He needed that light to determine which of his rakes and picks would open the lock.
Yet when he looked into the lock, he recoiled in fright.
There were teeth in there.
Not metal spikes filed to points. Not the teeth of cog wheels. These teeth were the color of ivory and they glistened with saliva. Malden had no doubt that if he placed a finger inside the keyhole, those teeth would strip his flesh to the bone.
There was no tongue in there that he could see. He did not think the mouth in the keyhole would scream if he tried to pick the lock. He inserted a long thin hook to test this hypothesis-he was ready to run and find some other way to the crown if it made any sound at all-but the only result was that the teeth bit down hard on his hook, and snapped it off an inch from where Malden’s fingers clutched it.
Blast. That hook had not come cheap. Yet it could be replaced. He selected a much stronger tool, a torsion wrench, and slipped it into the lock. The teeth bit at it but Malden jerked it away in time-then shoved it in past the teeth when they opened up again. They closed on the iron tool and worried at it, but lacked the strength to chew right through it.
Good enough. He fitted a stout rake inside the lock and felt for tumblers. They were there, just beyond the teeth, but they felt wrong. Less like the precisely crafted cylinders he was used to, and more like the ribbed flesh on the roof of a dog’s mouth. Malden pushed down his squeamishness and tickled the pins until they started to slide back. He put some tension on the wrench and it started to turn.
Instantly the teeth began to gnash and chew at his tools with great fervor. A thin trickle of drool leaked from the lock and spilled down the outer surface of the door. Malden grimaced and rubbed the rake back and forth across the tumblers. It was no time for delicate work. One by one the tumblers slid back and the wrench turned all the way around. The dead bolt slammed open and the door creaked slightly as it opened an inch or two. Malden felt the pressure on his wrench and rake slacken, and he chanced another look into the lock. There were no teeth in there anymore-just a simple mechanical lock, something any dwarf could make in an afternoon.
Yet when he inspected his tools, he saw dents and scratches all over them. The teeth had been real. Now they were not. He wrapped his tools back up and stepped into the hall of traps beyond, having no time to consider the nature of magic or the dubious humor of those who practiced it.
Chapter Seventy-Seven
Gurrh dropped to one knee. The iron fencepost he’d been wielding clanged on the ground as he clutched at his left eye with both furry hands. The captain of the guards shouted an order and his troops moved back, giving the archer room to draw a perfect bead on the ogre’s face.
The archer held his arrow and did not fire.
Four of the guards rushed to take position around Croy, boxing him neatly. They made no immediate move to attack, but kept their weapons up and ready. As soon as the captain gave the order they could lunge forward in concert and skewer Croy as neatly as a bird on a spit.
It seemed the captain wanted to parley first.
In some ways that was a bad sign. It meant the captain-or more likely Bikker-knew of Croy’s reputation, and that he’d survived against far greater odds up at the palace. Of course, then he’d had the option of running away. That wasn’t possible here.
Croy stood to his position, his shortsword pointed at the ground but held away from his body so if he needed to bring it up he would be ready to sweep it in a broad arc. As the captain approached, he breathed deeply and readied himself to move.
“Your beast is strong,” the captain said, “but he has no belly for a fight. He hasn’t so much as scratched one of us. I think you may have picked the wrong partner.”
Croy nodded at the man in way of salute. “He’s served his purpose. Half your men are disarmed, or carrying pieces of kindling that used to be weapons.”
“But half of them are not. And we have plenty of spare weapons inside the fence. You look like you’re ready to take us all on by yourself, Sir Croy. I’d know why, before I order your death.”
The wound in Croy’s back pulsed angrily. His body didn’t like being held so immobile. “I’ve come for the Burgrave’s crown. Thieves hid it here. If your master will give it up, I will leave you in peace. I’m not here to kill anyone, if I don’t have to.”
“I’d prefer to avoid it myself. The city watch will be here soon, I have no doubt. Half the city must have heard us fighting down here. When they do arrive, I don’t want to have to explain what a dead ogre-and a dead knight-are doing on my lawn. I don’t know anything about a crown. But if you leave right now, I’ll let you take your pet away with you. This can just… stop.” The captain stared in frustration at Croy. He knew very well it wouldn’t end that way. “Surely, Sir Croy, this is the best you can hope for!”
“I won’t leave without the crown,” Croy insisted.
The captain raised his hands in disgust. Then he turned on his heel and threw a hand gesture toward the archer.
The bowstring twanged, and the arrow shot through the air too quickly for human eyes to follow. It was headed straight at Gurrh’s uninjured eye. Simultaneously, the four guards around Croy stepped forward in perfectly drilled unison and lunged with their halberds and glaives.
Gurrh snatched the arrow out of the air a split fraction of a second before it pierced his eye. He snapped it in half between his fingers.
Even Croy’s senses, heightened by the thrill of combat and the onrushing specter of his own demise, could not follow everything that happened next. Luckily, he didn’t need to see or hear everything. He had run through this exact scenario a thousand times, back when he was training to become an Ancient Blade. His fencing master- Bikker-had known this day would come, when he was trapped in an unwinnable contest. He had trained Croy to be ready for it.
In such a situation there was only one course of action that could be countenanced. You defended against every attack that time allowed-and you minimized the damage done by those attacks you could not avoid.
Croy’s shield took a glaive blade in a glancing blow that sent the weapon up and away. His shortsword parried the axe blade of a halberd, the two weapons grinding together until the halberd was mired in the shortsword’s quillions. Croy threw his hips to one side, and a third attack-this one from behind-just grazed his side.
The fourth hit home, and six inches of iron buried themselves in his side.
Croy gasped in pain, but he knew the blow had missed his kidney. Which meant he would not die from the wound. At least not right away. That meant he still had some time. Time to counterattack.
The glaive his shield had deflected was pointed up in the air. The man who wielded it was changing his grasp on the haft, trying to bring it back under his control. Croy put his head down and rushed toward the man, while twisting his right hand around to free his shortsword from the halberd that fouled it.
He felt the sword slip free, but it was his shield that smashed the face of the glaive-bearer. That man went down with a grunt. Croy swung around and suddenly he was facing three opponents head on, rather than being surrounded by them.
A halberd red with Croy’s own blood came swinging at his face. He slapped that attack away with the shortsword’s foible, then swung his shield around to block a glaive blow that came sweeping up at him from the ground. He no longer saw the men who held the weapons-he was too busy watching the movement of the halberd points and axe blades and the curved, glinting cutting edge of the glaive.
A halberd drove point first toward his left leg. Croy brought the shield down and the point slammed into the oak, piercing it so he saw the point come through the inner side of the shield. Ignoring the pain in his back he threw his left arm wide, pulling the halberd out of the guard’s hands. He pressed his attack and brought the shortsword around to slice at the front of the disarmed man, cutting his tunic open and drawing a line of blood across his chest. The guard twisted to one side and fell away.
That left him with two opponents, both of whom stood with their weapons across their bodies in defensive positions. Croy pointed at one, then the other, with his shortsword.
