David Chandler - A thief in the night

A boot pushed down on his back and ground him into the dirt.

“That,” the shire reeve said, “was a fool’s gambit. You think I never chased down some farmhand in a field before?”

Malden could think of several witty quips to come back with, but he lacked the breath to form them.

“I can see you’re a lively one,” the shire reeve said. “Well, I got a cure for that. Tell me, boy. Which knee you want to keep? Left or right?”

Malden fought and struggled and just managed to roll over onto his back. He looked up at the stars and the great shadow of the shire reeve above him, and the silhouette of the hammer in the man’s hand. His heart beat so fast in his chest he thought it might burst. “Please,” he begged. He’d spent much of his life as a thief waiting to be measured for a hangman’s noose. He’d thought often of what he would say to his executioner, what final words he would impart on the world. All that came out of his mouth now was, “Please.”

Even vain hopes are answered, sometimes.

There was a sound very much like the noise a scythe makes when it cuts through a sheaf of grain. A few drops of dark rain pattered on Malden’s cheek. And then the shire reeve’s head fell from his neck to land right in Malden’s lap. The man’s body stayed standing a moment longer, then slid to one side and crushed the wheat down flat.

Another shape was revealed behind it. A much larger shape, that of a man holding a massive bearded axe.

“The fool woke me up,” Morget said, “when he rapped on the wall with that little stick of his. I was enjoying my rest.”

The blood started flowing once more in Malden’s veins. It still ran cold, though.

No. Oh, no. It couldn’t be.

Not a shire reeve.

Among the criminal fraternity of Ness there was a certain understanding. Thieves occasionally fought one another. Sometimes footpads had to hurt someone to make their nightly wages. Every thief owned at least a knife, and often far more serious weapons, and they knew how to use them. But not even the most hardened thug in the Free City would think of attacking a watchman.

The agents of the law had their own fraternity, and they punished those who killed their own without mercy or question. If you slew a watchman, you were signing your own death warrant. They would never stop until they caught the killer.

And that was just for average everyday watchmen. The shire reeve was-had been-one of the most important officials of law in the entire kingdom.

If you killed a man like that, you might as well slit your own throat next. And Malden knew to a certainty that after the law dealt with Morget, they would come after him as an accomplice. The facts didn’t matter. The law would have its due.

“That might have been a foolish blow,” he said. “Though I do thank you for it.”

Morget squatted down a little and picked the head up from Malden’s lap. “No, it was a clean cut. Look.”

Malden shook his head. “Morget, that man was an official of the crown, and when he turns up missing they’ll hunt high and low for his killer. Nor will they think that disturbing your rest justified your crime.”

“Ha! Let them come. I’m afraid of no watchman.”

Malden shook his head. “Please, listen to me, friend. You know how to chop off men’s heads-I know about the law. We have to hide the body. Just to make sure it isn’t found until we’re long gone from here. Once we’re across the Strow, away from civilization, maybe we can breathe easy again.”

“Justice! Law!” Morget mocked. “Just words, little man.”

Oh, this was bad. Very, very bad. Malden could hear his heart pounding in his ears. He could feel sweat pooling in the small of his back. What if someone in the milehouse heard the shire reeve shouting? What if they were coming even now with torches and swords, looking to see what was the matter?

What if the shire reeve had told someone, anyone, about the peasant named Malden he was hunting? What if Prestwicke came in the morning and No. He couldn’t think about that. He couldn’t think at all, there was no time for it. He needed to act.

Malden got to his feet, then reached down to grab the shire reeve’s ankles. The shire reeve was bigger than he was, and Malden didn’t think he could drag the man very far on his own, but if Morget would just help “Catch,” the barbarian said.

It was all Malden could do to drop the dead man’s ankles and bring his hands up. He neatly caught the shire reeve’s severed head, then almost dropped it again when he realized what Morget had thrown to him.

The barbarian bent down and lifted the body easily, slinging it over his shoulder. “Where do you want it?” he asked.

“Deeper in the field is our best bet,” Malden said. “He won’t be discovered until this place is harvested.”

Together they covered up all evidence of what had happened. The hardest part was washing the blood from his tunic. Malden was convinced the keeper of the milehouse would come out and demand to know what they were doing in his horse trough, but somehow they avoided detection.

When it was done, Morget returned to the stables, while Malden slipped inside and headed for the room he was supposed to share with Slag. He stopped outside the door and waited until he’d stopped shaking.

Inside, Slag was propped up on the mattress, reading by the light of a single candle. “Didn’t have the liver for it, eh?” the dwarf asked.

It took Malden a moment to realize what Slag meant. “Ah. No. I won’t be going to… to Helstrow, not now.” Not until he was sure the shire reeve’s death went unnoticed. Not while Prestwicke was out there somewhere, riding hard to catch up with him. All the horrors of an elfin crypt couldn’t match what his misbegotten fate came up with on its own. “I’m coming with you.”

“I thought as much,” Slag said.

“You did?”

“You’ll never leave Cythera behind. Not if it means losing her to Croy,” the dwarf told him, and tapped the side of his nose.

Malden knew he couldn’t tell anyone-not even Slag-what had happened, so he just said, “You’ve got me there, old man. You’ve got me dead to rights.”

The horses screamed as water jumped over the side of the raft and licked at their feet, but Croy didn’t have time to soothe them. He was too busy pushing against a rock as big as a house that stuck up from the middle of the river Strow. Malden dipped his own pole in the water and added his strength, and between the two of them they managed to get the raft moving away from the boulder.

“Slag, are you sure this thing will hold together?” Cythera asked, fear pitching her voice high.

“Yes, I am fucking sure,” the dwarf shouted back. Slag grabbed at one of the taut ropes attached to the mast as they were all swung about by the current.

Croy had planned on building a traditional raft, a square platform of logs lashed together, but the dwarf insisted he knew a better way. The thing he’d constructed looked more like a spider’s web, with logs radiating out from a central upright mast. Ropes hanging down from the mast braced each log, allowing them to move back and forth and even up and down as the water surged beneath them.

“Another rock!” Cythera cried.

Croy shoved his pole down into the stony bed of the river and heaved once more. On the far side of the raft Morget howled some barbarian war cry and leaned across the water, pushing them clear with his arms. The raft spun around on the axis of its mast like a wagon wheel, and the sky and the land flashed around Croy until his head felt light, but suddenly Cythera was laughing and the dwarf was jumping up and down, pointing at the far bank. It was only a few yards away. Croy jumped down into the water with a rope and tied off to a boulder there, his blood singing in his veins. He heaved against his line, and the raft beached on a bank of pebbles and sparse grass. Cythera untied the horses and they bolted gratefully for dry land.