David Chandler - Den of thieves

She smiled. It was the single least mirthful smile Malden had ever seen. “I am.” She took a step closer. That was when he realized what was so disturbing about her tattoos. They were moving. The complex patterns of interweaving tendrils, leaves, briars, thorns, flowers, and the like were slowly rearranging themselves on her face, seeking out new arrangements and complications, forming arabesques and elegant knots that resolved themselves while he watched into wholly new patterns, which… it was quite mesmerizing, really, just watching them. Just Malden tore his gaze away. He’d felt entranced, and well he should have. Something about the tattoos had dazzled him, clouding his mind. He never enjoyed being tricked-he was the one who was supposed to trick other people. He roared as he brought his bodkin around, the point angled toward her throat.

“That,” she told him, “would be a singularly bad idea.” It was not a threat. Somehow the tone of her voice conveyed the sense that she wanted nothing less than to see him hurt, that she really didn’t wish him ill, but that he was playing with fire all the same. Or was that just another illusion? Perhaps she was some kind of witch and was quite happy about leading him to his doom.

Best, he thought, to break the spell and flee.

Slowly he lowered the bodkin. “I don’t know what manner of creature you are,” he told her, “but I really must be going.”

“Oh no you don’t,” the swordsman said, coming upon Malden from behind. He grabbed Malden’s head under one massive arm and squeezed. Apparently the swordsman had recovered from his stumbling fall. There was no way for Malden to break the hold: the oaf had the strength of a bear. He rather smelled like one, too. “You and I,” the swordsman said, giving Malden’s head another squeeze, “are going to have our talk now. All right? Promise me you won’t,” yet another squeeze, “run off?”

“I promise, of course, how could I have been so rash as to-as to-I promise! Just stop that! Your mail is digging into my neck.”

“Very good,” the swordsman said. He let Malden loose to stagger around on the roof, grasping at his throat. “My name, by the way, is Bikker. We weren’t properly introduced before.”

“I’m Malden.” The thief bent over double for a moment. “Well met.”

“Indeed. So. Malden?”

“Yes?” Malden said, lifting his head.

“This is for the melon,” Bikker said, just before punching him right in the face with one massive mailed fist.

Approximately three hundred yards to the northwest, Market Square had erupted into a melee as angered citizens brawled with the watch in their eye-patterned cloaks. It didn’t take much to start a riot in a city of this size. The students of the university were deep in the thick of it, laying into the watch with bare fists, fueled by strong drink and the excitement of a day away from their dry and dusty studies. Most of the wealthier folk were attempting to flee the square, with varying degrees of luck.

To Sir Croy, up on the gibbet, it was like looking into the pit. He could not believe that all of these people were battling because of him. He had spent his whole life defending these people, keeping them safe, and now they were warring amongst themselves. That they were arguing over his fate was too much to bear.

“Friends! Please, I beg you, peace!” Sir Croy shouted. He wanted to wave his hands in the air to gain the attention of the throng, but of course could not, as his hands were bound. The noose around his neck didn’t help either. The executioner beside him looked confused, uncertain as to whether he should release the trapdoor that would drop Croy to his fate.

Somehow Anselm Vry managed to climb up onto the gallows. The bailiff was the city’s chief administrator and keeper of the peace, answerable only to the Burgrave. Sallow-skinned and lean of features, Vry looked like the kind of man who should spend his whole life with his nose in a book, but Croy had known him once and could see beyond the man’s looks. Vry was an able administrator, a skilled organizer of men and materiel. He was above all a rational man. Croy couldn’t resist beaming at someone whom he had once called his friend. The bailiff whispered in the executioner’s ear, and at once the hooded man jumped down from the gallows and waded into the riot, aiding the watch.

“Anselm!” Croy called. “I knew you wouldn’t let this- Oh.”

Vry had taken up the executioner’s post, his hand on the lever that would release the trapdoor.

“I see,” Croy said. “You’ve come to see me off personally.”

“Indeed,” Vry said, shaking his head in disgust. “I hope you understand this was not my choosing. I pleaded with Tarness not to slay you, in fact.”

“I’m much obliged.”

Vry snorted. “I told him we could simply give you a commission and ship you off to fight barbarians in the eastern mountains. They would have killed you for us. But that wouldn’t have worked, would it? You would have deserted your post and returned here in haste.”

“Defy a commission of duty? Never!”

“Oh? Truly, you would have gone away and never returned?”

Sir Croy was not a man for deep thoughts or meditations on the future. He pondered this for a moment, then smiled. “I would have whipped the barbarians in six months. Then I could have come back here with a clear conscience.”

Vry rubbed at his eyes with one hand. “Croy, please, for once in your life try to be realistic. Whatever quest is driving you this time won’t let you stay away. Yet Tarness cannot allow you inside the city walls. You know things he wishes kept secret. I know you would never betray him, but there’s always the chance someone would get the information out of you-if not by torture, then by wizardry. Banishing you the first time was an act of great mercy on his part, and it will not be repeated.”

“I understand. Well, I forgive you old friend. We serve the same masters, you and I, and perhaps you are simply more loyal than me. That’s hardly a quality to be condemned. Now, if you must-obey your orders.” Croy lifted his chin and straightened his back. If he was going to die he would do so with proper posture.

“Noble as you ever were,” Vry said, “and just as stupid.” He started to pull the lever.

His hand was stayed, however, at the last possible moment. There was a flash of light that was instantly swallowed up by a thick cloud of yellow smoke. Croy’s lungs filled and he was overwhelmed by a powerful reek of rotten eggs that made him gag and cough. He tried to stay upright and maintain his composure but the stench was just too great. He worried he might vomit-not exactly what the people would expect of a knight of the realm, not in public “Hold still, you freakishly large livestock copulator,” someone hissed in the midst of the yellow cloud. The noose was lifted away from his throat, then a knife cut through the rope holding Croy’s hands together. Small hands pushed him from behind. He went staggering forward and over the edge of the gallows platform. It was all he could do to land on his feet. Down at ground level the yellow smoke was rarefied and he could breathe again, but still he could see nothing.

Fortunately a figure with a cloth across its face was there to guide him. He was dimly aware that the figure was only about four feet tall. A child? Some magical sprite, with the appearance of a child?

“Stop standing there manipulating yourself in an erotic fashion. We don’t have much time before the feces-smelling watch is upon us!”

Ah. No child. There was only one sort of creature in the world with such a vulgar tongue, yet such an academic grasp of human language. “Murdlin?” Croy asked. “Is that you?”