The scarred one spoke next, saying exactly what Malden expectedand dreadedto hear. Were here, he announced, for yer thief.
Malden jumped up onto his chair. He looked up toward the rafters and saw they were too high to reach, at least ten feet above his head. The two kingsmen had by reflex moved to flank the table on either side, blocking off his escape that way, as well.
Hold, Croy said, rising to his feet. Whats the meaning of this?
He was spotted comin in through the gate today under false identity. Somebody knew his face, and passed along the particulars. Now were to take him in.
Malden had thought he would be safe here. Though he was well known in Ness he was a stranger in Helstrow. Hed assumed no one here had so much as heard of him. That foolishness had made him lax, made him forget his usual caution.
Cursing himself, he tried to decide which way to run. Normally when he entered a public building like this he would take a moment to memorize all the exits. This time hed been so tired from the days riding he hadnt bothered.
But whats the charge? Cythera demanded.
Toothy looked at Scar, who looked back at him, as if they couldnt decide between the two of them which one should answer. Suspicion of bein a thief, Toothy said, finally. Now, which one of ye is called Malden?
Balint began to laugh. Croy started to turn to look at Malden, giving him away.
Malden dropped his hand to his belt, where his bodkin used to be. It hadnt been a good knife, really, but it had been his. Now it was goneand in its place was a sword. A sword that should never have been his, a sword Croy had given him under false trust. A sword, more to the point, that hed never learned how to use.
Look out, Halberthes got a cutter, Scar said.
Hand it over, boy, ToothyHalbertsaid.
What, this thing? Malden asked. Then he drew the sword from its scabbard and let it taste the air. Its harmless.
The sword had a name. It was called Acidtongue. The name came from the fact that while the blade looked like an old piece of iron, pitted and scored by age, it was in fact quite magicalon contact with the air, it secreted a powerful foaming acid that could burn through just about anything.
In olden times when demons walked the land, the sword had been made to fight against them. It was one of the seven Ancient Blades, brother to the one Croy wore at his own belt, and it had magic woven into its very metal. It could sear through demonic flesh that would resist normal iron weapons and cut through even the thickest armored shell or matted, brimstone-stinking fur. Malden knew from personal experience it worked just fine on more worldly substances as well.
With both hands on the hilt, Malden brought the blade around in a tight arc. The blade passed through the middle of a pewter tankard as if it were made of smoke. The top half of the tankard fell to the table with a clinkeven as the wine it had contained splashed out across the table in a hissing wave.
Halbert and Scar both jumped back as if hed thrown a snake at them. They also jumped a little to the sideHalbert to the left, Scar to the right.
Malden split the difference and dashed between the two of them, headed straight for the door.
CHAPTER SIX
Bursting out into the sunlight, Malden turned his head wildly from side to side, looking for any avenue of escape. His foot slipped on a pile of horse droppings and he slid wildly for a long second before he got his feet under him again. Scar and Halbert were already emerging from the inns door when he finally spotted his next move.
A low wall ran along one side of the innyard, a pile of unmortared stone attached to the side of the stables. It sloped gently upward toward the thatched roof of the stables and to one as fleet as Malden it was as good as a staircase. He danced up the rocks, hearing them tumble and crash as Scar tried to follow him. It was hard to be light-footed when you were covered in armor.
Malden grabbed a double handful of thatch and hauled himself up onto the roof. From there he looked out on a sea of rooftops belonging to the half-timbered houses hed seen on the way to the inn. Most had slate shingleswhich were hard to run on, as they tended to crack and shift under ones feet. Far to his left, though he could see the lead-lined roof of a church.
If he could reach the church he could make some real speed. He jumped across a narrow alley to the top of the house nearest the inn and landed on his feet on the sloping roof. Hed come down hard on his left ankle but Malden merely switched his weight to his right foot and kept running. He heard the watchmen shouting for him to halt, but paid no mind. Hed yet to meet a watchman anywhere who could run along roof ridges as nimbly as he.
He was wise enough, however, to know he wasnt free yet. As he jumped to the next roof he passed over an alley choked with workmen and beggarsand two more kingsmen, who gestured upward with their weapons as he passed. Up ahead he could see a public square where women were gathered around a well, washing clothes. More kingsmen were stationed there.
By Sadus eight index fingers, Malden swore, how many men had they sent for him? But then he saw other figures mixed in with the kingsmen. Smaller men, wearing no armortheir hands tied together before them. They had bruised faces and some were limping. They looked broken, and Malden understood.
The local watch wasnt just after one thief who had entered the gate under false pretenses. They were sweeping up every criminal they could find. He had seen it happen before, in Ness, when the Burgrave of that city wanted to convince the populace of the grip he held on the streets. There was no better way to show ones passion for law and order than rounding up a dozen thieves and hanging them all together in the market square.
Hed stumbled right into a mess, coming to Helstrow when he did. What an ignominious way to end his career. He hated to think hed be brought down by something so crass.
Malden had no intention of being taken by the law, especially by the law of a town where hed never actually committed a crime. He knew exactly what he would have to do, and having a plan put him a little more at his ease. For a while he would have to abandon his friends. He would have to find a cheap hostelry where he could lie low for a few days, then meet up again with Croy and Cythera once their business was done. He could join up with them after theyd dropped Balint off in front of a magistrate, when they were ready to leave again. Croy would probably urge him to turn himself in, but Cythera would smooth things over and the three of them could make a discrete exit from Helstrow fortress. If things got too hot in the meantime he could always climb over the wall and hide among the peasants outside.
But first he had to actually get away. Looking back, toward the inn, he saw that Scar and Halbert had procured a ladder and were even at that moment preparing to come up and catch him.
Had this been Ness, Malden would have known instantly which way to turn. He would have known some blind alley where he could lose his pursuers, or where the nearest bridge might be found so he could leap into the river, or he would remember the location of a root cellar where no one would ever think to look for him. But this was Helstrow, which he knew not at all.
The church hed been running toward was out of the question. It fronted on the square where the kingsmen were gathering their catch. So he turned instead and headed north, toward the wall that separated the outer and inner baileys. It was the highest point he could see, and he always felt safest up in the air.
The church hed been running toward was out of the question. It fronted on the square where the kingsmen were gathering their catch. So he turned instead and headed north, toward the wall that separated the outer and inner baileys. It was the highest point he could see, and he always felt safest up in the air.
Leaping to a thatched roof he tucked and rolled, knowing the tight-packed straw would offer only spongy, uncertain footing. Spitting dry husks from his mouth he started running toward the rough stones of the walland then stopped in his tracks.
Up on the wall, between the crenellations, he saw royal guards in white cloaks looking down at him. One of them had a crossbow and was busy cranking at its windlass. In a moment the weapon would be ready to fire.
Crossbow bolts were designed to penetrate steel armor and pierce the vitals beneath. At this range, the shot would probably skewer Maldenwho wore no armor at alllike a roasting chicken.
Backpedaling in horror, Malden dashed to the far side of the roof and grabbed its edge. He swung down toward the street and let go to drop the last few feet. He landed in the stall of a costermonger, amidst barrels of apples and pears.
The merchant shrieked and pointed at him.
Good sir, I beg you, be still! Malden said, leaning out of the entrance to the stall and looking up and down the street. The kingsmen are after me, and
Thief! Thief! the coster howled. He plucked up a handful of plums and threw them at Malden with great force. Sticky juice splattered Maldens cloak and the side of his face.
Holding up one arm to protect his eyes, Malden ran out of the shop and into a street full of marketers. They turned as one at the sound of the costermongers shout and stared at Malden with terrified eyes.
Murder! the fruit merchant shouted. Fire! The man would say anything, it seemed, to get the blood of the crowd up.
Malden had made a bad miscalculation. Had he dropped into a similar stall in Ness, he would have received a far warmer welcome. The coster would have shoved him under a blanket where he could hide until the coast was clear. But Ness was a Free City, where it was a point of civic pride that no one trusted their rulers. Here, in Helstrow, every man was a vassal of the kinghis property, in all but name. And Malden knew from bitter experience that slaves often feared their masters more than they loved freedom.
Thief! Fire! Guards! the cry went up, from every lip in the street. A dozen fingers pointed accusingly at Malden, while shopkeepers rang bells and clanged pots together to add to the hue and cry.
Damn you all for traitors, Malden spat, and hurried down the street as women pelted him with eggs and rotten vegetables and children grabbed at his cloak to try to trip him. He thrust his arm across his eyes to save himself from being blinded by the shower of filth and ran as fast as he dared on the trash-slick cobblestones.
But just as suddenly as it started, the cry ceased. Malden was left in silence, unmolested. Had he escaped the throng? Hed taken no more than a dozen steps away from them, yet
He lowered his arm, and saw a knight in armor come striding toward him, sword in hand.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The marketers all fled or pressed into the doors of shops where they could watch from something like safety. Malden was alone with his enemy in a wide open street, alone and very short on options.
The knight clanked as he walked. He wore a full coat of plate that covered him from head to toe. Even his joints were protected by chain mail. The visor of his helmet was down and Malden could see nothing of his face.
Such armor, Malden knew, had an effect on the mind of the man who wore it. It made him believe himself to be invulnerable. Which was true, for all practical purposesno iron sword could slash through that steel. Spear blades and bill hooks would simply clash off the armor, at worst denting its shiny plates. Protected thus, men tended to think that their safety meant they were blessed by the gods, and that whatever they chose to do was also blessed.
Such armor was a license for cruelty and rapine.
Yet there were weapons that could pierce that protective shell. The bodkin Malden had once carried was designed to pierce even steel, if driven with enough force and good aim. Battle axes were designed to smash through armor by sheer momentum. An arrow from a longbow, as Malden had seen, could cut through it like paper.
And then there was Acidtongue, the sword at Maldens belt. If he could strike one solid blow with it, the sword could cut the knight in half.
Yet that might be the stupidest thing Malden ever did. Atop the plate, the knight wore a long white tabard that hung down to his knees. Painted on the cloth was a golden crown. This wasnt a knight errant like Croy, but a knight in full estate, a champion of the king of Skrae. Most likely he was the captain of the watch, superior in rank to all the Scars and Halberts in Helstrow.
If Malden got lucky and cut the man down, he would be pursued unto the ends of the world. You did not kill a nobleman and get away with it, not ever.
He could, of course, run away. The knight seemed agile enough even weighed down with so much steel, but Malden would undoubtedly be fleeter and the chase would not go far. He turned around, intending to do this very thing, only to find he had hesitated a moment too long.
Coming down the street from the other direction, a pack of kingsmen were advancing on him steadily. Their weapons were all pointed straight at his belly. They held their ground, not advancing with any kind of speedclearly they intended to let the knight handle him. Yet there was no chance of getting past that wall of blades. Maldens only possible escape was to get past the knight.
Malden wasnt the type to pray, even in extremity, but he called on Sadu then. Sadu the bloodgod, the leveler, who brought justice to all men in the end, even knights and nobility. Then he drew his magic sword, and wished hed bothered to learn how to swing it correctly. Or at least to hold it properly. Acid dripped from the eroded blade and spat where it struck the dusty cobbles.
The knight swore, his voice echoing inside his helmet. By the Lady! Whered you get that treasure, son? Did you steal it from Sir Bikker?
Maldens eyes narrowed. How could the knight know who had first owned Acidtongue? Bikker is dead, he said.
But yours wasnt the hand that slew him, I warrant. Youre no Ancient Blade.
For the first time Malden looked on the knights own sword. No jewels decorated the pommel, and the quillions were of plain iron, though well polished. The blade was not even particularly long. Yet vapor lifted from its flat to spin in the air, and patterns of frost crackled in its fuller.
Do you recognize my sword? the knight asked.
Judging by the fact Im still in one piece, I think its fair to say I havent made its acquaintance.
The knight laughed. This is Chillbrand, he said. Youd know that, if Acidtongue was rightfully yours. No Ancient Blade is handed down to a new wielder until hes been trained by the man who wielded it before him. Hes taught its proper use, and about the history and powers of all seven. None of us would ever let one of the swords fall into the hands of one who didnt appreciate their traditions.
Im still being trained, Malden said, which was true enough.
The knight shook his head, though. If you dont know Chillbrand, you have no right to bear Acidtongue. I must assume you stole it from Bikkeror looted it from his dead body. Put the sword back in its sheath, now, and lay it gently on the ground. Thats a good boy.