Den of thieves abt-1

by David Chandler

  In Malden’s world-the world he’d been seeing ever since Cutbill opened his eyes-people like himself were prisoners, caught inside bars of poverty. And people like Croy were the gaolers who made sure they never got out. The Lady, the goddess Croy worshipped so fervently, was the warden who assigned each inmate to his given cell-and made sure they could never, ever escape.

  He wanted to slap the knight across the face, or perhaps just call him names. That, of course, could have been dangerous. Yet he couldn’t just let his anger go. Croy had been quietly disapproving of his life ever since they had met. It was time to show Croy what the real world was like. “Come. I wish to show you something.”

  He didn’t have time for this, not really. But the knight had rubbed his nerves raw, and he wanted to rub reality in the fool’s face for once. He took him down to the bottom of Midden Lane, where the gleaners labored.

  A city the size of Ness generates a mountain of dross every day. Though the citizens never threw out anything that could be cleaned out and reused, still they created junk by the wagonload-after all, wood eventually rots, iron rusts, and eggshells and fish bones are only good for so much. The city’s moldy vegetables, broken bottles, and the unusable parts of pig and cow carcasses were collected once a week and piled up in great mounds in Hunnicart Yard. It was a great rotting tower of filth, a palace of decomposition, and the smell rivaled anything the tanner’s yards up in the Smoke could generate. The heap of it glistened in the sun, the ugly rainbow sheen of rancid grease.

  And on top of it whole families were employed.

  The work of the gleaners there was never done. Old men in smocks, matronly women with forearms like pestles, even their scrawny children, all worked the mounds, up to their thighs in ordure, flies thick on their backs as freckles. They dug through the middens with their bare hands, searching for any bit of bone that could be carved into a spoon, any torn and soiled rag that could be shredded for its fibers and used to make paper. There were legends of the gleaners, of the ones who found gold coins in the trash, of the gleaner who pulled a magic spear from the bottom of the pile where it had laid for a thousand years, and used it to slay a giant who threatened the city. If the teller of the tale were leaning over a fire for effect, and trying for maximum realism, he would tell of human bodies found at the bottom of the heaps, still moving feebly and begging for help, and what the gleaners did to make sure the watch never came around asking questions.

  A wooden palisade ringed the middens, a high fence hammered together from scrap lumber useful for no other purpose. Dogs barked just inside, ready to attack any intruder, and a guard with a cudgel stood at its gate, overseeing the carts that came down the lane laden with garbage. The guard eyed the thief and the knight warily, as if he expected them to break in and steal all the trash in broad daylight. Probably because sometimes thieves tried just that.

  “These people are among the hardest workers in the city,” Malden said as Croy stared in horror. “They toil in shifts to make sure nothing is missed. Their bodies are riddled with plague and disease, they eat nothing but thin pottage, and they die years younger than their fellows, because they breathe nothing but foul vapors. They toil in the heat of summer, and when winter comes they shovel the snow off those heaps and sort through the offal wearing fingerless gloves. They don’t do this for glory, or honor, or love or justice. They do it so they can eat for one more day.”

  “That’s terrible, Malden,” Croy said. “I never knew. Are they slaves that do this work? I thought there were no slaves in Ness.”

  “There aren’t. No one compels them to this life. In fact-the gleaners have a patent from the Burgrave that gives them sole right to do this. If you or I were to wade in there and start looking for treasures in the trash, they would drive us off with clubs and thrown stones. They kill anyone who tries to encroach on their livelihood. Generations of men have worked these heaps-when a father dies, he passes down his writ of patent to his sons, who are glad to have it, for they know they’ll be able to feed their children.”

  “So they have pride in their work,” Croy said, lifting his chin. “I find that admirable.”

  Malden shook his head. “Don’t you understand what I’m trying to tell you? There is competition for this. There are people willing to risk their lives to sneak in here in the middle of the night and sort through rusted nails and the guts of slaughtered chickens. Because their own lives are that much worse.”

  Croy was silent for a moment. Then he said, “The Lady gives each of us our lot in life, and her abundance sustains us all. This I believe, and this I live.”

  Was he quoting from some missal? Malden had never listened to the blandishments of the Lady’s priests. Not since he’d realized that Her teachings gave an excuse why rich men should always be rich, and the poor shouldn’t try to rise above their stations. Like most in the Stink, whatever religious feeling he possessed was directed toward the Bloodgod, who promised equal justice for all, if only after death.

  “You’ll never understand, will you? I can’t make you see it. Enough. Let us find our bravos and be done. Perhaps you can be of some little use by pointing out which of them are likely to last the longest against Bikker’s sword.”

  Malden hurried away-the prospect of the middens never gave him any joy, nor did he wish to linger in that disease-haunted place.

  “Hold,” Croy said. “If it’s strong arms you need, perhaps I have a better idea.”

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  The river Skrait was the Free City’s lifeblood. It flowed through every district of Ness and was used by every citizen. Where it entered the city in Swampwall it flowed clean and pure, and its water went right into cookpots or horse troughs. As it flowed east it became a dumping ground for refuse too liquid for even the gleaners to cart away. After it bent around Castle Hill it supplied the great manufactories of the Smoke, and then washed away the poisons and the waste products of those workshops. Finally, where it widened out at Eastpool a whole flotilla of fishing boats rode its current out to the sea, some miles off, and then rode it back in the evening, rowing against its flow. Ness owed half its prosperity to the mighty river Skrait, and it had always been counted one of the city’s best assets.

  Yet for one Burgrave in the city’s youth, it must have seemed the city’s greatest weakness as well. Where it entered the city on its western end it was open to the world outside. An invading army could send war galleys up the Skrait to attack Castle Hill, or fireships to set the city ablaze. To plug that gap, said erstwhile Burgrave had extended the city wall across the course of the river and forced the Skrait through a pipe no more than ten feet across.

  He had not consulted with any dwarven engineers before embarking on this great public work. Had he, they might have told him that narrowing the Skrait where it entered the wall would cause it to flood its banks once it came inside. A wide swath of the lowest section of the city was deluged in the weeks following the pipe’s construction, and no one had been able to drain it since.

  No man or woman lived in Swampwall anymore. Ferns and tall grasses and willow shrubs had taken over the streets, and only the weathered foundations and a few walls of the old houses remained, sticking up through the shimmering plant life. Here and there a bit of old architecture could be discerned-a listing chimney toppling in slow motion toward a pond, a horse rail sticking up from a pool of mud. As Malden-at Croy’s behest-picked his way down the muddy slope into the swamp, he followed the remains of a cobblestone street, the old stones worn as smooth as glass under three inches of stagnant water. There was plenty there to be dragged away and refurbished, yet Swampwall had been left alone far more than the Ashes had. Malden could see why. “This place breathes with fever,” he said, sneering as his shoe was sucked down into black goo. “And the flies-Bloodgod take these flies!”

  “It’s farther down than I thought,” Croy said, frowning at the expanse of fen before them. “The last time I was down here I came on horseback. Still, it’s just over ther
e.”

  “What is just over there?” Malden demanded. Croy was pointing to a low point in the swamp, where reeds as tall as houses shimmered in the sun.

  “You’ll see.”

  Otters plunked down under the water and crabs scuttled away from their feet as the two men clambered into the muck. It never got past Malden’s ankles but clung to him like the hands of dead men in a haunted graveyard. He sloshed noisily through the water and pushed at the reeds with his hands, trying to make a path.

  “This is your revenge, isn’t it?” he demanded. “You don’t like the way I talk to you, as if we were equals. So you bring me down here to remind me I’m the lowest of the low.”

  “Hardly! I only think-” Croy stopped speaking to pull his boot out of the mud. He had to bend down and get his back into it, and he winced at the pain as his wound grieved him. “I only think that if I told you what we were looking for, you would insist that we run away.”

  “Ah. So you think I lack courage,” Malden said. He drew his bodkin and tried to slash at the reeds but they just bent away from the sharp point. For the first time all day he wished he’d let Croy bring his swords.

  “No,” Croy said. “No, I’ve seen you be brave. It’s just-well.” He pushed a stand of reeds down so Malden could see their destination. “Here we are.”

  They had arrived at the pipe itself. Its entrance was flush with the Swampwall, which rose up before them toward the sky, its face hidden by generations of creepers. The pipe’s bottom was buried in the murk, but it made an arch taller than a man. Sunlight streamed inside its length but only penetrated a few dozen feet before it was lost in perfect gloom.

  Malden leaned into the pipe and smelled foul air. Water dripped from the curved ceiling and echoed like drumbeats as it fell into the turbid water below. The bricks that formed the side of the pipe were rotten to the touch and thick with niter.

  “In there?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Croy said. “If he’s at home.”

  “I’ve heard… stories. I think maybe we should run away after all.”

  Croy strode into the pipe, the sloshing of his steps like thunder crashes. “I thought you might. Come-if you dare.”

  Malden followed, not wanting to be thought a coward. He was ready to dash back out of the pipe at the first sign of danger, though. Children in the Free City of Ness knew what was inside that pipe, even if the adults claimed it was just a tale. Growing up, he had learned not to believe. Now he wasn’t so sure.

  Before coming down to Swampwall, Croy had stopped in a chandler’s shop and bought a pair of candles still strung together by their wicks. Now he cut them apart with his belt knife and lit one with his tinderbox. The flickering light did little to alleviate the pipe’s gloom, but it gave Malden something to follow.

  Underfoot, the water was moving at a steady rate, pushing Malden’s feet backward as he tried to slog forward. It was hard work just to stand up. If anything, the current grew stronger the farther in they went.

  Ahead, the pipe curved to the left and Croy followed, putting one hand against the bricks to steady himself. Malden hauled himself along with both hands and kept up as best he could. Around the curve they saw that bars had been embedded in the pipe’s walls, forming a natural fence against anyone so foolish as to try to come into the city from the river beyond. Detritus and bones-animal bones-had built up into a thick scurf at the base of the grating, so the water crested as it flowed over and around the debris. It plashed as it came and made it impossible to hear anything, and it took a while for Malden to realize that Croy was talking to him.

  “-not here, I’m afraid,” the knight repeated. “Have to-back later-”

  Malden nodded in agreement and turned to rush out of the pipe, glad to have an excuse to leave. He hurried around the curve, the current pushing him along faster than he could run on his own-and then tripped and fell to all fours in the water.

  His heart thudded painfully in his chest and he couldn’t breathe.

  At the exit from the pipe, not more than fifty feet ahead, a massive figure was silhouetted against the incoming sunlight. Malden could make out few details but he was sure it was far too big to be human.

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Malden looked to right and left, but there was nowhere to go. The grating behind him blocked that route of escape, and the monstrous thing at the mouth of the tunnel would surely catch him if he tried to run past it. He reached for his bodkin but didn’t dare draw it-what use would it be against this massive beast?

  At his side, Croy peered ahead toward the light, shielding his eyes with one hand. He said something, but in the roar of the water Malden couldn’t hear him at all. The knight lowered his hand, then shouted some kind of strangled war cry “Gurrh!”

  — and dashed forward, right at the beast, which lifted its arms as if to crush him in a vicious embrace. For the first time Malden saw it was holding something huge, like a tree branch or a stone club.

  Pressing himself up against the mineral-stained wall of the tunnel, he closed his eyes, dreading the inevitable crunch as Croy’s bones were shattered inside his body. The fool didn’t even have his swords.

  But the sound he heard next, amplified and distorted by the weird acoustics of the tunnel, was a joyful one. It was the sound of booming laughter and astonishment, the noise of old fellows well met.

  Malden opened his eyes and saw the most surprising thing he would encounter that day. Croy and the beast were clasping hands and japing with each other.

  “Malden,” Croy said, “come out already. Come and meet my old friend, Gurrh.”

  Malden staggered forward, pushed by the current, and stepped out into the light beyond the pipe’s mouth. He got his first good look at the monster and nearly soiled his breeches, even if it was a friend of Croy’s.

  It stood eight feet tall and had the same general shape as a man, though it was far broader and its muscles were as big as those of a horse. It was covered from crown to sole in coarse black fur, matted with grease, and stinking of death. Only a small patch of skin, from nose to forehead, was exposed, and that was as white as the corpse of a dwarf. Its eyes, while merry, were the size of saucers, and its nose was crooked and bent to one side. On its forehead and around its eyes were inscribed some ancient runes.

  The thing it held, which Malden had thought was a club, was in fact the carcass of a river otter missing its head. From the look of the stump, the beast had already gnawed the head off, perhaps by way of breaking its fast.

  “Thou,” the creature said, with a deep, rasping voice, “art a friend of Sir Croy?” It stuck out its free hand. “Then in the Lady’s name thou art well come into my home, gentle. I am called Gurrh; a common sort of calling amongst my clan.”

  The clan of ogres, Malden thought. This creature, with its honeyed words, was an ogre. There could be no doubt. Tentatively he placed his own hand inside the palm of the giant. The ogre took it carefully and shook it gently.

  “But… how?” Malden asked.

  He might not know many of the details of Skrae’s history, but he had the broad outlines down pat. He knew that when his ancestors came over from the Old Empire they found this continent already occupied by the elves and the dwarves. Centuries of warfare had been necessary to clear the land for human habitation-bitter centuries, when the likes of Hazoth scorched whole mountains from the face of the world and dug out broad valleys with their magic, when the seven Ancient Blades were forged to fight the demons that roamed the night. At the end of that hellish time, the elves had found themselves unable to resist the onrushing wave of human might. They made pacts with their own ancestral enemies for aid-the goblins, the trolls, and, most fearsome of all, the ogres. The hairy giants were unstoppable in battle, it was said, their tough hides proof against iron blades and axes. They were able to catch arrows out of the air and throw them back at the archers, or to simply pick up human warriors and pull them to pieces with their bare hands.

  He had believed that ogre
s were gone from the world. They had fought tirelessly, but the elves who commanded them were driven from existence, betrayed by the dwarves they’d once considered their allies. The dwarves had always been practical folk, and knew when to make a treaty with humankind and call it a day. The ogres had been too disorganized to keep fighting on their own. The wizards of that time slaughtered them remorselessly, hunting them down wherever they hid, until none were left. Oh, there were stories of survivals, of individual monsters still roaming the wild parts of the woods, but those were just stories. No one believed them.

  “I thought the ogres were as dead as the elves,” he said.

  “Wherefore hath I survived, when all others like unto this favor hath vanished, as smoke into the air?” Gurrh asked. “When at last the killing was done, when the age of man had come, some few of us did still live. The merciful king Theobalt-may the Lady hold him to her ever-abundant bosom-came unto that wretched scattering and bade us bow at his feet. Many there were who refused, and rose up, and were slaughtered in their turn. Yet not all.”

  “He swore an oath of loyalty to the crown,” Croy explained. “He was given a pardon for all past crimes, under the condition that he would serve the king whenever he was called upon. He took the Lady into his heart and was given a place to live. Here.”

  “And the Burgrave knows he’s here? And hasn’t sent pikemen and priests to roust him?” Malden asked. “No offense meant, Sir Ogre,” he added, looking up into the giant’s face. The ogre smiled, showing a double row of huge peg-shaped teeth.

  Croy clapped Malden on the back. “He had a royal pardon. The Burgrave had to respect that. Nor would he evict Gurrh if he could. My friend here does a great service to the city, by keeping the pipe clean and making sure the Skrait flows unchecked into the city. Should any spy or sapper try to come in through the pipe, Gurrh would be here to stop them. He keeps to himself down here in the swamp, living on the wildlife, and shuns human society. Every month or so an envoy is sent down from the palace to check up on him and make sure he has what he needs.”