When he was certain it was safe, he tried the door’s latch-and found that it had locked behind him. He wanted to curse but didn’t risk the sound. What kind of door locked automatically from the inside? It made very little sense to him. Whoever stayed in this room would be trapped until someone came along and let them out.
He turned and looked again at the furniture against the wall. There was a bed, a clothes press, a basin on a stand, a low stool-all common enough fixtures. Something about the bed looked odd to him, though, and he twitched the cloth back to have a closer look. It was then he saw the manacles bolted to the headboard, and the bloodstains on the straw-filled mattress. He let the cloth go in disgust. Curiosity got the better of him, though, and he lifted the lid of the clothes press.
Inside, instead of the garments he’d expected, he saw trays full of rusted steel implements. He recognized only a few of them-a saw, a hammer, a variety of shears and pincers in various gauges. A great many knives. There was one tool with a watertight leather bulb at one end and a long tube on the other, and something else that resembled a meat hook stretched out long and thin.
He could hardly guess at their purpose, but then something occurred to him. He looked to his left and saw it again as if for the first time. There was one piece of furniture in the room he definitely recognized, from his childhood. The stool. A low three-legged stool about twelve inches high. It was the kind of stool midwives used.
When Malden realized what that meant and where he was, he wanted to close his eyes and just make this all go away. He wanted to jump in the Skrait and drown, because at least then he could die clean.
He was wasting time. He closed the press and pulled the cloth back over the bed exactly as it had been, then went to the door and unwrapped the lock picks hidden in the hilt of his bodkin. The lock on the door was a simple mechanism, easily defeated, and soon he had the door open. Yet as he was stepping back into the hall and closing the door behind him, again a sensation, unbidden and very much unwanted, came to his mind.
Malden had the distinct impression someone was coming up behind him. Was it Cythera, returning from some errand? Or a less welcome intruder? He flattened himself against the wall, knowing his only chance was to hide in the semidarkness of the hall. It was a forlorn hope. The light from the candle was plenty to see by-but his reflexes were such he couldn’t help but try to hide.
It turned out not to matter.
The thing coming up behind him wasn’t human. It was only roughly man-shaped in outline, and seemed to be made of living smoke. It left misty footprints of condensation on the floor where it walked, but it passed Malden without even turning its head-assuming that lump at its top was some kind of head. It walked right past him and into the stairs and then was gone.
He had no idea what that thing had been. A demon of some manner? A ghost? A spirit of the upper air?
More to the point, had it seen him? Could it see at all? Would it warn Hazoth as to his presence? He couldn’t know. He could only hope that by keeping still and not touching the thing, he’d somehow escaped notice.
If that was incorrect, he was sure he would find out very soon.
With a shudder, he stole down the hallway, toward the gallery at its far end.
On that gallery he chanced a quick look down at the enormous sphere of iron by the grand staircase. The egg of the demon. It remained motionless and seemingly quite inert-a thin stream of powdered rust fell from one of its sides, but otherwise it could have been dead inside. That was a good sign, of course-it suggested Hazoth was as of yet unaware of his presence in the house-but he couldn’t help but associate it with what he’d seen in the locked bedroom. What he might call the birthing room.
Enough. He was frightened enough without adding to his load of troubles. A flight of stairs led up from the gallery to the third floor, and his destination. He crept up the risers, keeping close to the banister, where the steps were least likely to creak.
He didn’t have much time left, perhaps less than an hour. When Croy and the ogre were both dead, slain by Bikker if no one else (as he was certain they would be), the barrier would be closed again and he’d be trapped. It was crucial that he find the crown and escape before that happened.
Chapter Seventy-Four
Gurrh made no attempt to fight the guards, but they couldn’t harm him either. He fended off most of their attacks with ease, and when one of them did manage to strike him, he either shrugged off the blade or just laughed as if he was being tickled. From his hiding place, Croy watched Bikker get more and more red in the face.
“All of you, get out there,” Bikker ordered. The guards rushed forth as the barrier was lowered once more, all except the captain.
“But sir, why aren’t you leading the men?” the captain demanded. “Surely your sword would make short work of that thing.”
“I can’t very well abandon the house, now can I? Did it occur to you that this might be a trick? Do as you’re told.”
“Yes, sir,” the captain said, and hurried out to join his men.
Gurrh grabbed a halberd that came whistling toward his nose and snapped its haft like a twig. He buried the blade end in the grass by his feet. Its owner tried to smash at the ogre’s eyes with the broken length of wood in his hands, but to no avail.
Two of the guards got around behind the ogre to attack from the rear, but Gurrh didn’t even turn to engage them. One of them sunk a military fork into the thick matted hair near Gurrh’s spine, but the ogre only rolled his shoulders as if he were having his back scratched. The other aimed his pikestaff at Gurrh’s left kidney, and this time Gurrh did respond, but only by shifting slightly to one side so the guard staggered past him with the momentum of his charge.
The flanking maneuver was not without result, however. As Gurrh sidestepped, a guard with a glaive saw his opportunity and jabbed upward, right past the metal fencepost Gurrh was using to parry. The long curved blade of the glaive slipped through Gurrh’s defense and caromed off the giant’s cheek. A dark line of blood appeared on Gurrh’s preternaturally white skin.
Croy gasped. He’d been convinced that the ogre was invulnerable. He’d never have suggested Gurrh for this job if he’d thought there was a chance the gentle creature could be hurt. It was all he could do not to run out of hiding and rescue Gurrh from his attackers.
Not that the ogre really needed the help. Gurrh grabbed the glaive away from the retainer and threw it into the dark grass behind him. Its owner raced after it. The giant blocked two more attacks, then reached up with his free hand and patted at the wound on his face.
“Thou hast bloodied me,” the ogre said. He seemed more surprised than angered. He brought his iron spear around and put a deep notch in the wooden haft of a billhook that might have touched his chest if its wielder had been faster. “I thought it not possible.”
Croy bit his lip. The ogre’s face was his one weak spot-the one part of his body not covered by the thick protective hair. This fact was not lost on the retainers. They might be sell-swords, cheaply come by and poorly trained-but some of them, at least, were not fools.
Suddenly every attack was aimed at Gurrh’s eyes or nose or mouth. The severed end of a polearm (Gurrh had already broken off the iron blade) slammed into the ogre’s lower lip, and more blood leaked from the white flesh there. A guard with a bow started firing arrows toward Gurrh’s eyes, releasing and notching a new arrow as fast as he could. Glaive and halberd blades were jabbed and swung at Gurrh’s face with great rapidity, and it was all the ogre could do to keep them from slicing his features to ribbons.
It was time. Croy could wait no longer. He would defend his friend with his own blades. There was no curse stopping him from fighting. Malden’s original plan had required him to stay behind as a lookout while Gurrh took on Bikker and his men, but Croy refused to accept that role.
He would show Cythera what he was capable of. That she could trust him-that he could save her, and her mother, if he was just given a chance. Enough skulduggery! Enough thievery! This was work for a real knight.
Croy slipped his shortsword out of its sheath and brought it to a low ready position. He stood up from the bush where he’d been crouching like a footpad. Enough, he thought. Enough skulking, enough lurking.
It was time to fight.
