and he knew how it would progress. He would weaken, and then falter, and then struggle for breath. His skin would pale and his lips turn blue. Eventually he would lose consciousness, and drift off to a sleep from which he would never awake. That was exactly how they said the priests of Sadu had once slaughtered their sacrifices, by bleeding them dry.
It was a painful way to die.
Desperate, driven by fear, Malden wheeled up to his feet, Acidtongue flashing out in a broad arc before him. Prestwicke was nowhere close enough to be cut.
Damn. Malden could feel blood sheeting down his back. The cut there had not severed any of his muscles, but it bit deep enough that he could feel blood rolling down his legs. He did not have much more time.
The priest raised his knife high and started to chant. Malden cast a quick glance toward the onlookers. Cythera looked terrified. Aethil the elf queen was staring with eyes that showed no emotion at all. What was her game? Why had she consented to this grotesque spectacle? Malden knew Slag had beseeched Aethil on his behalf- but surely this wasn’t the dwarf’s idea.
He needed to concentrate. He needed to focus. None of it mattered-not Morget’s escape, not what Cythera was doing. Nothing but where Prestwicke happened to be, and where his knife was.
The next attack came while he was still turning in place, looking for the priest.
The blow came down fast. Malden managed to parry it with Acidtongue, thinking the blade’s acid would burn right through the knife. But Prestwicke must have thought the same thing, for he withdrew his attack before it had even really begun. Then, while Malden was bracing for the impact, Prestwicke slipped the knife under his guard and stabbed him in the stomach.
Malden shrieked in pain and jumped back, away from the knife.
Blood from his newest wound splattered on the flagstones. He had yet to even touch his opponent.
Chapter Ninety-six
Croy’s breath came in ragged pants. His eyes snapped open and he saw Malden again. Malden, with Acidtongue naked in his hand. The thief was advancing on a man dressed like a priest. Priest-priest-Prestwicke. Croy knew the priest’s name. For some reason Prestwicke was holding a very shiny knife.
Morget tore at the chain around Croy’s wrists. It came off with scraps of his skin still woven through the links. Croy gasped in pain, but he was still watching Malden. The thief was-was-what in the Lady’s name was the thief doing?
As Croy watched in horror, Malden took a step toward Prestwicke. He held Acidtongue high over his head, as if he were going to chop wood with it. Then he started to circle toward the priest’s right.
Toward his strong side. What was Malden thinking? No trained swordsman would ever make a mistake like that.
“Knight! Collect yourself! Take this.” Morget shoved something into Croy’s hand. It was Ghostcutter’s scabbard. Croy looked down at the sword, thinking that at least one thing still made sense. He still had the blade that he thought of as his soul.
The familiar weight of the blade and its scabbard helped bring him to his senses. How many times had he held this sword? How many times had he drawn it, and turned to fight an enemy?
He turned now, and saw a dozen elves holding drawn swords come screaming toward him.
Ah.
That, he understood.
Yet as he drew Ghostcutter from its sheath, he felt like he was struggling through a mire. He moved so slowly, and the elves were so fast.
“This way! Only cover my move, and I will love you forever,” Morget shouted at him. Croy lifted the sword. It felt far heavier than it used to. “This way!” Morget said again, and grabbed his arm and spun him around.
Ahead, he saw a wide gallery lit red by the dwarven sun. Morget was running toward the light. Croy followed, unable to make his legs move very fast. Soon the elves were upon him, hacking and slashing at the steel-plated brigantine he wore.
Croy brought Ghostcutter up in a defensive posture. Bronze swords rang off the silver edge of his blade. A blow came in from his left that Croy barely had time to parry. Another darted in low and he shifted his leg back an inch, so the weapon merely grazed his flesh.
He turned his head and saw Morget run for the gallery, and then leap over its railing. What was the barbarian doing?
A bronze sword struck the side of Croy’s head. Only the flat of the blade connected, but it was enough to knock Croy sideways and throw him off balance. He went down on one knee, and then a dozen more blows dropped him to the flagstones. A boot came down toward his jaw. Croy grabbed it and twisted with all his strength, and its elfin owner fell backward, into the surprised faces of three of his comrades.
Croy’s blood surged in him. Heat burst in his chest as his heart, made sluggish by the drug, labored to keep up with his screaming muscles. The fog started to lift as Croy stretched and danced, holding off his enemies. The exercise was burning off the drug and he was starting to move faster, to think more clearly.
Then the flat of a bronze blade struck him across the ear, and he dropped like a bag of stones.
Around him the elves debated his fate. “Are we supposed to kill him, or take him alive?” one asked.
“Kill him quick! No one will blame us,” another said. “How many of us did he slay?”
“But we had standing orders not to-”
“He’s a beast, a wild beast!”
Croy struggled to get one hand under him, to push himself up off the flagstones. The elves drew back in terror as if they couldn’t believe he was still standing. Free of them for a moment, Croy raced over to the edge of the gallery. He looked for Morget again, and saw the barbarian on the far side of the central shaft. How had Morget gotten all the way over there so quickly? It seemed impossible-yet the barbarian seemed a man possessed as he leapt from gallery to gallery, his hands barely connecting with the wall of the shaft before they reached for another handhold. He climbed up the sheer wall as quick as a spider, hauling himself upward by the woody growths of fungus that studded the wall.
But-why?
Croy’s brains had cleared enough that he had it in an instant. Morget was headed to the top level, to the support column where they had left the barrels. Where Balint had placed them, in just such a way that they would break through the column and bring down the entire mountain on their heads.
Morget was going to finish what had been interrupted. He was going to put fire to the-what had Balint called it?-the fuse. It was his last chance to kill the demons, to end his personal quest.
And it meant the death of every living being in the Vincularium.
“No,” Croy said, because his brain had finally started working again. “No-he’s going to-to bring this place down! But Cythera is still alive!”
Then a boot connected with his jaw, and elves piled on top of him until he was unable to move at all.
Chapter Ninety-seven
Prestwicke came at him again, and Malden barely managed to dance away from the flashing knife. He tried bringing Acidtongue around for a slashing cut, but the knife gleamed in the air between them and Malden had to jump back again. Prestwicke drove him toward the gallery, as if he intended to push him over the edge and into the waters below.
Malden had no illusion that he would get off that lightly.
He tried a thrust with Acidtongue, not aimed at Prestwicke’s chest or face, but at his knife hand. The priest darted away more quickly than Malden would have deemed possible. Had Sadu given the little man supernatural powers? The knife came swinging toward him again, and Malden had to jump out of the way.
