Dawnbringer cut right, the blade flaring with light. Two elves were decapitated before they’d even had time to know something was wrong.
Like good soldiers, the elves did not waste time shouting among themselves in surprise or demanding orders from their captain. They broke ranks flawlessly, spreading out so they could swing their weapons without striking each other. Those too far from Croy or Morget to attack immediately moved quickly, trying to get behind one of the humans or at least flank them.
Ghostcutter rang on a bronze shield, denting its boss. Croy danced backward, drawing his opponent, trying to force the elves to clump up again. He parried a bronze sword that came in from his right, then whirled around for a riposte, sinking his point deep in the throat of an elf.
Another sword came in low, trying to get under his guard. Croy jumped over the blade, pulling his feet up high. Before the attacker could recover and catch him on the backswing, he grabbed the elf’s arm with his free hand and pulled, hard. The elf screamed as he clattered to the floor, striking the flagstones face-first. Before he could even roll over, Croy stomped on his back with one boot.
Then he tossed Ghostcutter in the air, caught it in a reverse grip, and stabbed downward into his fallen enemy’s spine with a thunderous blow.
An honorless attack. The kind of attack a noble knight should not countenance. Croy had never struck such a cheap blow in his life before.
Of course, he’d never fought to avenge his lady love before either.
His face was a mask of iron hatred as he pulled his sword free and faced another attacker. An elf came running toward him, sword held low and point-on. The soldier gripped his blade around the ricasso to add stability to the lunge, which would run Croy through if he couldn’t knock it away.
Before the running elf could take another step, though, Morget’s axe slammed through the armor protecting his side. It bit deep and true, cleaving through bone and muscle and into the vitals beneath. The bronze sword jumped out of the dying elf’s hands. The weapon spun in the air, flashing, before it fell to clash and clatter on the flagstones.
Morget boomed with laughter, and lifted the elf into the air, still stuck on his axe. As the rest of the company swept forward, the barbarian flicked the axe toward them and their companion’s body flew through the air to smash against their shields.
“Now?” Croy asked. Fury was a cold blue flame in his heart. He was ready to take on the rest, and the demon, single-handed.
But that wasn’t the plan.
“Now,” Morget agreed.
The two of them brandished their weapons in the direction of the remaining elves. They gave their best war cries-Morget’s was far more intimidating than Croy’s, but he strained his throat with it.
“More flesh for Mother Death!”
“For the Lady, and for Cythera!”
Then they both turned hard on their heels and ran for the darkness at the back of the kitchen.
The elves came screaming after them, the demon racing along the floor in the midst of them. Croy’s knees flashed in the air as he dashed toward a wide open space in the floor ahead, then wheeled to one side at the last moment. Morget executed a similar maneuver.
The elves came on, their course as straight as an arrow’s flight.
Enraged, perhaps terrified, desperate to catch the humans, they paid no heed to the horse blanket spread across the floor in the middle of the kitchen.
The blanket that had been pulled taut over a vast open fire pit.
Elves and demon alike fell with a terrible rattling din into the pit, arms flying, swords jumping out of hands. Those who landed atop the demon screamed and tried to scurry off its back as it thrashed in blind panic, the faces under its skin stretching outward open-mouthed and wide-eyed. Wherever it touched their bare skin, its corrosive touch scorched and seared, and the elves screamed.
Balint stepped out of the shadows and chuckled. The knocker on her shoulder grabbed at her pack straps to keep from being thrown off. “Boil-brained hedgepigs. You fell for literally the oldest trick in the book. Just be glad I couldn’t get the gas pipes to light, or you’d be a demon omelet by now!” she crowed.
“What now?” Croy asked.
“Now we slaughter them before they can get out of there,” Morget suggested, as easy as if he’d said they should clean their swords and polish their armor.
“Leave them there, to fight it out with that crawling pockmark of theirs,” Balint told the warriors. “We just needed to clear the way to the leather works. And so we have. Come along, you two.”
Croy stared down into the fire pit awhile longer. The elves were too busy trying to get away from their pet beast to pay him any attention. He considered spitting on them.
But no. There were some things a gentleman didn’t do, even to the murderers of his betrothed.
Instead he glared down at them and shouted, “You’re going to die. Every last one of you will die! It’s less than what you deserve for what you did to Cythera!”
Chapter Seventy-nine
“Stop, please,” Cythera begged. “I feel I might burst!” She put her hand over her goblet before Aethil could pour her any more wine.
“More fish?” the queen of the elves asked, picking up a flat-bladed silver knife.
“No, no, thank you, your highness, but I really couldn’t swallow another bite.” Cythera laughed happily and dabbed at her mouth with a beetle-silk napkin.
It matched the dress they’d put her in, an elegant gown of the same cut and style as the ones Malden and Slag wore. Aethil had told them that the silk was made from threads secreted by cave beetles. The thought had discomfited Malden considerably, even after Slag told him where real silk came from.
The fish bothered him as well. Its flesh and skin were both snowy white and it had no eyes-the dome of its forehead was just smooth skin from the dorsal fin all the way to its toothy mouth. It looked unnatural to him, especially after being roasted and swimming in thin mushroom gravy. But it didn’t bother him enough that he didn’t eat it. He was still hungry after days of wandering in the dark and being locked up in a filthy gaol.
Every food the elves had brought for their queen’s special supper was questionable in one way or another. The wine was good but smelled of damp earth. The bread-far better than the mealy loaves they’d been given in the stockade-was the wrong color. The filets of cave beetle even tasted different underground, not nearly as gamey as the one he’d had up on the surface, in the forest, before they’d come to this benighted place.
But at least Cythera was there to share it.
Her release from the gaol had been the occasion for this feast. When she arrived, Slag-or rather, Sir Croy- actually smiled and wept a little. That had made Aethil so happy she ordered a grand celebration for the four of them. The feast was served by elves in patchwork shifts carrying platters of tarnished silver, while a musician playing a lute made of cave beetle shell serenaded them softly from one corner.
It almost felt like they weren’t prisoners anymore.
Yet when the musician had been sent away, and Aethil excused herself from the table to make water, Cythera drew up her gown to show Malden one of her legs. A tattooed vine ran up her calf, spreading spiky leaves and studded with tiny, vividly purple flowers. “He couldn’t cripple me,” she said in a very low voice. “But I know what he was trying to do. You, as well?”
Malden nodded and hauled his own hobbled leg up onto a bench. “If I move my foot at all the pain is unbearable.”
Cythera reached for his ankle before he could pull it away. “Be still,” she told him. “This won’t hurt.” She pressed her hands around his calf and gasped a little. “It’s a strong enchantment,” she said, and sank back into her chair.
The muscles in Malden’s leg relaxed instantly, and a wave of pure relief flushed through him. When he recovered, he grabbed Cythera’s hands to look at them. On the palm of each a violet flower bloomed, and as he
