A Thief in the Night

chapter Forty-two

Mörget had both their packs open and the contents spread out on the floor of the room. Everything had been soaked through when they hit the water, and he was drying out what could be salvaged. “The candles won’t light,” he explained. “The wicks are soaked through.” He struck Dawnbringer against the floor, and Croy saw their equipment arrayed before him. No rope, nor any lanterns, but they had two of the tents and the bulk of the climbing gear.

“You shouldn’t bash your sword about like that,” Croy chided the barbarian. “You’ll blunt its edge.”

“Better that than going about blind,” Mörget told him. “But all right, let us sit down in the darkness, and I’ll tell you something of what happened.”

It was good to hear Mörget’s voice. It filled Croy with hope and cheer. He drank some ale from one of their bottles—the cork had held—and listened without hearing all of the words. He caught the gist, anyway.

Mörget had carried him over the edge of the shaft and together they hit the water very hard. They had sunk like stones in their armor, and should by all rights have drowned. Croy was knocked unconscious by the impact, but Mörget kept enough of his wits to swim for the surface. He had hauled Croy upward, hoping only that he was swimming in the right direction.

“In the dark, with my head ringing like a bell, it was not so easy to tell. Luck was with me, it seems. I broke free into air and gasped for breath, and knew I was alive. I wanted to stay that way. So I picked a direction at random and swam for the side of the shaft, pulling you along behind me. I think you swallowed much water and I was certain you would drown, but I did not wish to leave your body behind, even though it slowed me greatly.”

“I thank you,” Croy said. The barbarian had certainly saved his life. “You could have faltered under my weight, and then we would both have died.”

“Bah, death is my mother! I don’t fear her embraces. Anyway, I figured if you were dead, and I found myself trapped down here, I could always eat you if I couldn’t find any other food.”

“Oh,” Croy said.

Mörget continued with his tale as if there was nothing grisly or disheartening about the prospect of eating a friend. “I found the wall of the shaft and then swam along it until I found an opening. I quickly discovered one fact about this place—the lowest level is completely flooded. We are now actually upon the second floor.”

“Hmm,” Croy said, and drank some more ale. The pain of his bruises started to fade.

“I dragged you up onto a gallery and tried to revive you, but to no avail. I pounded on your back and chest until you stopped vomiting water, but still you did not wake. For a long while I sat by your side, waiting for you to stir. Then I decided I would use my time better by learning where we ended up. You see what I found. There are more rooms beyond this one, which we will explore together.”

“Ah,” Croy said. He leaned his head back against the brick wall. “You deserve some reward for saving me, but I fear you will have nothing but my eternal gratitude, brother.”

“Recompense enough, surely.”

“Yet I have one question,” Croy told him. “My blade, Ghostcutter. Was it lost when we struck the water? It is not on my belt. Nor is its scabbard.”

“Hmm? Oh, no. I took it from you while you slept. I have it here on my belt now, next to Dawnbringer’s sheath.”

“That’s very good news. I’d be breaking a powerful oath if I lost it.”

“As I well know.”

Croy hefted the ale jug. It was half empty. He must have been very thirsty. “Mörget,” he said, when the barbarian didn’t say anything more. “May I have it back?”

The barbarian boomed out a laugh. “Of course, brother! I was only keeping it safe for you!”

They laughed together, though Croy wondered what would have happened if he hadn’t asked for Ghostcutter. The barbarians, he knew, would love to get their hands on more of the Ancient Blades. They were a people who subsisted on conquest, and they longed to take Skrae for their own—and possessing the magical swords would certainly help with that goal.

But no, surely Mörget wouldn’t have kept the blade. Mörget had honor of his own, even if it didn’t come from promises made to the Lady. Croy was certain the barbarian had meant no harm at all.

He drank more ale and put suspicion out of his mind.

They sat together, drinking and eating from their water-logged food supply, while Croy regained some strength. Eventually it came time to begin exploring. Once the candles had dried out enough to burn, they each took one and waded through the herd of beetles. Croy counted at least sixty of the beasts, and while natural philosophy was not his strong suit, he’d spent enough time around farms in his youth to wonder what they were doing there. “The elves kept them here, mayhap as a food source. That much I comprehend. Yet that was centuries ago. They still act like a herd of livestock,” he said. “Huddling together for safety and warmth. Wild animals don’t flock so close. They roam farther, the better to graze on open land.”

Mörget shrugged. “A mystery. Perhaps not the most pressing.”

“Of course,” Croy said, but he couldn’t defeat his own curiosity. “I suppose it’s possible they simply huddle together because of predators. Perhaps the demon comes down here and feasts on them from time to time.”

“I hope it is so!” Mörget crowed. “Then we will see it soon, for it had a terrible hunger, if I remember correctly.”

The presence of the demon might well make the beetles cower together, Croy decided. Though why, then, didn’t they just leave? One of them had escaped the Vincularium, so why hadn’t they all tried to get away?

Perhaps they were just too stupid. Croy shrugged. It was all the answer he would get, so he considered it answer enough.

The two warriors made their way out of the room, heading still farther from the shaft. The floor sloped very gently upward as they proceeded. Croy wanted to get up to the third level from the top—the level where Cythera and the others had gone—so he was glad for the rise in elevation, though he kept his eyes open for any stairwells or ramps that might lead up more quickly.

The rooms they explored, however, were mostly featureless and plain. Whatever purpose they had served when the dwarves carved them out of the rock was unclear now. There were signs that this level, too, had flooded at some point in the past. The walls were mottled with fungus and draped with a strange white plant like albino seaweed. Perhaps it was this strange vegetation that had drawn the cave beetles. Beneath the plant life, pale stains ran along the walls like a high water mark. In some places bits of ironwork must once have been stapled to the walls, but all that remained were dull red streaks where rust had claimed them. When Croy held his candle high, he could see long stalactites hanging down from the ceiling, like dripping candle wax cast in stone.

Mörget took the lead while Croy covered their rear. The beetles were no threat, of course, but the two of them had agreed it was best not to be surprised by any more revenants if they could help it—and there was always the demon to worry about. For the most part they moved in silence, but it seemed that Mörget couldn’t bear the stillness, and after a while he broke it with a statement that puzzled Croy greatly.

“These rooms call to me,” he said.

“In what sense?”

“When I think of the lair of a demon, this is much what I see,” Mörget explained. “Dark, abandoned places, with a ready supply of game. Such are rare enough, but that is exactly what we have here. I think perhaps our fall was fortuitous. Perhaps it was fate that drove me down here.”

Croy frowned. “Mörget—I want to vanquish this creature as much as you do.”

“Of course! It is our very nature.”

“But—we have to rescue the others first. And it would be wise to secure a way out of the Vincularium. Only then should we track down the beast.”

The barbarian turned to face him full on. His features were quite calm—his mouth a straight line under its coat of paint, his eyes half shrouded by their lids. “I have a destiny to complete,” he said. “It can brook few delays.”

“Just one small delay. Maybe two,” Croy said. “I believe you possess a code of honor just as I do. No honorable man would leave a woman or a defenseless dwarf to the horrors of this place. Have I misjudged you?”

The barbarian raised one hand in dismissal. “Of course not. Very well, we shall rescue the weaklings first. Unless, of course, along the way we catch sight of our quarry. We must not lose the opportunity if it befalls us.” He turned and started walking up the slope again. “What about the thief, though?”

“Hmm?” Croy asked. Thoughts so occupied his brain he barely heard.

“Malden. Your friend. You did not mention him when you listed those you must preserve.”

Croy tilted his head to one side, considering why he had omitted Malden from his list of objectives. “Ah. Well, he has Acidtongue. He can defend himself.”

Of course, he thought, it would help if Malden knew how to use a sword.

The possibility that his slip had been meaningful, that he left Malden out of his goals for a reason, troubled Croy, but he already had enough to worry about.