A Thief in the Night

“You’ll forgive me,” Malden said, “if I hope it never comes to that.”

The barbarian laughed. “Don’t worry, little man. You’ve got a whole mountain range protecting you. A wall to keep us out.” He chortled so exuberantly he nearly dropped the reins.

“And knights like Croy to defend us,” Malden pointed out.

The barbarian stopped laughing on the instant. He turned a shrewd eye toward Croy, who was singing some old ballad, a duet with Cythera. “It’ll be interesting to see what he’s made of, when we face our demon. Whether he can fight or not.”

He wasn’t laughing when he said it. A fact that made Malden uneasy for reasons he couldn’t quite explain.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

They covered twenty miles that day, pushing the horses near their limits. “I always thought men rode horses to go farther and faster than they might afoot,” Malden told Mörget, when they came to a stop outside another milehouse. “But I think if we walked we’d make better time.”

“Bah! Horses are meant for running short distances, not this ambling gait we force them to. A man walking can cover more ground than a horse in a day,” the barbarian said. “Yet not while carrying so much on his back.” Mörget reined in the horses by the stables—this milehouse looked almost identical in design to the Cow—and thumped the side of the wagon to wake Slag. The dwarf came stumbling out into the dusk and squinted at the place’s sign.

“This place is called the Sheaf of Wheat?” Slag asked. “First the Cow. Now the Wheat. I wonder what will be hanging on the wall inside? What fucking wonderful imaginations these farmers have.”

Croy leapt down from his horse and slapped the dwarf on the back. Slag nearly sprawled forward in the dust. The knight explained, “There are seven milehouses between Ness and Helstrow. They are named after the Seven Munificent Blessings of the Lady. Come, you’ll forget the name once you have a quart of ale down your throat.”

Croy headed inside, with Cythera following so close behind Malden didn’t even have a chance to catch her eye. Clearly she’d meant what she’d said last night.

“Lad,” Slag told him, softly, “if your rival was any less trusting than Sir Croy, you’d have a long piece of steel sticking out your back already. Let her be.”

Malden felt his cheeks burn. He shot a look toward Mörget, but the barbarian was already leading the horses away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said to Slag.

“Fine. But if you go slipping out of the room again tonight, try not to be so damned noisy about it, alright?”

Inside the common room of the Sheaf of Wheat Malden found familiar surrounds—right down to the dozy alekeep behind the bar. This time at least the place wasn’t completely deserted. A man in a dusty cloak sat near the fire, drinking brandy from a wooden cup. He glanced up as they entered and studied each of their faces, then glanced towards their belts to see what weapons they carried.

Either a thief or a watchman, Malden thought, judging by the professional efficiency of the man’s scrutiny. Malden glanced at the man’s own belt and saw a stout cudgel there, painted white and kept where it was visible. The symbol of a reeve, an overseer of peasants—but this was no mere farm supervisor. He must be a shire reeve, then. The local enforcer of the king’s laws.

Eating in the same room as a lawman made Malden uneasy, but he hadn’t broken any laws since leaving Ness so he tried to ignore the feeling. It didn’t help that the shire reeve kept glancing his way, as if he recognized Malden from somewhere.

When he had finished his pottage and ale, Malden announced he was exhausted and would go to bed right away. Slag came with him. “You’ve been sleeping all day,” Malden pointed out, when they were alone together in their room.

“Aye, as is only natural for a dwarf. I don’t intend to sleep tonight, but read. Do you mind a bit of light while you take your rest?”

Malden shrugged. “I think I’ll be asleep soon as I lie down. A candle won’t bother me.” In the brothel where Malden grew up he had learned how to sleep through noise and other distractions. Yet despite what he’d said he did not go to sleep right away. He watched the dwarf take a hand-sized book out of his pack. It looked very old, the leather cover worn bright orange at the edges and cracked along the spine. Like any book it must be quite valuable, and Malden had an eye for expensive things. “What book is that?” he asked.

Slag shook his head. “Naught for you, so keep your thieving hands off it. If you must know, it’s a classic of dwarven literature. Harnin’s Stone Surfaces and Bond Griding Manual. A masterpiece of strength of materials ratios and specific density tables. Every placer miner and stone carver in my country owns a copy. It’s also the only written work to mention the Vincularium.”

Malden was bone-tired but this interested him. Despite Cutbill’s suggestion, he’d never managed to ask anyone about their destination. There had been two main reasons for that: for one, he’d been afraid to demonstrate his ignorance in front of Cythera, and for the other, he didn’t actually plan on going as far as the Vincularium. He intended to part ways at Helstrow, where he’d be safe from Prestwicke and also from the demon Croy and Mörget were chasing.

Yet he had to admit a certain free-floating curiosity about the place the rest of them were headed. “It’s a tomb, yes?” he asked, because he figured the dwarf had to know.

“Aye,” Slag said, and turned a page. “You certain this light isn’t keeping you awake?”

“Certain. A tomb for a dwarf, I think—which would explain why you’re so intent on going there. You don’t want to see your ancestral crypts defiled.”

“There you’re wrong. Dwarves built the place, but we weren’t the last to live in it. You called it a tomb, and aye, it is. But before that it was a prison.”

Malden’s eyes widened. He had no desire to rob graves, but breaking into prisons was perhaps worse. The thing about prisons—and this was common knowledge for a thief—was they were hard to get out of once you were inside.

“Was it a prison for dwarves?” Malden asked.

“No. For elves.”

Malden sat up on his mattress and stared.

“Aye, the fucking elves,” Slag said, putting his thumb in the book to save his place. “What do you know about the elves, Malden?”

The thief searched his memory. It was a common enough expression to say that someone or something was “dead as an elf”. Everyone knew Skrae had been infested with elves once, and that now they were gone. But that was almost all they knew. “Pointy ears, right? And evil, they were supposed to be evil. Sometimes people say ‘sharp as an elf’s ear’, and I’ve heard a man called ‘wicked as an elf’ for beating a whore.”

“The ears, yes, those were pointed. As for evil, well, let me tell you something you can learn from. When a man speaks ill of the dead, and calls the corpse evil, you can bet your fundament he killed the poor fucker, and needs an excuse. I don’t suppose the elves were any more evil than you or me. Well, me anyway. But they fought a war with the humans, and they lost, so now they’re remembered as wicked.”

Slag looked up at the ceiling as if reading a page of history there. “In truth, I know little more than you do about them. They lived long lives, it’s said. If they didn’t die in battle they could expect to see their eightieth birthday.”

Malden gasped. That was twice as long as a human’s average span in Skrae. Eighty years seemed to him an eternity. “But they’re dead, now. What happened to them?”

“Men did. Humans forced them out of their lands. They tried to make a final stand in the Vincularium. The last of their kind went into that place eight hundred years ago, and never came out. They starved to death, most like, or turned on each other. A prison and a tomb, as I said.”

“A place like that must be haunted.”

“It’s fucking likely, yes.”

“Death would wait for anyone who ventured inside.”

“Almost assuredly. Now, unless the sound of my voice is lulling you to sleep, perhaps you’d do me a favor and let me read, hmm?” Slag asked. “I want to plumb this volume for any clue as to what awaits me.”

“You want to know how you’re going to die?”

Slag gasped in frustration and slammed the book down on the floor. “At least that way I won’t look so surprised when it happens, now will I? Shut your gob, lad, and let me read!”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The following day the sun was warm and rippled along the surface of the road, while a soft breeze bowed the heads of the wheat. Croy rode on the wagon while Malden drove. Between the demands of watching the horses and the knight’s singing, Malden had no trouble staying awake this time. They made good time in the morning, but had to slow their pace in the afternoon as foam slicked the backs of the hackneys and it was clear they were pushing the horses too hard. Still, by the time pink clouds began to gather in the sky they could already see Helstrow on the horizon—the halfway mark of their journey.

The royal fortress stood in a wide bowl of land cleared of trees and rocks, to allow better fields of fire for the archers on its walls. In shape it looked like a great ship, with a sharp prow and a high stern castle—that must be the king’s palace, Malden thought, a stand of spires and high towers. The fortress stood astride the river Strow, from which it took its name. A hundred flags flew from its high places, and knights in bright armor rode in and out of its three massive gates on endless patrols.

East of the fortress, across the river, an ancient forest grew. Croy told Malden it was the last of its kind in Skrae, a thicket of ancient trees that cloaked the foothills of the Whitewall mountains. To find a forest that old anywhere else, Croy said, you’d have to go as far north as the dwarven kingdom, for the dwarves cared little for the surface world and had never cleared their land in the endless demand for firewood.

“This forest,” Croy told him, “has survived only because no one is willing to get so close to the Vincularium just to chop down trees.”

Malden had a choice to make, whether to part company here and lose himself in the streets of Helstrow—where surely there were things to steal, and a living to be made—or to press on with the party and become a grave robber (and, likely, a meal for a demon). While he was pondering that, however, he was asked for his opinion on another matter.

“The only bridge over the Strow is inside the fortress. We’d have to enter the gates to cross,” Croy said.

“That shouldn’t be a problem—you’re still a knight of the realm,” Malden pointed out. “Even a knight errant should be able to talk his way in.”

“The difficulty is on Mörget’s side. A barbarian in Redweir or in Ness is a curiosity, even a wonder. Inside Helstrow, he’s an act of war. One reason the king stays here is to keep his army close to the Whitewall, where he can respond quickly in case the barbarians flood through the mountain passes.”

“Is an invasion really that likely?” Malden asked.

Croy glanced over at Mörget, but the barbarian was out of earshot. “The people of the east live by conquest. They do not farm, so simply to feed their people they must constantly raid the freeholds and villages of their neighbors. Mostly they harass the hill people north of here, on the border between Skrae and Skilfing, but they’ve long had their eye set on richer bounty. If they were allowed through the passes though … yes. I am certain they would try to conquer us. The threat they pose is real—and kept in abeyance only by constant vigilance on our part.” Croy shook his head. “If Mörget is discovered in Helstrow, we’ll be taken as spies or traitors or worse. And you’ve seen him. He’s hardly inconspicuous.”

“Is there another option?”

Croy frowned, a rare expression on his face. “The Strow is too deep and runs too fast to ford anywhere on its length. We can head downstream a few miles, build a raft, and pole the horses across—but that’s not without its dangers. The current is so swift we could be capsized, and all drown.”

“When choosing between two evils,” Malden said, “my mother always said, make sure you get paid in advance. It seems to me we cannot predict what will happen if we enter Helstrow. Any number of things could go wrong. The river may be treacherous, but at least we know what we face.”

“I think you’re right. But it will add a day to our journey. Thank you, Malden.”

“For my counsel? I’m surprised you even asked for it.”

Croy smiled at him. “You count yourself so worthless, sometimes. You’re one of the most canny men I’ve ever met,” he said. He reached over and slapped Malden on the back. “I know you weren’t born a nobleman, Malden, but you have true honor in your soul. I’ve seen it. There are great deeds in your future.”

Guilt washed through Malden’s veins, a feeling he’d hardly expected. If Croy knew what kind of dishonorable things he dreamed of, concerning Cythera … “I think you do me too much credit.”

Croy shrugged. “I suppose no man can take the measure of his own mettle. Once we’re across the river we’ll discuss this again.”

Malden wasn’t sure what to make of that. Did Croy suspect something? Was he trying to put Malden off his guard? There was no way to know.

Croy stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled loud enough to hurt Malden’s ears. “Ho, friends!” he shouted. “Up ahead the road forks. Turn south!”

“South?” Mörget asked. “Away from our destination?”

“Put faith in me,” Croy asked, and the barbarian just nodded.

The two warriors trusted each other implicitly, Malden realized. Mörget didn’t question Croy’s instructions unduly, because he knew they shared a common interest. And now Croy was trying to bring Malden into that same confidence. It gave him chills.

And a very strange sort of pride. Not that he intended to live up to this newfound trust. But it was … nice, perhaps, to have a man like Croy think highly of you.

Malden laughed to himself. He’d been spending too much time with the knight errant. He was starting to believe in Croy’s folly himself. Best to nip that in the bud.

The road duly forked, and Croy wheeled the wagon to the south, so that the setting sun was on their right shoulders. The horses were dragging their feet by the time, a mile later, they pulled into the stable yard of a milehouse. They were on the road to Redweir now, and Croy told Malden that the milehouses on this road were named for the Nine Learned Arts. The sign out front depicted the constellation known as the Troll, and the house was called The Astrologer.

Inside, the walls and ceiling were decorated with tin stars and instead of the usual dreary room they found music and warmth and a boy carrying two flagons of ale. He nodded them toward one of the available tables. This place was not crowded by any measure, but at least it saw some decent custom. The men gathered at the tables were mostly merchants and tradesmen, travelers on the road between Redweir and Helstrow. Men who might have a coin to spend. They were laughing and their faces were bright with drink.

“Now this is more to my liking,” Malden said, and called for food. What came to the table was pottage again, but a bit of bacon had been stirred into the bowls to gave the stew a measure of flavor. Malden downed his bowl in a hurry and ordered another, as well as more ale.

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