David Chandler - A thief in the night

“We have nothing to do battle with down here,” Aethil replied. “Except our memories.”

Malden ignored the wistful look on her face. “But there are other ways, surely. In the city where I was born-it is called Ness-men are free to improve their lot through labor, and they can leave their wealth to their children, to try to give them a better life than they knew.”

Aethil gave him a smile that clearly was meant to be pitying. To Malden it just looked condescending. “Wealth. You’re speaking of money. I understand the concept from my books-and that it seems to be the main source of unhappiness among humans.”

“Fair enough,” Malden granted, “but it also allows us to better ourselves.”

“Such distinctions are unknown among the Elders. We are each born to our rank, as appointed by our ancestors.”

Malden thought of the elf soldier he’d spoken with, who said his father had been a soldier and his son would be one, too. He’d assumed the soldier merely hoped for his sons to take up the family trade, but it sounded as if they had no choice.

In Skrae they had the Lady-the Goddess Croy worshipped-who was supposed to place everyone in their appropriate station. It was a pleasing theology if you happened to be born to high estate. There was good reason why the poor of Ness tended to worship Sadu the Bloodgod instead, who judged both the high and the low. “This system leaves no room for ambition, for talent, for merit,” he pointed out. “The poor are all doomed to work like slaves, while the rich-”

“Quiet, boy!” Slag said.

Malden looked up in surprise. He saw for the first time that Aethil looked distinctly uncomfortable with this turn of conversation. He bit back angry words for fear of offending her. No good could come of that.

Slag quickly apologized for him. “You’ll have to forgive him. He’s from a poor family, and one not known for its wisdom. He doesn’t understand how hard it can be to be the one in power, the one who has to make all the decisions.”

The one with all the servants, Malden thought, but he kept his peace.

“Ah. Well, your race is very young, still. In time I’m sure you’ll all find a way to accept the natural order of things, as we have. Come this way-I want to show you our flocks.”

She took them down to the end of the tunnel, to a wide room that got very little of the red sun of the Vincularium. A herder lit torches for them so they could see better. They were on the lowest dry level of the Vincularium, and its gallery was half submerged in the pool of water at the bottom of the central shaft. Hundreds of giant cave beetles had congregated there, grazing on the green scum that coated the walls and floor.

“Can you imagine,” Aethil asked, “that before we came here, Elders actually considered insects to be inedible? They even thought they would sicken and die if they accidentally swallowed a gnat or a spider!” She laughed. “We would have starved centuries ago if that was actually the case. Our ancestors must have been very stern with us back then, to be able to convince us that we could actually eat beetle steak.”

Or her forebears were just that hungry, Malden thought. How desperate had that first generation gotten, he wondered-had they considered cannibalism? Had they come down here themselves and gnawed at the green stuff on the walls? He shuddered at the thought. Yet he knew that people would eat anything if there was no choice. He’d seen it plenty of times in Ness, where the poorest of the poor lived off the kitchen scraps of the wealthy, all the small bones and bits of stringy hide that proper folk considered worthless garbage.

“You’ve mentioned your ancestors a few times now,” Cythera observed, “as if they were creatures separate from yourselves. Do you mean the revenants we’ve seen? Were they the ones who taught you what was good to eat?”

“The revenants?” Aethil asked. She laughed uproariously. “You mean the undying bodies we use as guards? Oh, no! Those are only the empty vessels of the ancestors. I speak of the souls of those who went before.”

“Their memory, then, written down in books, or passed down orally from one teller to the next,” Cythera pondered.

“Hardly. I’ll show you what I mean, at the end of our excursion. It really is a wonder to finish with. First, though, come this way. I want to show you our nursery, where our little elf babies are raised and trained to their stations. They’re so cute!”

Ghostcutter sliced through the bones of a defleshed arm and cut deep into the side of a revenant who was reaching for Morget’s throat. The barbarian’s mace, held in his weaker left hand, caved in the abomination’s skull. Still it kept grasping for Morget’s neck, so Croy yanked his sword free of its armor and wheeled around to cut its remaining arm to pieces.

Cold hands dragged at Croy’s cloak from behind. He growled and flung himself backward, but couldn’t break the grip. Morget brought Dawnbringer high, gripping its hilt in both hands now, and cut a revenant in half, slicing through its wasted body right down the middle. The Ancient Blade lit up with brilliant fire as it cleaved through collarbone, ribs, and pelvis.

The light was bright enough to blind Croy, if only for a moment. Among the undead warriors it had a far more devastating effect.

The revenants convulsed in holy terror and staggered back. The hands holding Croy released him. He kicked backward with one boot and felt a near-skeletal warrior’s midsection crumple into dust. As the revenants threw up their thin arms to block the light of Morget’s blade, Croy took his chance and swung Ghostcutter through a wide arc that severed finger bones and elbows and ended with the blade embedded in a silently screaming skull.

One revenant, scuttling back to get away from the light, put a bootless foot down on what appeared to be a loose flagstone. The stone retracted on a hidden spring and Croy heard a clicking sound.

“Get down,” he shouted at Morget. The two of them ducked at the same moment a load of stones tied into a ball came whistling over their heads. The massive stone orb swept through every revenant in its path, shattering their bodies and scattering their fragile bones all about the room.

Croy leapt up to face a headless corpse that swung a morningstar at Morget’s back. Ghostcutter whistled through the air and the weapon clunked to the floor, still clutched in a disembodied hand. Croy ducked again as the ball of stone came back on its return swing and utterly disintegrated the headless foe, sending an arc of bone fragments high into the air.

Morget rolled to the side, out of the path of Balint’s swinging trap. He sprang to his feet, sword and mace held high. Croy leaned back out of the way of the stone ball and pointed Ghostcutter toward the end of the hall, where the revenants had first appeared.

None showed there now. In the vast hall of the leather works, not a single revenant was left standing.

Croy heaved for breath, his body still twitching with bloodlust. He looked over at Morget and saw a bodiless arm crawling up the barbarian’s leg.

Morget followed his gaze down, then laughed wickedly and tore the arm free of his boot. As if he were plucking petals from a daisy, he tore off the finger bones one by one and tossed them over his shoulder. The arm kept twisting, trying to break free of the barbarian’s grip, but it was harmless now and he dropped it without ceremony.

“Done?” Morget asked.

“Done, with this bunch at least,” Balint agreed, stepping out of the shadows. Her knocker jumped down to the flagstones with a gentle thud and went running forward, rapping on the flagstones over and over with its knuckles.

Croy wiped sweat from his upper lip and looked around. They’d been so busy fighting the revenants he hadn’t had a chance to study his surroundings. The leather works weren’t much to see, it turned out. The hall was filled with stone benches, and boxes of rusty tools filled high shelves against the walls. Hooks hung down from the ceiling in a hundred places, but any hides that might have been cleaned or cut or tanned here had long since rotted away.