David Chandler - A thief in the night

Not, however, in silence.

When his eyes were rendered useless by the lack of light, Malden’s other senses grew stronger. Specifically his sense of hearing. He could make out, now, what had startled the dwarf so. A faint rapping sound. Something tapping on stone, not very far away, with bony fingers.

Perhaps-Malden’s guts clenched at the thought-the revenants had followed them down from the top level. Perhaps even now a legion of undead elves was making its way toward the Hall of Masterpieces.

He tried not to breathe.

The rhythmic sound came closer. It was not like the sound a human makes while rapping his knuckles on a door. A human knocks two or three times, then stops to listen for a response. This was like a steady drumming, a cascade of taps that never stopped. There seemed no regular pattern to the sound-it came in fits and starts, tip-tip-tap-RAP-tip-RAP-tick — but it never faded away.

It came closer, inch by inch, until it was sounding on the open door.

Tap-tip-tick-RAP-RAP-tap.

And then it stopped.

If they can’t hear us in here, Malden thought, perhaps they’ll just go away. Perhaps they’ll leave us alone and return to their graves, perhaps A light appeared outside the door. Long yellow beams moved up and down the wall, and around the edge of the door the light was bright enough to dazzle Malden’s dark-adapted eyes.

Then a beam struck him square in the eye and he flinched backward-right into a sheaf of pikestaffs that fell clattering to the floor.

The door creaked open wide, and two figures stepped through, silhouetted by their own light. They were both rail-thin, but neither of them were tall enough to be revenants. One was barely four feet tall. The other only a quarter that height, the size of a cat.

As Malden’s eyes recovered from being dazzled, he saw the light touch first Cythera, then Slag. The taller of the two newcomers laughed excitedly when Slag held up one arm to block the light. Then it set down its lantern, and for the first time Malden could see them properly.

The short one looked somewhat akin to a goblin. It had long floppy ears and a mouth full of crooked teeth. Its eyes were enormous and milky in color, with no pupils or irises. Its mangy hair was a shocking blue, and ran down its back in a wide pelt. Its hands and feet looked too large to be supported by its sticklike limbs, and it never quite stood still, instead bobbing up and down and slapping its feet. It tapped on the floor with long bony fingers, knocking randomly on the flagstones as if it couldn’t help itself.

The taller of the two was a dwarf, dressed in leather coveralls. A female. Malden had never seen a dwarf woman before, and that alone would have been shock enough. She was as thin as Slag, though her hips and breasts were of generous proportion. Her long black hair had been tied up in a dozen braids that stuck straight out from her scalp. Her eyebrows met without interruption over the bridge of her nose, and her upper lip was dark with sparse hair. She had the smaller creature on a leather leash.

Her eyes were bright with malice.

She couldn’t seem to stop laughing. She walked over to Slag crouched against a display case and leaned over to laugh in his face. “Looking for something in particular?” she asked.

Croy went first down the secret tunnel, Ghostcutter drawn and held before him. The flame of the candle in his other hand streamed behind the wick and fluttered dangerously, but never quite went out.

Behind him Morget had difficulty fitting through the narrow passage. He only had to stoop a little to avoid hitting his head, but he had to walk nearly sideways to get his broad shoulders through.

The passage took a winding course that went now down, now up by a sharp incline, so that Croy almost put Ghostcutter away so he could have his hands free to help him climb. He decided against it-who knew what waited for them just ahead? — and was forced to stumble forward by finding footholds in the rough stone.

Such were in plentiful supply. He had little time to spare for thoughts of who made this tunnel, or why, but he knew it was no dwarf. The rock was crudely cut, marked everywhere with the square white scratches of a chisel. The ceiling was uneven, and more than once he bashed his head on a place where the tunnel had not been properly excavated. In places it grew so narrow that he had to squeeze through sideways himself, and it was only with vigorous wriggling and much grunting that Morget kept up with him.

Yet the barbarian never complained, nor suggested they turn back. He shared with Croy a certain outlook on enemies who ran away from you when you approached. It was highly unlikely they would just run and leave you alone-in all likelihood, the farm girl, or whatever it was that Morget had startled, was going to seek help. Presumably armed and dangerous help. For a knight like Croy, that meant only one course of action was thinkable. You rushed in, as fast as you could, to find your enemies before they had a chance to regroup.

Croy was sweating and breathing hard by the time he reached the end of the passage. It terminated in a featureless brick wall, just like the one that had led to this secret way. He pushed at it, expecting it to open easily like the secret door they’d found back in the mushroom farm. When it failed to budge, his brow furrowed and he kicked at it and struck it with his shoulder and considered digging into the mortar between the bricks with his belt knife.

“Let me see,” Morget insisted, shoving his way past Croy. There was no room for them to stand side by side in the narrow tunnel so Croy squeezed backward, coming into far more contact with Morget’s flesh than he liked. Considering the fact that both of them were covered with manure, it was not a pleasant dance.

“It must open,” Morget insisted. “We saw no side passages, or any other way for her to escape.”

“Unless there was another secret door, more cunningly hidden than the last,” Croy suggested. “It’s possible this door is false. A brick facade placed over a dead end in the tunnel.”

“A false door?” Morget asked.

“A false secret door,” Croy agreed.

“A false secret door trap,” Morget growled. “Intended to leave us with no retreat possible, boxed in where we can’t fight properly. Subtle! I like this not. I told you she was a sorceress. She’s playing tricks on us.”

Croy grunted in dissent. “I’m sure now she was no practitioner of magic at all,” he said. “Just a simple mushroom farmer.”

“She is a sorceress, and she must be destroyed,” Morget demanded. His rage seemed poorly contained.

Croy remembered something then. He recalled that when Morget had told his story of coming from the eastern steppes to Ness, he claimed to have fought many sorcerers along his way. It was how he’d learned to fight like an Ancient Blade.

Now Croy wondered how many of those foes had been actual magicians-and how many just appeared so to the barbarian. How many innocents he might have slain in his berserker fury. The thought made Croy’s blood run cold. Morget seemed less than interested in rescuing Cythera and Slag as well-he was far more determined to find his demon, regardless of whether Croy’s friends survived the quest.

For the first time Croy began to wonder just how honorable a companion Morget might be. Croy had spent time guarding the mountain passes against barbarian invasions. He’d always been told that the easterners were vicious, savage people, barely human and incapable of moral behavior. When he first met Morget and saw he bore an Ancient Blade, he’d come to believe that was all just prejudice, that it was possible for a barbarian to be an honorable warrior and a good man.