Honor among thieves

Chapter One Hundred Fourteen

Croy brought Ghostcutter around and disemboweled a gray-bearded reaver, then ducked as an axe whistled over his head. He lost his horse at some point-he barely remembered when-and had been wading through the melee ever since, cutting down any man who came before him. The clatter of glancing blows on his armor and helm drowned out the thoughts in his head. The strength in his good arm saw him through.

He laid about him left and right, barely looking at the men he killed. If they wore furs or had shaved heads, it was enough. Ghostcutter lifted and fell, swung out and took lives on the backswing. He dodged under blows that would have cut through his armor like rotten silk, rolled away whenever they knocked him to the ground and leapt back to his feet. Wounds didn’t matter. The fatigue of the long march south didn’t matter. Anger-if nothing else-could sustain him. Rage.

Cythera. Cythera, he kept thinking. Just her name. Her face swam before his eyes, that beloved face now distorted by betrayal. He had trusted her. He had trusted in her pledge, her faith, her constancy. Cythera, he thought as he stabbed a man in the kidneys. Her name formed on his lips and he slashed through the tendons of a barbarian’s neck. Cythera.

Malden. Malden, whom he had put in charge of Cythera’s protection. Malden, whom he had asked-pleaded with-to preserve her chastity. What had he been thinking? The man was a thief! Malden never saw anything that belonged to someone else, save that he wanted to steal it. Croy slashed open the belly of a reaver and was washed in hot blood. Of course Malden had stolen the one prize in all of Skrae worth having! “Malden!” he screamed.

Three men came at him, all at once, with axes and maces. They howled like wolves as they piled on to him, but Croy stabbed one through the stomach and bashed in the face of another with his pommel on the return swing. The third raised his mace to crush Croy’s skull, but before the blow could connect a knight on horseback came galloping through and cut the barbarian’s throat nearly to the spine.

In the breaking light of dawn, Croy looked up and saw Sir Hew come trotting back around to salute him. He forced himself to focus, to hear what his brother Ancient Blade had to say. “It’s going hard for the Free Men, but they’re holding their lines,” Hew said. “The Skilfingers are a wonder. Worth ten times what we paid. And still no berserkers have engaged us-do you think Morget’s holding them in reserve?”

Croy gasped for breath and wiped Ghostcutter on the fur of a fallen barbarian. He knew he should say something-give some order, perhaps, or ask for a more detailed report. He only resented the interruption, however. Free of enemies for a moment, his brain started to work again.

Images of Cythera cluttered his thoughts. Cythera, with Malden writhing atop her, strewn across a whore’s bed It was almost a welcome distraction when the wall of Ness collapsed.

The Burgrave came racing past them, his lance pointed up in the air. “Not my damned city, you don’t!” he cried, and behind him a hundred Free Men with bill hooks cried out as they rallied behind their leader.

Sir Hew stared toward Ness. “Sappers, would be my guess,” he said, sounding shocked. “If they can get inside the city-”

“We’ll have to besiege Ness ourselves,” Croy replied, nodding. That would be next to impossible, with winter growing colder and the snow piling deeper every day. They couldn’t feed the Skilfinger mercenaries for another week, not and besiege the city at the same time.

“Give me an order,” Hew demanded.

Croy shook his head. “Press the attack. Hurt them as much as we can before they get inside.” He thought he knew now why Morget had held his berserkers in reserve. Once those battle-mad warriors were inside the wall, no force inside the Free City could hold against them. They would slaughter the citizens of Ness indiscriminately, hacking and slashing until the streets were slick with blood.

Once that slaughter began, there would not be a single thing he-or the Burgrave, or Hew, or anyone else-could do to stop it.