David Chandler - A thief in the night

She kissed him gently on the temple. Her hands caressed his face.

He was breathing heavily but not with lust. The comfort she gave him was something he desperately needed, something he could not live without. “At least you’re here with me,” he told her.

“Always,” she said.

“I almost believe you when you say that. You’ve forgiven me for my fancies. And my liberties,” he said, thinking of how angry she’d been with him in the Hall of Masterpieces. “You love me. You said as much when you thought the elves were going to kill me.”

“I remember. I was foolish enough to think that would save you. I thought it might move them and they would take pity. It seems stupid now, but at the time it was all I could think of.”

He bit his lip. He was certain there had been more to it. That she was making an excuse now. If he gave her any leeway, she would slip from his grasp again. He wanted to keep silent but he couldn’t. “If we get out of this alive-”

“Suggest no other possibility,” she told him.

“When we escape,” he told her, “you have to tell Croy about us.”

She sighed deeply and put her arms around his waist. “And why do I have to do that?” she asked, sounding as if she knew she would regret the answer.

“Because we’re in love! Because you don’t love him. He still thinks you’re going to marry him when we get home.”

She was quiet for a time. A time far too long for Malden’s liking.

“If Croy were here right now, before me, I would marry him on the spot,” she said. “Malden-I said what I said. And I can’t lie to you now, I do care for you. But I would have said anything at that moment, anything that might have swayed them. Anything that might have saved you. What I feel for you, Malden-it isn’t right. It isn’t the way my life is supposed to work out. I’m sorry.”

He started to protest but suddenly realized he could see her face. Light was streaming down from the top of the stairs.

An elfin soldier came clattering down, carrying a torch. The two revenant gaolers lifted their swords, but the soldier said something soothing and they lowered their weapons again.

When he peered into the stockade and saw Malden and Cythera holding each other, a wicked smile twisted his thin lips. “If you were about to mate, please don’t let me stop you. I’ll just wait here and observe.”

“Piss off,” Slag moaned, sitting up. The dwarf wiped sleep from his eyes and rose to his feet.

The elf kicked the bars. Slag jumped backward and the elf laughed.

“You,” the soldier said, pointing at Malden. “When we captured you, weren’t you wearing a sword?”

Malden blinked at the elf but said nothing.

“What is your name?”

“You might as well tell him,” Cythera said. “What difference does it make?”

“Malden,” the thief said.

“What? Speak up. Is it Croy?”

Cythera’s arms gripped him tighter.

“No,” Malden said, raising his voice. “I’m Malden.”

The soldier frowned. “How vexing. I’m supposed to fetch a Sir Croy. I was told he would be among the captives, and you were the only one with a sword, so-”

“Well, you’ve fucking found me,” Slag announced.

For a moment no one at all spoke.

“You’re Sir Croy? You’re a knight?” the elf asked.

“That’s right.”

The elf laughed heartily. “You’re not tall enough!”

“How dare you, sir,” Slag said, in a passable impersonation of Croy. “I may be short in stature but-”

“You were wearing no armor when we caught you. Nor did you have a sword. Knights are supposed to have swords.” The soldier frowned. “Aren’t they?”

“The boy was just holding my sword for me at the time. If I’d had it to hand, the lot of you would be so many spitted roasts right now. Well, you’ve got me. You fought dirty, but I suppose that’s what one expects from you dog-hearted elves. Take me away, you bastard. Do your worst.”

The elf’s brows knitted together. But then he shrugged and unlocked the cage. “Things must have changed outside in the last eight centuries.” He pulled Slag out of the cage and then locked it again.

“Might as well get it over with,” Slag said as he was marched up the stairs.

Malden turned to Cythera with a look of horror. “They’re going to torture him to death,” he said.

“But why?” Cythera looked deeply confused. “Why would he pretend to be Croy? He can’t hope to benefit from such a ruse. Was he trying to protect you?”

“I don’t think so,” Malden told her, remembering what the dwarf had said earlier, while she was sleeping. “I think he just got tired of waiting.”

Croy’s blood pounded in his temples. His fingers twitched and tapped at Ghostcutter’s pommel. He needed to fight. He needed to kill something.

Balint had pushed him to this violent edge. She had bade him look over it, into the depths of his anger and his need for vengeance, and showed him there was no bottom to that gulf. There had been a time in Croy’s life when he thought mercy was a virtue, and that restraint had its place in battle.

That was before Cythera was taken from him. Before he saw what bloodlust truly meant. He had possessed a future before he came to the Vincularium. He had seen a wife, and children, a family of his own. Heirs to pass his name to, and perhaps even a son who could lift his sword when he was gray and old and unable to carry the Ancient Blade himself. He had dreams then.

Now he had a desire to kill, and not much else.

Supposedly Balint had a plan. She had some scheme that would let him kill every last elf, and end their race forever. He barely listened to what she had to say. He would happily have run back down to the throne room and started hacking and slashing, but she had stepped him back from the abyss just enough to suggest there was a quicker if less direct route to sating his hunger for elfin blood.

He was still considering whether to take her option and go for the surety of destruction, the total eradication of the elves-or follow his own instincts, which was only certain to be more gratifying.

“If you kill them one by one, are you sure you can get them all?” she asked. “Are you quite sure you will finish what you start?”

“Ghostcutter has never failed me yet,” Croy pointed out.

“And if one of them does get away-worse, a pair of them, a male and a female. If they outlive you, and restart their generation. Rebuild their numbers. What then? If the elves survive your attack, will you be satisfied? Letting them have what they took away from you?”

He frowned, liking none of this. “You want me to delay my revenge.”

“I want you to be smart about it, you pillock! There are too many of them for a direct assault, surely even you can see that. We’d be slaughtered.”

“If I die seeking vengeance, I die a noble death,” Croy told her.

“No, no, no! We have to get all of them, or it doesn’t count. And that means we have to be a little sneaky. When you make love to a woman…” she said, looking Croy up and down. The knocker on her shoulder waved its fingers in his direction, too. She frowned before continuing. “Not you, of course-I imagine you don’t have much experience in that regard.” She turned to face Morget. “When you make love to a woman, do you just rip her dress off and bend her over whatever happens to be handy?”

The barbarian laughed gleefully. His eyes grew wistful and he hugged himself.

“I can see,” Balint said, “that I’ve picked the wrong metaphor. No matter. When a real dwarf wants to woo, he flatters his sweetheart, and gives her little gifts, and kisses her gently, first. He doesn’t make a rush for the goodies until she’s already begging for it.”