Den of thieves

Chapter Sixty-Seven

The river Skrait was the Free City’s lifeblood. It flowed through every district of Ness and was used by every citizen. Where it entered the city in Swampwall it flowed clean and pure, and its water went right into cookpots or horse troughs. As it flowed east it became a dumping ground for refuse too liquid for even the gleaners to cart away. After it bent around Castle Hill it supplied the great manufactories of the Smoke, and then washed away the poisons and the waste products of those workshops. Finally, where it widened out at Eastpool a whole flotilla of fishing boats rode its current out to the sea, some miles off, and then rode it back in the evening, rowing against its flow. Ness owed half its prosperity to the mighty river Skrait, and it had always been counted one of the city’s best assets.

Yet for one Burgrave in the city’s youth, it must have seemed the city’s greatest weakness as well. Where it entered the city on its western end it was open to the world outside. An invading army could send war galleys up the Skrait to attack Castle Hill, or fireships to set the city ablaze. To plug that gap, said erstwhile Burgrave had extended the city wall across the course of the river and forced the Skrait through a pipe no more than ten feet across.

He had not consulted with any dwarven engineers before embarking on this great public work. Had he, they might have told him that narrowing the Skrait where it entered the wall would cause it to flood its banks once it came inside. A wide swath of the lowest section of the city was deluged in the weeks following the pipe’s construction, and no one had been able to drain it since.

No man or woman lived in Swampwall anymore. Ferns and tall grasses and willow shrubs had taken over the streets, and only the weathered foundations and a few walls of the old houses remained, sticking up through the shimmering plant life. Here and there a bit of old architecture could be discerned-a listing chimney toppling in slow motion toward a pond, a horse rail sticking up from a pool of mud. As Malden-at Croy’s behest-picked his way down the muddy slope into the swamp, he followed the remains of a cobblestone street, the old stones worn as smooth as glass under three inches of stagnant water. There was plenty there to be dragged away and refurbished, yet Swampwall had been left alone far more than the Ashes had. Malden could see why. “This place breathes with fever,” he said, sneering as his shoe was sucked down into black goo. “And the flies-Bloodgod take these flies!”

“It’s farther down than I thought,” Croy said, frowning at the expanse of fen before them. “The last time I was down here I came on horseback. Still, it’s just over there.”

“What is just over there?” Malden demanded. Croy was pointing to a low point in the swamp, where reeds as tall as houses shimmered in the sun.

“You’ll see.”

Otters plunked down under the water and crabs scuttled away from their feet as the two men clambered into the muck. It never got past Malden’s ankles but clung to him like the hands of dead men in a haunted graveyard. He sloshed noisily through the water and pushed at the reeds with his hands, trying to make a path.

“This is your revenge, isn’t it?” he demanded. “You don’t like the way I talk to you, as if we were equals. So you bring me down here to remind me I’m the lowest of the low.”

“Hardly! I only think-” Croy stopped speaking to pull his boot out of the mud. He had to bend down and get his back into it, and he winced at the pain as his wound grieved him. “I only think that if I told you what we were looking for, you would insist that we run away.”

“Ah. So you think I lack courage,” Malden said. He drew his bodkin and tried to slash at the reeds but they just bent away from the sharp point. For the first time all day he wished he’d let Croy bring his swords.

“No,” Croy said. “No, I’ve seen you be brave. It’s just-well.” He pushed a stand of reeds down so Malden could see their destination. “Here we are.”

They had arrived at the pipe itself. Its entrance was flush with the Swampwall, which rose up before them toward the sky, its face hidden by generations of creepers. The pipe’s bottom was buried in the murk, but it made an arch taller than a man. Sunlight streamed inside its length but only penetrated a few dozen feet before it was lost in perfect gloom.

Malden leaned into the pipe and smelled foul air. Water dripped from the curved ceiling and echoed like drumbeats as it fell into the turbid water below. The bricks that formed the side of the pipe were rotten to the touch and thick with niter.

“In there?” he asked.

“Yes,” Croy said. “If he’s at home.”

“I’ve heard… stories. I think maybe we should run away after all.”

Croy strode into the pipe, the sloshing of his steps like thunder crashes. “I thought you might. Come-if you dare.”

Malden followed, not wanting to be thought a coward. He was ready to dash back out of the pipe at the first sign of danger, though. Children in the Free City of Ness knew what was inside that pipe, even if the adults claimed it was just a tale. Growing up, he had learned not to believe. Now he wasn’t so sure.

Before coming down to Swampwall, Croy had stopped in a chandler’s shop and bought a pair of candles still strung together by their wicks. Now he cut them apart with his belt knife and lit one with his tinderbox. The flickering light did little to alleviate the pipe’s gloom, but it gave Malden something to follow.

Underfoot, the water was moving at a steady rate, pushing Malden’s feet backward as he tried to slog forward. It was hard work just to stand up. If anything, the current grew stronger the farther in they went.

Ahead, the pipe curved to the left and Croy followed, putting one hand against the bricks to steady himself. Malden hauled himself along with both hands and kept up as best he could. Around the curve they saw that bars had been embedded in the pipe’s walls, forming a natural fence against anyone so foolish as to try to come into the city from the river beyond. Detritus and bones-animal bones-had built up into a thick scurf at the base of the grating, so the water crested as it flowed over and around the debris. It plashed as it came and made it impossible to hear anything, and it took a while for Malden to realize that Croy was talking to him.

“-not here, I’m afraid,” the knight repeated. “Have to-back later-”

Malden nodded in agreement and turned to rush out of the pipe, glad to have an excuse to leave. He hurried around the curve, the current pushing him along faster than he could run on his own-and then tripped and fell to all fours in the water.

His heart thudded painfully in his chest and he couldn’t breathe.

At the exit from the pipe, not more than fifty feet ahead, a massive figure was silhouetted against the incoming sunlight. Malden could make out few details but he was sure it was far too big to be human.