A Thief in the Night

chapter Ninety-four

Croy’s arms felt like they were being torn from their sockets. He gasped in pain and his eyes shot open. He was still only semiconscious, but the pain was good—it helped drag him back from the black void he’d been swimming through.

What he saw shocked him even further into wakefulness.

Before him, lying on the ground like the spoils of war, lay three Ancient Blades—Ghostcutter among them. He tried reaching for the sword, only to find his arms were securely fastened behind him. They had been chained together and pulled upward, forcing him to bend low.

It was a kind of torture known well in Skrae—the strap, accounted by some the most painful excruciation of all. As ingenious as it was devious. The chain was not quite long enough to let him stand comfortably, but just long enough that if he tried to drop to his knees it would pull his arms back and wrench them from their sockets. His own body weight would pull him to pieces if he didn’t stand perfectly still, and fatigue would eventually claim him no matter what he did.

The elves . . . he remembered now. But it wasn’t an elf who’d taken him when he was captured. It was . . . some human in a priest’s robe, wasn’t it? That made very little sense, and he wondered if he had hallucinated it.

Weariness passed through him in a wave. He longed to just surrender to it, to drift off into sleep. Yet as his eyes fluttered closed his arms were pulled up behind him. The drug in Croy’s system kept him from feeling the pain fully, but every time he tried to move, white light threatened to explode behind his eyeballs.

He stopped struggling—and saw more to confuse and confound him.

Malden was there. Malden—Malden was still alive, he remembered now—Malden was alive, but . . . but the elves were going to . . .

Malden dashed toward him, and Croy wondered if he was being rescued. That would be . . . nice. But no. No, it was too much to hope for. Instead of releasing him from his chains, Malden rushed instead to the swords and snatched Acidtongue from the ground. Croy tried to call to the thief, but before he opened his lips he saw Malden run away again, as if he hadn’t even seen him hanging there. It was all Croy could do to follow Malden with his eyes. The thief was running again, headed over toward a group of elves, elves and—and some others, among them—

Cythera.

Cythera was alive. She was—alive.

There was a silver chain around her neck but she looked unharmed. He had been living with the fact of her brutal death for so long he could scarce believe it. She was alive! His heart sang, his body thrummed with waves of joy, and—

Cythera grasped Malden’s face and then leaned in to kiss the thief with passion and desperation.

Was this some drug-induced nightmare? Croy wondered. Had his sanity itself deserted him? He could make no sense at all of what he saw. He could only stare with wide eyes at this vision before him, and hope that it was, in fact, delusion.

Then his arms were hauled upward again and a brilliant wash of pain swarmed over all of his senses. His eyes squeezed shut and he felt his face contort in a grimace of excruciation.

“Knight! Wake up, Sir Knight!”

It was Mörget’s voice calling him. Mörget his brother, Mörget his fellow Ancient Blade. Croy fought through the pain and opened his eyes to look for the barbarian. He found Mörget and saw at once that they were chained together. The chain had been looped over a post, high above their heads. Mörget hauled downward on the chain, which had the effect of pulling his own arms ever farther, painfully, upward.

“Help me, knight,” Mörget demanded. “Are you too addled to even hear me? Help me—pull with all your strength, and we’re free. Our swords are right there—we can fight to freedom.”

Croy watched the barbarian’s face as the words formed. Mörget’s red-stained mouth snapped and bit at the sounds. His eyes rolled in fury. It was like the man’s face and his voice were separated, as if the words emerged from him long seconds before his lips started to form them. More hallucinations. More delusions brought on by the drug, of course. How much of this was real?

“Knight! Pull, for all you are worth!” Mörget howled.

Croy pulled downward on the chain, and at the same time Mörget pulled down on his length of it. Croy nearly lost consciousness as the links bit deep into his wrists, chewing on the tender flesh there.

“Again!” Mörget screamed.

Croy pulled downward. The skin on his wrists stretched and tore.

“Again! Once more!”

There was a creaking sound and then a snap, and a piece of wood fell and struck Croy on the ear. It made his head ring. He barely heard the chain rattle and fall and smack the wooden cart. Mörget’s booming laugh was the sound of distant thunder.

Croy slumped forward, free of the chain. Free of the only thing that had been holding him upright. He crashed to the stone floor, his face not inches from Ghostcutter’s sheath.

He was . . . he was free. Free.

He thought he might be sick.