David Chandler - A thief in the night

“The rope!” Croy called, because he saw something to waken new dread in his heart. A revenant had broken off from the main ranks and was clambering down the line, hand over hand.

“I see it,” Morget said, and scooped his axe up off the cobbles. With a good, hard fling, he severed the rope and sent the climbing revenant falling down into the darkness with a screech.

Croy could only pray that Cythera was already on the gallery, and not hanging from the rope when it was cut. Lady, he prayed, give me strength to die as befits your servant. He laid into the revenants, left and right and before him, with one last surge of courage. “This is it,” he shouted. “This is how we die.”

Yet even before his third blow fell, he felt a thick arm wrap around his waist and suddenly he was off his feet. “They want justice,” Morget shouted. “I deny them!”

And with that the barbarian jumped over the edge of the pit, pulling Croy with him. They fell through utter darkness for what seemed like hours but must only have been seconds. Without warning they struck black, icy water that filled Croy’s nose and mouth and tore away his consciousness.

Malden was halfway down the rope when he looked up and saw the revenant crawling after him. It had no eyes, but he could feel it looking back down at him-looking into him, with a hatred that could never be quenched.

The thief yelped in panic and scurried faster down the rope, toward the gallery where Cythera and Slag already waited. It was a narrow ledge of stone that jutted out from a wide opening in the side of the shaft. Clumps of fungus stuck to it in knobby shapes. Only darkness lay beyond that ledge, but to Malden it looked like safety, like life, and he had never been more desirous to crawl into a dark place and hide. The ledge was twenty feet below him, and if he jumped to it now he would probably break his legs.

Above him the revenant scuttled on the rope like a spider. It howled in malevolent fury and redoubled its speed. One of its bony hands reached to snatch at his hair.

And then the rope broke.

For a moment Malden felt as if he weighed nothing. As if the rope and the revenant would fall away but he would remain, pinned to the air, not falling but with nothing to climb down either. That he would hang there forever caught between death and life. Then gravity caught up with him and he began to plummet. Panicking, he threw out his arms and his legs, trying to clutch to anything that would hold him. The ledge came shooting up toward him and he thrust his hands forward, not caring if his fingers shattered on the impact. It would be better than falling into the abyss-he had no idea what was down there, and didn’t want to find out. He spread his fingers wide to catch any part of the ledge that offered itself-and missed it entirely. His fingertips just grazed the rock and went on past.

“No!” he screamed, thinking he might fall forever. Before the word was out of his throat, though, something grabbed at the pack on his back and he was jerked upward, his whole body pinwheeling madly. Thinking the revenant had him he struggled like a cat in a sack.

“Stop fighting me,” Cythera demanded. Malden looked up and saw her face, a pale oval in the darkness. She was sprawled across the gallery, holding him up with her own bare hands. Her face was a mask of strain as she tried to pull him upward, and her arms were stretched to their limit.

He grabbed not at her but at the stone ledge and hauled himself up. He saw that Slag had helped her by holding her feet-without the dwarf’s extra weight, he might have pulled Cythera right over the edge with him.

“You saved me,” he said once they both rolled to safety on the gallery floor. He leaned in close and kissed her passionately, and he didn’t care who saw it.

Her eyes went wide and she pulled back, shocked. “Malden!”

“I can only beg your pardon,” he said, “not your forgiveness, for I feel no remorse-”

“Malden! The revenant!”

A searing agony went through the thief’s ankle as he felt bony fingers constrict around the muscle there. Malden’s blood flowed out of his face as he sat up and saw the dead elf clutching to him, pulling itself up over the ledge using his body for handholds.

He kicked it in the face with his free foot, and its head came off its neck with a crackling sound. It didn’t slow down at all. He kicked again and again as he tried to get Acidtongue out of its glass-lined scabbard.

The now-headless revenant grabbed his knees and pulled. Malden started sliding toward the edge, dragged by the undead weight. Cythera and Slag grabbed at his shoulders to pull him back once more but they couldn’t help him fight. With desperate fingers Malden yanked the sword out of its sheath. The revenant grabbed his left thigh, its fingers sinking painfully into the muscle there.

“Get off me!” he cried, and jabbed forward with the sword. Droplets of acid flecked his clothes and he smelled burning hair, but the blade ran the revenant through. Malden jerked upward with the sword and the thing came in two, half of it sliding away into darkness instantly. The other half-a torso, an arm, and a leg-kept coming, the dead fingers snatching at the leg of his breeches. Malden hacked away at it until Acidtongue sizzled in the air and there was nothing left but a few bones twitching on the ledge.

He jumped to his feet and kicked the bones away. Behind him Slag and Cythera only stared at him in shock, as if they couldn’t believe what he’d just done.

At that moment Croy and Morget fell screaming past the gallery, dropping into the abyss like a pair of flung stones. Malden just had time to see Croy’s face, his mouth stretched wide open as he shouted in panic. The two of them were gone in a flash.

He flinched.

“No,” Cythera said. Her face was blank of emotion. Malden knew that wouldn’t last. “Croy-was that Croy?”

Malden bit his lip. He couldn’t answer.

“No!” She rushed forward to the very edge of the gallery and stared downward. “No! Croy! Croy, are you down there? Croy! Answer me!” She pulled off her knapsack and dumped out its contents. A candle rolled free and went over the edge.

Malden didn’t know what to do. He reached out a hand to grab her but then he thought better of it.

“Lass,” Slag said. “What are you fucking doing?”

“Looking for a rope. Do you have one? If we lower a rope, he can climb back up. Both of them can. Croy and Morget. Croy! Can you hear me?”

The dwarf shook his head. “He’s gone, girl.”

“I heard a splash, I definitely heard a splash,” Cythera said. She scattered food and climbing gear all over the floor. There was no rope in her pack, but still she kept looking for it. “They fell into water. They could have survived that fall.”

“It’s a long way down-”

She turned on the dwarf and grabbed his shoulders. On her knees, she was face-to-face with Slag. She shook him violently. “They could have survived. If they fell into deep water, that could have broken their fall.”

“I suppose it’s possible,” the dwarf said.

“Then we need to get a rope down there, so they can climb back up. Croy!” she shouted. “Croy! Do you hear me?”

The dwarf looked up at Malden as if he’d run out of ideas. The thief could only shrug.

“Croy! Croy! Morget, can you hear me? Is Croy all right? Morget! Are you down there?”

Malden had rope still in his pack. Knowing it would do no good, but unable to resist her horror and her grief, he threw one end over the edge.

“It’s not nearly long enough,” Slag pointed out, “even if they-”

“Be quiet, Slag,” Malden hissed.

Cythera turned to face the dwarf with wild eyes. “They might have caught a ledge lower down. They might be down there right now, struggling to hold on, trying to climb up. Hold this rope! Hold it, damn you!” She grabbed the end with both hands and nodded at Malden, who did the same.