David Chandler - Den of thieves

In some ways that was a bad sign. It meant the captain-or more likely Bikker-knew of Croy’s reputation, and that he’d survived against far greater odds up at the palace. Of course, then he’d had the option of running away. That wasn’t possible here.

Croy stood to his position, his shortsword pointed at the ground but held away from his body so if he needed to bring it up he would be ready to sweep it in a broad arc. As the captain approached, he breathed deeply and readied himself to move.

“Your beast is strong,” the captain said, “but he has no belly for a fight. He hasn’t so much as scratched one of us. I think you may have picked the wrong partner.”

Croy nodded at the man in way of salute. “He’s served his purpose. Half your men are disarmed, or carrying pieces of kindling that used to be weapons.”

“But half of them are not. And we have plenty of spare weapons inside the fence. You look like you’re ready to take us all on by yourself, Sir Croy. I’d know why, before I order your death.”

The wound in Croy’s back pulsed angrily. His body didn’t like being held so immobile. “I’ve come for the Burgrave’s crown. Thieves hid it here. If your master will give it up, I will leave you in peace. I’m not here to kill anyone, if I don’t have to.”

“I’d prefer to avoid it myself. The city watch will be here soon, I have no doubt. Half the city must have heard us fighting down here. When they do arrive, I don’t want to have to explain what a dead ogre-and a dead knight-are doing on my lawn. I don’t know anything about a crown. But if you leave right now, I’ll let you take your pet away with you. This can just… stop.” The captain stared in frustration at Croy. He knew very well it wouldn’t end that way. “Surely, Sir Croy, this is the best you can hope for!”

“I won’t leave without the crown,” Croy insisted.

The captain raised his hands in disgust. Then he turned on his heel and threw a hand gesture toward the archer.

The bowstring twanged, and the arrow shot through the air too quickly for human eyes to follow. It was headed straight at Gurrh’s uninjured eye. Simultaneously, the four guards around Croy stepped forward in perfectly drilled unison and lunged with their halberds and glaives.

Gurrh snatched the arrow out of the air a split fraction of a second before it pierced his eye. He snapped it in half between his fingers.

Even Croy’s senses, heightened by the thrill of combat and the onrushing specter of his own demise, could not follow everything that happened next. Luckily, he didn’t need to see or hear everything. He had run through this exact scenario a thousand times, back when he was training to become an Ancient Blade. His fencing master-Bikker-had known this day would come, when he was trapped in an unwinnable contest. He had trained Croy to be ready for it.

In such a situation there was only one course of action that could be countenanced. You defended against every attack that time allowed-and you minimized the damage done by those attacks you could not avoid.

Croy’s shield took a glaive blade in a glancing blow that sent the weapon up and away. His shortsword parried the axe blade of a halberd, the two weapons grinding together until the halberd was mired in the shortsword’s quillions. Croy threw his hips to one side, and a third attack-this one from behind-just grazed his side.

The fourth hit home, and six inches of iron buried themselves in his side.

Croy gasped in pain, but he knew the blow had missed his kidney. Which meant he would not die from the wound. At least not right away. That meant he still had some time. Time to counterattack.

The glaive his shield had deflected was pointed up in the air. The man who wielded it was changing his grasp on the haft, trying to bring it back under his control. Croy put his head down and rushed toward the man, while twisting his right hand around to free his shortsword from the halberd that fouled it.

He felt the sword slip free, but it was his shield that smashed the face of the glaive-bearer. That man went down with a grunt. Croy swung around and suddenly he was facing three opponents head on, rather than being surrounded by them.

A halberd red with Croy’s own blood came swinging at his face. He slapped that attack away with the shortsword’s foible, then swung his shield around to block a glaive blow that came sweeping up at him from the ground. He no longer saw the men who held the weapons-he was too busy watching the movement of the halberd points and axe blades and the curved, glinting cutting edge of the glaive.

A halberd drove point first toward his left leg. Croy brought the shield down and the point slammed into the oak, piercing it so he saw the point come through the inner side of the shield. Ignoring the pain in his back he threw his left arm wide, pulling the halberd out of the guard’s hands. He pressed his attack and brought the shortsword around to slice at the front of the disarmed man, cutting his tunic open and drawing a line of blood across his chest. The guard twisted to one side and fell away.

That left him with two opponents, both of whom stood with their weapons across their bodies in defensive positions. Croy pointed at one, then the other, with his shortsword.

“How much does Hazoth pay you?” he asked.

“Not enough,” one of them answered. He threw his halberd on the ground and ran. The other was not long behind him-though he took his glaive with him.

Malden stepped through the doorway and into the trapped corridor, careful to test his footing before he put his weight on the floor. It did not give way. He closed the cover of the hand lamp and closed his eyes tightly, then opened them wide again to adjust them to the darkness. He had expected some small amount of light in the corridor-surely at least a little would spill in from under the door or through the keyhole. Yet his eyes swam with the complete absence of light.

Well, almost complete.

The hallway was pitch-dark save for a blot of orange light high off in the distance. His eyes couldn’t seem to adapt to the gloom otherwise. He pulled back the hatch of his dark lantern, trying to see anything at all. A pale glow emanated from the lamp, but only for a moment before the candle inside the lantern sputtered and died.

Malden cursed silently and reached into his tunic to find his tinderbox. Before he could reach it, though, the distant orange light flared up and he looked toward it. What had been a shapeless glow was now a fiery orb with a black center, surrounded by a burning ring of gold. It looked a great deal like the eyeball of some enormous monster.

It looked at him. It looked into him. It looked through him. And then madness swept through him like a wind howling out of the pit.

Malden staggered and clenched his eyes shut. He dropped the dark lantern but didn’t hear it fall. He clutched at his head with his hands.

’Ware the eye, Lockjaw had said. And nothing more. What had the old thief known? Had Lockjaw broken into this villa once and fallen afoul of the same trap? Or had he only heard tale of it from someone else? Malden had realized long ago that Lockjaw’s silence didn’t only serve to guard his secrets. It made other people feel it was safe to tell him their own. Lockjaw was a great treasure trove of gossip. Yet if only he’d been a bit less stingy with it this time… well. What hadn’t Lockjaw told him?

Malden shook himself as if he were cold, though in truth he felt like he’d been singed by a firestorm. He opened his eyes, but shielded them with one hand so he wouldn’t meet the gaze of that hellish thing again.

He needn’t have bothered. The eye was gone. So was the darkness.