Honor among thieves

Chapter Forty-Six

T he sky glowed a deep blue-black that made Malden’s head hurt as he began to climb the spire of the Ladychapel, the tallest church in Ness. Lack of sleep was catching up with him. His hands ached as he pulled himself up onto a gargoyle in the shape of a toothy fish. His feet kept slipping on even the widest ledges.

Down below him, in Market Square, the Army of Free Men was forming up. The Burgrave’s rotting battle standards snapped in the wind as men with drums signaled their companies to come together. The soldiers formed semiorderly squares, their weapons leaning on their shoulders. Serjeants in the colors of the Burgrave walked up and down between the formations, flailing at their men with batons to get them into better lines.

Up on Castle Hill, behind the wall, a white horse was being dressed in steel barding chased with silver. A whole train of sumpter horses laden with chests and barrels were brought around the side of the palace, while two oxen drew a wagon full of clanking iron-armor and weapons, presumably, an abundant panoply for the general who would lead all the men in the square.

As dawn drew near, the men kept coming. The thousand Malden had seen the day before marching in the square were nothing to the numbers that arrived now. They filled Market Square to bursting, and overflowed into the streets beyond. They formed up in the cloister of the university and on the forecourt of the Ladychapel. They did their best to stand in orderly rows on the Cornmarket Bridge, even as mounted men raced back and forth between Castle Hill and the Spires, carrying messages or delivering loads of weaponry.

Malden found a perch on the steeple and sat down, head in hands, to watch. He still didn’t know what he was going to do. As the first red ray of dawn painted the wall of the Burgrave’s palace, he scratched his nose, then got to his feet and slipped inside the belfry.

Acidtongue was there, right where he’d left it. Hidden in plain sight of half the city. The swallows that nested up there had avoided it-perhaps birds were more sensitive to dangerous magic than men. There weren’t any droppings or curled feathers on the scabbard. Anyone who could climb a ladder could have come up here and just taken it.

Why hadn’t the Burgrave just had his thousands of men scour the city for the blade? That would have saved Malden the trouble of deciding. Now he was out of time. He must jump one way or another, and either give the Burgrave what he wanted or defy the man and risk everything.

A sword he didn’t need. A sword he barely knew how to use. Give it away, he told himself, and buy a little goodwill.

Croy wouldn’t like that, of course. To Croy, the Ancient Blades weren’t just weapons. Croy considered Ghostcutter to be the manifest form of his own soul. And when Croy had given Acidtongue to him, the knight assumed that he would come to feel the same way. Croy had always intended to take him under his wing, to teach him the proper use of the sword and make a knight of him.

Malden could imagine few fates he’d relish less. But still… to Croy, the Ancient Blades were not commodities to be traded like coins. They meant something. And Malden didn’t trust the Burgrave, not an inch. This free nation Tarness wanted to build-it was just the same old feudal system with different management. No question about that. The Burgrave could use all the pretty words he liked, but it came down to one thing: he was going to usurp the throne of Skrae. In the process he would start a civil war that would mean unending bloodshed and pain for the people he claimed to represent. And if he handed over the sword, he would be helping to make that happen.

But still…

He had a responsibility to the thieves of the guild, too.

If he didn’t do this, Cutbill’s men-Malden’s men-would be hanged, one by one. That was the threat, and he understood it just fine. Hood, the new bailiff, would wipe the guild off the map. Long before he finished the last one off, though, Malden himself would already be dead. When the other thieves realized what he’d brought down on their heads, they would turn on him. His life wouldn’t be worth a farthing.

The sun showed half its disc over Eastwall. Orange fire traced the ribbon of the Skrait as it wound through the Free City of Ness. The old stones of the Spires, of the Golden Slope, and of Castle Hill, were washed with yellow light.

Down in Market Square, the Burgrave rode out. Under the biggest and brightest of his faded banners, he rode in iron armor painted black with enamel, with silver filigree coating every inch of him, head-to-toe, in a convoluted floral pattern. Old-fashioned stuff, but that was the point. Ommen Tarness, the current Burgrave, wanted people to associate him with Juring Tarness, the ancient general and founder of the city. Bright red plumes bobbed on his shoulders and helmet, and he carried a lance pointed at the sky.

The assembled men cheered to see him, and together their voices roared like the ocean pounding on the shore.

Tarness had no retinue but the packhorses and wagons that followed after him. He had no knights to protect him, nor any priests to bless every prancing step of his horse. That would be intentional, of course. Supposedly he was just like all the men who followed him-free and equal. Maybe dressed a little better, but really, just one of the boys. It was hard to believe anyone would fall for such nonsense, but then in times of hardship-in times of war-every man clutched at straws.

Tarness stopped his horse and made a very brief speech Malden could not hear. Then he paused awhile and just sat there, looking left and right.

Malden knew what he was looking for.

Time to give it to him.

The decision was made. He had to accept it could never really have gone another way. The Burgrave was just too powerful, and too dangerous. Thwarting him would be suicide.

His own feelings didn’t matter one bit. He had to do this, and he had to do it now. He would give Acidtongue to Tarness and let historians decide if he’d done the right thing.

He paused to let out one long, pained sigh. Then he leaned over and grabbed the hilt of Acidtongue where it lay in the belfry. Tried to pick it up.

The sword wouldn’t budge.

Malden stared down at the weapon, confused. The thing was heavy, surely, but he’d lifted it many times before. He tried to pick it up again, with no better luck. Tried to pry it off the floor of the belfry. Heaved and grunted and sweated as he tried to lift it.

Acidtongue might as well have been fused to the belfry floor-or carved out of the stones themselves. It would not, no matter how hard Malden tried, shift even a fraction of an inch from where it lay.

Down in Market Square the Burgrave made a gesture. Pritchard Hood came running over to take his lord’s final orders.

“No,” Malden said. “No! You fucking bastard, let go!”

But the sword wouldn’t move.

In the square, Hood nodded in understanding, and then headed back into the walls of Castle Hill. The Burgrave dipped his lance, and there was more cheering, and then almost every able-bodied man in Ness followed him as he trotted downhill toward Hunter’s Gate, and glory.

Up in the belfry, Malden kept heaving and shoving and prying at the sword. Eventually, the last soldier cleared Hunter’s Gate, and its massive doors were shut behind the army, and bolted, and locked up tight.

And only then-only when it was too late-did Acidtongue move. It came free from the floor in Malden’s hand as if it had never been stuck.

“Sorcery!” Malden cursed, fuming with rage.

But even then he knew he was wrong. It wasn’t sorcery that had bound the sword where it lay. It had been witchcraft.