A Thief in the Night (28 page)

Chapter Fifty-one

T
he demon flowed across the floor, the edges of its shapeless form rippling as it glided over the refuse. A face pressed outward against its skin, the eyes protruding and staring in Croy's direction. A second face loomed toward Mörget. Both were stretched and distorted to a point of horror.

Croy set his candle on the floor, squeezing its lower end between two flagstones so it would stand upright. He couldn't fight this thing if he couldn't see it. Then he brought Ghostcutter down, the point near the floor. He put his left foot back to improve his stance.

He had no idea how to attack it. It did not have limbs to cleave or a proper head to target. He was not so foolish to think that the faces would be vulnerable. It had too many of them, for one thing. Mörget had spoken of a central organ that seemed important to the beast, but Croy couldn't see it through the skin. What could you do with such a shapeless abomination, save carve it up and then burn the pieces?

He doubted it would stand still while he did that.

It came on fast, faster than a man could run. Just before it would have lapped across Mörget's boots, it reared up in the air and struck at him with the edges of its envelope. Croy jumped in and brought Ghostcutter around in a wide arc intended to slice open the thing's back. The cold iron edge of his sword found little purchase—its skin gave too easily, so it was like trying to slice honey. He managed only to trace a shallow wound that oozed a clear fluid.

The monster did not roar in pain—if it had a voice at all, it had not used it yet. Croy knew he'd hurt it, though, because it stopped attacking Mörget and came at him instead. He expected it to turn around to face him, but instead it merely leaned over backward and splattered all over Croy's chest and face like a thing of pure liquid. Its back became its front, and Croy was overwhelmed instantly.

Sticky fluid splashed across his mouth and nose, sealing in his breath. He clamped his eyes shut and tried to bring Ghostcutter up, but the thing's infernal substance wrapped around his sword hand and squeezed, constricting the muscles in his wrist until he dropped the weapon. He fought and clawed against the stuff as it wrapped around his waist and pulled him off his feet, drawing him into its body.

The demon swallowed him whole.

He passed through its skin like diving into hot water and suddenly was inside the thing. Its blood burned his face and hands—anywhere it touched exposed skin—and slithered down the collar of his tunic and up his sleeves.

There was no air inside the thing. Its jellylike substance pushed at his lips, trying to get inside of him, to suffocate him. Wherever it touched his bare skin searing pain made his muscles twitch, while fear threatened to overwhelm him like a black wave. He was seconds from death—seconds at the very most—and his natural urge to panic, to scream, was almost uncontrollable.

Giving in to that urge would undo him, he knew. He would die the moment he gave up fighting. There had been a time when even reason would not have been enough to save him from his own fear. Only years of training allowed him to overcome that perfectly natural reaction. He forced himself into a kind of fragile calm. If he was to die like this, devoured by a demon, then that was acceptable. But only if he went down fighting.

He forced himself to open his eyes and saw a jeering face inches from his own. Its mouth opened in a mocking laugh and he saw right through its maw—there was nothing behind those cruel lips but dim light. Croy fought to bring one arm up and he punched wildly at the face. Every movement was constrained, slowed by the viscous medium of the thing's body. He barely had the strength to push his fist forward, to connect with that terrible face. Yet when his knuckles met its cheek, the face did not resist him but only folded around his hand like a wet leaf.

He felt the face's soft lips work at his fingers, and he yanked his hand back in disgust.

Croy's lungs heaved with the desperate need for breath. He fought down the spasm that threatened to force open his mouth and make him inhale the caustic substance of the demon, knowing that would be his death. Wildly he looked around him, even as his eyes burned with fierce pain, looking for something to grab, some organ he could rend and pull apart.

Then Dawnbringer plunged downward through the mass of the demon, missing Croy's chest by inches. The Ancient Blade burst with light as its point found its target—an enormous round mass that pulsed with wriggling dark worms. Dawnbringer pierced the organ through and it spilled open, the worms curling and shriveling as they were exposed to the demon's acidic blood.

Croy saw three more faces scream, and then a thick wet membrane came crashing down all around him, the thing's skin contracting as it died. He fought and pushed against the skin that wrapped around him like a blanket. His fingers dug through that gruesome envelope and tore it apart in long ribbons of clear flesh. Icy cold air struck his face, and he spat the creature's blood out of his mouth, then sucked in a sweet gust of breath that made him tremble with ecstasy.

Mörget pulled and scraped the skin away from Croy's body as he struggled to get up, to stagger out of the thing's clinging remains. He stumbled over to one marble wall and leaned hard against it, gasping and weak. Looking down at his hands, he saw they were as red as if he'd been scalded with boiling water.

The demon lay in a puddle of its own ichor, as flat and lifeless as a cast-aside tarpaulin. The faces buried in its skin stared upward at nothing, and its organs oozed dark fluids as they twitched and died, one by one.

Finally it lay still. Its corpse began to steam, and it shrank as it turned to fumes and vapor. Like any demon, like any unnatural creature, it could not exist in this world once its vital spirit had been dissipated. Only sorcerous energy could maintain its physical form, and now that was gone. In a few seconds it was nothing more than a stain on the marble flagstones.

“It is dead,” Mörget said, and laughed wildly. “My demon is undone! Now I am a man—and even my father cannot gainsay it. Mother death, I thank you for this chance to kill, to send this thing into your arms. Croy! Brother! We have won!”

Croy nodded feebly and tried to slow the frantic beating of his heart.

“Yes,” he finally wheezed. “Yes. Won. Now—we find Cythera.”

“Of course!” Mörget chuckled. “Anything you like.”

“Right now,” Croy said, the words like knives in his throat, “I just need . . . to sit down.”

Chapter Fifty-two

T
he blue-haired creature walked on its knuckles toward Malden and started tapping on his foot. He pulled his leg back and drew Acidtongue from its scabbard. “What in the Bloodgod's name is that thing?” he demanded.

“Just a . . . blueling, lad,” Slag groaned. “Harmless. Your human miners call them knockers. They're blind but—”

He stopped to wince and try to cough. Nothing came up.

When Slag could breathe again, he went on. “They're bloody useful . . . underground . . . can see through rock with their . . . their rapping. Can find pockets of . . . gas . . . and . . .”

The female dwarf rolled her eyes dramatically. “And he can tell me if anyone's in a room before I open the door and get three feet of iron shoved up my arse,” she said. She yanked viciously on the blueling's leash and it flipped over backward and groveled on the floor.

“All right, next question.” Malden walked around the simpering imp and pointed the tip of Acidtongue at the female dwarf's throat. A drop of acid spilled from the blade and sizzled on the floor. She stared at it the way a jewelry appraiser might study a gem of a color she'd never seen before. “Who are you?” Malden demanded.

She smiled and bowed, careful not to impale herself on the sword.

“Balint's my name. I work for the dwarven ambassador at Redweir.”

The city of Redweir—Skrae's third largest—was home to the Learned Brotherhood, the monastic order that preserved all of Skrae's knowledge. The city possessed the largest library on the continent, and also a thriving colony of dwarves, Malden knew. The dwarven embassy there controlled all trade between Skrae and the dwarven kingdom and was responsible for maintaining the treaty between dwarves and men. Balint could be a very powerful enemy to make, but Malden didn't much care at that moment.

“Where are the barrels that stood here?” he demanded. “We want our property back.”

“Hmm, where could they be? Where, oh where? You can suck snot out of my mustache and have as good a chance of finding them. They weren't yours to begin with, and they sure as fuck aren't
his
.”

She gave Slag a kick to the ribs. Slag cried out in pain and Malden brought his sword up to slash at her.

“Oh, now, that would be a fucking shame, wouldn't it? If you were to strike me down right now. Considering I'm completely unarmed, you bucket of puke.”

Malden glanced down at her belt. She had a scabbard on either hip, but they didn't hold knives—the one on her left contained a screwdriver, while on her right she had a wrench.

“You know what human law says about pus-kerchiefs like you who kill dwarves, don't you?”

Malden did. The treaty that guaranteed Skrae its only source of steel made the punishment for harming a dwarf quite clear. If he murdered Balint, he wouldn't just be executed. He would be roasted alive and then fed to dogs. Of course, that would only happen if he was caught in the act.

“I don't see any witnesses around here,” he said.

“I've got two of my kind outside this door, waiting for me to come back out. More up top, on the surface. You going to kill every last dwarf you can find? You going to tell them you just accidentally shoved that pig-sticker through my tits?”

“It might be worth a shot,” Malden growled.

Balint just stared at him the way she might look at a stain on an expensive carpet. Not a trace of fear showed in her features, even with a magic sword drooling acid inches from her heart.

“Malden,” Cythera said, “stand down.”

Malden lowered his sword, but he didn't sheathe it. Cythera glared at him but he was damned if he would let this dwarf get away with poisoning Slag and stealing the most valuable treasure in the tomb, especially when he was in the process of robbing it.

“Please,” Cythera said, addressing Balint. “You have us at a disadvantage. We thought we were alone here. We did not know that any dwarves had come to reclaim their property. When we ran afoul of the revenants on the top level, we assumed—”

“Reve-whats?”

Cythera frowned. “The reanimated elves. The spirits seeking justice for past crimes. How did you get down here without encountering them?”

“She didn't come . . . through the front . . . gate,” Slag said.

Balint brayed at the idea. “
You
did? I knew you were a fool. But just how stupid are you?”

“I'm guessing—oh, bugger, this hurts—I'm guessing you came . . . through the escape shaft . . . in the residential level,” Slag said.

Balint shrugged. “Why don't you guess in one hand, and shit in the other, and see which one fills up first?”

“But why now?” Malden demanded. “This is no coincidence, all of us here at precisely the same time.”

“Hardly! We had to stick prods up our horses' arseholes just to get here before you lot. We spent the last week breaking through the seal on one of the emergency exits, and just got here a few hours ago. We almost didn't make it before you, but then, Urin here always was a tad off in his calculations.” She gave Slag another kick.

“Hold—you know Slag?” Malden asked. “Except you called him—”

“Not now, Malden,” Cythera cut in. “Please, milady Balint, tell me why you're here. Maybe we can help you with your needs.”

The blueling tapped its way over to where Cythera stood. She allowed it to palpate her foot, though it looked to Malden like she was having a hard time not kicking it away.

Balint deigned to explain a few things. “About three months ago, some big futtock with a red chin like he was drooling blood came to Redweir. Asked a lot of uncomfortable questions about the Vincularium. Even knowing which questions to ask meant he knew too much already. Still, we figured he didn't have an arsehole's chance of getting inside this place, so we gave him one seriously nasty look and let it drop. Big mistake. Next thing we know, he's seen in that piss-pot Ness. Well, they take all kinds in that place, don't they? Isn't that right, you whey-faced catamite?”

She kicked Slag again.

Malden took a step forward and raised his blade. “If you strike him again, I'll shave you bald with this thing.”

Balint snorted in derision. “He deserves a lot worse than that, the fucking debaser. Now, as I was saying, this big red-faced arsehole went to Ness, and there he found the one dwarf in Skrae who would even talk to him. Which meant he actually had a chance of finding a way in here. So we took it upon ourselves to make sure he didn't get what he was after.”

“The barrels? But Mörget didn't come for them,” Cythera said. “He came to kill a demon that he tracked here.” She shook her head. “Please. It doesn't matter why we came. You have what you wanted. The barrels are out of our reach. I'm willing to accept that, and surrender them to you without further unpleasantness.”

“Oh, aye? Well, I'm not!” Slag grumbled.

Cythera closed her eyes. “Balint. Our friend was struck by a poisoned dart. I hate to say this, but—I believe you placed that trap.”

“Good one, too,” Balint agreed. “One of my best.”

“Now he's sickening, and he's going to die.” Cythera lowered her head. “Since you've already won—perhaps you'd be gracious enough, in your victory, to give us the antidote to your poison.”

Balint scratched at her mustache. “Antidote? Now why the fuck would I have any of that on me?”