David Chandler - Honor among thieves

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. “What’s 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 we’re 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. He’d 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 he’d been so tired from the day’s riding he hadn’t bothered.

“But what’s the charge?” Cythera demanded.

Toothy looked at Scar, who looked back at him, as if they couldn’t 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 hadn’t been a good knife, really, but it was his. Now it was gone-and 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 he’d never learned how to use.

“Look out, Halbert-he’s got a cutter,” Scar said.

“Hand it over, boy,” Toothy-Halbert-said.

“What, this thing?” Malden asked. Then he drew the sword from its scabbard and let it taste the air. “It’s 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 magical-on 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, he brought the blade around in a tight arc. It 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 clink-even as the wine it had contained splashed out across the table in a hissing wave.

Halbert and Scar both jumped back as if he’d thrown a snake at them. They also jumped a little to the side-Halbert to the left, Scar to the right.

Malden split the difference and dashed between the two of them, headed straight for the door.

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 inn’s door when he finally spotted his next move.

A low wall ran along one side of the inn yard, a pile of unmortared stone attached to the side of the stables. It sloped gently up 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 he’d seen on the way to the inn. Most had slate shingles-which were hard to run on, as they tended to crack and shift under one’s 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. He’d come down hard on his left ankle but he merely switched his weight to his right foot and kept running. He heard the watchmen shouting for him to halt but paid no mind. He’d yet to meet a watchman anywhere who could run along roof ridges as nimbly as he.

Malden was wise enough, however, to know he wasn’t free yet. As he jumped to the next roof, he passed over an alley choked with workmen and beggars-and two more kingsmen, who gestured upward with their weapons as he passed. Ahead he could see a public square where women were gathered around a well, washing clothes. More kingsmen were stationed there.

“By Sadu’s 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 armor-their hands tied together before them. They had bruised faces and some were limping. They looked broken, and he understood.

The local watch wasn’t 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 one’s passion for law and order than rounding up a dozen thieves and hanging them all together in the market square.

He’d stumbled right into a mess, coming to Helstrow when he did. What an ignominious way to end his career. He hated to think he’d 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 he’d 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 them after they 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 discreet 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 he’d been running toward was out of the question. It fronted on the square where the kingsmen were gathering their catch. So he turned and instead 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, Malden 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 wall-and then stopped in his tracks.