David Chandler - A thief in the night

She looked him up and down. “Do I? But what’s in it for me? I doubt you could satisfy a bedbug.”

It took him a moment to work out what she was saying. Then he growled in anger and stepped toward her — and right into a rope snare lying before him on the rooftop.

Malden threw his hands out to his sides, expecting the rope to close around his ankle and haul him up into the air while Balint made a clean getaway.

Instead he just stared down at a length of rope that didn’t move at all. He didn’t understand. It was an obvious trap. He’d fallen for it like a novice at this game. Yet for some reason it hadn’t triggered.

Balint’s eyes burned with fury. Ignoring him, she ran to the side of the rooftop and stared down at the street. “Murin! I told you to secure that fucking line!”

There was no response from below.

“Murin! You answer me right now!” She ran to the other side of the roof. “Slurri! Get your thumb out of your arse and come up here!”

“They don’t seem to hear you,” Malden said, stepping toward her. “Perhaps they grew tired of listening to your curses. Or maybe something else found them. Something in bronze armor. Something that isn’t bound by any laws or treaties.”

Balint turned and glared at him. Then she looked behind her. She had very little room to back up, and no more grappling hooks to throw. Her trap had failed-and now she was snared herself. She had nowhere to go. Malden took another step toward her.

“They’re probably already dead,” he said, thinking revenants must have come down to this level. Thinking that even if they were still alive, he had to keep her thinking she was out of options. “Come, Balint. The antidote. And then we can go our separate ways. Maybe you’ll even make it out of here alive.”

She took a half step backward and nearly fell off the roof. He saw her teetering, her arms flying outward, and he rushed forward to grab her and pull her back.

“Fucking get off of me,” she said, batting at his hands as soon as she was steady on the roof again.

“Damn you, Balint, I just saved your life! Be reasonable!”

“No human gets the better of me! I’ll suck your eyes out and fuck your skull!” she shrieked.

Then she drew the wrench from its scabbard at her hip, and smacked him across the jaw with it.

Malden’s head spun. Lights burst in the backs of his eyes and drool fountained out of his split lip. He reeled as he staggered to keep his feet, one hand reaching for Acidtongue.

“Oath-breaker,” he swore, as he rubbed at his hurt jaw. “The law-”

Balint’s eyes were wild. She stared down at the wrench in her hand as if she were holding a feral animal that was likely to bite her. Her mouth opened to form words but for a moment she was so stunned by what she’d done (perhaps more stunned than Malden was by the pain of it) that she could not speak.

Considering the mouth on her, that was a marvel in itself.

Then she seemed to recover a bit of her composure. “I… don’t see any witnesses,” she said, and changed her grip on the wrench.

Malden drew Acidtongue a few inches from its sheath.

“Is this really what you want?” he asked.

She swallowed noisily. “Fuck you.”

Malden stepped backward. His head still rang, and he wouldn’t have been surprised if his jaw was broken. It hurt badly enough. Still. He could focus enough to draw Acidtongue free of its scabbard and hold it out to his side, the way he’d seen Croy hold Ghostcutter many times.

Balint looked terrified when she saw the sword. She was trembling visibly. She clearly wasn’t afraid enough to give in, however. Malden watched in grudging admiration as she drew her screwdriver with her free hand. It would make a serviceable dagger, more than capable of putting out his eyes.

Assuming he bent over so she could reach, and that he was obliging enough to hold still while she did it.

Malden took a step toward her. His magical sword dripped acid onto the rooftop. It would cut through her like a loaf of bread the first time it touched her. He had a longer reach. He was faster than she was. He outweighed her-a fact he’d seen end more fights than any other factor.

She started shaking. The wrench rattled in her hand.

“Just give me the antidote,” Malden said. He frowned, then added, “The barrels, too. Then you can run away.”

“I… can’t do that,” Balint told him. Her whole body was shaking now.

“Of course you can.”

“No! The barrels must be destroyed!”

“By the Lady’s eighty-nine nipples! What’s in those barrels that makes dwarves go crazy?” he asked. “What could possibly be so important?”

“You don’t know anything. You know nothing of our history, and don’t even pretend otherwise. I have my orders, straight from the lips of my king. No human-nor any dwarf-can ever have the barrels. I’ll give my life for that command.”

“A pox on your orders!” He lifted the sword higher, preparing to bring it down in a killing stroke.

“Why don’t you go shit blood?” she asked. Her mouth closed tightly as if she were trying to keep her teeth from chattering. “Go ahead and kill me, you-you… girl-slayer. My men will still get away with the barrels, and Urin will still die.”

Malden lifted the sword and pointed it at Balint’s face. She yelped in terror.

And then his heart broke inside his chest. What in the name of the Bloodgod’s trousers am I doing?

Malden had grown up hating swords. More accurately, hating anyone who wore one on his belt. Swords were the answer to any question, it seemed, for those who had them always got their way over those who didn’t. In his experience most swordsmen took advantage of that fact and abused their power. How many times as a child had he seen a client refuse to pay one of his mother’s colleagues, and get away with it because he had a length of iron on his belt? How many times had he seen tradesmen and merchants and the abject poor of Ness shoved to the side of a street, thrown in the gutter, because they were in the way of a man with a sword?

It wasn’t until he’d met Croy that he even considered that there might be armed people in the world who didn’t want to steal from, lie to, and cheat everyone else, and then claim that was their right because they were born to the proper parents.

And now here he was. About to slaughter a dwarf-a dwarf, in Sadu’s name! — to get what he wanted. With a sword.

He had fallen in with low companions, he thought. Croy possessed a terrible influence on him. Made him forget everything he’d once believed. Croy had given him Acidtongue as if it was some great prize, some mark of esteem. In the process the knight had turned him into one of those arseholes he’d grown up hating. The ones who used to make his blood boil. He’d always considered himself an enemy of power, of the abusive system of knights and lords and kings that held Skrae in an iron grip.

When he accepted Acidtongue from the knight, he’d joined that crew.

He moved the sword back to his side. He wanted to throw it away. He didn’t sheathe it, though. He still needed that antidote, at the very least.

“Keep your benighted barrels, then. Give me the antidote and I’ll leave you in peace.”

Balint stopped shaking immediately. A look of incomprehension crossed her face-but then, suddenly, her eyes went sly. “I have your number now. You’ve got grease for guts,” she said. A nasty smile split her face. “You can’t do it. You can’t kill me, even with that length of iron in your hand. What is it? Are you just a coward? Or are you going to tell me you’ve got too much honor to slaughter an innocent?”

“I’d hardly put that label on you,” Malden told her. “But I won’t cut you down. Not like this. Give me the antidote.”