A Thief in the Night

chapter Thirty

Croy called out in shock, but Malden was already in motion, dropping to a crouch and rolling out of the way as the spikes slammed through the doorway and bit hungrily at the air where he had been.

Malden scuttled away from the spikes on his hands and heels. When it was clear they weren’t going to shoot outward from the door or knock back into the crevasse, he shook his head in relief.

The spikes were six inches long, protruding point first from a wooden board. A complicated arrangement of springs sent the board flying into the room when the door was opened. The tip of each spike glistened with droplets of liquid.

“Poison, almost certainly,” Malden said as he rose to his feet. “Interesting. I wonder why it was set to trigger from this side? Surely—”

A loud, rhythmic clanging noise interrupted him. The noise ratcheted up in volume, and then the five of them jumped in surprise as the board began to retreat back to its previous position, drawing back through the doorway. A spring mounted to the back of the door slammed it shut again once the spiked board had returned to its starting state.

There was a very loud click, like a dead bolt being shot into place, and then silence reigned once more. It was as if Malden had never opened the door.

“Ah,” he said.

“F*cking brilliant!” Slag cried.

“Ingenious, definitely,” Malden agreed. “But it raises a question. If we want to proceed, how do we get through that door?”

The dwarf pondered for a moment. “Trigger it again. Then we wedge something in between the board and the doorjamb. Something strong, like one of Mörget’s weapons. He’s got a whole f*cking wardrobe of the things under his cloak, surely he can spare one, right? Then we all heave on it until something breaks.”

“Something inside the mechanism that propels the board?”

“Or the weapon. In which case we try again.”

Malden nodded, seeing the wisdom of this plan. “Very well. In that case—”

He stopped because Mörget was already standing to one side of the door and pulling on its latch. Malden jumped back as the board of spikes came bursting into the room again, exactly as before. Mörget roared and jumped between the board and the jamb. Instead of sacrificing one of his weapons, however, he got his own shoulder into the narrow space.

The clanging, ratcheting noise came again as the trap tried to reset itself. Mörget’s face twisted into a grimace of pain as the back of the board tried to crush his body. Yet he was braced well and he pushed back with the arm he had thrust into the mechanism. The ratcheting noise made a pathetic series of clicks as the barbarian heaved and shoved, sweat breaking out across his forehead and running down across the red stain around his mouth.

And then something broke.

Malden couldn’t be sure at first if it was the mechanism or one of Mörget’s bones. But a moment later the barbarian screamed in rage and gave one last heave, and the board tore away from its springs. It went flying across the room, inches from impaling Cythera, and then slid over the edge of the crevasse to disappear from sight. A moment later Malden heard it splash into the river below.

“Grab the door,” Mörget howled. Croy rushed in to grab it before it could slam shut on Mörget’s body. Slag ducked under the knight’s arm and attacked the spring on the door with a wide-bladed screwdriver. In a moment he had that spring disabled as well.

Mörget stepped away from the mechanism and rolled his shoulder as if it was slightly sore.

“My way works, too,” he said.

“So much for the element of surprise, though,” Cythera pointed out. “That made enough noise that I’m sure even the demon heard it. We’d be wise to press on now and get away from here as quickly as possible, before it—or anything else—comes to investigate.”

“You mean the ghosts of elves?” Croy asked. “Do you sense them?”

Cythera shook her head, but she didn’t look particularly sure. “No . . . but . . . there’s something here. Something that doesn’t want us to go any further.” She gave them all a weak smile. “Perhaps I’m just jumping at shadows.”

“Some shadows are more dangerous than others,” Mörget pointed out. “The woman is right. We need to keep moving.”

Malden approached the open door and held his lantern inside. He could see the clockwork that had operated the trap, much of it now broken and bent out of shape. Beyond, there seemed to be a large open space. He crawled over the gears and into the room there, and then called back for everyone else to follow.

The room beyond the door had a low ceiling, though Mörget was able to stand upright once he was inside. It was broader than it was deep, and the walls were of finely dressed stone. A pair of broad doorways led out of the room, farther into the city, but they could not be reached immediately because someone had constructed a barricade before them. It was a clumsy affair of broken furniture and low walls made of sacks filled with sand, studded all over with wooden spikes. The spikes pointed toward the door Malden had just come through. He approached one and gave it a push, and the wood collapsed under his finger, rotten through and as soft as paper. In fact the entire barricade looked like it might collapse into dust if he gave it a good kick. The furniture was falling apart and the sacks of sand had been nibbled at by insects until they leaked in a hundred places. “Ah. Well, this explains one thing,” he said.

“What’s that?” Croy asked.

“I wasn’t expecting that last trap to be triggered from that side because I expected all the traps were meant to keep anyone from getting out of the Vincularium. Clearly, though, the elves wanted just as much to keep anyone from getting in. Tell me, Croy, would this make a good defensive point to ward off invaders?”

“Yes, certainly,” the knight said. “Presumably the trap on the door would stop the first one who tried to come through. The noise it makes would alert you that someone was trying to come in. The invaders would be unlikely to fall for the trap twice, but by the time they disabled the mechanism, you could have a dozen archers here, protected by this defensive works, and they could hold off all but the most determined attackers.”

“The elves thought they were going to be attacked,” Malden said, climbing over the barricade. From the far side he could see how easily a man could duck down behind the gathered junk and be shielded from incoming attacks. “They must have believed that the humans would come in here after them and finish the job. The last thing they expected was that they would be sealed inside and left to rot.”

“Sounds good, lad,” Slag said. “Too bad your theory is horseshit.” The dwarf was busy examining the clockwork that had propelled the spiked board.

“Oh?” Malden asked.

“Two reasons. No elf ever built something this complicated. They lacked the skill. Secondly, the buggers all died off centuries ago.” He ran one finger across the teeth of a heavy gear. “But the oil on this thing is fresh.”