A Thief in the Night

chapter Forty-one

Coarse sand crusted Croy’s cheek, digging into his flesh. He could hear the gentle slap of waves nearby. He opened his eyes but saw nothing but darkness so profound it made his head ache.

Come to think of it, his whole body ached. He felt like he’d been picked up by a giant and thrown hard against a stone wall. He felt bruised and battered, though no bones seemed broken. He was also soaked to the skin.

He knew immediately that he was alive. This didn’t seem anything like the glorious afterlife the Lady promised her followers. It was possible that he had sinned in some way and was dragged down into the pit by the Bloodgod, but he had always assumed he would go to the other place.

Anyway, it was too cold where he lay to be the fiery pit.

He sat up and ran his hands across his face, clearing off the grit. Then he reached down to his belt to reassure himself that Ghostcutter was still there. Reaching for its hilt was an old reflex, and the feeling of its grip in his hand never failed to calm him, no matter how frightful a situation he found himself in. Yet this time his hand closed on nothing. The sword was gone. He struggled around to reach for his pack—there was at least an eating knife in there—but the pack was gone too.

Croy almost never blasphemed, but he muttered a curse concerning the Lady’s left elbow then. It wasn’t particularly vulgar but it made him feel better.

He called for Mörget but there was no answer.

He got to his feet, his boots crunching on the pebbly sand. He had no idea where he was, though considering the darkness he decided he must still be in the Vincularium. Stretching out his hands, he walked away from the sound of the water, moving forward one tentative step at a time until his hands encountered a brick wall. He pressed his back up against it and tried to think of what to do next.

Feeling his way along the wall, he headed away from the sound of water. The floor was even and he only tripped a few times as he made his way up a modest incline. The bricks under his fingers were uniform in size and shape, and he counted them as he went along, keeping track of how far he’d gone.

Fifty feet along the wall ended. He reached around its edge and found another wall at right angles to the first, headed away from him. He took a few halting steps forward but couldn’t find a far wall, and decided he had come into a larger room.

How long could he keep doing this, he wondered, moving blindly forward with no weapons and no light? How long would it be before he stepped over the edge of some pitfall—or blundered into the resting place of more revenants?

As long as it took him, he decided. If he stopped now, if he did what he really wanted to do—which was to sit down, hug his knees, and wait for death to come—then he would be a failure. A disgrace. All his vows, all his beliefs, would be for nothing. He would die alone in a dark place and the best he could hope for would be that nobody ever found his bones. That nobody ever realized what a dishonorable end he’d found.

The one thing Croy still possessed was honor.

He could not stop now. Cythera was out there—somewhere—in the darkness. He had made a bad mistake by bringing her to the Vincularium, he knew. He had put her in mortal danger. He had no choice now but to find her and rescue her from this place. No matter what that took. No matter if he was killed in the process, because at least then he would die striving to accomplish something.

He put one foot in front of the other and walked forward, into the darkness.

One step. Another. He felt the floor before him with his outstretched boot. The stone below him seemed solid enough. Another step.

That was when he heard the chittering.

It was a soft sound, like leather being rubbed against leather. It was all around him. He could not imagine what nature of monster made that noise, but it came from every side at once. It rose and fell in pitch, like the song the crickets sang in the trees around Helstrow. A sound he’d known well as a boy. He associated it with long summer days playing with wooden swords and mock-jousting against the quintain. A sound that made him think of his mother’s hands, and his father’s beard.

Only now it was a hundred times louder, and it might come from the throat of the beast that finally slew him.

He reached up and touched the cornucopia charm that hung around his neck. Lady, make me fit for Your purpose, he prayed. Silently, of course. If he had to fight with his bare hands, he would. But if he could walk through this room without alerting the creatures in it, all the better.

Honor allowed a man to be a little bit stealthy, after all. If it made the difference between life and death.

He took another step forward—and walked right into something big and hard that scuttled away from him on many legs. The chittering sound increased in volume and intensity until he thought it would deafen him.

Then he heard another sound—the sound of metal striking stone. And a light erupted into life before him.

Croy threw a hand over his eyes to protect them, but the light was dying away again already. Metal struck stone once more, and Croy finally saw what he faced.

Mörget, holding Dawnbringer. The light came from the blade.

All around him stood giant cave beetles, as docile as cattle. A whole herd of them—enough to make the chittering sound. The same as the creature they’d seen up on the surface, what felt like a lifetime ago. The giant beetle that “attacked” Malden, and done no worse than cover him in goo. Malden realized that the monsters he’d thought surrounded him were, in point of fact, just livestock.

He imagined himself standing in a field full of cows with a hoodwink over his eyes. Would he have been as frightened? Would he have thought so hard about what honor demanded of him? He felt an utter fool.

“We won’t starve, at least,” Mörget said.

And Croy laughed until tears shot from his eyes.