Honour Among Thieves

If Malden got lucky and cut the man down, he would be pursued unto the ends of the world. You did not kill a nobleman and get away with it, not ever.

He could, of course, run away. The knight seemed agile enough even weighed down with so much steel, but Malden would undoubtedly be fleeter and the chase would not go far. He turned around, intending to do this very thing, only to find he had hesitated a moment too long.

Coming down the street from the other direction, a pack of kingsmen were advancing on him steadily. Their weapons were all pointed straight at his belly. They held their ground, not advancing with any kind of speed—clearly they intended to let the knight handle him. Yet there was no chance of getting past that wall of blades. Malden’s only possible escape was to get past the knight.

Malden wasn’t the type to pray, even in extremity, but he called on Sadu then. Sadu the bloodgod, the leveler, who brought justice to all men in the end, even knights and nobility. Then he drew his magic sword, and wished he’d bothered to learn how to swing it correctly. Or at least to hold it properly. Acid dripped from the eroded blade and spat where it struck the dusty cobbles.

The knight swore, his voice echoing inside his helmet. “By the Lady! Where’d you get that treasure, son? Did you steal it from Sir Bikker?”

Malden’s eyes narrowed. How could the knight know who had first owned Acidtongue? “Bikker is dead,” he said.

“But yours wasn’t the hand that slew him, I warrant. You’re no Ancient Blade.”

For the first time Malden looked on the knight’s own sword. No jewels decorated the pommel, and the quillions were of plain iron, though well polished. The blade was not even particularly long. Yet vapor lifted from its flat to spin in the air, and patterns of frost crackled in its fuller.

“Do you recognize my sword?” the knight asked.

“Judging by the fact I’m still in one piece, I think it’s fair to say I haven’t made its acquaintance.”

The knight laughed. “This is Chillbrand,” he said. “You’d know that, if Acidtongue was rightfully yours. No Ancient Blade is handed down to a new wielder until he’s been trained by the man who wielded it before him. He’s taught its proper use, and about the history and powers of all seven. None of us would ever let one of the swords fall into the hands of one who didn’t appreciate their traditions.”

“I’m still being trained,” Malden said, which was true enough.

The knight shook his head, though. “If you don’t know Chillbrand, you have no right to bear Acidtongue. I must assume you stole it from Bikker—or looted it from his dead body. Put the sword back in its sheath, now, and lay it gently on the ground. That’s a good boy.”

Malden’s lips pulled back from his teeth and he roared as he ran at the knight. He brought Acidtongue up high over his shoulder—vitriol pattered and burned holes through his cloak—and then swung it down hard.

The knight laughed, and easily batted Acidtongue away with Chillbrand.

“It’s not a quarterstaff, son,” the knight said, taking two steps to Malden’s right, forcing Malden to whirl around to face him again. “Don’t swing it around like a stick. That’s a waste of its strength. Cut with it. Like you’d chop the head off a fish.”

“You’d teach me to fight, even as I’m trying to kill you?” Malden asked.

“Judging by your skill it’ll take you quite a while to do that,” the knight responded. “I have to find some way to pass the time.”

Malden seethed with rage. He tried a stroke he’d seen Croy make a dozen times—feint quickly to the left, then shift all your weight to your right side and on the follow-through, bring the blade around to—

Iron clanged on iron. Chillbrand slid down Acidtongue’s blade and its point was suddenly at Malden’s throat, while Acidtongue was thrust harmlessly to one side.

“A swordsman,” the knight told Malden, “trains every day of his life. He sustains himself on wholesome food, to build up his strength. You’re puny, boy. You’ve gone to bed hungry one too many times. You’re quick on your feet, I’ll give you that, but the muscles in your arm are soft as cheese. I can feel it.”

“Will you insult me to death? Stop toying with me!”

“When two knights meet, swords in hand, they call it a conversation, because of the way the steel sounds its joy, back and forth. But you’d know that, too, if—”

Without warning, Malden brought Acidtongue around with his weight behind it, intending to run it straight through the knight’s body. Acidtongue flickered in the air it moved so quickly. Yet the knight was as ready for the blow as if he’d read Malden’s mind. Chillbrand came down from overhead and turned Acidtongue to the side like earth off the blade of a plow.

“Cut me down or let me pass!” Malden shrieked.

“If you insist,” the knight said.

Yet he would not even grant Malden the mercy of a quick death. Instead he just lunged forward and slapped Malden across the forehead with the flat of his blade.

Ice crystals grew and burst inside Malden’s brain, exploding his thoughts and freezing his senses. He felt every shred of warmth sucked from his body, drawn into the freezing sword. He started to shake and his teeth clacked together like the wooden clappers of the lepers he’d seen. His body convulsed with the cold and suddenly he could not control his fingers, and Acidtongue fell from his hand to bounce off the cobblestones.

Desperately Malden tried to wrap his arms around himself, to stamp his feet—anything to get warm. His body had rebelled against him, and he could not stop shaking.

It was the work of a moment for the kingsmen behind him to grab him up, and bind him, and haul him away. He could offer no resistance at all.

CHAPTER EIGHT

When Malden burst out of the inn, Cythera leapt to her feet fully intending to follow him. People pressed in on every side though and she just could not match the thief’s speed or nimbleness. Still she tried to push her way through the crowd—until Croy grabbed her arm and dragged her back.

“If they have a warrant for his arrest,” Croy said, “we must—”

“He’s our friend,” Cythera said, staring daggers at the knight errant. “I’m going after him!”

“If you must, then at least let’s do it the right way. We’ll speak to the proper authorities, and find out why they want him and how he can be freed. Just let me settle up our bill here, and—”

She stared at him with wild eyes. “I’ll go alone. You keep an eye on Balint.” She twisted her arm out of his grip and ducked under the elbow of the taverner, who had come to see what all the fuss was about. The people in the inn drew back when they saw the look in her face.

She would not lose Malden. Not now, when she’d just realized how she felt about him. That fate should take him away from her now was unacceptable.

Outside of the inn she sought wildly through the crowded streets, having no idea where she should look for Malden first. She knew he would likely have taken to the rooftops but she wasn’t as nimble and couldn’t follow him that way. When she heard the hue and cry go up, though, she knew to head in the direction of the shouting—and raced around a corner just in time to see Malden struck down. She called out his name in horror but couldn’t move from the spot, paralyzed in terror. She thought for certain he was dead, his head caved in by the blow, but instead he merely collapsed to the street, quaking like a man in the grip of a terrible seizure.

She wanted to run forward, to grab him up and take him away, to rescue him. But the square was full of kingsmen and the armored knight stood watchful and ready. There was no way she could help Malden now, not directly. There must be something she could do, though, something to—

“Daughter. You have been gone too long.”

Cythera’s jaw dropped. “Mother?”

Creeping dread made every muscle in her back ripple and tense. Slowly she turned around, expecting to see Coruth the witch standing in the alley behind her.

Instead there was a boy there, a little peasant boy with a dirty face. And several hundred birds.

Rooks, starlings, pigeons and doves all stood on the cobbles, or perched on the timbers of the houses on either side. More of them came down to land around the boy as Cythera watched. Some fluttered down to land on his shoulders, others to perch atop his head. The birds were all staring at her.

The boy, in way of contrast, looked at nothing. His eyes were unfocused and looked like they might roll up into their sockets. His arms hung loose at his sides and the muscles of his face were all slack, so that he slurred his words as he spoke to her again.

“You are required in Ness. You must come home immediately.”

Cythera knew what was happening. That didn’t make it any less unsettling. Her mother had set her spirit loose upon the ether, let it drift with the movements of birds, as was her wont. It allowed her to see things hidden from human eyes and to keep a watch on the entire kingdom of Skrae at once. Yet birds could not convey proper messages—their beaks and tongues were ill-formed for human speech. So Coruth must have overridden the boy’s consciousness with her own. It was a cruel thing to do and Cythera knew Coruth would only have turned to such magic if she had no other choice.

“Malden’s in trouble, mother. You and I both owe him a great debt—I can’t go anywhere until he’s safe. I just watched him get struck by an Ancient Blade.”

“Chillbrand,” the boy said. He did not nod. Coruth was controlling only enough of his functions to speak with. That was the difference between witchcraft and sorcery, sometimes. A sorcerer would have taken the boy over completely—and left him mindless and half-dead when the sorcerer was done with him. “One of the seven. Strange. I can see them all now, all seven of the swords. They are coming together, as if drawn by a magnet.”

“The swords are coming to Helstrow?” Cythera asked, intrigued despite herself.

“For a brief while. Hmm. This could be trouble. The future is not entirely clear right now. What is clear is that you must return to Ness. We must speak, you and I. Great events are unfolding. Some we care about will be brought low, while others are lifted to the heights. What was solid and eternal will become mutable. Malden … did you say Malden was in trouble? But that’s impossible. He has—he will—”

The boy’s lips pressed tightly together, and one of his hands twitched. Coruth was losing control of him.

“Mother? Mother, what are you talking about?” Cythera demanded. Coruth could see the underpinnings of reality, she could even glimpse the future, but often what she saw was so cryptic even she could make no sense of it. Cythera understood maybe one part in ten of what Coruth told her of those visions. “Mother, please. I need to know more—if this will effect Malden, or Croy, I need to know!”

But Coruth had released the boy. His eyes slowly focused and his face regained something like normal muscle tone. Cythera knelt down to put her hands on his shoulders and help him return to full control of his body by stroking his forehead and rubbing his back. “Mistress,” he said, and blinked his eyes rapidly. “Mistress, I beg your pardon—I must’a come runnin’ down here and bumped you, and scattered me wits for a moment. I—I—where am I? I was s’posed to do somethin’, but I can’t rightly recall what. I can’t remember much, tell the truth. My head aches somethin’ awful.”

“You were supposed to give me a message. You did just fine.” Cythera took a farthing from her purse and pressed it into his hand. “You do look like you’ve had a shock. Best run home now and lie down.”

The boy took the coin and headed off, scattering the birds that bobbed and scampered around the alley. Cythera hoped he would do as she’d said—the spell he’d been under would leave him drained and scattered for days, and she would hate to find out he’d come to some mischief just for helping Coruth.

Slowly she rose to her feet again. She would return to the inn and find Croy. The knight-errant was Malden’s only hope, now. Before she headed back, though, she waited until one of the birds was turned away from her. Then she darted forward and grabbed it with both hands. It was a pigeon with iridescent wings and it was not so frightened as it should have been. That meant some piece of Coruth’s mind was still inside its head. “Mother,” she whispered to the bird, “you could have been more helpful. I got your message but all you’ve achieved is to scare me a bit. If you have any idea what I’m supposed to do now, I’d love to hear it.”

The bird struggled in her hands, and she released it. Without even looking at her it took to the air and flew away.

CHAPTER NINE

They dragged Malden through the gate to the inner bailey, then up a hill to the keep. No one spoke to him, and he was still too blasted with cold to ask any questions. When they arrived inside the thick stone walls of the keep he expected to be thrown into an oubliette and forgotten. He had, after all, threatened a knight of the king. Instead, however, he was taken into a spacious feasting hall where an iron collar was locked around his throat and then chained to a staple in one wall. The hall was already full of men, mostly young, mostly with the scrawny, shifty-eyed look of dire poverty. Malden thought he recognized a few of the faces—he had seen them being rounded up in the square. These, it seemed, were his people. Thieves and beggars, the seedy underbelly of Helstrovian society. Not that this knowledge was likely to help him—they didn’t know him from the Emperor of the South. Nor was he in any shape to introduce himself. He could barely keep his teeth from breaking, they chattered so much.

For a great while, Malden curled himself about his stomach and just shivered. He felt like all of winter’s chill had gathered in his bones. He felt his heart racing, booming in his chest. His fingers turned bright red as if they had been frostbitten. A fire burned in a hearth at one side of the hall, and he longed and dreamed of going to it, of shoving his hands directly into the flames, simply for the warmth he would feel before his flesh singed and burnt. Luckily the chain around his neck kept him from doing so.

In time, the supernatural chill withdrew from his bones. He doubted he would ever truly feel warm again, but his teeth stopped knocking together so much.

Blowing warm breath on his fingers, he struggled to sit up and look around. Nothing had changed over the last hour, save that more men had been brought into the hall. Very few of them were talking to each other. Mostly they sat in dull silence and stared at things that weren’t there. They came and chained up a man next to Malden, a middle-aged starveling whose eyes were quite mad. He stared at Malden without speaking until Malden turned to the man on his other side.

“You,” Malden said, to the surly fellow. He needed information and no other source provided itself. “What did they get you for, then?”

“What’s it to ye?”

“I’m a scholar of justice,” Malden told him.

That elicited a brief laugh, though little humor. “They never said why. Just grabbed me up outta me bed. Mind, I suppose I deserve to be here more’n some.”

“You’re a thief, then?” Malden asked. The other bridled so he held up his hands for peace. “I’m in the trade myself,” he explained, “and will say as much to any man who asks.”

“Alright, then. Call me a thief, if ye like.”

Malden nodded eagerly. Then he ran his hands across the rushes on the floor. As expected there was a thick layer of dust underneath. He cleared some rushes away, then drew in the dust with his finger, sketching a heart transfixed by a key.

The other thief stared down at the image. Malden knew right away that the man recognized the symbol—he knew it for the mark of Cutbill, the master of the thieves’ guild in Ness. He had worried that the symbol might not be known in Helstrow.

The other thief slid one foot through the drawing, obliterating it before anyone else could see. “You’re his man?” he asked.

Malden nodded.

“We got our own boss here, though I shan’t say his name out loud, not in this place. You can have what they call me, though, which is Velmont.”

“Malden.”

The two of them clasped hands, but only for a moment.

The thief made a point of looking away as he spoke out of the side of his mouth. “Now maybe my boss has heard o’ your boss. Maybe they’s even friends. Well, men of business will come together, eh, and find ways to help each other out, from time to time. Still, I don’t know what you’re after, showing me that.”

Malden frowned. “Just a bit of knowledge, really. The watch here—the kingsmen—are rounding up every scofflaw in town, it seems. I’ve never seen such a complete sweep before. Unless you tell me this is a common occurrence in Helstrow—”

“It ain’t.”

“—then I can only wonder why they’re being so thorough. There must be a hundred men in this room. And why here? This looks like a banquet hall, not a dungeon. The only reason to put us here is if the gaol is already full. And that means there must be plenty more of us stashed in other places, too. Maybe hundreds of men. Surely the king doesn’t intend to hang us all. He wouldn’t need to slaughter so many just to improve public morale.”

Velmont scratched himself. “It started just a few days ago. Folks that’d been in the game far longer’n me—folks that shoulda been untouchable, like—got scooped up in the middle o’ the night. Then they started raiding the gambling houses and the brothels at dawn.” He shrugged. “No one tells us anything, o’ course. We’re just peasants, what do we need t’know? But ’twas at the same time, that all the honest men in town got taken outside the wall to learn how to shoot a bow.” The thief shook his head. “You just in town today? Your accent says you’re from Ness, is that right?”

Malden assented with a nod.

“You picked a lousy time to come see Helstrow, friend. Now, I don’t think we’re to be killed. No, not as such. But I’ve been wondering ’bout what they’re up to meself, and there’s only one conclusion I can draw. Conscription.”

“They’re going to press us into military service?”

“Give us a choice, like.” Velmont smiled wickedly. “The noose or the army. Well, I know my answer already.”

“I suppose we all do. That must be what they’re counting on. By law they can’t force freemen to fight for the king—”

“But a prisoner’s another story, aye.”

Conjecture was all Velmont had to go on, but what he said made sense to Malden. Why the king wanted an army now, of all times, Malden had no idea. The two thieves discussed various theories for some time, without coming to any further useful ideas.

They were still talking when the sun went down and darkness filled the hall. The only light they had came from the fire in the hearth. All around them men laid down as best they could and curled themselves in sleep. Those who still spoke softly amongst themselves all seemed to agree that they were to be kept in the banquet hall overnight at the very least. So when someone entered the hall with a lantern and started shining it in the faces of the imprisoned, everyone sat up and looked. Velmont and Malden fell silent and tried to look as if they’d never spoken to one another. They were in enough trouble as it was and didn’t need to be accused of conspiracy.

The lantern moved up and down the hall. The guards never spoke, just played their light over each face and then moved on, clearly not finding what they sought. As the guard with the lantern came closer, Malden somehow knew they were coming for him. When the light hit his face, he refused to blink. The guard beckoned to someone else—a kingsman—who came rushing up out of the darkness. Then the guard pointed one accusing finger at Malden. “Him.”

CHAPTER TEN

“This way, sir knight, milady,” the castellan said, and ushered them inside a low-ceilinged room. “Please wait here until you are officially presented.”

“What are we waiting for?” Cythera asked. “I don’t understand. We wanted to talk to the magistrate, so we could find out where our friend is being held.”

“I was bidden only to bring you here, where you may await your audience,” the castellan told her. Then he stepped backward out into the hall and closed the door behind him.

Croy stared at the doors, wondering exactly what was going on. Why had they been brought here, of all places? Why now?

Cythera turned to him and asked, “This doesn’t look like a law court. Where are we?”

The knight cleared his throat. “The privy council chamber. This is where the king consults his closest advisors.”

“And—our audience? Who have we been summoned to see? One of those advisors?”

Croy could barely speak for the emotion he felt. This room—this very room. “I don’t know why we were brought here,” he said at last.

Cythera sighed deeply and went to sit down. It had been a very long day for her, Croy thought. They’d had to run from office to office in the inner bailey, looking for anyone who might tell them where Malden might be, or who might take charge of Balint so they didn’t have to keep looking after her. They had at least succeeded in the latter goal. They had been allowed to turn the dwarf prisoner over to the king’s equerry, of all people—the official in charge of the royal stables. It seemed there was nowhere else in the inner bailey that wasn’t already full of prisoners.

No one could tell them anything about Malden. But after they had approached the keep, where they were told some prisoners were being held, the castellan himself had come looking for them, and he had brought them here.

Here. To this room.

Croy had been inside the privy council chamber before, many times. There had been a time he had stood in this room every day. The Ancient Blades had been forged to slay demons, but by the time Croy received Ghostcutter from his father there had been too few demons left to justify having five knights just for that purpose. Instead the bearers of the Blades had been commissioned to be the personal bodyguards of the king—the previous king, Ulfram IV.

It was in this room that Ulfram IV had died. A villainous councilor had slipped poison into his mutton. The Ancient Blades had caught the councilor before he could escape but it was already too late. It was also in this room that his son, Ulfram V, current sovereign of Skrae, had blamed the bodyguards for his father’s death, and stripped them of their commission. He would have done far more to them, if he’d been able to prove they had anything to do with the assassination, but everyone knew the sacred honor of the Blades. All he could do was send them forth from Helstrow in disgrace.

Croy remembered that day very well. It had been the worst day of his life. In some ways he would have preferred to have been hanged rather than face that shame. That was the day he became a knight errant—a servant without a master.

He had never expected to enter this room again.

He looked around him and saw how little had changed. The shields hanging on the walls were a bit rustier than they had been. The upholstery on the chairs that lined the walls had been changed from red to green, that was all, really. Then he spotted the one significant change.

A tapestry map covered one wall of the chamber, a cunning depiction of the natural and political features of Skrae picked out in minute embroidery of silken floss. The Whitewall—the mountain range that formed Skrae’s eastern border—had been stitched from thread of silver, and it glittered in the firelight. Except for one dull patch.

Croy approached the map and looked more closely. It was as he expected. Someone had used the point of a knife to pick out all the threads that had made up the image of Cloudblade, the kingdom’s tallest mountain. Which only made sense, since the mountain wasn’t there any more.

Croy blushed to think of the part he’d had in that.

“Croy,” Cythera said, turning to him to speak in a hurried whisper, “I don’t know what we’re doing here. But I’m certain that once it’s done we should leave Helstrow as soon as possible. My mother sent me a message today, telling me to come home.”