Honor Among Thieves (17 page)
“T
hat’s ridiculous,” Malden said. How could he be Cutbill’s most trusted man? More to the point—why had Cutbill even expected him to return here? The guildmaster had sent an assassin to kill him. It had very nearly worked.
“Let me get the others,” Lockjaw said. He looked as if saying so much already had thoroughly tired him out. Ducking behind a tapestry on one wall, he emerged a few moments later leading Loophole and ’Levenfingers. The other two oldsters looked bleary-eyed, as if they’d been sleeping.
“Oh, lad, you’re a welcome vision,” Loophole said, and embraced Malden fondly. Malden had no reservations returning the warmth. ’Levenfingers patted him on the back and was all smiles.
“Cutbill was one of the first to leave the city, back before any of us had heard there was barbarians coming,” ’Levenfingers told him. “Things have been hard here, with no one leading us. Every day a few more men grew tired of waiting and just left, and we couldn’t stop ’em. We might have fled ourselves, had we anywhere else to go. We’ve been taking turns sitting watch, waiting for you. I never doubted you’d be back, not me. I’m sure you’ll have things whipped into shape in no time at all.”
“Surely,” Malden said, wishing he had any idea how he was supposed to make that happen. “Listen, fellows, I’ve been away a long while. I was at Helstrow, almost until the barbarians arrived—but I’ve had no news since then. What’s been happening?”
The oldsters looked at each other as if they didn’t want to answer. “Helstrow’s fallen,” ’Levenfingers said.
“Sacked,” Lockjaw agreed.
“The fortress is in the enemy’s hands, and the king, they say, is dead.”
Malden’s jaw dropped. Croy had been there, helping to lead the troops. Whatever else he thought of the knight, Malden had always believed Croy to be a master of things military. If Helstrow had fallen, that meant Croy had failed, and that was nearly unthinkable. “I assumed it would still be under siege—”
“Taken by base treachery,” Loophole said, looking less outraged than grudgingly respectful. If a master thief wanted to take a city, he wouldn’t use force of arms, of course. He would steal the place out from under its current owners. It sounded like the barbarians had much the same idea. “The people enslaved, the army there broken and routed. The news came a sennight ago, just when the Burgrave started raising his own troops.”
“I saw them marching in Market Square,” Malden said.
’Levenfingers nodded sagely. “And that’s just the latest batch. Many more—many thousands of ’em—are already encamped along the river Skrait. Ready to engage the enemy, should he tend this way.”
“I have trouble believing the people of Ness would jump so quick to the defense of the crown,” Malden said. “I know these people! A more corrupt, self-serving rabble you’d never find.”
“At first, it was hard for the Burgrave to inspire anyone to patriotism, true. But then the rich folk all started running like dogs,” Loophole said. “About the time the fortress fell. They must have had better information than us, because most of ’em left in a single night. Took only what they could carry, headed for anywhere they thought they might be safe. It’s clear they had no faith in their common man.”
“The next morn,” ’Levenfingers went on, “the Burgrave declared them all traitors, and as such, their worldly goods was fair game. So he seized their plate and their coin, all their land. Sold everything for gold royals. Then he addressed the people, standing tall on a dais in Market Square. Said a plague had been purged from the city, a plague of faithless cowards. Said only good, honest working men remained. Said they deserved a reward for being true.”
“A reward?” Malden asked.
“Gold,” Lockjaw answered.
“Every man what signs on with the Burgrave gets a gold royal, and a promise of another for every month he’s in the field.”
“Aha!” Malden said.
Now he had it. The cripple who tried to recruit him had mentioned good pay. He hadn’t mentioned any numbers, though.
He certainly hadn’t said anything about gold.
One gold royal was a full year’s wages for an untrained laborer in Ness. Even a skilled apprentice in a smithy, or for that matter a master in the guild of gleaners, could expect to see only a handful of the big gold coins in his lifetime. And of course they weren’t usually handed out as pay—most commerce in the Free City took the form of silver, or copper pennies and farthings. A single gold royal was a small fortune, and the promise of twelve a year was a promise that a man could get rich by fighting.
If there was one way to motivate the people of Ness, one thing sure to get their attention, it was an appeal to their greed. The Burgrave knew his people well, it seemed.
“But such folly!” Malden went on. “How many soldiers does he command now? If every able-bodied man in the city joined, that would be what, how many? Twenty thousand? There’s no possible way he could spend twenty thousand gold royals—a month—for long. He’ll bankrupt his own treasury!”
“Some have noticed that,” Loophole said with a shrug. “Some have even lampooned the Burgrave for it, and given pretty speeches to that effect in the squares and the taverns.” Another shrug. “Then the royals started appearing in the hands of men who’d never even seen one before. Men whose most marketable skill was leaning against a tavern wall and hoisting a tankard back and forth to their mouths. The gold is real, Malden.”
For now, the thief thought. It would run out pretty quick at that rate. But he supposed that wasn’t as big a problem as it first seemed. The men of Ness weren’t born warriors. If they had to fight the barbarians, most of them would perish in the first wave. The Burgrave would only have to pay the survivors.
That cunning bastard
. But maybe that was what it took to be a ruler of men—you had to be a villain just to keep them in line. Malden had never had any use for authority, and had always hated those who called themselves his superiors. He’d met the Burgrave, and the man had confirmed all his prejudices.
Yet, still—this was more cynical than any man had a right to be. And that stood at odds with the whole point of raising an army in the first place. “I can’t believe that Ommen Tarness loves his king so much that he would spend his own money defending the country,” Malden pointed out. “What’s he really after?”
Loophole snorted. “He hasn’t seen fit to share his motivations with us.”
No, Malden thought. He supposed Tarness wouldn’t make his plans public. It wasn’t the man’s style. “I suppose it matters not. Let him get himself and half of Ness killed, if he wants to play at soldiers,” he said with a sigh. “Anyway. Once he’s gone and taken his army with him, that’ll just make it easier for us to steal what he leaves behind. It’s an ill wave that doesn’t wash something up on shore.”
“A
ll right,” Malden said. “Well, that’s got me up to date. Now I imagine I need to think about the future. If I’m running this guild, I’ll need to get started. Did Cutbill leave me instructions, at least?” He had never run so much as a card game before. Surely Cutbill wouldn’t just assume he knew how to keep a criminal enterprise in motion.
“He said it’s all in the ledger,” Loophole told him.
Malden nodded and went to the lectern, where the infamous book lay open to a half-filled page. He saw columns and columns of numbers, each with a corresponding notation in a tiny, spidery hand. Very few of the notes meant anything to him, but he assumed they represented quantities of money brought in by various thieves, or paid out in bribes or other expenses. It wasn’t exactly a manual of instructions. Thinking Cutbill must have left him a message in plainer words, he flipped to the next blank page. And found what he was looking for—though it made him even more confused.
The top of the page was inscribed:
FOR MALDEN, SHOULD HE RETURN
. Those were the only words Malden recognized. The rest were in some bizarre alphabet he’d never encountered before. Or perhaps not in any kind of alphabet at all, but a cipher—for the words were inscribed in circles and triangles and congeries of dots. It looked more like dwarven runes than human writing.
“What do you make of this?” he asked the oldsters, showing them the encoded page.
’Levenfingers looked away. “Well, now, that’s really a private matter—”
Loophole nodded eagerly. “None of our business, properly—”
“None of us can read,” Lockjaw finished.
“Ah,” Malden said. “No, of course not.” It was not that common a skill. He had learned to read and write because he grew up in a brothel that required a bookkeeper. Expecting thieves—even learned, wise, and venerable elders like these three—to know the art was expecting too much. “I beg your pardon.” He took the page in hand and started to tear it from the book. He hesitated, because this was Cutbill’s ledger. In the annals of the thieves of Ness, it was close on being a holy relic.
Still. The page was addressed directly to him. He tore it out and stuffed it into his tunic, right next to Cutbill’s signed contract for his assassination.
“I want word sent to every thief in the city who hasn’t joined on with the Burgrave yet,” Malden told the oldsters. “Have them all meet me tonight. Midnight,” he said, because that was a fitting time for a conclave of thieves. He thought for a moment, then added, “At the Godstone.”
The oldsters agreed to do as he asked. Once he thanked them properly and handed each a bag of coins for expenses, Malden left the office and went back to the common room. Velmont and his crew had come down already and made themselves at home, lounging on the furniture with their dirty boots. That seemed less acceptable, now that it was technically his furniture.
“Velmont,” he said. “You work for me now. Is that a problem?”
“Where’s your famous Cutbill?” the Helstrovian thief asked.
“Gone. He left me in charge. I’ll ask again, is that a problem?”
Velmont held one hand out, palm upward.
Malden nodded and took a dozen coins from his purse. After what he’d given the oldsters, he had precious little left, but that was the cost of doing business. He laid the silver on Velmont’s palm.
“No problem a’tall,” the Helstrovian told him.
“Good.” Malden looked over and saw Slag at his workbench, sorting through his tools as if to make sure nothing had been taken. “Slag—show this bunch around. Find some food for them. I’m sure they’re all hungry after traveling so far.”
“Sure, lad,” Slag said, and rose from his bench. If he was at all surprised that Malden had just taken over the thieves’ guild, he showed no sign of it.
I wish I had the same confidence, Malden thought.
He started for the trapdoor, but Slag stopped him with a look. “Where are you headed?” the dwarf asked. “In case we need you.”
Malden thought of telling the dwarf to mind his own business. But he supposed Slag had a point. If the watch broke in and raided the lair in his absence, he would want to know about it, wouldn’t he? “I’m going to see the witch Coruth.”
“Your prospective mother-in-law,” Slag said with a grin.
That fact hadn’t occurred to him. Instead he’d thought that Coruth might be the one person in Ness who could decipher Cutbill’s instructions.
C
roy brought the whetstone carefully up the iron edge of his sword. The sound it made grated on his nerves, which were at an especially fine pitch already. It was all right. The irritation would help keep him awake. He hadn’t slept in three days.
He brought the whetstone back down to Ghostcutter’s hilt. Touched it gently to the iron. Drew it back up toward the point. Ghostcutter required a very special kind of maintenance. The iron blade was cold-forged by an ancient and forgotten process that imbued a certain virtue to the metal. If the blade were ever exposed to high heat—even from the friction of a whetstone—its mystical temper would be lost. It would no longer be so puissant at its original purpose: slaying demons.
Not that any demons had presented themselves lately. At least none of the inhuman variety called up from the pit by mad sorcerers.
There had been a time when seven swords were needed, when demons had roamed the land freely and seven knights were required to vanquish them. Now they had become rare, as sorcery was slowly being wiped out. Now, more and more often, the Ancient Blades were being turned against human enemies—and even each other.
Was their time passing? Was this the dawning of a new age, when men fought only against men? The elves were all but extinct. Ogres, trolls, and goblins were becoming the stuff of mere rumor and campfire tales.
And at Helstrow, Croy himself had seen an Ancient Blade broken.
The swords had been forged with a certain destiny in mind. If that destiny had come to fruition, if they were no longer needed, then perhaps that explained how the impossible had happened. Perhaps it was a sign from the Lady, a warning not to depend on the things of the past.
Or perhaps there was a more worldly reason. The axe Mörget used to cut through Bloodquaffer had been made of dwarven steel. That metal had not existed eight hundred years ago, when the blades were forged. There was nothing of magic in steel—but it was stronger, more flexible, and held an edge better than even the most arcane iron.
He stared down into the dark flat of Ghostcutter, into the shining mirror of the silver that coated its trailing edge. It was a weapon ill-suited to making war against men with steel armor and modern weapons, perhaps. Yet it was still his soul. That was the credo of the Ancient Blades:
my sword is my soul. It is not my possession. I am its servant. I will perish, but the blade will survive.
Had Mörget broken Ghostcutter, instead of Bloodquaffer—well, perhaps it was a mercy that Orne had not survived his blade for more than a moment.
From the battlements of the holdfast on which he sat, Croy could just see Helstrow on the horizon. He could see the tent camps outside the western gate and a hint of movement there. The barbarians had grown bored with the fortress they’d stolen, and were preparing to move on some other hapless target.
Croy brought the whetstone back down to Ghostcutter’s hilt. Started its journey back toward the point.
The iron edge was as sharp as he could make it.
The other edge of the sword was coated with silver, good for cutting through curses and sorcerous magic. When the molten silver had been applied to the sword it was kept just above its melting point, and as a result had run across the blade like molten candle wax, leaving long runners of bright metal in the fuller and across the flat. The silver didn’t require sharpening—that which it cut was not material. Croy inspected the soft silver carefully, though, looking for nicks and dents that might show black iron underneath. These he smoothed over with endless pressure from his own thumb.
On the horizon, a barbarian on a horse went galloping southward, hurrying for the road to Redweir. It made sense that the learned city there would be the next to come under attack. All power in Skrae rested on a stool with three legs: Helstrow, Redweir, and Ness, the three largest cities and the kingdom’s most defensible walls. Anyone who wished to conquer the kingdom must first break that stability. Cut two of those legs out from under the kingdom and it would topple. Redweir was the obvious choice for the barbarians’ next target for another reason as well. If Mörg and his children held Helstrow and Redweir both, they would control the river Strow—and gain the land they had asked for in tribute, and been denied.
Croy prayed that city would be ready for the battle.
He knew it would not.
Still rubbing at the silver with his thumb, he climbed off the merlon he’d been using as a seat and went down the stairs into the open space of the holdfast.
The structure was not built to be comfortable. It was drafty and damp, and there was nothing inside but a floor of packed earth and a few barrels of salted pork. In times long past, the stone structure had stood in the middle of a farming village. The village had moved on, following more fertile soil, but the holdfast remained, its entrance choked with weeds, its walls green and black with perfectly circular patches of lichen. It still served its original purpose, however. It was a place where the local villeins could shelter in case of an attack by bandits or reavers.
It would not have held for an hour against the full force of the barbarian horde. But it was the best Croy had been able to find under the circumstances.
King Ulfram V lay on a pallet of straw, next to a smoky fire. He had not woken, or moved, since Croy brought him there. Yet he breathed still, and when Croy touched the monarch’s neck, he felt a dull pulse.
He found a pot and put it over the fire. He made a thin soup, mostly broth with a few carrots and green potatoes chopped in. He put a spoon in the pot, let it cool in the chill air of the holdfast, and then carefully placed it against the king’s lips.
Very little of the liquid went into Ulfram’s mouth, but the king swallowed reflexively when the warm broth hit the back of his throat. Croy waited a moment, then dipped the spoon in the pot again.
When he decided the king had swallowed enough of the soup, he pulled a blanket up around the man’s shoulders. He fluffed the wadded-up tunic the king had for a pillow. It was all he could do.
Then he went back to smoothing the silver edge of his sword.
Eventually, he dozed. He would not have called it sleep. More like a devotional trance, the same hypnotic reverie Croy fell into during his night-long vigils. He was never totally unaware of his surroundings. His hand’s grip never truly relaxed on the hilt of Ghostcutter.
So when someone pounded on the door of the holdfast, he scuttled up to his feet in an instant, sword in hand.