A Thief in the Night (50 page)

Authors: David Chandler

O
n the
far side of the Whitewall Mountains, in the grasslands of the barbarians, in the
mead tent of the Great Chieftain, fires raged and drink was passed from hand to
hand, yet not a word was spoken. The gathered housemen of the Great Chieftain
were too busy to gossip and sing as was their wont, too busy watching two men
compete at an ancient ritual. Massive they were, as big as bears, and their
muscles stood out from their arms and legs like the wood of dryland trees. They
stood either side of a pit of blazing coals, each clutching hard to one end of a
panther's hide. On one side, Torki, the champion of the Great Chieftain, victor
of a thousand such contests. On the other side stood MÃ¶rget, whose lips were
pulled back in a manic grin, the lower half of his face painted red in the
traditional colors of a berserker, though he was a full chieftain now, leader of
many clans.

Heaving, straining, gasping for breath in the
fumes of the coals, the two struggled, each trying to pull the other into the
coals. Every man and woman in the longhouse, every berserker and reaver of the
Great Chieftain, every wife and thrall of the gathered warriors, watched in
hushed expectation, each of them alone with their private thoughts, their
desperate hopes.

There was only one who dared to speak freely,
for such was always his right. Hurlind, the Great Chieftain's scold, was full of
wine and laughter. “You're slipping, MÃ¶rg's Get! Pull as you might, he's
dragging you. Why not let go, and save yourself from the fire? This is not a
game for striplings!”

“Silence,” MÃ¶rget hissed, from between clenched
teeth.

Yet his grin was faltering, for it was true.
Torki's grasp on the panther hide was like the grip of great tree roots on the
earth. His arms were locked at the elbows and with the full power of his body,
trained and toughened by the hard life of the steppes, he was pulling as
inexorably as the ocean tide. MÃ¶rget slid toward the coals a fraction of an inch
at a time, no matter how he dug his toes into the grit on the floor.

At the mead bench closest to the fire a reaver
of the Great Chieftain placed a sack of gold on the table and nudged his
neighbor, a chieftain of great honor. He pointed at Torki and the chieftain
nodded, then put his own money next to the reaver'sâthough as he did so he
glanced slyly at the Great Chieftain in his place of honor at the far end of the
table. Perhaps he worried that his overlord might take it askanceâafter all,
MÃ¶rget was the Great Chieftain's son.

The Great Chieftain did not see the wager,
however. His eyes never moved from the contest. MÃ¶rg, the man who had made a
nation of these people, the man who had seen every land in the world and
plundered every coast, father of multitudes, slayer of dragons, MÃ¶rg the Great
was ancient by the reckoning of the east. Forty-five winters had ground at his
bones. Only a little silver ran through the gold of his wild beard, however, and
no sign of dotage showed in his glinting eyes. He reached without looking for a
haunch of roasted meat. Tearing a generous piece free, he held it down toward
the mangy dog at his feet. The dog always ate first. It roused itself from sleep
just long enough to swallow the gobbet. When it was done, MÃ¶rg fed himself,
grease slicking down his chin and the front of his fur robes.

A great deal relied on which combatant let go
of the hide first. The destiny of the entire eastern people, the lives of
countless warriors were at stakeâand a debt of honor nearly two centuries old.
No onlooker could have said which of the warriors, his son or his champion, MÃ¶rg
favored.

Torki never made a sound. He did not appear to
move at allâhe might have been a marble statue. He had the marks of a reaver,
black crosses tattooed on the shaved skin behind his ears. One for every season
of pillaging he'd undertaken in the hills to the north. Enough crosses that they
ran down the back of his neck. Not a drop of sweat had showed yet on his
brow.

MÃ¶rget shifted his stance a hair breadth and
was nearly pulled into the fire. His teeth gnashed at the air as he fought to
regain his posture.

Nearby his sister, herself a chieftess of many
clans, stood ready with a flagon of wine mulled with sweet gale. MÃ¶rgain, as was
widely known, hated her brotherâhad done since infancy. No matter how hard she
fought to prove herself, no matter what glory she won in battle, MÃ¶rget had
always overshadowed her accomplishments. Letting him win this contest now would
be bitter as ashes in her mouth. Nor did she need to play the passive spectator
here. She could end it in a moment by splashing wine across the boards at
MÃ¶rget's feet. He would be unable to hold his ground on the slippery boards, and
Torki would win for a certainty.

“Sister,” MÃ¶rget howled, “set down that wine.
Do you not thirst for western blood, instead?”

MÃ¶rg raised one eyebrow, perhaps very much
interested in learning the answer to that question.

The chieftess laughed bitterly, and spat
between MÃ¶rget's feet. But then she hurled her flagon at the wall, where it
burst harmlessly, well clear of the contest. “I've tasted blood. I'd rather have
the westerners alive, as my thralls.”

“And you shall, as many of them as you desire,”
MÃ¶rget told her, his words bitten off before they left his mouth.

“And steel? Will you give me dwarven steel,
better than the iron my warriors wear now?”

“All that they can carry! Now, aid me!”

“I shall,” MÃ¶rgain said. “I'll pray for your
success!”

That was enough to break the general silence,
though only long enough for the gathered warriors to laugh uproariously and slap
each other on the back. The shadow of a smile even crossed Torki's lips. In the
east the clans had a saying:
pray with your back turned, so
that at least your enemies won't see your weakness
. The clans
worshipped only Death, and beseeching Her aid was rarely a good idea.

“Did you hear that, Torki?” Hurlind the scold
asked. “The Mother of us all pulls against you now. Better redouble your
grip!”

The champion's lips split open to show his
teeth. It was the first sign of emotion he'd given since the contest began.

And yet it was like some witch's spell had been
broken. Perhaps Deathâor some darker fateâdid smile on MÃ¶rget then. For suddenly
his arms flexed as if he'd found some strength he'd forgotten he had. He leaned
back, putting his weight into the pull.

Torki's smile melted all at once. His left foot
shifted an inch on the boards. It was not necessarily a fatal slip. Given a
moment's grace he could have recovered, locking his knees and reinforcing his
strength.

Yet MÃ¶rget did not give him that moment.
Everyone knew that MÃ¶rget, for all his size and strength, was faster than a
wildcat. He seized the opportunity and hauled Torki toward him until the balance
was broken and the champion toppled, sprawling face-first on the coals. Torki
screamed as the fire bit into his skin.

About the Author

D
AVID
C
HANDLER
was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1971. He attended Penn State and received an MFA in creative writing. In his alter-ego as David Wellington, he writes critically acclaimed and popular horror novels and was one of the co-authors of the
New York Times
bestseller
Marvel Zombies Return.
Den of Thieves
and
A Thief in the Night
will be followed by
Honor Among Thieves.

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Books by David Chandler

T
HE
A
NCIENT
B
LADES
T
RILOGY

Den of Thieves: Book One

A Thief in the Night: Book Two

C
OMING
S
OON

Honor Among Thieves: Book Three

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used
fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual
events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.

Cover art by Richard Jones

Excerpt from
Honor Among
Thieves
copyright Â© 2011 by David Wellington

A THIEF IN THE
NIGHT
. Copyright Â© 2011 by David Wellington. All rights reserved under
International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required
fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access
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in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form
or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter
invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

EPub Edition OCTOBER 2011 ISBN:
9780062096203

Print Edition ISBN: 9780062021250

FIRST
EDITION

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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