David Chandler - Den of thieves

As Hazoth had said, it was not ready to be born. It had no skin on its stringy muscles and it oozed pus every time it stretched. Steam lifted from its back in great white coils, and where its feet touched the marble floor, the stone grew slick with its blood. In shape it was not unlike a horribly deformed hound, though it had seven legs-none of them the same length or shape. Sprouting from its shoulders on long thick necks were a row of human skulls with wicked fanged jaws. The eye sockets were filled with wet red membranes that throbbed and sucked at the air. Malden assumed that was how it scented, and that this was the only sense it possessed.

When it screamed, the sound issued not from the clacking jaws of the skulls but from a gaping mouth in its chest filled with round half-formed teeth.

It pawed at the floor, stumbling like a newborn foal. Every footfall made the entire house shake. Its skull heads wove through the air at the end of the clumsy necks, and its nostrils squeezed shut, then shot open again. One by one the skulls turned to point directly at Malden. How it could smell anything through the thick reek of brimstone in the air was an open question, but he had no doubt it was quite aware of him.

Malden shrank back as far as he could, yet it was as if he were transfixed, so horrified by the thing’s appearance he couldn’t move.

The demon took a tottering step forward, its multitude of claws clacking on the floor.

Time to run.

The paralysis of horror left him in a rush of blood to his legs. Malden slammed the door behind him, only to hear it splinter and crack as the demon rammed its way through. By that point he was well down the hall beyond, nearly at the door of the library. The demon squeezed into the hallway and came galloping toward him, no longer so awkward or graceless. It was fast-far faster than he was-and it would be on him in a second if he didn’t move. He flung himself at the door to the library and, thank the Bloodgod, it flew open.

Inside the library he leapt over a divan just as the demon smashed through the doorway, shattering the door frame with its odd number of shoulders. It reared up and swung two of its legs through the air, an instant away from crushing Malden beneath one foot that looked like a hoof and another like the paw of a wolf.

Malden threw his arms across his face, knowing that if the thing struck him even once, it would be his end. He rolled back and away from the beast as it came lurching forward — and then stopped in mid-attack.

Kemper, I hope you made it this far, Malden thought. He’d given the card sharp strict instructions to include the library on his itinerary as he made his way around the house, but Malden also knew that if there had been any danger of being caught, Kemper might have cut his circuit short.

Yet now the demon sniffed and sucked at the air, and its skull heads craned around the room, searching something out. Malden edged away slowly, crawling backward on his hands so as not to make any noise, in case the thing had ears hidden somewhere on its body.

One of the skull heads fixated on a particular glass-fronted bookcase. It brought a second head around to sniff as well, as if making sure it had the right scent. Then it threw all of its considerable mass at the case, pulverizing the glass, sending the books flying, smashing through the thick wooden shelves. It savaged the case with its jaws and its huge wet mouth, striking again and again with its claws and hooves and talons until it battered through the wall behind the case as well.

A lone playing card, the six of acorns, floated out of the wreckage and drifted to the floor. The demon stamped on it, tore it to shreds with its teeth, and swallowed the bits of paper that remained.

By the time it was finished, Malden had already broken for the next door, and the next hallway.

Croy gritted his teeth.

For my lord the Burgrave, he thought. For honor. For the code of the Ancient Blades. For the sake of my immortal soul.

For Cythera.

Every fiber of his being was in agreement. He would not surrender his sword. He would not turn and walk away. If he died in the next moment, he would die as he had lived. The sacrifice was acceptable.

But he didn’t intend to die.

As he drew Ghostcutter free of its scabbard, warmth flowed down his arm. His heart was giving up the last of its strength, all in the service of one final battle.

Bikker smiled, as if this was exactly what he wanted. “You’ll fall quickly enough. But you’ll die on your feet,” he said. “Do you see what honor is, now? Honor is something that exists between men like us. Strong men! The weak of this world, the peasants, the little people-they know nothing of it.”

Croy thought of Malden and Kemper affirming that there was no honor among thieves. Maybe Bikker was right.

But-no. Malden had risked everything to help Cythera. Malden had gone into Hazoth’s villa, uncertain of what he could achieve, but willing to try.

“You were wrong earlier,” Croy said.

“What? What are you prattling about?” Bikker demanded.

“Earlier. You said I thought my blood was a different color from yours. You were wrong.”

“I think you’re feverish, Croy. Your wounds would certainly warrant it. Speak clearly, man, or just be quiet and let us finish what we’ve started.”

“I don’t think I bleed a different color than you,” Croy said. “Blood is the same in every man’s veins. But there is something in me you can’t match.”

He thought back to when Bikker had trained him, to one day in particular. They’d been going through postures for hours, Croy learning every way there was to hold a sword. They’d practiced hundreds of parries, thousands of lunges. Bikker called a halt when neither of them could see for the sweat in their eyes. Then, when Croy put Ghostcutter away for the day, Bikker picked up a wooden practice sword and knocked him into a pigpen with one solid whack to the back of his knees.

“Fencing is something gentle folk do,” Bikker had said. “You can train a lifetime to master it. But never forget-anyone, even a peasant, can bring you down with a single, solid blow. It only takes one cut to kill a man.”

So now he faced Bikker with Ghostcutter gripped in both hands, the point aimed directly at Bikker’s heart. Bikker took his own stance, with Acidtongue at an angle across the front of his body.

If he was focused and committed enough, Croy thought, he might strike one more blow before his body gave out completely. He would have to make it the one that brought Bikker down.

The two of them nodded at each other in way of salute.

And then they began.

Malden hurried down the long corridor at the back of the villa that opened on the dining room and its preparatory. The door there would provide another chance to escape into the night-but he wasn’t done yet.

Behind him the prematurely born demon howled and raged and clawed at the walls. An ornamental table stood in the hallway, a delicate piece of turned rosewood. The nine of bells lay on its surface like a calling card.

With a cry of rage the demon smashed the table to flinders, then beat at the wall and floor where the table had been with an unquenchable will and a strength a hundred times greater than a man’s. The card was obliterated, but still the demon smashed and clawed until the plaster wall exploded in a cloud of white dust and the wattles behind it burst like matchwood. Malden hurried down the hall, breathing heavily now. Surely it wouldn’t take much longer.

Behind him he could hear the demon clawing at the walls, pulling down timbers from the ceiling. The house shook and danced, and he was nearly thrown from his feet with every step. The demon was taking the place to pieces in its search for him.