Honor among thieves

Chapter One Hundred Nineteen

Smoke from the explosion of Slag’s weapon hung in the air, great choking clouds of it. Malden hurried forward into the gap in the city wall, his ankles twisting this way and that as he clambered over piles of broken stone and the bodies of dead berserkers. He heard movement up ahead of him and he drew Acidtongue from its sheath. There was no telling what lay out there, beyond the wall.

Behind him a mob of armed citizens had formed. They muttered and moaned among themselves, as terrified as he was, as desperate to learn how things stood beyond the wall. Ready for whatever came through, or as ready as they could be.

At least this time they weren’t calling for his blood. They weren’t demanding he sacrifice himself at the Godstone for the good of the city.

Malden trod on the shield of a dead berserker and it crackled under his foot. It had been so peppered with flying debris that the wood fell apart like hard cheese. Up ahead, in the dim smoke, something moved fast across his field of vision.

He lowered himself to a defensive crouch. He remembered the ill-fitting suit of armor he’d worn when he spoke to Morg from atop the wall. As painful as it had been to wear, he would have been glad of its protection now.

Moving forward, he lifted his free hand and waved it behind him, ushering the mob forward, after him. He didn’t bother to look back to see if they complied. Another step, into the smoke. Another, Acidtongue’s point bobbing in the air as Malden sought for something to strike.

When the reaver came for him, he still wasn’t ready. The man was huge, a wall of muscle, his face red with blood, his axe raised high. He looked even more terrified than Malden felt, but the thief knew that fear could make a man more dangerous than a lion.

The axe came down before Malden could even react, its wicked pointed blade slicing through the air. Malden tried to dodge to the side but the blow was just too fast, just too brutal. Malden winced, expecting to be cut in two.

Instead the axe struck a stone near Malden’s feet, smashing it to powder.

“Where are you, you western bastard?” the reaver demanded. “I can smell you! I can taste your blood already!”

It was only then that Malden realized the reaver was blind. A sword stroke had cut across his face, ruining his eyes. Other wounds marred his arms and chest. The man must have been wounded in the fighting outside, then wandered in through the gap in the wall without even realizing where he was.

Malden felt pity well up in his chest for the barbarian, despite the fact the man had just tried to kill him. It was no kind of world for a blind man. “Surrender,” he said, almost pleading with the reaver. “Give in, and you’ll be spared, I promise-”

“Die, you fucker!” someone shouted from behind Malden and high over his head.

One after another five arrows pierced the reaver’s body. The barbarian winced and staggered backward under the blows, then sank to his knees and gasped out his last.

Malden turned and looked up at his archers atop the wall. They waved cheerily down at him, and he raised Acidtongue in a halfhearted salute. A bead of vitriol rolled down the blade and stung his fingers, but he made a point of not flinching.

He turned back to the gap and moved forward into the smoke, as carefully as he could. Soon he was as blind as the man he’d just watched die. His throat burned with the stink of brimstone and he would not have been surprised if he walked out of the cloud straight into the pit itself.

When he did emerge it was to find a scene not wholly dissimilar. Bodies littered the ground before him, bodies torn to rags of flesh and dropped without ceremony. Directly ahead an army of men-Free Men, but also knights on horseback-pressed an attack, driving home lances and pike heads as barbarians screamed and died. The horde was pushed up against the city wall with nowhere to run, hemmed in on two sides by advancing troops.

“In Sadu’s name,” Malden said. “Are we winning?”

He could scarcely believe it. Yet he had the evidence of his own eyes to prove it.

Barbarians were cut down in waves. Some tried throwing away their weapons and shields, but the Free Men ran them through anyway. The pikemen had to stop from time to time to shove the amassed bodies out of their path just so they could continue their advance.

“They’re giving way,” someone said from behind Malden’s shoulder. He turned and saw a hundred citizens of Ness-his own paltry troops-gathering to watch. “Ness is saved!” He could see the bloodthirst on their faces. The joy they took in this spectacle. He couldn’t blame them, in all fairness. How long had they lived in terror of the barbarian throng? How long had they been expecting that horde to come sweeping through their houses, murdering and savaging? Now they had their revenge. “This is your victory, Lord Mayor! Sadu be praised!”

But for Malden, the vision was utterly sickening. Barbarians were being put to death out there by the hundreds. The soldiers were executing them. They weren’t even trying to fight back. Where was Morget to rally them? Where was Morgain? The mounted knights cried out and drove a wedge between two masses of pikemen, as if they were afraid the footmen would have all the fun without them.

“Look! There!” someone called. “It’s Sir Croy!”

Malden felt like the wind had been knocked out of him. Or perhaps like he was seeing a ghost. But there, yes-right there-was the knight errant, limping along in his armor, clutching his side. His colors, black and silver, were instantly recognizable, but even at a distance Malden knew that face. An empty scabbard bounced against his thigh. Where was Ghostcutter? Malden couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Croy without it.

More to the point-Croy was here? Croy had come to Ness?

At least, Malden thought, Croy would put an end to this slaughter. He would drag his men back from the brink of madness and keep them from butchering every single barbarian on the field. Any minute now, Malden was certain, Croy would raise his voice and call out to give quarter, to end the bloodshed. Surely honor demanded it.

Someone brought Croy a horse. Someone else helped him climb up into its saddle. It seemed to take forever, and all the while the wholesale murder continued. The barbarians tried to surrender en masse, lifting their arms high, their weapons piled in glittering heaps at their feet. It made no difference. The knights and pikemen might have been slaughtering wild animals out there.

“Come now, Croy,” Malden whispered. “For honor’s sake.”

Croy stood up in his saddle. His hand reached for a sword that wasn’t there. Instead he lifted one armored fist.

“No quarter!” he shouted.

The civilized armies took that as a sign to cheer and redouble their attacks, even as the barbarians howled for peace, for mercy, for justice.

Malden staggered back to the gap in the wall. Alone he slunk back inside the comforting embrace of his city. Slag came running up through the smoke and grabbed at the hem of his tunic with his one remaining hand.

“What is it, lad? What did you see?”

“We won,” Malden told him. He very much wanted to go sit down somewhere.