David Chandler - A thief in the night

Croy watched as she put the last stone in place, sealing the doorway. Then she stepped back and dusted off her hands. On her shoulder the knocker mimicked her gesture.

When she spoke again, her voice was very different-almost reverent. “Anyroad, there aren’t enough of us dwarves left not to show each other a little respect. Barely ten thousand of us now, in the whole wide world. There were five times that many living in just this city, back in its heyday.”

“We humans try to protect you as best we can,” Croy said. He needed to ask her a very delicate question, and he was looking for a way to lead into it.

“That’s the law,” she replied. “And like most human laws, if you put what it’s worth on a scale and balanced it against a fly’s turd, you’d still find it wanting.”

She walked away from the impromptu tomb and started gathering up lengths of rope from her various traps. These went into a pack she wore on her back.

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Croy said. “But I swear on my honor I won’t let you be harmed again. I’m afraid we can’t leave just yet, not until we find our friends. But I’ll make sure you get out of here as soon as possible.”

“You think of leaving now?” Morget said, looking up from his axe. “While the demons still live?”

“The thing we came here for seems undoable now.” Croy sighed. “We came to slay one demon and we find an army of them. I think a judicious retreat is our best option. We’ll go to Helstrow, summon the rest of the Ancient Blades. Maybe raise an army. Then we’ll come back here and purge this place of them all.” He turned back to Balint. “You must have seen one of our friends here. The, ah-the man with the sword. I need to know. Was it him who killed your crew?” Malden was his friend, and he had no desire to be obligated to chase him down like a common murderer. Yet the law-and his duty-was clear.

“That sheep dropping? Hardly,” Balint snorted. “He hadn’t the guts to carve a roasted chicken. I dealt with him handily.”

“Oh, thank the Lady,” Croy said, though he’d meant not to speak. It was such a relief to learn that Malden was no dwarf-killer.

“No, it was them that came later. They appeared out of nowhere. Right out of the wall-dozens of them, skinny as a whore’s breakfast and paler than mother’s milk. I thought they were ghosts, to start with. They cut down Murin and Slurri without so much as a by-your-leave. Then they came for me. I took my licks, then did what a human girl does on her wedding night: lie down, pretend it isn’t happening, and wait for it to stop. They must have thought I was dead, too. I bled enough.”

“You mean the elves,” Croy said. “Were they living elves, or the undead kind?”

“Living,” Balint told him.

“Did these elves kill our friend?” Croy asked.

“No. He was too busy running back to the others. That moping slattern of his, and the debaser, Slag.”

“You know where they are?” Croy asked, his eyes growing wide.

“What’s left of them, more like,” she told him.

Croy barely noticed the brass lift. It was magical in nature, of course-some kind of invisible spirit of the air carried the cage on its back, he imagined, its labors spurred on by the simple ritual of pulling on a chain-and therefore of little interest to him. He was far more intent on finding Cythera. Balint had given him some veiled hints that he might not like what he found, but he had to see for himself.

In the foundry level, he lifted his candle high and stared at a sticky black stain that spread across the floor. It couldn’t be blood. He was certain of that much. It wasn’t Cythera’s blood.

It couldn’t be.

He registered the threads hung from the walls and the various pry bars scattered outside the door of some vault of treasures. He saw the piles of scrap metal and the incomprehensible machinery of dwarven manufacture. The odds and ends strewn from torn-open knapsacks. These things meant nothing. The black stain, well, it meant nothing as well. It couldn’t be blood.

He knew, with a perfect certainty, that it was not Cythera’s blood.

“Show me what we came here for, Balint,” he said, growing impatient. Clearly Cythera wasn’t here. He needed to find her as soon as possible, before she ran afoul of the elves. That was what was important.

The knocker ran around the room in circles, tapping at the floor, the walls, the trash strewn across the flagstones. Balint turned to face Croy. “Smells like someone’s guts exploded, doesn’t it?” she asked, wrinkling her nose. “Look, my blueling found something. What’s this?”

The knocker had found a knife tossed haphazardly into one corner of the room. Croy took it from the diminutive creature and recognized it instantly. It was Malden’s little bodkin. Little more than a belt knife, but the thief treasured it.

“I see no sign of Acidtongue,” Morget announced. The barbarian sifted through some other detritus. It looked like Malden’s pack had been rifled and its contents discarded when they failed to prove valuable. “The elves must have taken the blade.”

“They must have gone through your friends’ belongings, taking what they counted valuable, discarding the trash. Now, what’s this?” Balint said as the knocker handed her more objects. “Ah, this is a little hammer. This must have belonged to your Slag.” She held it out toward Croy. He glanced at it. Shrugged.

“Something else, maybe,” Balint said. She sent the knocker forth again and it returned with a small piece of worked horn. Croy thought he might recognize it, but he didn’t look very closely.

“Ah,” Balint said. “Now, what have we here? A lady’s comb.”

Croy grabbed it from her.

For a while he didn’t look at it. He couldn’t.

“It must have belonged to the thief’s bit of tail.”

Croy’s hand ached and he realized he was crushing the comb. Its tines dug into his palm until one of them snapped off. He forced his fingers to relax. “You won’t speak of Cythera like that again,” he told Balint. “She is my betrothed.”

The dwarf looked confused. “Really? I could have sworn she was spreading her legs for the craven.”

“You… were wrong,” Croy said, his teeth grinding together. She had made a mistake, that was all.

Just like she was mistaken in thinking Cythera was dead.

“Your woman, eh?” Balint asked. There was a gleam in her eye Croy did not care for at all. “I’m sorry, then. This must be very hard for you, knowing the elves got to her. Took her here.”

“There are no bodies in this room,” he said. “No blood either. That stain… is not blood,” he insisted.

“You saw what the porridge monster did to my Murin,” Balint told him. “They eat our dead, and leave no bodies behind.”

“Perhaps,” Croy said, squeezing his eyes shut at the thought. “But-”

When he opened his eyes again, Balint was staring at him expectantly. Across the room Morget watched him with the dead, emotionless eyes of a hunter.

“Yes?” Balint said.

“What? What, blast you?”

Balint rubbed at her furry upper lip. “You said ‘but’ as if you had some point to make. But then you said nothing more.”

“There was nothing more to say. Cythera is not here. We should go. We should go and find her, wherever she is.”

“I know you don’t want to hear this,” Balint told him, sounding almost compassionate. “It might be easier to deny that it happened.”

“There’s no need to deny anything. I’ll admit it looks like Cythera was here at some point,” Croy said, trying to stay calm. He needed to think this through. He needed to think, period. It was hard when a little voice in the back of his head wouldn’t stop screaming in terror. “Cythera, and Slag, and-and Malden. And clearly they were surprised by-by something. Something that searched their packs. Beyond that-”