A Thief in the Night

chapter Thirty-four

“Lad, lass, get up,” Slag said, shaking Malden and Cythera to get them moving. Croy paid no attention as the dwarf explained what was happening to them. He had Ghostcutter out of its sheath and was busy preparing himself for a fight.

His first inclination was to douse the lanterns and hide. But there was no good place to cower, and he had a feeling that whatever was out there could probably see better in the dark than he could. It showed no lights of its own. He couldn’t see it at all in the murk but he could definitely hear it now.

Its footsteps were dragging and slow but it was making no attempt to muffle them. And it made another sound, too, a rhythmic scraping sound Croy couldn’t place.

“It’s this way,” Mörget said, and pointed into the dark with his axe. “And there’s more than one.”

Croy strained his ears to the limit of their ability to pick up sounds, but he lacked Mörget’s wild-born sensitivity. The knight squinted his eyes against the musty darkness and tried to see something. Anything.

And then he had it. A figure, human-shaped, moving toward them very slowly. It wasn’t walking so much as shuffling its feet forward. One arm held something that it dragged along the cobblestones. That was the source of the rhythmic scraping sound they had heard. By the sound of it, the figure was dragging a piece of metal along the cobbles.

“It’s armed,” Croy said, presuming the piece of metal had to be a weapon.

“They all are. And armored.”

“All?” Croy asked, near panic. He fought his fear down. He had to keep the mask of fearlessness in place, if only for the sake of Cythera and the others. In a moment he saw two more figures, just behind the first. It was impossible for him to make out any real detail in the darkness, but they were definitely clad in metal that reflected more light than their pale faces. As they drew steadily closer, he could see a little more. The one in front was dragging a sword. It gleamed yellow along one edge. Like gold—or bronze.

He could see now they were not human. They were far too slender, even when covered in plates of armor. Their heads were longer than a human’s, as were their hands. They wore helmets that hid their ears, but Croy was certain the ears would be pointed if he could see them.

“Elves,” Croy said. “But how? There can’t be any living elves down here, not after so long.”

Apparently there weren’t. As they came even closer, no more than twenty yards away now, he could tell they were dead. The one in front had no eyes in its sockets. Its long, thin nose was partially eaten away, and the skin of one cheek was furry with mold.

Malden came up beside Croy and stared at them. “Ghosts,” he breathed, his voice thick with supernatural dread.

“No,” Croy said. He had fought ghosts before. Those had been thin, ethereal things, almost invisible and utterly silent. The sound the lead elf’s sword made as it dragged along the ground told him these were material creatures. Dead bodies, animated by some foul sorcery and made to walk again. “Revenants,” he corrected. “Malden, keep Cythera safe. Use Acidtongue if you must—I don’t care if you haven’t been trained with a sword. Just don’t let them—”

He stopped because he saw the other two revenants clearly. One had a grinning skull for a face, with tatters of skin hanging from its forehead to obscure one blank eye socket. The other had no head at all.

“Mörget, be ready,” Croy said. He’d never faced a revenant in battle before, but had heard tales, and he knew a little of what to expect. “They will attack without attempting to parley. And they will not stop to beg for quarter. They want only our deaths.”

“Death is my mother,” Mörget said. “Let them come a little closer, so I can give her a kiss.”

Croy had no doubt the barbarian thought he could take all three revenants on himself. If they had just been elves, or even just animated bones, Croy was certain the barbarian would defeat them handily. But if, as he feared, these were true revenants—spirits of vengeance, animated by a desperate hunger for justice—they would be far harder to overcome than any living opponent.

“Just be careful. Whatever you do, don’t let them grapple you. They’ll cling to your neck with preternatural strength and never let go.”

“Consider me warned,” Mörget said, and then he howled like a wolf.

The nearest revenant opened skinless lips and screamed at them, a dreadful sound of loss and rage that chilled Croy’s blood. Then the three of them brought their weapons to bear and charged, no longer shuffling painfully but running with great speed.

The leader came straight at Croy, bringing its sword up and whirling it over its head, just as a living commander might to rally his troops. Its bony feet slapped on the cobblestones, slipping and sliding, but it never fell or faltered. In the space between two breaths it was on him, and its intent was clear: it meant to slaughter him as quickly and as violently as possible.

Fear surged through Croy’s body, like rivers of ice coursing through his veins. He remembered another of Sir Orne’s lessons. Fear could make a man run away—or it could make him fight like a wildcat, if he thought he had nowhere to run. Fear could be used, channeled. It could make a man fast and strong.

He brought Ghostcutter high and caught the bronze sword on his forte. He pushed the blow away from him and the revenant reeled. He spared a heartbeat-long glance at Mörget, and was glad to see the barbarian was not just attacking like a berserker—he was moving around to the side, to flank the three while he himself took the brunt of their attack.

Sound strategy—but it meant he was exposed to a torrent of blows. The skull-faced revenant had a double-bladed battle-axe that it brought around in a clumsy swing Croy had to jump backward to avoid. The headless one’s sword came around in a wild arc, as if the revenant were merely waving it in front of itself, hoping that he hit something. The leader’s sword came down in a powerful overhead driving cut, and Croy could only bring Ghostcutter up to catch the bronze sword on his quillions. He swung around to kick the revenant backward, then jerked his foot away as the dead elf’s free hand reached for his ankle.

Mörget’s axe took the headless one in the back, a clanging blow that might have cut a human opponent in half. The headless revenant staggered forward under the pressure, then straightened itself up and swung its blade again.

Croy ducked sideways, away from the flailing blow. The skull-faced one’s axe was carving through the air toward him, but he knocked it away easily.

“Everyone, move back, away from the edge of the pit,” he shouted. He didn’t want to be driven into the dark abyss by force of arms.

He brought Ghostcutter down hard on the skull-faced revenant’s shoulder, and the silvered edge of his Ancient Blade bit deep through the thing’s armor. The skull-face split open in a scream that left its jawbone dangling from one joint. Croy pulled his sword clear of the wound and swung around for a strong cut to the thing’s axe arm. The blow surely would have cut through the revenant’s elbow if the leader of the dead elves had not chosen that moment to thrust its sword hard into Croy’s side.

Pain burst through Croy’s entire rib cage. It blinded him, and made him drop to one knee. He heard Cythera calling his name, but the blood pounding through his head made her voice distant and small.

He managed to force his eyes open and looked up just as the skull-face’s axe came whistling down toward his scalp.

“No,” he had time to say, thinking this was his death.

Instead Mörget grabbed the skull-face around the waist and heaved him off the ground. He rushed toward the pit, clearly intending to throw the revenant into the depths.

“No!” Croy howled again as the skull-face dropped its axe—and wrapped both its bony hands around Mörget’s thick neck.