“Wuzzat?” someone said. Someone nearby. Someone whose voice suggested to Malden that he would be quite a bit larger than himself. A slow shuffling step started toward him, drowning out the tired wails of the unseen prisoner.
Malden looked around him in a panic, searching for a place to hide. There was none whatsoever. He had dropped into a narrow room with a vaulted ceiling-a ceiling from which hung sundry articles of iron, many of them with sharp points, others made of heavy chain. The tools of a torturer. The shaft’s opening was just a square of darkness on the ceiling, the spikes inconspicuous among so much hardware. Arches led away in four directions, with light coming from cressets set between each arch. Beyond one arch lay a flight of stairs heading up-surely the normal method for accessing this underground hell. The echoing footsteps came from another arch. He could have gone left or right and hoped the torturer was slow enough in chasing him-but he saw a better idea and took it. Jumping to his feet, he ran backward up the stairs until he reached the first landing, then walked back down them at a more leisurely rate.
As the torturer ducked through the arch, the man would only see him coming down the stairs as if he had just arrived.
“Who the blazes’re you?” the torturer asked when they came face-to-face. He was an enormous man, though not overly tall, his body bloated and lumpy, his hair falling out in clumps. He looked half like an ogre and half like something that should not have been able to crawl out of its sickbed.
“The new kitchen boy,” Malden said. “I was sent down to fetch you. Fire’s broken out above, and they need every man to help put it out. Hurry, you must get up there at once! Are there any others down here who can also help?”
“Just me.” The torturer’s mouth fell open and his eyes turned to slits. Malden had the impression he was squinting at him. The big man already had a massive wen over his left eye, so it was hard to tell. Other purplish growths adorned his chin and one side of his neck, like a grotesque beard half shaved. “Fire, you say? No great concern of mine, that. Naught to burn down here.”
“Nor any other way out but these stairs,” Malden insisted, hoping very much this was not true. “If the palace falls down on top of us-”
“Oh,” the torturer said, his right eye opening wide. “Oh! Fire! I’d best get up there, see what I can do to help!”
He rushed past Malden on his way up the stairs, nearly knocking him down. Malden cheered him on as he thundered up the risers. Then he darted through the arch the torturer had just vacated, intent on finding another way out before the brutish man thought to wonder why a man of his age was working as a kitchen boy.
He had not gotten more than a dozen strides into the dungeon, however, before someone called out to him.
“You! Yes, you-ye’re Cutbill’s man, ain’t you? Thank the Lady, ye’ve come to rescue me!”
Malden considered keeping on, ignoring the cry for aid. Had he truly been one of Cutbill’s thieves, those honorless blackguards (whom he had been doing his level best lately to emulate), he would not have faltered in a single step. But he was, in some ways, still his mother’s son. He turned aside from his path and went to look for the man who’d called him.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Croy dashed into the shadows, keeping his head down as arrows buzzed past him left and right. If he could just get to where the archers couldn’t see him- Yes. The wall of the kitchens proved exactly the cover he needed. Its shadow cut through the moonlight like a scythe. Of course, there was one problem. The kitchens abutted the defensive wall, so he had just trapped himself in a corner.
He turned around quickly and saw four men of the watch come hurtling toward him. Their cloaks billowed around them as they came, the eyes woven into the fabric seeming to blink as the cloth snapped back and forth. The four of them spread out as they approached, forming a half circle before him. That was smart. He could easily have taken them on one by one, but if he tried to attack any of them now, he would be leaving his left flank dangerously exposed.
The blades of their halberds flashed out and toward him, the weapons swinging in unison, just as their drill instructor had surely taught them. Croy had taught enough guards in his own time to recognize the technique. He couldn’t see their faces under their hoods but he understood. These were men handpicked for duty on Castle Hill, trained well and ready for anything.
Croy reached over his shoulder. Ghostcutter he left in its scabbard-it was only for fighting demons and sorcery. Instead he drew his shorter, nameless blade. Nothing but honest steel to meet their iron.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said. “I know you’re just doing your duty. However, I cannot allow you to arrest me tonight.”
One of the watchmen snickered at that, an ugly sound. Another took a step forward and made a feint of cutting at his blade. Croy did not respond, drawing the sword back rather than let the halberd make contact.
“The Burgrave wants your head,” the snickerer told him. “They say he’ll pay good new-minted silver for it. There won’t be any arresting.”
Croy frowned. That did complicate things.
He knew exactly how much these guards earned. Once upon a time, when he’d lived on Castle Hill, he drew the same salary in the Burgrave’s service. He knew they would be grateful for a chance to supplement their income.
Yet they must be good men at heart. They served a properly anointed lord and protected the Free City of Ness. So he couldn’t just kill them. He knew Bikker would have-in fact, Bikker was probably doing that just now on his own way out of Castle Hill. Yet Croy prided himself on being made of different stuff. He would have to find another way out of this predicament.
“Last chance, gentlemen. I ask you, as honorable men, will you let me go in peace?”
A halberd spike came jabbing toward his face-and this time it was not a feint. He had received his answer. He smashed the point aside with the forte of his sword and then dropped low into a ducking sideways hop, moving like a crab as the four of them advanced as one. Two halberds clashed where his head, a moment before, had been, their wooden hafts thudding like drums. Another came low and nearly swept him off his feet. Croy jumped forward and smacked that watchman in the temple with the flat of his blade. It was a stunning blow, not a killing attack. The watchman staggered backward, nearly dropping his heavy weapon as he reached up to grab his ringing head.
Halberds were powerful weapons, half spear and half axe so they gave the user a wide range of effective fighting styles. They were slower than swords, however. By the time the next blow came toward him-this one a cutting swing aimed at the top of his skull-Croy had danced back and was able to lean away from the chop. As the weapon flashed past his face, he reached out with his free hand-his off hand-and grabbed the halberd right in its middle. Putting his back into it, he twisted the halberd sideways and out of the watchman’s grip and then rushed forward, knocking down two of his opponents in a heap. He threw the halberd away from him and then sheathed his sword. He could kill all four of these men easily, but he had no stomach for it. They were honest defenders of the public weal-what good could possibly come from their deaths?
The last standing watchman ran at him, but Croy sidestepped the charge. Then he dashed to the side of the kitchen building and clambered up its wall. It was a half-timbered structure with protruding beams and nearly as easy to climb as a ladder. A halberd blade whistled past his feet as he made the roof, but it missed cleanly.
From the top of the kitchens it was simple to reach the parapet along the top of the defensive wall. Where he went from there was another question. He stood atop a length of curtain wall that lay between two watch towers. From both of them, men were pouring out of doors or jumping down from the tower tops to get at him. He seemed to be out of options.
Then he looked down and saw the river Krait, flowing briskly by a hundred and fifty feet below him. He tilted his head back and laughed heartily. The men of the watch would be on him in seconds, with orders to slaughter him where he stood. There must be a full company of them coming at him-far more than enough to take him down, fancy swords or no.
