Chapter Eighty-one
Ghostcutter sliced through the bones of a defleshed arm and cut deep into the side of a revenant who was reaching for Morget’s throat. The barbarian’s mace, held in his weaker left hand, caved in the abomination’s skull. Still it kept grasping for Morget’s neck, so Croy yanked his sword free of its armor and wheeled around to cut its remaining arm to pieces.
Cold hands dragged at Croy’s cloak from behind. He growled and flung himself backward, but couldn’t break the grip. Morget brought Dawnbringer high, gripping its hilt in both hands now, and cut a revenant in half, slicing through its wasted body right down the middle. The Ancient Blade lit up with brilliant fire as it cleaved through collarbone, ribs, and pelvis.
The light was bright enough to blind Croy, if only for a moment. Among the undead warriors it had a far more devastating effect.
The revenants convulsed in holy terror and staggered back. The hands holding Croy released him. He kicked backward with one boot and felt a near-skeletal warrior’s midsection crumple into dust. As the revenants threw up their thin arms to block the light of Morget’s blade, Croy took his chance and swung Ghostcutter through a wide arc that severed finger bones and elbows and ended with the blade embedded in a silently screaming skull.
One revenant, scuttling back to get away from the light, put a bootless foot down on what appeared to be a loose flagstone. The stone retracted on a hidden spring and Croy heard a clicking sound.
“Get down,” he shouted at Morget. The two of them ducked at the same moment a load of stones tied into a ball came whistling over their heads. The massive stone orb swept through every revenant in its path, shattering their bodies and scattering their fragile bones all about the room.
Croy leapt up to face a headless corpse that swung a morningstar at Morget’s back. Ghostcutter whistled through the air and the weapon clunked to the floor, still clutched in a disembodied hand. Croy ducked again as the ball of stone came back on its return swing and utterly disintegrated the headless foe, sending an arc of bone fragments high into the air.
Morget rolled to the side, out of the path of Balint’s swinging trap. He sprang to his feet, sword and mace held high. Croy leaned back out of the way of the stone ball and pointed Ghostcutter toward the end of the hall, where the revenants had first appeared.
None showed there now. In the vast hall of the leather works, not a single revenant was left standing.
Croy heaved for breath, his body still twitching with bloodlust. He looked over at Morget and saw a bodiless arm crawling up the barbarian’s leg.
Morget followed his gaze down, then laughed wickedly and tore the arm free of his boot. As if he were plucking petals from a daisy, he tore off the finger bones one by one and tossed them over his shoulder. The arm kept twisting, trying to break free of the barbarian’s grip, but it was harmless now and he dropped it without ceremony.
“Done?” Morget asked.
“Done, with this bunch at least,” Balint agreed, stepping out of the shadows. Her knocker jumped down to the flagstones with a gentle thud and went running forward, rapping on the flagstones over and over with its knuckles.
Croy wiped sweat from his upper lip and looked around. They’d been so busy fighting the revenants he hadn’t had a chance to study his surroundings. The leather works weren’t much to see, it turned out. The hall was filled with stone benches, and boxes of rusty tools filled high shelves against the walls. Hooks hung down from the ceiling in a hundred places, but any hides that might have been cleaned or cut or tanned here had long since rotted away.
“There’s an escape shaft that way,” Balint said, pointing into the darkness. “It’s how my crew and I came in, back when I still thought this place was emptier than a spinster’s womb. We planned on taking the barrels out that way, so I had Murin drag them up here. If Slurri and I had come with him… but instead I had to go find Urin and gloat over his failure.” She shook her head. “I could be halfway to Redweir by now, and a good bath, and a session with the best mustache plucker in town.”
Croy only half heard her. “The barrels will be up there?” he asked. He still had no idea why Balint wanted the things now, but she swore they would be instrumental in slaughtering the elves. Therefore, he intended to get to them as soon as possible.
“Aye.”
He nodded and strode toward the arch at the far end of the room. Ballint and the barbarian followed.
“How can five barrels destroy an entire city?” Morget asked. He was not consumed by vengeance, and therefore was still thinking. In an offhand way, Croy was glad one of them was still asking questions.
“I told you, you daft pillock. The barrels contain the most powerful weapon the dwarves ever built. It’s terrifying, what they’re capable of. If everybody had what’s in those barrels, they would never make war again because they’d be too horrified to use them.”
“Even if they were full of magical swords,” Morget said, “we still only have six arms between us to swing them.”
“Not every weapon in this world needs a strong arm to wield it,” Balint replied.
“If you say so. But it also occurs to me it’s been eight hundred years since those barrels were stored away. Won’t the weapons inside have rusted or rotted or-”
“No, no, no, the barrels are sealed tighter than a toad’s arsehole, for one thing, and any way, the substance inside has a high measure of hydrophobicity-”
“High what?” Morget asked.
“It’s-It repels water, and that means it should last near on forever if it isn’t-”
“But how? How does it do that?”
Croy roared and turned to face the other two. “It’s magic, of course. That’s what she’s saying. It’s magic, so it doesn’t wear off. Now let’s get on with it!”
He passed through the arch, not waiting for a reply. The room beyond was filled with enormous tanning vats, great stone cylinders far taller than Croy’s head. Sitting between two such vessels stood the barrels in question. They were good-sized hogsheads, made of a greenish stoneware. They gleamed dully in the candlelight.
“That’s them,” Balint said, crowing in excitement. “Now we just have to move them up to the top level.”
“Where all the revenants gather? But why?” Morget asked.
“Let’s just do it,” Croy said, and bent to pick up one of the barrels. “I tire of waiting. I tire of questions. I want vengeance on the evil ones, and I want it now.”
Chapter Eighty-two
The elfin children were as beautiful as their parents, and they laughed even more. Aethil led the three of them through the nursery, pausing frequently to coo over the babies where they slept in narrow cribs made out of beetle shells. “They’re so adorable. I envy the mothers so. Sometimes I come down here and just watch them sleep, when I’m feeling sorrowful.”
“You have no heir as of yet, Aethil?” Cythera asked.
“What? No, of course not, I-ah… But you can’t know. We queens of the elves are different from others. When the time comes to produce an heir, I will find my proper mate and for the first time I will know real joy.” She glanced at Slag as if sizing him up as a candidate for that position. The dwarf was chewing on his fingernails. He seemed to have no interest at all in elf babies. “I will conceive immediately, and bear a single child, a daughter, who will become queen as soon as she is born.”
“You don’t get to finish your reign?” Malden asked.
“I… cannot. You see, I will die in childbirth. Just as my mother did.”
Cythera made a sound of utter pity, a kind of deep, heartfelt moan. Aethil favored them with a bright smile that had little warmth in it.
“Enough-we need not speak of that. Let me show you the rest of the nursery.” She led them out into a larger
