unable to rest-he was too aware, always, of the vast quantity of darkness surrounding him. He must have been born on a sunny day, he thought. This impenetrable gloom frayed his nerves and made him jumpy. He would be all too glad when the demon was slain and they could leave again.
Admit it, he told himself. You’re frightened.
Like most boys of Skrae, Croy had grown up believing knights were supposed to be fearless, that they charged into danger without a second thought. That illusion lasted until he fought in his first real battle. He’d vomited while he waited for the enemy to arrive, and tried to cover up his shame by burying his sick. Sir Orne, a fellow Ancient Blade, had laughed at him but then told him the secret of being fearless.
“It’s an act. A mask you wear, to help frighten your enemies. Just as they pretend to be unafraid to frighten you. But honestly we’re all ready to run away, every time, run until we find our mothers and can weep into their skirts.”
“But how do you conquer the fear?” Croy had asked.
“That’s one fight you can’t win. All you can ever hope for is to keep your mask from slipping at the wrong time,” Sir Orne had told him.
He’d never forgotten that lesson.
To pass the time, he spoke in low tones with Morget and the dwarf.
“What can you tell us of this place?” he asked Slag. “You seemed as surprised as any of us to see how big it is.”
“Aye, lad. There’s little enough to tell, as even the most learned dwarves think of the Vincularium as a piece of the past, perhaps better forgotten. It was a grand city in the days before men came to this land, but ye knew that already. I know it had a different name back then, which was Thur-Karas.”
“What does that name mean?” Morget inquired.
Slag shrugged. “ ‘Place of the Long Shadows’ is the best translation I can make. Which means as fucking little to me as it must to you.”
“It sounds baleful,” Morget said, looking grim.
“Names are often meaningless, or chosen for reasons we cannot fathom,” Croy said. “My own, for instance, means nothing of value.”
“Truly?” Morget asked, sounding surprised. “I would think a man of rank like yourself would have a name of importance.”
“You do me too much credit. My mother chose the name. Before me, it belonged to an uncle, her favorite brother. That’s all.”
“It must have come from somewhere,” Morget said.
Croy shrugged. “I imagine my uncle was named after another Croy, perhaps an ancestor. How far back that chain goes I cannot say. Malden and Cythera could probably tell you similar stories. Such is the custom in Skrae.”
Morget shook his head. “Names should have power. In my land, in the East, we say a man’s name is his destiny.”
Croy raised an eyebrow. “An interesting notion. So when you meet a man, you know something of his character right away. Very practical.”
“If you have to fight a man, you want to know if his name means ‘killer’ or ‘coward.’ It’s useful information.”
Croy opened his pack and took out a jug of ale. He sipped at it, then handed it to Slag, who took a deep pull on it. Morget, of course, drank no spirits, so the dwarf handed it back to the knight. “So,” Croy said, “what does Morget mean? Something violent and forceful, no doubt.” He pumped one fist in the air and laughed.
“Hardly. It means simply that I am the son of Morg. Morg’s get.”
“And who’s Morg when he’s not at home?” Slag asked.
Morget looked as if he’d almost rather not say. It was the first time Croy had ever seen the barbarian look less than enthusiastic about something. And yet he knew from Morget’s own lips that his father was a great chieftain of the barbarians, a commander of men.
“Sometimes they call him Morg the Wise. He’s the closest thing we have to a king,” Morget said, his eyes dark.
Croy spread his arms wide. “There you go. A proud name indeed.”
The barbarian ran one thumb along the blade of his axe. “It is not meant that way. It is meant as a mark of shame. Among my people, no man is worth anything but what he seizes for himself. My name is meant to always remind me that I am not special, nor am I to be favored, just because I am the whelp of a great man. I must achieve something great in my life, or my people will always remember me as someone’s child.”
“Once you kill this demon-”
“Then I will change my name. I will have earned a better one.”
“I can see why you would travel so far to carry out your quest,” Croy said.
“Yes. And now you know about my name, for what good it does you. You. Dwarf.”
Slag looked up. He’d started dozing halfway through Morget’s explanation. “Huh, yes?”
“Your name seems strange to me. What is a ‘slag’?”
“Slag is a waste product of the smelting process. It’s just what humans call me. A sodding insult, to be true, though mostly they mean it affectionately.”
“I knew it was unusual,” Croy said, slapping his knee. “I was under the impression all dwarf names end with the suffix ‘in.’ Like Murdlin and Snurrin and Therin.”
“Many do. It means ‘descendant of.’ Murdlin, for instance, is the seventh direct grandson of Murdli, the dwarf who invented the blister process of making steel. One of our great heroes. In our land, that is a mark of honor.”
“We come from very different worlds,” Morget told the dwarf.
“You’re not fucking kidding.”
Croy laughed. “But what’s your actual name, then, Slag? I hate to think this whole time I’ve been calling you after some noxious substance, when you had a real, proud name I could use.”
“It’s not important,” Slag told him.
“Of course it is,” Croy said. “I have nothing but respect for you, and wouldn’t want to insult you, even in affectionate jest. Why, I-”
“Be still,” Morget said, jumping to his feet. The axe in his hand pointed out into the dark.
“I told you, it’s not fucking important,” Slag said, squinting at Croy.
The knight was too busy staring at Morget to hear him.
“What is it?” Croy asked.
“I hear footsteps. And they’re close.”
Chapter Thirty-four
“Lad, lass, get up,” Slag said, shaking Malden and Cythera to get them moving. Croy paid no attention as the dwarf explained what was happening to them. He had Ghostcutter out of its sheath and was busy preparing himself for a fight.
His first inclination was to douse the lanterns and hide. But there was no good place to cower, and he had a feeling that whatever was out there could probably see better in the dark than he could. It showed no lights of its own. He couldn’t see it at all in the murk but he could definitely hear it now.
Its footsteps were dragging and slow but it was making no attempt to muffle them. And it made another sound, too, a rhythmic scraping sound Croy couldn’t place.
“It’s this way,” Morget said, and pointed into the dark with his axe. “And there’s more than one.”
Croy strained his ears to the limit of their ability to pick up sounds, but he lacked Morget’s wild-born sensitivity. The knight squinted his eyes against the musty darkness and tried to see something. Anything.
And then he had it. A figure, human-shaped, moving toward them very slowly. It wasn’t walking so much as shuffling its feet forward. One arm held something that it dragged along the cobblestones. That was the source of
