A Thief in the Night

chapter Eight

Malden scampered up onto the roof of the tavern and braced himself against a chimney, then reached down a hand to help Croy up. This was not the first time he had brought the knight up onto the rooftops of the city. Always it was a painful process. Croy could never seem to find proper handholds, and the boots he wore were wholly unsuited to running on uneven surfaces. Always Malden had to help him over every obstacle and show him where to hold on and where not to put his weight. Making matters even worse, the knight didn’t seem capable of moving quietly even when walking down a crowded street. His baldric slapped against his chest with every step, his sword clattered in its scabbard.

Mörget, it seemed, was different. He was already halfway across the roof of the stables when Malden caught sight of him. The barbarian leapt from the roof ridge of the stables to a broad lead gutter as nimbly as a bird, and perched there on hands and feet in such a way that even his great bulk didn’t strain the drainpipes. Malden scurried across a bank of shingles to join him, then beckoned for Croy to come as well.

The knight looked game enough, but halfway across his foot slipped and he began to tumble. Malden raced toward him to try to steady him but Mörget beat him to it, rushing over and picking up Croy in his two giant hands while Croy’s legs still flailed in the air. The barbarian set Croy down carefully and they all three peered down into the high street. A market crowd had gathered there, perusing the wares of an endless line of ramshackle wooden stalls. Pigs and small children ran in and out of the throng and someone was walking a pair of cows uphill toward a slaughterhouse. Smoke from the stalls of food vendors wafted on the air.

“It’s too far to jump,” Malden said, pointing at the roofs of the shops and houses across the way. Nearly ten yards of open air separated the climbers from that goal. “But up there, we can make use of that canopy.” He indicated a broad roof slope sticking out from the second floor of a blacksmith’s shop. It covered the open part of the shop below, where horseshoes and andirons and skillets were on display. “From there we jump to the balcony across the way, and then up over the roof beyond.”

Mörget nodded and raced toward the blacksmith’s, even as a watchman poked his helmeted head over the roofline and called for them to stop.

Malden dashed for the canopy and made the jump easily, landing on the balcony across the street and gesturing for the swordsmen to follow. Croy nearly mistimed the jump but at the last second Mörget gave him a boost that sent him clattering and sprawling onto the balcony beside Malden. The watchmen came boiling out onto the roof of the tavern they’d just fled so precipitously, even as Mörget boomed out a laugh and flung himself over the street.

Half the shoppers in the market looked up in surprise and terror, perhaps thinking some storm cloud had passed over their heads booming with thunder. They could only stare upward in wonder as the thief and the knight followed suit, without quite so much noise.

“Now,” Malden said, “up and over. And—please you—discreetly.”

Mörget frowned in mock shame and hauled himself up onto the slate tiles of the roof above. Malden helped Croy do the same. They left the watchmen behind, staring across the street at them, unwilling to make the jump. Rather than waiting for the watchmen to shout for reinforcements, Malden led the two warriors up and over a roofline, then along the gutters of a row of houses and over a narrow alley until a quarter mile of rooftops lay between them and any possible pursuit.

“Enough, Malden, enough,” Croy gasped, unable to stand upright after all that bounding and jumping. “We’ve lost them, I’m sure of it.” He sat down hard on the slates, with his legs dangling in the air.

“We could have just stayed and fought them off,” Mörget suggested. “You made it sound as if an army was after us, when it was just five little men with halberds.”

“I’m sure you could have smashed them into paste,” Malden said, scowling, “but then you would have had an army after you. Don’t they have watchmen where you come from? If you fight one, you have to fight them all.”

“Men whose only job is to watch their fellows and make sure they are not breaking laws? Why would we need such a thing? In the East, when a man wrongs you, you go to his tent and call him out to fight. You pummel him until he apologizes, or pays you what is owed. It’s a very simple system, but it works.”

“And what if you call out a man who has done you some injury, but he’s bigger than you, and he wins?” Malden asked.

The barbarian squinted in confusion. “I wouldn’t know.”

Malden shook his head. “Well, here, when you attack six men in a tavern with an axe—”

“Come now, I didn’t kill any of them.”

“—the watch will send as many men as it takes to cart you away. Then they put you in gaol to wait for a trial.”

“I would have died before they put me in a cage,” Mörget said.

“Or afterward, when they hanged you. They would have probably arrested Croy for helping you, and detained me on pure suspicion because I happened to be nearby.”

“Thanks to Malden it did not come to that,” Croy said, and slapped the thief on the back.

“I suppose I owe you at that,” Mörget admitted.

“Think nothing of it. But perhaps you’ll tell me one thing. Why did that fight start in the first place, and how did it get so out of hand? Normally a tavern fight ends with bruised knuckles and maybe a chair being broken over someone’s head, not axes and maces and faces getting chopped off.”

Mörget shrugged. “A man insulted me. He besmirched my honor.”

Croy nodded in understanding but Malden had to look away.

“You Ancient Blades and your honor will get me killed one of these days. All right, what did he say? What was such a dreadful blasphemy?”

“He saw me drinking milk and said I was the largest babe he’d ever clapped eyes on. I thought it a nice jest, and saw no harm in it.”

“Men in taverns often joke and make sport,” Malden said. “It means nothing.”

“But among clansmen, one must always respond to a jape with another. So of course I had to tell him that in my country, even infants were bigger than the men that I’d seen in this city. He didn’t like that much.” Mörget shrugged. “He tried to grab my arm—as I have said, that is forbidden to strangers in my land. So I picked him up and threw him against a pillar. I thought that was the end of it, until I saw his friends drawing their knives.”

Malden made a mental note never to try to shake the barbarian’s hand again. “All right,” he said, “that explains how we all came to meet. But now, tell me, pray thee, what you’re doing in the Free City of Ness in the first place. We don’t get . . . ah, that is to say, a man of your people is a rare sight this far west.” Malden had grown up hearing horror stories of the barbarians, of how they ate their own babies and that their women were all seven feet tall. As an adult he’d often heard them spoken of in hushed tones, as it was commonly believed that the barbarians would sweep over the mountains any day and invade Skrae and enslave them all. It was all hearsay, of course. He had never met a barbarian before, nor ever expected to.

“Ah!” the barbarian said, and looked like he might start laughing again. “I am glad you asked. I am looking for Sir Croy.”

Malden was confused. “Well, you found him—but did you expect to find him in that tavern? It’s not the sort of place he normally frequents.”

Croy himself was still trying to catch his breath. His eyes were locked on Mörget’s face.

“I knew nothing of him, until now, except his name. Perhaps I spoke wrong,” Mörget said with a frown. “I am looking for another Ancient Blade. I am looking for the help of an Ancient Blade. It did not matter which one. I have sought them for a very long time, looking anywhere men with swords gathered. Until today my search was fruitless. From town to town I wandered, asking everywhere. Few men would even speak to me, but in the town of Greencastle I was told there was not one, but two such men in Ness. Sir Croy, and Sir Bikker—champions of your king, each of them bearers of a puissant sword. Ghostcutter and Acidtongue, they are called. I was told that Sir Bikker would be found in a place where ale is sold, if he could be found anywhere.”

Malden and Croy traded a glance. Until a few months ago that might have been true. Bikker had been in Ness—though that man had fallen a long way since he’d been one of the king’s champions. He’d hired himself out as a sell-sword to the sorcerer Hazoth and the traitor Anselm Vry. And then he’d put himself at odds with Malden and Croy. That had nearly ended in both their deaths. Instead—

“I’m afraid Bikker is dead,” Croy said, still a little out of breath.

“Dead?” Mörget asked.

“He broke his oath,” Croy said, nodding, as if that explained everything.

Apparently it did, as far as Mörget was concerned. “Ah. So you had to strike him down. I understand. It is part of our duty, our sworn duty, we who bear the Blades.”

Malden didn’t want to talk about Bikker. The dead man had caused him a great deal of trouble once. “Well, you found the other one, anyway. The other Ancient Blade in Ness. Now, what do you want with Croy?”

“There is a task I must perform. The other part of our oath must be fulfilled.” The barbarian’s eyes had gone out of focus, as if he was looking at nothing but the inside of his own skull. As if his thoughts were very far away.

Malden scratched at an eyebrow. “If you specifically need the help of an Ancient Blade, that suggests just one task I can think of.”

“Indeed. I am hunting a demon.”

Croy jumped to his feet, all sign of weariness gone from him. “Where?” he demanded.