Den of thieves abt-1

by David Chandler

  A puffing, roaring noise like the bellow of an exhausted bull chased him across the roof, and then the clanking noise of chain mail slapping on shingles. The swordsman clambered up on top of the customs house, dragging himself upward despite all the weight he carried. The bastard must be as strong as a warhorse, Malden thought.

  “Just-want-to-talk,” the swordsman grunted, hauling himself up onto the steeply peaked roof, staring at Malden across the alley between them. “Listen, thief,” he said, “you needn’t run-any further. I just-just want to talk.”

  “Is your tongue as sharp as your sword?” Malden asked. “Come no closer.” Witty banter wasn’t coming as easily as he’d hoped. Maybe he was too terrified to crack jokes. Well. Never mind. He drew his weapon. “This,” he said, “is a bodkin.”

  “So it is,” the swordsman replied, the way a tutor might speak to a student who had just mastered the first declension of a regular verb.

  Malden sneered. “It may not look like much. But it’s designed for one thing, and one alone. It has a wickedly sharp tip so it can punch right through chain mail and into an armored man’s vitals.” Of course, of the hundred odd uses Malden had come up with for his knife, that was the one he’d never actually tried. He imagined it would take a lot of strength to push it through the fine mesh of metal links. He would have to get his back into it. Assuming the swordsman hadn’t cut his own spine in half before he had a chance to try. “If you attempt to follow me further-”

  “I don’t want to follow you over there. Bloodgod’s armpits! That’s the last thing I want to have to do today. I just want to talk to you. Truly.”

  Malden pointed the weapon directly toward the swordsman’s midsection.

  The swordsman responded by getting a running start and then leaping over the gap between the customs house and the roof of the university cloister. As the enormous man came flying toward him, Malden let out a yelp and broke into a run. Behind him the swordsman came down hard on the lead tiles of the cloister’s roof and landed altogether wrong on his leading foot. He slipped and twisted around and fell with a great clanging noise that must have alarmed every student and scholar inside the cloister-unless they were all up in the square. The students of the university famously loved a good riot. The swordsman’s legs and then his lower half slid over the edge and dangled in space, while his hands scrabbled at the roof tiles, looking for any kind of purchase. It was all the swordsman could do to keep from rolling over the edge and dropping into the Needle’s Eye. From that height the impact would almost certainly break bones.

  “Blast,” the swordsman said. Then he shouted, “Cythera! Stop him!”

  Malden was already running down the long lane of the cloister’s rooftop. At its far end, he knew, was the Cornmarket Bridge, which was lined in allegorical statues. If he launched himself off the edge of the roof and angled it just right, he could easily snag the top of the Bounties of Harvest Time. That particular statue had wide hips and a cornucopia full of fruits and grains, which would give him plenty of handholds to climb down to safety on Malden had to stop short when a woman in a velvet cloak materialized out of thin air, directly in his path.

  He gawped like a fish on a pier, from the shock of her appearance, of course, but also-also-from the nature of her appearance. His mind felt like it had slammed into a brick wall, and his eyes felt pinned to the spot. He could not look away from her.

  The woman was astonishingly beautiful, though it was hard to tell. Dark, complicated, disturbing tattoos covered her cheeks and forehead and the bare arms she revealed as she swept the cloak back over her shoulders. Her eyes were very large, very blue, and altogether too heartbreakingly sorrowful to look at for more than a moment.

  She smelled of some perfume Malden had never smelled before. Her hair looked softer than sable, and despite the circumstances, he took a moment to imagine what it would be like to bury his face in her curls.

  It would be… very pleasant, he thought.

  “Are you Cythera?” Malden asked, because he could think of nothing else to say to this bewitching woman. He knew he should be running, knew that the swordsman would be right behind him. Yet if he ran away now, that would mean tearing his eyes away from her exotic beauty.

  She smiled. It was the single least mirthful smile Malden had ever seen. “I am.” She took a step closer. That was when he realized what was so disturbing about her tattoos. They were moving. The complex patterns of interweaving tendrils, leaves, briars, thorns, flowers, and the like were slowly rearranging themselves on her face, seeking out new arrangements and complications, forming arabesques and elegant knots that resolved themselves while he watched into wholly new patterns, which… it was quite mesmerizing, really, just watching them. Just Malden tore his gaze away. He’d felt entranced, and well he should have. Something about the tattoos had dazzled him, clouding his mind. He never enjoyed being tricked-he was the one who was supposed to trick other people. He roared as he brought his bodkin around, the point angled toward her throat.

  “That,” she told him, “would be a singularly bad idea.” It was not a threat. Somehow the tone of her voice conveyed the sense that she wanted nothing less than to see him hurt, that she really didn’t wish him ill, but that he was playing with fire all the same. Or was that just another illusion? Perhaps she was some kind of witch and was quite happy about leading him to his doom.

  Best, he thought, to break the spell and flee.

  Slowly he lowered the bodkin. “I don’t know what manner of creature you are,” he told her, “but I really must be going.”

  “Oh no you don’t,” the swordsman said, coming upon Malden from behind. He grabbed Malden’s head under one massive arm and squeezed. Apparently the swordsman had recovered from his stumbling fall. There was no way for Malden to break the hold: the oaf had the strength of a bear. He rather smelled like one, too. “You and I,” the swordsman said, giving Malden’s head another squeeze, “are going to have our talk now. All right? Promise me you won’t,” yet another squeeze, “run off?”

  “I promise, of course, how could I have been so rash as to-as to-I promise! Just stop that! Your mail is digging into my neck.”

  “Very good,” the swordsman said. He let Malden loose to stagger around on the roof, grasping at his throat. “My name, by the way, is Bikker. We weren’t properly introduced before.”

  “I’m Malden.” The thief bent over double for a moment. “Well met.”

  “Indeed. So. Malden?”

  “Yes?” Malden said, lifting his head.

  “This is for the melon,” Bikker said, just before punching him right in the face with one massive mailed fist.

  Chapter Ten

  Approximately three hundred yards to the northwest, Market Square had erupted into a melee as angered citizens brawled with the watch in their eye-patterned cloaks. It didn’t take much to start a riot in a city of this size. The students of the university were deep in the thick of it, laying into the watch with bare fists, fueled by strong drink and the excitement of a day away from their dry and dusty studies. Most of the wealthier folk were attempting to flee the square, with varying degrees of luck.

  To Sir Croy, up on the gibbet, it was like looking into the pit. He could not believe that all of these people were battling because of him. He had spent his whole life defending these people, keeping them safe, and now they were warring amongst themselves. That they were arguing over his fate was too much to bear.

  “Friends! Please, I beg you, peace!” Sir Croy shouted. He wanted to wave his hands in the air to gain the attention of the throng, but of course could not, as his hands were bound. The noose around his neck didn’t help either. The executioner beside him looked confused, uncertain as to whether he should release the trapdoor that would drop Croy to his fate.

  Somehow Anselm Vry managed to climb up onto the gallows. The bailiff was the city’s chief administrator and keeper of the peace, answerable only to the Burgrave. Sallow-skinned and lean of features, Vry looked li
ke the kind of man who should spend his whole life with his nose in a book, but Croy had known him once and could see beyond the man’s looks. Vry was an able administrator, a skilled organizer of men and materiel. He was above all a rational man. Croy couldn’t resist beaming at someone whom he had once called his friend. The bailiff whispered in the executioner’s ear, and at once the hooded man jumped down from the gallows and waded into the riot, aiding the watch.

  “Anselm!” Croy called. “I knew you wouldn’t let this- Oh.”

  Vry had taken up the executioner’s post, his hand on the lever that would release the trapdoor.

  “I see,” Croy said. “You’ve come to see me off personally.”

  “Indeed,” Vry said, shaking his head in disgust. “I hope you understand this was not my choosing. I pleaded with Tarness not to slay you, in fact.”

  “I’m much obliged.”

  Vry snorted. “I told him we could simply give you a commission and ship you off to fight barbarians in the eastern mountains. They would have killed you for us. But that wouldn’t have worked, would it? You would have deserted your post and returned here in haste.”

  “Defy a commission of duty? Never!”

  “Oh? Truly, you would have gone away and never returned?”

  Sir Croy was not a man for deep thoughts or meditations on the future. He pondered this for a moment, then smiled. “I would have whipped the barbarians in six months. Then I could have come back here with a clear conscience.”

  Vry rubbed at his eyes with one hand. “Croy, please, for once in your life try to be realistic. Whatever quest is driving you this time won’t let you stay away. Yet Tarness cannot allow you inside the city walls. You know things he wishes kept secret. I know you would never betray him, but there’s always the chance someone would get the information out of you-if not by torture, then by wizardry. Banishing you the first time was an act of great mercy on his part, and it will not be repeated.”

  “I understand. Well, I forgive you old friend. We serve the same masters, you and I, and perhaps you are simply more loyal than me. That’s hardly a quality to be condemned. Now, if you must-obey your orders.” Croy lifted his chin and straightened his back. If he was going to die he would do so with proper posture.

  “Noble as you ever were,” Vry said, “and just as stupid.” He started to pull the lever.

  His hand was stayed, however, at the last possible moment. There was a flash of light that was instantly swallowed up by a thick cloud of yellow smoke. Croy’s lungs filled and he was overwhelmed by a powerful reek of rotten eggs that made him gag and cough. He tried to stay upright and maintain his composure but the stench was just too great. He worried he might vomit-not exactly what the people would expect of a knight of the realm, not in public “Hold still, you freakishly large livestock copulator,” someone hissed in the midst of the yellow cloud. The noose was lifted away from his throat, then a knife cut through the rope holding Croy’s hands together. Small hands pushed him from behind. He went staggering forward and over the edge of the gallows platform. It was all he could do to land on his feet. Down at ground level the yellow smoke was rarefied and he could breathe again, but still he could see nothing.

  Fortunately a figure with a cloth across its face was there to guide him. He was dimly aware that the figure was only about four feet tall. A child? Some magical sprite, with the appearance of a child?

  “Stop standing there manipulating yourself in an erotic fashion. We don’t have much time before the feces-smelling watch is upon us!”

  Ah. No child. There was only one sort of creature in the world with such a vulgar tongue, yet such an academic grasp of human language. “Murdlin?” Croy asked. “Is that you?”

  “It won’t be either of us in a moment, if we’re both dead as horse urine!”

  They wasted no more time. Using the melee as cover, the man and the dwarf hurried out of the square. Once they were clear of the yellow smoke, Croy was able to understand why Murdlin had covered his face with cloth. It must have filtered out the worst of the stinking smoke and allowed the dwarf to breathe easy even in its midst. Was there no end to the cleverness of the diminutive folk?

  “Murdlin, I am deep in your debt now,” Croy said as he was led around a corner into Greenhall Street.

  “Considering what you did for the dwarf king’s daughter, the debt is crossed out,” Murdlin told him.

  “I only did my duty, as bid by my king,” Croy pointed out. A year earlier the dwarf princess had been traveling to Helstrow, to be received at the royal court of Skrae. Along the way she’d been abducted by bandits who intended to hold her for ransom. Croy had spent six weeks tracking the bandits down and eventually rescued the princess. The dwarf king offered him anything he desired-steel, gold, even the princess in marriage-but Croy had never considered there might be a reward. A crime was committed, and someone had to put it right, that was all.

  Clearly Murdlin felt some recompense was still owed.

  “This way, most hurriedly, like a rabbit making love,” Murdlin called.

  Even as they dashed across the cobblestones, a wagon full of hay pulled up beside them. The driver was a dwarf with a hood pulled low across his face to keep out the sun. The wagon rolled to a stop as soon as it reached them.

  “By the Lady, you work fast,” Croy said.

  “The moment I realized it was you on the gallows, I knew what course things must take. I sent one of my servants at once to fetch this conveyance. Now please, get into this body-odor stinking hay. It will hide you from view. The wagon will take you outside the walls. By the time you arrive I’ll have a horse waiting for you, so you may run off like a goblin that has fouled its own pants.”

  “You make escape sound less sweet that I would have thought it an hour ago,” Croy admitted.

  “It’s only a figure of speech. A common expression in my first language,” Murdlin told him. “I am taking a great risk doing this, Croy. Now, please! Into the hay that itches like pubic lice.”

  Croy rubbed at his chafed wrists. Then he started walking backward, away from the dwarf, almost breaking into a run. “You have my eternal thanks, envoy. But I’ve work to do yet, here in the Free City. My lady is still enslaved. What is freedom to me when she is in chains? Fare thee well!”

  The dwarf cursed him and shook his small fists in the air, but Croy was already on his way, turning a corner into Brasenose Street and back into danger.

  Just the way he liked it.

  Chapter Eleven

  For a while Malden’s world was only a terrible ringing, as if a bell were struck right next to his ear, and darkness, a kind of darkness that hurt. He could feel his body being moved about, but only from a distance, as if he were watching some other poor bastard being carted around. The pain he felt made no sense, really, and he kept probing at it with mental fingers, trying to remember what had happened.

  Eventually he heard sounds over the ringing in his head. Gasps and shouts, and then the shriek of chairs being pulled back. His poor body was dumped without ceremony on a flat surface, and suddenly he rushed back into it, though that just made things hurt more. Gradually he managed to tease out voices from the noise all around him.

  “-might have killed him with a punch like that. And we’d be back where we started. You really ought to learn some discipline.”

  “What? That little tap? I’ve hit flies harder than that. Look, he’s already waking up. I couldn’t possibly have done more than jiggled his brains a bit.”

  The voices were vaguely familiar. Malden couldn’t quite place them, though. He was having a lot of trouble stringing thoughts together, even though the horrible ringing noise had faded away from his ears. He attempted to make a catalog of the things he knew for sure. He was certain, for instance, that he was lying on a very hard surface. Also, that his face hurt.

  Suddenly his face hurt a very great deal.

  “Oh,” he moaned. “Oh, by the Bloodgod. Oh…”

  “Open your eyes now, bo
y,” Bikker said. “There’s a good lad.”

  Malden looked around without sitting up. He was in a tavern, lit by smoking oil lamps. The few patrons present at that time of day were all staring at him. The alewife, a heavyset woman of middle age, was coming toward them with a tankard full of beer.

  “Which one of you is paying for this?” she asked. “This isn’t a sickhouse.”

  Slowly, Malden got his elbows under him and sat up. He had been laid out flat on a long table, a slab of oak that felt as hard as stone. It was patterned with old dark rings where tankards had overflowed, and was held together with strips of iron that dug into his back and legs.

  Cythera-the tattooed woman-handed the alewife a farthing and passed the tankard to Malden. It was of the kind that had a lid on a hinge, to keep out flies, an earthenware vessel sealed at the bottom with pewter. An expensive bit of crockery. That told Malden roughly where he had to be-on the Golden Slope, the region of rich houses and expensive shops just downhill from the Spires. Had to be, as there were no taverns in the Spires, while if his two strange captors had carried him any farther downhill, the tankard would have been made of leather sealed with pitch. Knowing that was important. When he made his escape from this place, he would need to know where to run to first.

  Wherever he was, though, he had to admit he was very thirsty. He lifted the lid and sipped carefully at the contents, thinking it must be some medicinal draught-but in fact it was only small beer. A drink fit for children.