A Thief in the Night

chapter Thirty-seven

In the darkness, the revenants began to scream for blood. Croy could see more of them—a vast throng now, swarming around them, converging on their presence. Outside a narrow circle of light, they were everywhere. He could just glimpse them moving, stirring restlessly. They made him think of ants toiling ceaselessly in their warrens, climbing all over each other, heedless of jostling their neighbors. Never pausing, never resting.

Utterly silent.

He brought Ghostcutter up into a guard position. A position from which he could attack or defend instantly. Thus when something appeared just to his left, he very nearly slashed out at it, just by instinct.

Croy managed to stay his hand just in time. Cythera reappeared as mysteriously as she had vanished.

She grabbed his arm. “This is your plan? To go down fighting?”

“I don’t see any option,” he said. “I’m sorry, Cythera. I failed you. When I first agreed to let you come along, I failed—”

“Oh, be quiet!” she said. “There’s still one way out.”

“Point to it,” Croy begged. “They come from every direction—”

“Of course! Every direction save down,” Malden said. He sheathed Acidtongue, pulled off his knapsack and searched inside until he found a coil of rope. “There’s a gallery about three levels below us in the shaft. If we climb down there, perhaps they won’t follow.”

Croy shook his head. The revenants were getting very close. “But our exit will be completely cut off—the revenants may not follow, but they’ll remain here, waiting for us to return. If we go down there we’ll be trapped.”

“Better trapped than f*cking dead,” Slag pointed out. With Malden, he threw a rope over the massive chain that stretched away over the mouth of the pit. “Let me show you a proper knot, lad,” he said as Malden kicked one end of the rope over the edge.

The closest of the revenants began to charge. Croy rushed forward to meet them, to slow their advance as best he could. It was too late—there was no way they could all get down the rope before the dead elves overwhelmed them. Croy hacked all around him with Ghostcutter, dodging blows. A bronze mace took him in the thigh and he nearly went down. A sword came at his face and he felt hot blood slick down his cheek.

Mörget waded into the melee, kicking randomly at the attackers, and sliced through a pair of skeletal hands reaching for Croy’s throat. When Dawnbringer touched the undead flesh it burst with light, nearly blinding Croy.

The effect on the revenants was far more dramatic. They howled, not with rage this time but with pure mindless pain. They had no eyes, but that light, the light so similar to that of the pure sun of the upper world, seared their flesh wherever it touched them.

For the barest of moments the charge was broken and the revenants stopped attacking. They drew back, knocking down those behind them, as if a great wind had driven them there. Mörget boomed with laughter as he brandished the glowing blade high over his head. The revenants writhed and clutched at each other in terrible fear. One by one, though, they began to rally.

“The light!” Croy shouted. “It hurts them, somehow. They are creatures of darkness . . . perhaps, Malden . . . Get everyone down that rope. I’ll hold them off as long as I can. If I don’t make it, get Cythera out of here. At any price, keep her safe!”

“That goes for the f*cking dwarf, too,” Slag insisted. Then he grabbed hold of the rope and jumped over the edge of the pit. Malden and Cythera followed as quick as they could. Croy saw the rope twitch under their weight.

“You bought us a moment’s grace,” Croy said to Mörget. “Now, while they’re dazed—get to the rope.”

“And leave you here to die a glorious death—without me?” the barbarian laughed.

A revenant, faster to recover than his fellows, came running at Croy with his hands outstretched. A long dagger remained in its sheath at his belt—clearly he meant only to strangle the knight. Croy jumped to the side and cut the elf in two. Even before it hit the ground, the torso of the revenant started clawing its way toward him again, its hands going now for his ankle.

Croy stamped on it until it stopped struggling.

Instantly, though, there were a dozen more to take its place.

Mörget growled like a bear and brought Dawnbringer around in a fresh attack, the blade lighting up like a torch. The revenants drew back from the hated blade, but this time the light was not so effective. As the revenants directly before Mörget clawed at their skin and dropped their weapons, a new wave of them came shoving through, axes and cleavers and morningstars raised high in the dark air.

“The rope!” Croy called, because he saw something to waken new dread in his heart. A revenant had broken off from the main ranks and was clambering down the line, hand over hand.

“I see it,” Mörget said, and scooped his axe up off the cobbles. With a good, hard fling, he severed the rope and sent the climbing revenant falling down into the darkness with a screech.

Croy could only pray that Cythera was already on the gallery, and not hanging from the rope when it was cut. Lady, he prayed, give me strength to die as befits your servant. He laid into the revenants, left and right and before him, with one last surge of courage. “This is it,” he shouted. “This is how we die.”

Yet even before his third blow fell, he felt a thick arm wrap around his waist and suddenly he was off his feet. “They want justice,” Mörget shouted. “I deny them!”

And with that the barbarian jumped over the edge of the pit, pulling Croy with him. They fell through utter darkness for what seemed like hours but must only have been seconds. Without warning they struck black, icy water that filled Croy’s nose and mouth and tore away his consciousness.