A Thief in the Night

chapter Forty-six

“What was that sound, just now?” Croy asked.

Mörget turned and shook his head to indicate he’d heard nothing.

“It sounded like someone screaming, very far away.”

The barbarian stopped where he was and tilted his head to one side. “Nothing,” he said. “Perhaps a gust of wind, howling through these ruins. Did it sound to you like your woman?”

“. . . No,” Croy admitted. “You must be right. Let’s hurry onward, all the same.”

They had found a spiral ramp that led upward to a higher level. A thin stream of water rolled down the ramp and made their footing precarious, but Croy was able to climb with one hand along the rough stone wall.

At the top of the ramp they found a long, low tunnel, perhaps twenty feet wide, its ceiling not much higher than their heads. It ran away from them into darkness. Croy hardly trusted his sense of direction at that point, but he believed the tunnel headed back in the direction of the main shaft.

The floor was slick with water, and a thin vapor coiled around his ankles. The tunnel was filled with broad stone racks, standing in uniform rows. Each rack had four shelves, and each shelf was packed tight with a type of object he didn’t recognize. They were cylindrical in shape, though some were squatter than others, and some taller. Each was wrapped tightly in coarse fabric with a broad weave. They gave off a peculiar smell of dampness and must, and Croy thought they must be rotting away after so long underground in the wet.

Farther along the corridor, narrow side passages opened to either side. Mörget took the one on the left, Croy on the right, and when they came back together in the center they each could report they’d seen the same thing—more long, wet corridors, more racks, myriad more cylinders wrapped in fabric. There were at least a dozen such tunnels, and every one was filled in exactly the same manner.

Croy’s curiosity got the better of him. He mounted his candle on top of one rack to free his hands. Then he lifted one of the cylinders from the rack and carefully unwrapped it. It was heavier than he’d expected it to be, but once open, it crumbled and fell apart easily. Inside the fabric he found three pounds of stinking black dirt. Clods of it broke off and pattered down along his cloak and struck his boots. A trickle of fine dirt rolled down the sleeve of his jerkin. Peering close in the darkness, he made out pale shapes inside the dark dirt, so he broke open the larger clods for a closer inspection. Growing inside the dirt were yellow-white fans of pulpy fungus.

“This is a farm,” he said, surprised. “Of course, the dwarves couldn’t grow proper crops down here—but mushrooms prosper under the earth. They don’t need the sun. All they need is a little damp. And some . . . night soil.”

He stared down at his filthy hands.

Mörget stared at him. “What is that on your skin? It smells like shit.”

Croy dropped the unwrapped cylinder. Hurriedly, he bent down and washed his hands in the thin stream of water covering the floor.

Mörget leaned over to sniff at one of the cylinders. Then he looked at Croy where he squatted. The barbarian let out a booming laugh that echoed wildly in the low-ceilinged tunnel.

“Ha ha ha,” he crowed. “Ha ha! The fancy knight has gotten himself all dirty! This is funny!”

Croy fought down a homicidal impulse and breathed deeply to clear his head. It was, after all, a little funny. He forced himself to smile. Then he rose to his full height and bowed deeply.

Mörget was weeping from laughing so hard. He bent from the waist—it was not a bow—and then slowly straightened up.

Just in time for Croy to hurl one of the cylinders at his chest.

The cloth tore open on impact and three pounds of manure splattered across Mörget’s laced-up cloak. Some of it got on his face.

“You—” Mörget howled, and his hands came up to claw at the air. His eyes went wide with pure, unadulterated rage.

Maybe, Croy thought, I just made a mistake.

As Mörget’s hands started to come down, Croy dashed sideways into the racks. He ducked low to hide himself from view. He could hear Mörget rushing toward him, perhaps intent on slaughtering him for the insult.

The barbarian was twice Croy’s size. He held an Ancient Blade equal to Croy’s own, and plenty of other weapons he could use in his weak hand. If the two of them came to blows, Croy knew it would go hard on him.

He reached down to put a hand on Ghostcutter’s hilt. The barbarian was only steps away. Croy put one foot forward in a strong defensive crouch.

Mörget came around the side of the rack, both hands filled with weaponry. Croy raised one arm to protect his face—

But it was no use. Both cylinders full of manure struck him square on, covering him instantly in filth.

“Oh, for fie,” Croy said, spluttering as wet manure slid down his cheeks and matted his hair. He jumped forward but Mörget had already run away. As Croy came out into the main aisle between the racks, a steady rain of manure cylinders smashed all around him, knocking over racks, exploding on the wet floor until it was a slippery morass. Croy tried to return fire, snatching cylinder after cylinder off the rack, but he could barely sense where Mörget hid.

A cylinder struck Croy’s shoulder and spun him around—but for a split second he’d seen Mörget’s shaved head sticking up over a rack to his left. Croy ducked low, gathering a pair of cylinders up in his arms as he hurried forward. It was hard to keep his balance on the muck-covered floor, but just as Mörget rose to throw again, Croy leapt forward, twisting in midair, and cast first one then the other cylinder, at very close range and with all the power of his arms.

The first cylinder missed Mörget and burst against the wall behind him. The second, however, hit Mörget squarely in the face. The red stain on his mouth and chin made an excellent target, even in the low light.

Manure splattered over Mörget’s features, masking him in excrement. The barbarian tried to howl but only gurgled. He reached up with filthy hands to claw at his eyes, then dropped to his knees and coughed desperately to clear his mouth. For a while he could do nothing but grimace and spit.

Croy slapped him on the back and a thick ball of manure shot out of the barbarian’s windpipe. Mörget gasped for breath and nodded his thanks. When he could breathe again, Croy reached down with one hand and grasped Mörget’s wrist tightly, helping him to his feet.

The barbarian laughed and shook his head. “It is like the olden days, when my brother and I would wrestle and play tricks on one another,” he said.

“It’s good to have a laugh now and again,” Croy agreed. He sighed. “Ah, Mörget, here we are—surrounded by death and danger, our comrades in certain peril, lost in the dark in the lair of a demon.”

The barbarian agreed with a hearty sigh. “What other treasures could life offer to a man?”

Croy’s eyes went wide. This was a . . . treasure? And yet . . . he knew exactly what Mörget meant. Croy never felt so alive as when he was dodging certain annihilation, or cutting his way through a throng of enemies. As much as he wanted to rescue Cythera and Slag and get away from the Vincularium, there was a part of him that longed for adventures like this, and mourned how few of them fate presented to him.

“I’ll miss this life,” he said.

“You are expecting to die soon?” Mörget asked.

“Only part of me.” Croy shook his head. “I fear the age of adventuring is coming to an end. My land is pacified, and from here to the mountains in every direction, it is turned to agriculture, and the good of mankind. All of Skrae is under the rule of the king’s law. No more trolls scheming in dark forests. No more bandits preying on travelers in the hills.” He laughed a little. “And every year, fewer sorcerers remain—the arcane arts are thankfully being lost. Now that Hazoth is dead, there are only two or three real sorcerers left in the world. And where there are no sorcerers, there can be no demons that need slaying.”

“It is true. Too true,” Mörget agreed.

“Well, no point in crying over future boredom when today is full of excitement,” Croy said, brushing off his cloak as best he could. He would need to bathe before he saw Cythera again, or she would most likely faint from the smell of him. “We must press on.” He sniffed at the air. The stench of the manure didn’t bother him so much anymore—nor did it obscure other smells quite as much. He led Mörget back to the central aisle, then started once more up the tunnel, looking for another way up.

He sniffed at the air again. Something—maybe—reached his nose that was not the smell of excrement, nor of mushrooms, nor of general damp. Something sharp and slightly acrid. Something that tickled the roof of his mouth.

Looking back at Mörget, he placed a finger across his lips for silence. Then he drew Ghostcutter.

He had definitely smelled the smoke of a campfire.