The axe came around a second time, whistling in the air. Croy parried again-Ghostcutter was faster than any axe, no matter how well made. The rider tried to grab at the knight with his injured arm, but his fingers wouldn’t close on Croy’s tabard. Croy stepped in even closer, well within range of the horse’s hooves. He had to finish this quickly. One good jab up into the barbarian’s chest did it, and he rolled away before the half-mad horse could trample him. The rider swayed over in his saddle and was dragged as the animal broke for the fields at the side of the road.
His men had the other two riders pinned but not wounded. The peasant soldiers had no idea how to use their weapons properly. Many of them were probably afraid to actually stab another human being. In another world, in a world the Lady ruled, Croy would have admired their gentility.
This was not that world. He grabbed at his own men and sent them sprawling in the dirt to make his way through their iron ring. The third rider smashed away bill blades with a boar spear and caught pike points on a buckler. He barely had time to notice Croy before Ghostcutter opened the long artery in his thigh. In a minute he would be dead from blood loss-Croy spun around and left him.
One more.
The fourth rider had managed to smash his way through a cordon of polearms. Two of Croy’s men lay in the dust, one with his chest crushed in by a horse’s kick, the other missing half his face from a sword cut. Croy could hear others behind him, wounded and moaning but alive, as the rider broke for the fields and escape.
“Don’t let him get away!” Croy shouted, but he knew he was talking to himself. His men rushed backward, away from the rider’s swinging weapon. In a moment the rider had spurred his horse and dashed off into the fields.
Croy saw the horse of the third rider nearby. The rider was dead in his saddle but hadn’t fallen off yet. He sprang up onto the horse’s back, knocking the rider out of the way with his elbow. The horse bucked and reared but Croy grabbed up the reins in his free hand and viciously kicked the frightened animal in the ribs.
He had his orders. He had to give chase.
Away from the road and the torches, the ground was a gray blur, the rider a smudge in the darkness. Croy could make out only his cloak fluttering behind him and the merest glint of light off his horse shoes as they flashed up again and again. Croy tried to stay hot on the heels of this last rider-as long as he stayed in the barbarian’s trail, his horse wouldn’t break a leg in some unseen mole hill or trip on a half-buried rock. He could hear the booming breath of both horses, hear his own heart beating, but that was all. Up ahead he saw an old barn, stars showing through a hole in its roof. The rider was headed straight for its open door. In the Lady’s name, why? Croy couldn’t guess.
He followed the rider right into the barn, however, and then jumped off the horse because he couldn’t see a thing inside-all was darkness. Was this the rider’s plan, to trap him in this shadowy place and escape while he flailed in the dark?
Apparently not. Croy felt wind on his face and just had time to stagger back as a sword came rushing past him. Maybe the barbarian could see better in the dark, though Croy doubted it. Maybe he thought his only chance was this invisible combat, deadly for both of them-the rider must have watched him dispatching his fellows and wanted to even the odds.
Croy held his breath. Ghostcutter bobbed slightly in his hand, with the rhythm of his heart.
The barbarian’s sword crashed into the armor covering his arm. A lucky blow-it cleaved through the leather joint between the steel plates of his rerebrace and his vambrace and sliced through the rough skin of Croy’s elbow. Had the barbarian been able to see better, and judge the blow more shrewdly, he could have taken half of his arm off with that strike. There was one thing the barbarian hadn’t counted on, though.
It was Croy’s left arm.
Pain seared through him, threatened to extinguish his senses, but he simply clamped his eyes tight shut and held his breath as he listened for the sound of his enemy’s feet moving on the floorboards. There.
Eyes closed, Croy visualized the barbarian’s sword, saw the arm that held it, the chest, the heart of the barbarian Ghostcutter lanced out point first and impaled the man, cleaving through the tight knot of muscle just to the left of the center of the chest.
The barbarian howled in agony, but not for long.
Croy pulled Ghostcutter free of the death wound. He dropped the Ancient Blade on the straw-covered floor of the barn. Dropped to his knees and grasped his wounded elbow.
He did not open his eyes until his men came to find him with their torches, and he saw, for the first time, the face of the man he’d killed.
Or rather, the woman. Her face was painted to the favor of a skull. She had been one of Morgain’s female warriors. Croy had never killed a woman before-not even in self-defense.
But he had his orders.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
I didn’t want this job, Malden thought. I never asked for it. Surely, this is Cutbill’s punishment upon me. Yet what did I do to him, ever? I worked in his employ, helped to make him rich.
Now he had to clean up the mess Cutbill had left behind.
Loophole had been one of the guildmaster’s favorites, one of his oldest cronies. He was well loved in the guild of thieves. If he was to hang, the guild would tear itself apart-the thieves would blame Malden for the oldster’s death, and they would remove him from office, in a rather pointed fashion.
Malden had no choice but to stop the hanging. He gestured for Velmont to follow him, then hurried out into the night.
The brazen doors of the Ladychapel stood open. Yellow light spilled out across its marble steps. Malden walked in to the smell of incense and the heat of braziers, and for a moment he was dizzy, his thoughts swirling in his head like a whirlpool.
At the altar, Pritchard Hood knelt with his hands clasped in prayer. A single priest dressed in green vestments stood behind the altar, hands lifted in supplication. Behind him a gilt cornucopia glared in the light of a hundred candles.
The air in the church was thick and still. Malden felt like he was wading through molten glass. He was barely aware of Velmont walking behind him.
Pritchard Hood did not stir as Malden approached. The priest stared at the thief, perhaps expecting Malden to desecrate these holy precincts. As bewildered and frightened as he was, Malden knew better than that. He did not know to what extent Hood truly was a zealot, or if he merely had taken up faith in the Lady as a shield, or as a political gambit. It didn’t matter. If he did something rash now-like spilling blood on the altar-he would have a thousand new enemies to contend with.
“Pritchard Hood,” he said.
The bailiff turned slowly, as if still lost in communion with his goddess.
Malden scowled. “You’ve taken an innocent old man.”
“I would hardly call Loophole innocent,” Hood said with a chuckle. “He’s one of the most infamous thieves in Skrae.”
“He’s an old man. He hasn’t stolen so much as a farthing from you or anyone in this city.” Malden crossed his arms in front of him, careful not to let his hand fall to the hilt of Acidtongue where it lay on his hip.
“He got his name by crawling through an arrowslit in the barracks building on Castle Hill. He stole money from the Burgrave’s men.”
“That was twenty years ago.”
Hood smiled, showing all his teeth. “The Lady never forgets evil done unto Her people. You would know that, Malden, if you had any religious instruction. Those who live good lives, by honest means, are rewarded by Her. Those who do evil are punished by Her servants in this world. Servants like me.”
Malden shook his head. “The Bloodgod’s justice is more to my liking. That comes to the poor man and the rich alike. All are judged and tortured for their sins in the pit of souls. Sadu needs no servants to wreak his vengeance for him.”