A Thief in the Night

chapter Six

A flying tankard full of beer nearly struck Croy’s face as he hurried down the stairs. He dodged and let it smash messily against the wall. Leaping down the last few steps, he pushed his way into a throng of people in the common room, all but a few of whom were trying desperately to get out. Some hurried up the stairs, some rushed for the door or ran toward the kitchens. For a moment even Croy had trouble swimming against the tide of panicked humanity—but then, suddenly, the room was cleared, and he was standing alone.

Alone save for a barbarian in a wolf fur cloak, and the six bravos who had stayed to fight him.

The bravos were of the ordinary sort who haunted every tavern in the city, men of Ness who were good with a blade or a club but lacked any other trade. When they found work it was as bodyguards or hired thugs, but they spent most of their time drinking, gambling, and whoring. They dressed to intimidate, in boiled leather or in black cloaks, and they went everywhere armed. The six facing the barbarian carried knives as long as their forearms. Illegal, of course, but easily concealed. One—obviously the smartest of the lot—had a buckler on his left wrist. They had formed a rough semicircle before the barbarian and were edging back and forth, trying to get behind him.

Their opponent stood head and shoulders taller than any of them. His head was shorn down to mere stubble and the lower half of his face was painted red, as if he’d been drinking blood. Under that paint huge white teeth showed, for he was smiling. Beaming. He was either very drunk or very confident.

Croy flicked his eyes to the side to learn how this had started. He saw a man slumped against a cracked wooden pillar behind the barbarian. That accounted for the great crash he had heard, which shook the tavern like an earthquake. He was certain the column had not been cracked when he came into this place earlier.

The barbarian reached up and unlaced the front of his cloak. Pushing it away from his shoulders he revealed rippling muscle beneath—as well as a small arsenal of weaponry. A sword hung from his belt, reaching near his ankle. A cruel-bladed bearded axe hung at his other side. Knives were tied to his upper arms and a mace dangled on a thong at the back of his hip. He reached for the axe first.

One of the bravos danced forward, knife slashing up from a low start. It was a good strike, timed perfectly. The barbarian brought up one massive forearm and took the cut on the back of his wrist. Blood ran down toward his elbow. Before the bravo could finish his swing, the axe came around in a powerful arc that carved right through the bravo’s leather pauldron and sheared off half his bicep. The bravo howled and spun away from the melee.

One of his fellows tried to duck low under the axe and get a knife point into the barbarian’s ribs, but the barbarian stepped aside at the perfect moment and the knife missed him entirely. The axe swung back and the end of its haft came down hard enough to crack the attacker’s skull. As the bravo fell, the barbarian kicked his insensate body away, so as not to tangle his footing.

The man was fast, and exceeding strong, Croy saw. He would make short work of his six assailants if he wasn’t stopped. Rushing forward with his hands held high, Croy called, “Fellows, good men all, stop this now, let us converse and see if—”

His words were lost in the noise as the barbarian’s mace—held in his presumably weaker left hand—caught a third bravo in the stomach and sent him sprawling across the room. The injured man screamed with a horrible wet sound that suggested half his innards had just been ruptured.

The remaining three all rushed the barbarian at once, their knives flashing high. The one with the buckler took a mace blow perfectly, catching it on the small shield and knocking it backward toward the barbarian’s face. The barbarian took a step back, surprised at this resistance—the first real challenge he’d met—and another bravo took the opportunity to lunge forward with his knife and prick his chest. The barbarian howled and brought his axe around to slice off his foeman’s cheek. The axe was red with blood when it came back, whirling in its master’s hand. Continuing his swing, the barbarian brought it behind his back and embedded it deep in the buckler, splitting the wooden shield and the wrist that held it. Two more bodies struck the floor.

Croy felt no fear at watching this spectacle of gore. He had trained himself, over the course of many years, to ride the wave of giddiness that threatened to freeze him to the spot. He took another step forward and raised his hands again for attention. “Stop this. Now,” he said.

“Just a moment,” the barbarian said. Then he swung around on one foot, his mace whistling through the air. The final bravo had edged around behind him and was about to stab him in the back. Instead the mace shattered the bones of his forearm and he dropped the weapon. For a moment he stared at his hand dangling at the end of a crushed arm, and then began to scream.

There was no other sound in the room. The air seemed to hang perfectly still, as if it had turned to glass and held every object secure in its place. Croy felt rooted to the spot, unable to move an inch.

It was no magic spell that made Croy feel that way, but the simple focus of battle joined. It was clear this barbarian would not surrender without a fight. Based on what little Croy knew of his people, that was no surprise. The barbarians of the eastern steppes were born warriors all—they spent their entire lives hunting and fighting, and they were renowned for their pure bloody courage. Only a thin range of mountains separated their land from the kingdom of Skrae, but that fluke of geography was a true blessing. If the barbarians ever came to Skrae in pursuit of conquest, even Croy doubted the kingdom could stand for long against them.

Now he was face-to-face with a perfect specimen of that warrior culture, and he didn’t know if he could prevail.

“I believe you wished to say something,” the barbarian said. His lips drew back in what might have been a friendly grin—if the posture of his body and the set of his muscles didn’t suggest he was about to spring forward in a deadly attack.

Croy scowled and drew his sword. He had trained for fighting himself. He had made a study of taking down opponents like this. He considered his strategy in the moments he had left before the attack came. He could parry the axe, he knew, if he used a cross slash cut, but that mace was too heavy and the arm that wielded it too strong to be effectively blocked. He would need to duck under its swing, and lunge forward at the same time, bringing his sword down in a weak slash that might—

“Ghostcutter,” the barbarian said, as if greeting an old friend. He nodded at the sword in Croy’s hand. Then he flung his arms out to the sides and dropped both axe and mace.

Croy frowned. “You know my blade?” he asked. The sword he wielded—the only weapon he’d brought to the signing of the banns, and that only for ornament—was famous in certain circles, of course. It was an Ancient Blade, one of seven swords forged at the dawn of time to fight no lesser opponents than demons themselves. Ghostcutter was made of cold-forged iron, with one edge coated in silver. Runnels of melted silver streamed across its fuller. It was made to fight against magical creatures, curses, and the abominations of foul sorcery. It was damned good at cutting more mundane flesh as well.

“I should recognize it anywhere,” the barbarian said. He drew his own sword and launched himself forward, straight at Croy, in a fast cutting attack that would have overwhelmed a less disciplined warrior’s defense.

The two swords clanged together with a sound like the ringing of a bell. When two well-made swords met like that it was called a conversation, for the repeated ringing noise as they came together and checked each other’s strikes. Croy knew this conversation would be very short—if he didn’t cut the barbarian down in the next few seconds, the other man’s strength would end the fight before it had a chance to properly begin. The first clash nearly brought him down. He struggled to hold his parry against the strength behind the blow, his eyes fixed on the point where the barbarian’s foible met his forte. The weakest part of the barbarian’s blade, up against the most resistance Croy could offer, and he barely held his ground. Iron slid against iron with a horrible grinding that would blunt both edges.

Then the barbarian’s blade burst into light.

It was no reflection of a candle flame, but the pure clean light of the sun, and it came from within the metal of the blade itself. Croy was blinded and shouted an oath as he jumped backward, falling on his haunches away from the light. He flung up Ghostcutter before him in hopeless defense. If he could not see the barbarian’s next attack, he could not properly meet it. The man could kill him a hundred different ways without resistance.

Yet when Croy managed to blink away the bright spots that swam before his eyes, he found not a sword pointed at his face, but a massive hand reaching down to help him back to his feet.

“Dawnbringer,” Croy said, with proper reverence. “You wield Dawnbringer.”

“Yes. Will you take my hand,” the barbarian asked, “and call me brother?”

Croy grasped the barbarian’s wrist gratefully, and allowed himself to be hauled to his feet. Dawnbringer was already back in the barbarian’s scabbard. Croy sheathed Ghostcutter, and stepped forward into a warm embrace.