A Thief in the Night (13 page)

Chapter Twenty-one

T
he horses screamed as water jumped over the side of the raft and licked at their feet, but Croy didn't have time to soothe them. He was too busy pushing against a rock as big as a house that stuck up from the middle of the river Strow. Malden dipped his own pole in the water and added his strength, and between the two of them they managed to get the raft moving away from the boulder.

“Slag, are you sure this thing will hold together?” Cythera asked, fear pitching her voice high.

“Yes, I am fucking sure,” the dwarf shouted back. Slag grabbed at one of the taut ropes attached to the mast as they were all swung about by the current.

Croy had planned on building a traditional raft, a square platform of logs lashed together, but the dwarf insisted he knew a better way. The thing he'd constructed looked more like a spider's web, with logs radiating out from a central upright mast. Ropes hanging down from the mast braced each log, allowing them to move back and forth and even up and down as the water surged beneath them.

“Another rock!” Cythera cried.

Croy shoved his pole down into the stony bed of the river and heaved once more. On the far side of the raft Mörget howled some barbarian war cry and leaned across the water, pushing them clear with his arms. The raft spun around on the axis of its mast like a wagon wheel, and the sky and the land flashed around Croy until his head felt light, but suddenly Cythera was laughing and the dwarf was jumping up and down, pointing at the far bank. It was only a few yards away. Croy jumped down into the water with a rope and tied off to a boulder there, his blood singing in his veins. He heaved against his line, and the raft beached on a bank of pebbles and sparse grass. Cythera untied the horses and they bolted gratefully for dry land.

Once everyone was safely ashore, Croy dragged their supplies off the raft and then fell back into a patch of grass and just stared up at the sky for a while, glad to be alive. “I didn't think we'd make it,” he said when he had the strength to sit up again.

The knight rubbed at his wet face and looked around. He found himself on a grassy verge shaded by tall trees. The sun had just come up—for some reason, Malden and Mörget both wanted to get an early start, and they crossed the river in the first blue light of dawn. Under the canopy of leaves it might still have been night.

“I'm soaked to the skin,” Cythera said, reaching for a horse blanket. “We should get a fire going and dry our clothes. Croy. If you please.”

“Hmm?”

“I'm going to disrobe,” she said, shaking out the blanket.

“Oh, yes?” He tried to look innocent.

“You could at least turn your back,” she said.

“I thought, perhaps, as we are betrothed, you might allow me to . . .” He couldn't bring himself to say the rest. Especially with the way she stared at him.

“Stop thinking of me as your wife,” she said. “At least until we return to Ness. I won't give you any excuse to send me home, not now. If you start thinking you're my master, you'll think you can order me around. Now. Turn your back.”

Croy did as he was told. What choice did he have? It was clear Cythera intended to see this adventure through, regardless of how it made him feel. His back burned as if he felt her eyes on him. When she was finished and told him he could turn around again, he saw she was wrapped completely in the blanket, with only her feet exposed.

They were lovely feet.

He went to see to the horses. The animals looked grateful to be back on dry land, but still they whickered and bucked when Croy approached them. Malden came up behind him, standing well back, as if afraid of being kicked.

“Did we truly need to sell the wagon? With Slag's improvements, that was probably the most valuable piece of cartage in Skrae,” Malden pointed out. “Are you sure we got good value for it?”

Croy laughed and nodded. Where they were going next there were no proper roads, and they would have spent more time pulling the wagon out of mud or levering it over tree roots than they did traveling. “For Slag, I found this pony,” he said, pointing out the piebald colt. “A good courser for Cythera. And for you, a jennet.”

Malden approached the indicated horse with a look of distinct fear. The roan looked back at him with pure apathy. The thief reached out tentatively to touch the animal's forelock but the jennet snorted and he yanked his hand away. “You got me a horse,” he said. “Croy, I'm afraid to tell you this, but I never learned how to ride.”

“I assumed as much, and so chose the gentlest, most kindly dispositioned animal I could find. Don't worry. She'll do all the work. You just need to hang on.”

“Well,” Malden said, taking a step back, “I'll do my best.”

“I have something else for you as well,” Croy said with a sly grin. He'd been waiting a long time for this.

He went over to where their supplies were piled in a heap and took out a long bundle wrapped in oilcloth. “You didn't need this back when we were in civilized country, but now we're properly in the wilderness I want you to have it.” He unwrapped the bundle to reveal a sword in a thick scabbard. He held it out toward Malden in both hands.

“Ah,” Malden said. “A sword. I don't think I want to wear a—”

“Not just any sword,” Croy said. “I believe you know this one.” He drew the sword carefully from its special glass-lined sheath. In the firelight it looked ragged and notched, and when it caught the light the blade was revealed as nothing more than a corroded and pitted bar of iron with a weathered point. As soon as it was exposed to the air, however, glistening drops of fuming liquid began to break out upon its length, like steaming sweat.

“Acidtongue,” Malden whispered.

The name was said loud enough to get Mörget's attention. The barbarian had been chopping firewood. Now he stormed over to where Croy and Malden stood. He stared with open and unaffected lust at the eroded sword.

“One of the seven,” Mörget thundered. “Another Ancient Blade! You had this the whole time, Croy, and never mentioned it to me?”

“It is not mine to speak for,” Croy explained. “Its previous wielder, Bikker, was my teacher. I was forced to slay him in a duel of honor. Now I seek a proper replacement, someone I can train in its use. I've had Malden in mind for a long while.”

“Me?” Malden asked. “But—why? I'm no knight. I'm barely a free man, as far as the law is concerned. And I've never waved a sword around in my life.”

Croy nodded solemnly. He had known that Malden would doubt himself. Humility was a great virtue, one of the hardest for a knight to keep. Malden, with his low birth, would have an advantage there. “Traditionally it is knights who wield the swords. That makes sense—knights are trained in the use of such weapons, often trained from birth, as I was. My first toy was a wooden sword, did you know that? You, Malden, were born to a different estate. You were never trained for this. Yet this is not, as you say, the first time you've ever waved a sword around. You did it once before—with this particular blade.”

The thief blanched, but he nodded. “I suppose I did.”

“This runt?” Mörget asked. “Could he even lift a sword, if he had one to hand? I think it unlikely.”

“You weren't there,” Croy said. “Together, Malden and I faced the most powerful sorcerer in Skrae. A magician who thought nothing of summoning demons to do his bidding. One such creature was sent to hunt down Malden and destroy him. I wounded the beast with Ghostcutter, but I was too fatigued and injured to finish the job. Malden had to take up Acidtongue then and slay the beast. He did it without thinking, without hesitation. I've never seen such courage.”

“It was that or let the thing eat me,” Malden said. “I was so scared I thought I might soil my—”

Mörget chuckled. “You think there's some difference, little man, between terror and bravery? They're like the moon in its phases. Sometimes it waxes, and sometimes it wanes, but it's always there, all of it. We just don't see it all.”

“Since that day,” Croy went on, “you've shown true courage often enough—not least of all when you agreed to come with us on this quest. If we're going to fight a demon—if you're going to become one of us and pledge your life to fighting them—this is the perfect opportunity to start learning how.”

“You want me to become an Ancient Blade,” Malden said. “Like you.” The thief didn't seem to believe it was even possible.

The knight and the barbarian looked at Malden expectantly.

“I'm not meant for your squire, friend,” Malden insisted. “I'm not really the sword-slinging type. Please, I thank you, truly, but—”

“Just hold it a moment. See how it feels,” Croy insisted.

Malden stared at him. Then he glanced toward where Cythera and Slag sat by the riverbank. Croy wondered what he looked for from the two of them. He must have found it, though, for Malden took the sword by its hilt. He nearly dropped it—Croy supposed the thief was unused to a sword's weight—but then he managed to swing it through the air. Drops of potent acid flicked through the dark and sizzled in the undergrowth.

Malden took a step toward a nearby tree and brought the blade round in a wildly swinging arc. Croy winced at the poor swordsmanship, but he cheered as the sword smashed into the tree trunk with a noise like a hundred angry snakes. Malden jumped back as the tree toppled and fell with a great crash, its leaves thrashing and its branches snapping when it dropped to the forest floor.

The stump it left looked burnt around the edges, but in the middle the cut was clean. After a moment sap started to ooze from the sundered tree.

“In Sadu's name,” Malden breathed.

Croy coughed politely. The swords were consecrated to the Lady, after all, and not to the Bloodgod.

“Croy,” Malden said, “I can see you mean this as an act of great friendship. I have to admit I'm . . . touched.” The thief stared at the ground. “I worry I don't deserve it, though. There have been times I've not been as—faithful—a friend as I might. There have been times I've proven I don't deserve this gift.” Malden's arm shook as he spoke, as if great emotion were flowing through him. The tremor made flecks of acid rain on the carpet of pine needles below their feet. “There's something I must tell you. Something you don't want to hear—”

Croy held up one hand for silence. “Let the past be forgotten now,” he said. This was a sacred moment. The passing on of an Ancient Blade was a holy rite. “Prove to me, from now on, that you deserve to call me brother.”

“If you do not want the blade, little man,” Mörget said, “I will be glad to take it from you. By force, if necessary.”

Malden laughed, but Croy nodded sagely. “It's one of our vows,” he said. “If a wielder of the sword proves unworthy, he must be challenged and killed on the spot.”

“I suppose,” Malden said, “in that case I'd better hold on to it. For now.”

Chapter Twenty-two

T
here was still plenty of daylight left, so the companions loaded up their gear and got on their horses. Mörget and Croy were old hands at riding, of course, and Cythera knew how it was done. Slag needed some help getting on his pony but once on its back he seemed stable enough. They all had to wait while Malden tried to mount his jennet. He was nimble enough to jump up into the saddle, but once seated he found himself too far off the ground and started to grow dizzy and had to climb back down. It was ridiculous. How many times had he hung from finger grips off the spire of the Ladychapel in Ness, a hundred feet above the cobblestones? Yet the way the horse refused to stand still gave him vertigo. Mörget offered to strap him in with leather lashings, as was sometimes done for invalids and the very ill who nonetheless had to ride. Malden refused. He would do this. He had to. He could not turn around now. Half the country was after his blood—not to mention Prestwicke.

Eventually he managed to keep his seat and hold the reins as he was shown. The jennet had already proved herself a patient beast, and now she started walking with no compulsion, following the other horses. It was just like Croy had said, she did all the work. Malden clutched to the cantle of his saddle and tried to not fall off.

There were no roads, nor even any trails through the forest. No one lived there—the place was as deserted by human industry as the farmlands had been full of it. The riders had to pick their way around thick copses of gnarled trees and boulders overgrown with bright green moss. Croy led the way. He had an uncanny knack for knowing where the best route could be found. The others followed in single file. Slag rode his colt just in front of Malden, but the dwarf seemed as poor a horseman as the thief, because the colt kept stepping off the chosen path, its short legs finding better purchase elsewhere as they climbed over a fallen log or down into a defile. Then Malden's horse would follow the colt, and everyone would have to stop while all the horses were brought back in line.

It made for slow going. Malden had plenty of time to listen to the sounds of the forest, which constantly startled him in a way that the shouts of soldiers or the crash of thunder never could. Each bird sang with a song he'd never heard, every frog's croak was the roar of some massive beast. At least the endless maze of trees felt enough like the walls of a city's houses that he did not feel so exposed, as he had out in the fields of wheat.

Yet so preoccupied with the sounds of the forest was he that he did not notice in time when his jennet decided it had found a better path and led him deep into a stand of trees. He suddenly looked up and realized he could not see Slag ahead of him.

He was lost.

Well, the others couldn't be too far away, he decided. He shouted “Halloo!” and called Croy by name, and pulled up on the reins as he'd been shown to make the jennet stop. The horse, which clearly had decided she knew better than her rider, kept plodding onward, picking her way through a rank of ferns tall enough to brush Malden's knees.

“No, no, I said stop,” Malden told the horse. There was a proper word to use, wasn't there? He'd heard drovers in the city use it, to command their teams. “Whoa,” he said, and the jennet stopped instantly.

Malden didn't. He wasn't braced for the halt, and though he managed not to be thrown, he was pitched forward across the jennet's neck and one foot came loose from its stirrup. Clutching hard to the horse's mane, he cursed himself and tried to get back into the saddle.

That was when Malden heard the buzzing.

He froze, every sense tuned to that strange noise.

It had not sounded friendly.

Morning light streamed down through the trees, dancing around the shimmering leaves to dapple patches of undergrowth with sudden, blazing color. The wind that shook the branches never let up, and carried no sound but its own rising and falling susurration. Malden turned around as far as he could in the saddle to see what was behind him. Nothing but rocks and trees and briars.

“Did you hear that?” Malden asked the horse.

She had. Her ears stood straight up and she pawed nervously at the ground. From her demeanor he could guess her feelings: she very much wanted to run away, but her rider had given the command to halt.

“That's the problem with having a foolish master,” Malden sympathized. “Perhaps I should take your counsel.” He wore no spurs, but when he touched his heels to the jennet's flanks, she walked forward readily. Malden craned his neck to peer around him, looking for the source of the buzzing noise, and—

It came again, even louder, very close now. He nearly jumped off the horse's back so he could go running and screaming through the woods. But no. Surely he was safer on horseback. He reached down to touch the hilt of his bodkin. Then cursed himself as he remembered he had Acidtongue tied up behind the saddle. Surely the magic sword was the match for anything short of a fire-breathing dragon.

To his left, something crashed through the foliage. Malden wheeled around to that side and the jennet did likewise, snorting in panic.

The thing that came out of the woods was as big as a cow, and it gleamed with iridescent colors when the sunlight struck its back. Two stunted, cloudy eyes stood on either side of a curved black beak, below which spiky mandibles clicked together. The beast's massive oblong body stood supported on six slender legs that bent in all the wrong directions. Coarse black fur covered those legs, though the rest of the animal was smooth and covered in plates of armor.

The thing reared up and snapped at the jennet with its compound jaw.

Malden reached back to grab the hilt of Acidtongue and slapped the jennet's rump instead, because he could not see what he was doing. He couldn't take his eyes off the monster that bore down on him.

The horse, perhaps thinking her master had finally come to his senses, did a very horselike thing and bolted. Unfortunately Malden was leaning backward at that precise moment to reach the sword. He had to slip his feet out of the stirrups to get it.

The horse went forward. The thief went backward, head over ankles. He crashed to the leaf-strewn forest floor with a thump that took his wind.

The jennet disappeared between two thickets of trees. The monster ran forward, barreling right for Malden's prostrate form. Malden grabbed for the bodkin at his belt and brought it around in a wild arc, slashing at the thing's face.

The creature took a nimble step back, avoiding Malden's swing. Its jaws clacked together and Malden pulled his hand back. Carefully, he got to his feet. The monster tried to circle around behind him, so he turned with it. It lunged forward—he jabbed, and struck, but the point of his bodkin only scored the leathery hide on its beak.

Malden recovered and started another swing, intending to cut at its eyes. Surely they must be a weak point in its armor, he thought. He must strike true to catch such tiny targets. Yet as he leaned forward into the stab, the monster's carapace split open, two pieces of its shell peeling back as long glassy wings burst free and buzzed savagely.

Malden danced backward as it jumped up into the air and smashed into him. He was knocked back, his heel caught on a rotten log and he fell, his bodkin flashing wildly before him as the monster bore down on him from above. He threw up his free arm to fend it off, and the mandibles grabbed at the sleeve of his jerkin.

“No!” he shouted, certain it would snap the bones of his arm like so many twigs. The weight of the creature fell on him and he was enveloped in its strange reek, an acrid stench like nothing he'd ever smelled before. The mandibles closed on his arm and he yelped in anticipation.

Yet the pain did not come. The thing gummed at his sleeve, and Malden realized it did not have any teeth. It could grasp him, and drool on him, but it lacked the equipment to actually bite him.

It buzzed angrily and its skinny legs batted at his face, the hairs there feathery soft. It tried to crush him under its massive bulk, but it proved surprisingly light for something so large.

If it wanted to kill him, it was going to have to sit on him until he starved to death. Malden almost laughed as he understood. This was no monster bent on devouring travelers who strayed into its forest. It was some leaf-eating insect, grown overlarge, yes, but as harmless as a pill bug. It must have attacked him only in desperation. Had he stumbled across its nest? Was it protecting its young?

Then he heard shouts and the crashing clamor of horses running through the forest. Suddenly his companions were all around him, and he called to them that he was all right, that it was nothing.

Apparently Croy didn't hear him. Ghostcutter came up high and flashed down, slicing the insect's head from where it seamlessly joined its thorax.

Stinking yellow blood poured down over Malden's face in great gouts. He choked and spluttered as some of the foul stuff got in his mouth. That was the worst injury he'd taken from the animal.

“You didn't need to do that,” he said as Croy helped him up to his feet.

“I just saved your life,” the knight insisted. He looked perplexed.

“No, no, it was harmless—look—it doesn't even have any teeth.”

Croy picked up the severed head of the beast and poked inside its mouth with a finger. “I thought you were in peril,” he said. “You were down on the ground and that thing was on top of you.”

Malden wiped at his face and chest. The yellow slime had positively ruined his clothing. It stank of the animal's alien odor and clung to his fingers like thick mucus. “Gah,” he said. “I need to find a stream so I can wash this off.”

“There's one just up ahead,” Cythera told him. “We were trying to ford it when we realized you were missing. Then when your horse rejoined us, missing her rider, we knew to come look for you.” She frowned and looked away. “Mörget—what are you doing?”

The barbarian had his axe out and was cheerily butchering the giant insect. “Slag says we can roast this for dinner. It'll be good to have fresh meat.”

“I think I might be sick,” Malden said.

The dwarf, still sitting his pony, just shrugged. “More for the rest of us, then. Though I'll tell you, you're missing out on a fucking delicacy. I haven't had a good giant cave beetle steak since I left my country. You can get it in Ness, dried and salted like jerky, but it's just not the same.”

Croy looked incredulous. “You've seen such a beast before?”

“Oh, aye,” Slag told him. “There's some mines in the dwarven kingdom just crawling with the things. Normally they live underground. What this one's doing up here in this blasted daylight, I can't say. Must have climbed up out of a crack in the rocks and got lost. They're sodding stupid like that.”

Malden studied the eyes of the dead beast. “Out of its element,” he said, thinking perhaps that explained its aggression. A humble creature, a harmless feeder on fungus and subterranean plant matter, suddenly lost in a world of painfully bright light full of strangely soft but dangerous monsters. He could not help but feel sorry for it.

“Wait,” Croy said. “If it's a denizen of caves, by nature—does that mean what I think it must?”

“Aye,” Slag told him. “It could only have come from one place. This means the Vincularium must be right around the next fucking bend.”