Honor among thieves abt-3

by David Chandler

  Morget’s axe came around and bit through the wooden shield that came up to meet it. The boards groaned and split and the steel rim of the shield twanged as it snapped away. The shield fell to pieces and the arm underneath it steamed with blood.

  The knight let go of his flail-trapped and useless now-and punched Morget hard in the face with a steel gauntlet. Morget’s head spun around to the side and spittle launched from his lips as his entire skull rang with the impact.

  He shook off the blow and brought his head back around to see the knight dancing backward, reaching for a long dagger at his waist.

  “Very good,” Morget laughed. “You’re very good,” he said, in the same moment that he flicked Dawnbringer to the side to free it of the entwined flail. The knight did not reply as he brought his knife around, the blade held diagonally across his chest to ward off Morget’s next blow.

  Morget feinted with his axe, and the knight drove hard with his knife to parry. That left his chest open, so Morget impaled him on Dawnbringer. The blade lit up inside the knight’s body and red light glowed from inside the dying man’s rib cage.

  Morget spun around, even as he pulled his sword free of the corpse. All around him more horses were circling, the knights on their backs lashing out left and right with morningstars and cavalry spears, cutting down thralls and warriors.

  Who were these knights? From whence had they come? They were nearly as vicious and well-trained as his own warriors, and they knew how to use their horses to their advantage. They were a real threat, for once, and Morget’s blood sang with excitement. A real battle!

  Then, behind the horses, he saw a pike square advancing toward him. Each was made of a score of men, each man armed with a ten foot pole with an iron spike at its end. Five men stood shoulder-to-shoulder with no break between them, while another five walked sideways to their right and left, and a final five brought up the rear, walking backward, trusting the men in front to lead them. Simple weapons, simple tactics, but Morget knew how dangerous pike squares could be. The length of the pikes made it impossible to get at the men directly, while they could jab outward with impunity.

  Of course, the tactic assumed that when presented with such a wall of spikes, any sane warrior would retreat, knowing he was beaten. In civilized lands pike squares could drive a whole flank back, or break a main charge, or even hold their own against cavalry. But Morget was not civilized. And he was not altogether sane.

  Howling a war curse, he ran straight into the midst of the pikes. One spike lodged in his neck but he tore free of it and pushed in closer. His axe swung in a wide vertical arc that sliced through the wooden hafts of the pikes until their severed ends bounced and drummed around his feet.

  Dawnbringer took the head of one pikeman, and suddenly there was a gap in the square, and just as suddenly Morget was inside it, looking at the unsuspecting backs of the men in the rear. One of them glanced over his shoulder and dropped his weapon in terror.

  The square tried to turn in on itself, but the pikes were useless in close quarters. The pikemen were as likely to stick each other as Morget. The barbarian’s axe and sword flashed left, smashed right, came around, circled, cutting everywhere, slashing and stabbing and thrusting and lunging until twenty dead men fell against Morget and threatened to knock him off his feet. He jumped over the falling bodies before they’d even stopped breathing and looked up to see four more pike squares coming toward him, even as the knights on horseback kept charging through the camp, slaughtering men who were still half asleep.

  “Well played,” Morget said, addressing the unseen commander of this ambush.

  Yet one quick sortie of overwhelming power did not a rout make. Morget had his own gambit to try. This assault of mixed foot and cavalry was deadly, but only on open ground. If he could get the clans inside the city wall before they were cut to pieces, he could build a defensive barricade and hold off his enemies forever with arrows.

  He dashed toward the city wall just as the first limb of the sun crested the horizon, shouting, “The ropes! The ropes! Bring down the wall now!”

  O mother, he prayed, O Mother Death you have blessed me this day!

  Chapter One Hundred Twelve

  As soon as Malden could stand on his own two feet, Cutbill disappeared into the shadows without so much as a parting word of advice. Perhaps, Malden thought, that suggested the guildmaster of thieves had such confidence in him that Cutbill thought he no longer needed guidance.

  Or perhaps Cutbill went to make his own exit from the city, just like Velmont, while the getting was still good.

  Malden clenched his hands, released them again. His fingertips burned as the blood rushed into them. Cutbill had warned him there would be pain when “Gaah!” he shouted, unable to stop himself. A violent cramp had run up and down his whole left side, as feeling returned to his trunk. He felt a vein in his temple curl and spit venom like a snake, and he cried out again.

  The agony was enough to drive him to his knees.

  Unfortunately, he didn’t have time for pain just then. His cry had drawn attention from the nearby streets. A man with a torch came hurrying around the corner, leading a half dozen curious citizens. One of the six was dressed all in red, like a priest.

  If the priests caught him now, he knew better than to expect them to apologize for seizing him and threatening him with human sacrifice.

  “Blast,” he muttered, looking around for a convenient shadow to hide in. But the torch-bearer was already shouting that he’d found the Lord Mayor. Malden glanced over at the wagon that had brought him this far, and the three dead bodies lying around it. He looked intently at the horse, still standing there, waiting patiently in its traces.

  The horse turned its head to look back at him with impassive eyes.

  Malden knew how to ride, if just barely. He’d never mounted a horse before without someone to give him a leg up, but he decided it didn’t matter now.

  There was no time to get the animal unhooked from the cart, so instead he looked up, his natural instinct when being pursued to climb. He ran at a half-timbered wall that offered so many hand- and footholds it might as well have been a ladder and leapt to catch a particularly thick beam.

  The drug Velmont had given him was still at work in his blood, however. His leap was more of a lopsided hop, and when his fingers latched onto the side of the house, he was barely able to cling to it without falling.

  Looking back, he saw his pursuers were only seconds away. “Hold, damn you,” he grunted at his own hands. They’d never failed him before. He managed to swing one arm up and grab the ledge of a second story window. Cramps ran up both his ankles and made him gasp for breath. When the muscles there relaxed again, he swung his right leg up to get purchase on the top of the door frame.

  “Lord Mayor!” someone shouted below. “Please-your people need you! We need you at the Godstone!”

  “He’s slaughtered this crew,” someone else said in a hollow voice. A woman screamed. “They were Sadu’s ministers-what has he done?”

  “Please,” a third voice shouted. “Think of us! Think of our safety!”

  Malden didn’t have the breath to waste on a reply. Pain wracked his arms but he managed to pull himself up onto the shingles of the house’s roof. He lay there gasping for a moment, staring up at the sky, while the entreaties continued from below.

  The sky was a peculiar shade of purple. He turned his head and saw orange clouds on the horizon. No, it can’t come so soon. But he could not deny the evidence of his senses. Dawn was about to break.

  He had to get to Ryewall as quickly as possible, to lead the counterattack.

  He rolled over onto his side, then painfully rose to his feet. He was halfway across the city and could barely trust his legs. What if he had a cramp in the middle of leaping from one rooftop to another?

  There wasn’t anything he could do about that, though. He would have to take his chances.

  Moving as quickly as he dared on feet still half numb, Mal
den scurried over a roof ridge and down the other side. The street beyond was blessedly narrow, and he managed to hurl himself across and roll along the shingles on the far side. Bits of wood, brittle from the cold, broke away underneath him and pattered down into the road, but he managed to get his footing. Ahead of him lay a long row of rooftops, the houses all attached to one another. He kept low as he ran from eave to eave, even as cries went up all around him.

  “His blood! He demands His blood!” they shouted.

  Malden scowled but kept running. There was no time to convince the people of Ness that he was worth more to them now alive than dead.

  Up ahead lay a broad street-Crispfat Lane, where a dozen butchers had their shops. The gap between the rooftops was too wide to jump, even if he’d been in a condition to do so. He ran to the edge and looked down.

  The snowy street was almost deserted-but not quite enough. He saw women holding candles peering into every alley, every alcove. No doubt looking for the appointed sacrifice of their god. The priests must have put out a general hue and cry to find him. The damn fools didn’t seem to understand that every able-bodied citizen of Ness was needed to repel the invaders-these women looked strong enough to hold polearms.

  There was nothing for it. He would have to scramble down into the street and up the houses on the far side. If the searchers tried to stop him, he would have to fight them off. He hurried down a gutter pipe as quietly as he could, praying the dark of night would be his ally as it had so many times before.

  Halfway down a searing pain burst through his stomach and his hands turned to spasmodic claws. He lost his grip as he screamed in agony and fell the last ten feet into a snowdrift. For a while he could do nothing but curl around his midsection and blink sweat out of his eyes.

  The pain felt like it would never let him go. He could not move, could not even think as the agony wracked his body. It was all he could do to keep breathing. As the snow melted on his face and hands, paining him still further, he tried to force it away, tried to unclench his closed eyelids.

  Eventually it worked.

  When he looked up, a small crowd had gathered to peer down at him by candlelight. “Lord Mayor,” one woman said, “you’ve come to your senses. If you’ll just come along with us now. We want no trouble.”

  Malden rose carefully, the pain in his stomach still making it impossible for him to stand up straight. He reached for Acidtongue’s hilt with a hand that barely obeyed his command.

  It would have gotten ugly just then if Slag hadn’t come tearing down the street, screaming, “Make way! Make way or get fucking crushed, you pissants!”

  Chapter One Hundred Thirteen

  The crowd of devout citizens gasped and ran as a massive wagon covered by a tarpaulin came rumbling down the hill toward them. A dozen men were pushing against it from the front, trying to slow its headlong descent and mostly failing.

  Running ahead of the wagon, Slag carried a long brass staff topped by a hook that looked like the head of a snake. Meanwhile, sitting atop the wagon’s burden, Balint waved a cloth back and forth, cheering and shouting curses.

  “You’ll all be flatter than a spinster’s tit if you don’t scarper right now!” she cackled. She looked like she’d never had more fun in her life.

  “I am well pleased to see you,” Malden said as Slag hurried toward him. “I take it this is your secret project.”

  “It’ll be the world’s most expensive heap of scrap if we take this hill too fast, lad,” Slag explained. “Help us!”

  Malden hurried toward the wagon. He recognized the men straining against it as workers from Slag’s shop. Some had burned faces and hands wrapped in bandages, but they seemed less concerned with their own hurts than with slowing the progress of the wagon. Malden put his own shoulder against the wagon’s boards and was shocked to feel how heavy its cargo must be. “What is this made of, Slag? Twice-refined lead?”

  “Bronze, mostly. Put your fucking back in it, boys!”

  They heaved and struggled and strained. The wagon roared as it rolled over the cobbles. The wheels screamed and the axles spat sparks. Somehow they managed to avoid crashing at the bottom of the hill. It was far easier moving it through the relatively level streets beyond, even with no dray animals. Slag suddenly called a halt, and Malden looked up for the first time.

  Directly before him was Ryewall.

  High above, his thieves and whores were busy taking random shots at targets on the other side. Loophole and ’Levenfingers moved along the ramparts of Westwall and Swampwall, shouting orders like they were born serjeants, calling out targets. When Loophole saw Malden, he gave a cheery wave-even as a barbarian arrow shot past his ear, inches from skewering his head.

  “It’s begun, lad,” the oldster called down. “You’d best join me up here.”

  Malden grabbed Slag’s shoulder-the one still attached to an arm. “Are you ready?” he asked.

  “As close as I fucking can be,” the dwarf told him.

  Malden glanced at Balint. “She gave you no trouble?”

  A twitching smile passed across Slag’s face as he tried to maintain a sober countenance. “Oh, she distracted me a bit from what I was doing. But after the-well, after some initial, ah, fractiousness, we, ah, we got along right well. She had some excellent ideas, actually, about brisance and containment.” He glanced away from Malden’s feet. “Very imaginative lass, our Balint.”

  Malden laughed and slapped the dwarf on the back. “What exactly should I expect from this thing?” he asked, changing the subject. “Are you going to shoot a giant arrow at the barbarians, or will it throw a flaming rock like a catapult?”

  “Neither. It’ll either explode when I set it off, and make a much bigger bang than we did at the cloisters, or, it will actually work. In which case-” Slag’s face grew dark with evil excitement. “-it’ll put the fear of fucking dwarves into those stinking cocksuckers.”

  “Do your worst, when I give the signal,” Malden said. Then he hurried up the steep, narrow stairs that led to the top of Westwall.

  It was only then he saw what he was really up against. The barbarians had massed and armed themselves, and he looked out over a sea of iron and shaved heads and eyes burning with hatred and bloodlust. The warriors out there filled the land as far as he could see. Off in the distance it looked like some of them were fighting each other, which he couldn’t quite understand. Maybe they were just running through practice drills-or perhaps they’d grown so tired of waiting to kill that they’d started hacking at one another for something to do.

  Then again, perhaps No. His luck couldn’t be that good. So far everything that could possibly go wrong had, and the idea of something actually working in his favor felt wholly out of the equation.

  Yet soon he couldn’t deny the evidence of his own senses. “Look,” one of the archers said, pointing at a line of flags in the distance. Over where the barbarians were fighting a rearguard action. “Those are the Burgrave’s colors!”

  Malden’s eyes weren’t as good as hers, but he squinted and strained and-yes, he saw it. The Army of Free Men had come at last to relieve the city.

  Now that it was almost surely too late. Directly below him, hundreds of berserkers danced and howled. Foam flecked their lips and cheeks, and their eyes were wide with insanity. The Burgrave had plenty of men but they were poorly trained, poorly armed-no match at all for the reavers and berserkers out there. Tarness could do no more than pick away at the barbarian horde. And he most certainly could not break through in time to save Ryewall from coming down, or the berserkers from overrunning the city.

  A stroke of good luck, but good luck too late, Malden thought. He would have to stick to the plan he’d already made.

  He signaled to the archers around him-Elody’s whores, women he’d known for years. They looked at him with trusting eyes. They were counting on him, he realized. Expecting a miracle. He truly hoped he had one left in stock. “Don’t waste shots on the berserkers, unless you think yo
u can actually kill a few. They don’t feel pain or wounds. When they come through the-”

  Down below he heard Morget’s voice. The barbarian shouted, “Pull, you weaklings! Pull or die!”

  Under Malden’s feet, the very stones of the wall began to shake.

  “Get back, get back from Ryewall,” he shouted, again and again. Soon he couldn’t even hear his own voice. The noise of the wall was just too loud.

  It started as a low creaking, like an unoiled hinge being ripped from its nails. The noise grew to an unearthly moan, accompanied by the percussion of stones falling from a great height. As Malden watched in horror, the Ryewall began to shimmy, its ramparts swaying up and down as if made of water on a foaming sea.

  “Pull!” Morget screamed again, and unlike Malden’s, his voice carried. “Again! Pull!”

  Below and behind Malden, Slag tore the tarpaulin off his secret weapon.

  “That’s it?” Malden demanded.

  It didn’t look like much. Just a metal tube ten feet long and two across, dull yellow in color. Bands of steel were wrapped around its length like the hoops of a barrel. One end was open, and Balint stuffed handfuls of nails and broken weapons and old horseshoes down its mouth. Slag busied himself at a small charcoal fire a little ways off. It looked like he was just trying to get warm.

  “This is what you’ve been working on? The thing that was going to turn them back?” Malden demanded. “It looks like a giant pestle. Do you need me to drive the barbarians into the world’s largest mortar?”

  “Pull!” Morget roared.

  And Ryewall fell.

  Chapter One Hundred Fourteen

  Croy brought Ghostcutter around and disemboweled a gray-bearded reaver, then ducked as an axe whistled over his head. He lost his horse at some point-he barely remembered when-and had been wading through the melee ever since, cutting down any man who came before him. The clatter of glancing blows on his armor and helm drowned out the thoughts in his head. The strength in his good arm saw him through.