Someone brought Croy a horse. Someone else helped him climb up into its saddle. It seemed to take forever, and all the while the wholesale murder continued. The barbarians tried to surrender en masse, lifting their arms high, their weapons piled in glittering heaps at their feet. It made no difference. The knights and pikemen might have been slaughtering wild animals out there.
“Come now, Croy,” Malden whispered. “For honor’s sake.”
Croy stood up in his saddle. His hand reached for a sword that wasn’t there. Instead he lifted one armored fist.
“No quarter!” he shouted.
The civilized armies took that as a sign to cheer and redouble their attacks, even as the barbarians howled for peace, for mercy, for justice.
Malden staggered back to the gap in the wall. Alone he slunk back inside the comforting embrace of his city. Slag came running up through the smoke and grabbed at the hem of his tunic with his one remaining hand.
“What is it, lad? What did you see?”
“We won,” Malden told him. He very much wanted to go sit down somewhere.
Chapter One Hundred Twenty
The Lemon Garden was far enough from Ryewall that Malden could not hear the sounds of the work crews busily repairing the fallen wall. Nor could he smell the bodies that lay beyond it, all that remained of the barbarian horde, unburied save by snow. In his private room upstairs he had a cheerful fire going, and while there was nothing to eat, there was plenty of wine to be had, or ale if his guests preferred it.
He made no apologies for asking them to attend upon him in a bawdy house. Nor did they express offense, at least not openly. Elody led them to Malden’s door and curtsied deeply, as if she was unsure what the proper show of honor would be for three such distinguished guests. None of their station had ever visited her humble place of business before-typically, had they required the services she provided, they would have gone instead to Herwig’s House of Sighs.
The soldiers who accompanied these three were of a different lot in life, and were happy enough to be entertained in the courtyard.
For a while none of the four men spoke or even looked each other in the eye. Sir Croy wouldn’t even sit down. He stood by the door as if guarding it. Such duty was, of course, far beneath him now-Malden had heard of Croy’s elevation. Somewhere he had found a circlet of silver that he wore upon his brow to indicate that he had become the regent of Skrae. Ostentation had never been Croy’s style, but he had to ensure that he looked at least the equal to Ommen Tarness, the Burgrave, who wore his own coronet everywhere.
Sir Hew, Captain of the Queen’s Guard, wore only the colors of his sovereign. His left arm was in a sling tied around his waist, but still he seemed the best pleased of the three to be there. While Tarness and Croy stared daggers at each other, he gladly took a cup of hot mulled wine.
“Just what these aching bones need,” he said, and drained the cup in a single draught. Malden poured him another.
“I understand you were wounded by Morget in the battle,” Malden said. “Few men can make that claim. Few living men, anyway.”
Hew favored him with a warm smile. “I’ll heal. I dare say none of us came out of this unscathed. Though some certainly profited. Didn’t they, my Lord Mayor?”
Malden returned his smile, but said nothing.
The three visitors intended to strip him of that title, one way or another. The Burgrave wanted his city back. Having ruled it for eight hundred years, he seemed to think it belonged to him. Croy and Hew wanted Ness as a staging ground-a fortress they could hold through the winter, until spring cleared the roads and they could mount an attack on Helstrow and take it back from Morgain.
So far Malden had managed to keep them all out. He had refused to unseal the gates until he was given guarantees of safety for himself and his people-as well as certain other considerations. Chief among them, the right to worship whichever god they pleased, a right to be added to the city’s charter in perpetuity. For himself and his thieves he’d asked immunity from prosecution for the murder of Pritchard Hood, the burglary of the entire Golden Slope, the seizure of the arsenal, and so many more crimes.
Hew and Tarness had been happy to accept these terms, and each had sent messengers indicating that anything else Malden desired would be made his. In response, Malden allowed the three and a small number of bodyguards inside the wall so they could discuss terms.
Of course, all this politesse was just for show. The gates might be sealed, but until the gap in the Ryewall was repaired it would be simple enough for either army to storm the city. Malden had forestalled that kind of drastic measure in a way that should make Cutbill proud. Rather than threaten two armies he could not beat, he had held out the promise of a reward they both desperately wanted.
“Perhaps,” Hew went on, “you might profit further. I see you wear Acidtongue, still.” The knight nodded at the sword on Malden’s belt. “I’m sure you haven’t forgotten how you fared when you tried to use it against me.”
Malden laughed in good humor. “Forgotten that? Hardly. I sometimes wonder if I feel winter’s chill, these days, or simply remember the touch of Chillbrand.”
It was not lost on anyone in the room that neither Hew nor Croy had a sword on their own hips.
“Perhaps you would do me the signal honor of training you in your weapon’s proper use?” Hew asked. “I’ve seen your potential. You’re as fast as the wind. It would only take a little practice to make a first rate swordsman of you. And as an Ancient Blade, you would be entitled to all manner of privileges. Houses, lands, perhaps a manor of your own to profit by. Why, Malden, you could become quite the gentleman, in time.”
Malden tried to catch Croy’s eye, to determine how much of that would have the backing of a royal decree. It was well within Croy’s power to appoint him to any knighthood or lordship he saw fit. There were very few limits now as to what Croy could do-at least until Bethane reached her majority.
What Croy might be thinking at that moment, however, remained a mystery. The knight-turned-regent’s face might have been chiseled from marble for all it revealed.
Hew cleared his throat and smiled when Malden turned to face him again. “I suppose what I’m saying is that you’ve proved yourself a hero, and a man all Skrae can be proud of. I’d like to repay you for your impressive work. Yet before any of that reward can be granted, I do require that you open the gates to our Skilfinger friends. And, of course…”
“Yes?” Malden asked. The bait was wriggling. The fish were biting.
“We’d like to speak with your dwarf.”
There it was. They’d taken the hook.
Slag had invented something terrible and strange. A new weapon, one that could change the way wars were fought. One that could change the world. Whichever army came into possession of the secret formula would be nigh invincible.
“It would be a terrible shame if his knowledge were to fall into the wrong hands,” Hew said. “Hands, to be blunt about it, which would only divide this land further. Can I call upon your patriotism now? Can I ask you to aid me, in one simple, effortless way, to save your country, as you have already saved your city?”
The Burgrave snorted in derision. “His city? It isn’t his city.”
“It’s not yours either,” Hew said, his eyes suddenly very sharp. “Not right now.”
“It belongs to no one. And to everyone,” Tarness replied. “To every free man. Give me the dwarf, Malden. Open the gates to my army.”
Malden sat down on the bed. He meant to suggest nothing by his choice of perch, but he saw Croy’s chin jerk round as if he’d violated some holy taboo. For a moment no one spoke, yet everyone must have been wondering the same thing. What had just passed through Croy’s mind?
Sir Hew broke the silence by clearing his throat. “He seems to offer you nothing in return,” he said, tilting his head toward the Burgrave.
“Is that correct?” Malden asked.
