Den of thieves

Chapter Ninety-Six

“Lay easy,” Cythera said. She held Croy’s hand tight. His other hand still clutched the hilt of Ghostcutter. He looked at the blade and saw a bad notch in its silver edge, a wound it had taken when it blocked Acidtongue’s attack. He wondered if a dwarf could repair that damage, or if he should leave it there forever, in memory of Bikker.

“It’s over,” Cythera said again. “Hazoth is dead.”

“Hazoth?” Croy said, confused. “No, it’s Bikker, that’s-that’s Bikker there. I killed him. It had to be done. In the end I think maybe I was getting through to him, but-but it had to be done.” He struggled to sit up, and she pushed him back to the grass. He could not resist her hands.

Her hands! She had touched him, and not been very gentle about it. But that could only mean one thing. He looked to her with wild eyes. Her face was… was unpainted. The curses that had ornamented her skin were gone. All of them.

She was even more beautiful than he remembered. Her skin was clear and fair, her eyes dark pools of calm and wisdom. Her slender arms were unadorned by so much as a painted leaf.

She was free.

“Over there,” she said, and pointed at a pillar of what looked like charred wood standing in the grass a dozen feet away. As Croy watched, it collapsed in on itself, like a log burned down to charcoal and ashes. “That’s all that’s left of my father.”

“What of your mother?” Croy asked.

“I am here as well, but in far better condition.” Coruth was suddenly standing at Croy’s feet, looking down on him.

She was exactly the way he remembered her. Wild and unkempt hair the color of new-forged iron. A nose as thin and sharp as a halberd blade, and eyes that saw everything. She wore no pleasant countenance, but for that she could hardly be blamed. She’d spent the last ten years imprisoned in a magic circle. Of late she’d been a tree. Now she wore a simple black robe and had one arm in a makeshift sling, but he knew that if the kings and queens of the world could see her, they would bow their heads in respect. There was an aura around Coruth that anyone could sense, an aura of power.

“I will heal your body,” she said. “That shall be your reward. For the thief, perhaps, there will be something more.”

“I thank you,” Croy said.

Coruth looked away and nodded. Then she turned herself into a flock of blackbirds and flew away, chattering to herself with many voices.

“She’ll be back for you, don’t worry,” Cythera told the knight. “And I’ll stay until she returns.”

He reached out his left hand and she took it again.

Together they sat and watched the ruined house. Its fallen timbers smoldered and settled through the night, with occasional rumblings and groans, and now and then a loud report as a broken rafter collapsed or another piece of glass snapped under pressure. The wreckage was full of sharp barbs and unstable piles of masonry, leavened with heaps of broken glass that would shred any foot that tried to walk through them. Occasionally a bolt of green or red or blue discharged as some arcane energy was loosed from long confinement.

The ruin did not look safe at all, but that didn’t mean it was left undisturbed.

The first figure to crawl over the pile was that of Kemper. The intangible man cackled and clanked as he picked through the fallen house. His tunic was stuffed full of silver: knives, spoons, plates and dishes, actual coins, buckles, fittings and ornaments. The house had been a treasure trove of the stuff, and he was given the right to first pickings. When he finally left, barely able to walk for all the silver he’d stuffed into his clothes or carried in his straining arms, he was carrying a fortune.

The next visitors to the fallen house were the beggar children of the Ashes. Tipped off by Malden, they arrived early and made quick work of sorting through the wreckage. They carried away books and tapestries and valuable pieces of unbroken glass. They carried off magic wands and shards of rusted iron that someone would buy. They took the bits of gold they found, some melted in the fires, some still in the shape of broken jewelry and dented goblets. Malden had told Croy that a rousing story of bravery would not change the children’s lives, and the knight thought the thief was just being apathetic, that he did not care for their welfare. He saw now that Malden had arranged for this-he must have given the children notice of what was to come. The quality of life the children enjoyed would be enlarged tenfold overnight, and Croy was glad. One of the children, a little girl in a dress made of an old sack, came over and stared at him for a while. He smiled at her, and she pressed a tiny treasure into his hand. A single glass bead, blue in color, quite valueless, but pretty. He thanked her with all the courtly politesse he could muster before she shrugged and ran away.

Nearer to dawn the dwarf Slag arrived with a team of four horses and a massive wagon. He stared out into the darkness with alert eyes while a crew of human workers made their way through the wreckage with pry bars and block and tackle. It was not easy, but they were able to shift the half of the demon’s egg that remained unshattered. Rolling it on its side, they managed to get it into the wagon, and Slag hauled it away before anyone could see. What he wanted with several tons worth of pit-forged iron Croy could not imagine, but he was certain the dwarf would make good use of it.

Others came, people Croy did not know. The news must have spread quickly that Hazoth had fallen and his treasures were up for grabs. Footpads, rogues, and bravos combed through the wreckage and took away what they desired-loot and weaponry, mostly. A papermaker and his apprentices came and carried off great sheaves of scorched and torn paper and cloth, which they would pulp down for raw materials. Half of the chandler’s guild came and took all the broken glass away, and sawyers took those beams and wattles that had not already been ground to sawdust in the collapse. Just before dawn gleaners from the Stink came and carted away that which no one else deemed valuable.

It seemed impossible that anything would remain, yet one last looter did come. Gurrh the ogre, who had been sitting on the grass outside the gates the whole time, rose at dawn and made his way into the ruin. He picked through the debris until he found a leaden coffer, still sealed and barely dented. He tucked it under his armpit and then headed west, toward Swampwall and his home.

All according to plan.

As the sun came up, Cythera and Croy greeted it together, alone again. “It’s Ladymas,” Croy said, and Cythera kissed his cheek. “We prevailed,” he said, because he couldn’t quite believe it. “We won.”

Meanwhile, inside the Ladypark a wolf snarled and snapped at the air. Behind it a dozen more circled, waiting their turn to attack. Malden held his hands out toward the beast, trying to calm it. He wished it didn’t look so hungry. He wished he’d kept Acidtongue as a prize, so he wouldn’t have to rely on his laughable bodkin. He wished so many people didn’t want him dead. He wished he knew better how to fight.

He wished he could go home and go to sleep.

Instead it looked like his short career as a thief was going to end with him being devoured by a pack of wolves. All this for nothing, he thought.

The wolf took a step forward, its paw patting at the ground as if it were afraid of something, afraid to lunge. A hundred birds cawed and squawked behind Malden then, and he nearly jumped out of his own skin.

Then an old woman in a dark robe stepped around him. She held one hand down low where the wolf could sniff at it. The animal licked her palm, then laid down in the grass and rested its head.

“I think I know you,” Malden said to his rescuer. “I’ve seen you before.”

“Yes,” the woman agreed.

“Of course, at the time your complexion was more… barky.” He put his bodkin away. “You’re free, then. It worked.”

“Yes.”

“So… it’s over,” Malden said, because he devoutly wished that could be true.

“No,” she said.

“No,” he repeated. “No, I don’t suppose it is. Not quite yet.”