t care. You’ll report immediately to Sir Hew at the gatehouse. He’ll give you your orders. You may leave me now—I have these others to account for.”
“Majesty,” Croy said. He almost knelt again, but thought better of it. “I came here for a reason. It’s of these two prisoners I wished to speak.”
The king had started to turn away, to address Balint. Now he stopped and for a long moment he stood in silence, a confused expression on his face. “I beg your pardon? You wished to speak to me?” he asked. He seemed more surprised than angry. “You have been errant a long time, knight. Perhaps you’ve forgotten that a vassal does not speak to the king unless he is bidden.”
Croy lowered his head. “Your forgiveness, Majesty. Yet you must know of the crimes of this dwarf, and the innocence of this man. Justice demands that I speak.”
The king crossed over to one of the chairs against the wall and sat down. It was a chair like any other in the room, but by virtue of Ulfram V’s presence, it legally became a throne at that moment. Croy knelt before it.
“Just make haste,” the king said. “I’m quite busy at the moment.”
Croy kept his head bowed. “This dwarf is an oathbreaker. I’ll bear witness to the fact, in any court you decree. She is a murderer and a despoiler. A … poisoner,” he added. Ever since his father’s death, the king had been especially frightened of poisoners. It was cruel of Croy to even speak the word in this room, but it was the truth, and it needed to be aired. “She took up arms against humans and … others. She laid waste to an entire city, by deceit, by design, and by use of weapons.”
Ulfram turned to look at the dwarf. “Is this true?” he asked.
“Every fucking word of it,” Balint told the king. She rolled her eyes. “Do your worst, and send me on my way. I’ve an itch on my buttocks I can’t scratch, not with my hands tied like this.”
“Another pointless delay!” the king screeched. Pressing his fingertips against his temples, he called out to his servants in the hall. “Fetch a scribe! Have him bring parchment and ink. And someone unchain her. What is your name, dwarf?”
“Balint.”
Croy glared at her. “When addressing the king, you will call him, ‘your majesty’, or—”
“Or not. I certainly don’t care,” Ulfram said. Croy’s shoulders tensed. He’d always thought kings should be slightly aloof, detached at least from the lesser folk they governed. Ulfram V clearly thought otherwise—he’d always disdained the careful phrases of court etiquette and spoke plainly as a peasant. That was his right, of course—the king could speak how he chose to whom he chose. If Croy found it unseemly that was his own problem.
“It seems I’m to be merciful today,” the king said. “Believe me, it’s not by choice. Any other day if you came here under these accusations I’d exile you on the spot. I have very little patience for those who won’t do as they’re told.”
Balint said nothing. Her face was a mask of nonchalance, though Croy could see her bound hands were trembling.
“Tell me,” Ulfram said. “Can you repair a broken ballista?”
“Any dwarf could do that,” Balint assured him.
The king nodded. “And you laid waste to a city. That’s what Croy said. He does tend to exaggerate, but you don’t deny the charge. So you know how to conduct a siege. Do you know how to defend cities, too, or is it just destroying them you’re good at?”
“I’m trained in all manner of siegecraft,” Balint said. “I can work either side.”
“Sometimes the Lady drops Her blessings right in our laps.” The king reached down and put a hand on the dwarf’s shoulder. “I’m going to give you a pardon for all crimes you may have committed in the past,” he told her.
Croy’s jaw fell.
“I assume that will earn me some gratitude. Perhaps,” the king went on, “you’ll consent to come work for me. I am in desperate need of sappers and engineers. Are we agreed?”
“Do I have to kiss your royal fucking codpiece or something to seal the deal?” Balint asked.
The king studied her carefully, then raised one eyebrow. “No.”
“Then I’m all yours.”
“Your majesty!” Croy objected. “I—I can’t believe that—”
But then he stopped. He couldn’t finish that thought out loud. He wasn’t a knight errant anymore. He had lost certain freedoms the moment he was recommissioned. Questioning the king’s word was one of them. “I beg your pardon, Majesty. I will be silent now.”
“That’ll be a nice change of pace,” the king told him. “Very good. Milady Balint, you’ll report to the keep. Sir Goris is the master of the armory there—tell him I want a full inventory of every trebuchet, battering ram and mantlet in our possession, and how many more of the same can be constructed in short order. Goris is a fool of parts. He knows the difference between a besagew and a rerebrace, but I’m not sure he can tell his hundreds from his thousands, so double check every number he gives you. We’ll have much to discuss later, so stay close by.”
Balint bowed low and said, “Your majesty.”
“One thing,” the king said, before dismissing her. “Sir Croy may be an idiot but all the same if he says someone’s not to be trusted he’s probably right. Serve me well and we’ll forget about your indiscretions. Betray me and I’ll send you back to the dwarven kingdom sealed up in a barrel like salt pork. Do you understand?”
Balint nodded agreeably. Then she marched out of the room with her chin up. She couldn’t resist giving an evil snicker as she walked past Croy.
“Now, this one—your name is Malden, is that right? And you’re a thief?”
“My name is Malden, your majesty,” Malden said, glancing over at Croy and Cythera. He pleaded silently with his eyes.
Yet what could Croy do? If he tried to free Malden now, he’d be breaking his promise to the king. And that was unthinkable.
“Sir Hew took you into custody this morning. Ordinarily he would have sent you to the magistrates, but he told me there was something special about your case, and of course, my time is valued so little around here that he insisted I judge you personally. Apparently you were in possession, at the time of your arrest, of one of the famous swords. The blasted Ancient Blades.”
“The one called Acidtongue, highness,” Malden confirmed.
“A rather valuable piece of iron.” The king frowned. His eye took in Malden’s cheap cloak, the lack of flesh on his bones. “Look, lad, it’s clear that you stole the blade. You’re no more a swordsman than I’m a fishwife. So I’ll give you the same choice I plan on giving every criminal and vagrant in this city. You can go back to the gaol and wait until I have time to hang you properly. Or—if you prefer—I can enlist you in my army as a foot soldier, and you can earn forgiveness through military service. Assuming you survive.”
“Begging your majesty’s pardon, I like neither of those options,” Malden said.
“No, I don’t suppose you would. But that’s what I’m offering.”
“To a guilty man, yes. But I am innocent. I did not steal the sword. It was given to me freely by its rightful owner—Sir Croy.”
Every eye in the room turned to stare at the knight.
Ücretsiz ön izlemeyi tamamladınız.
