He could say no more, only watch as Cythera moved her quill to dip it in the ink pot—
—and flinched as a scream came up from the room below. Her hand jumped and she knocked the ink pot over, spilling ink across the table.
“What was that?” she asked, lifting the parchment away from the expanding pool of ink. “Did everyone hear that?”
“It was nothing but men carousing,” Coruth insisted. “Sign, now. I’m hungry.”
“I could have sworn it was—”
Cythera did not have a chance to finish her thought, because just then something hit one of the walls of the tavern hard enough to make the entire building shake. A candle fell from a sconce on one wall. Luckily, Malden was quick enough to grab it before it could land on the floor rushes and set the place ablaze.
The sound they heard next was even more startling—booming laughter from below, the sound, surely, of a demon exulting over deadly mischief. It was followed by the sound of a man crying out in dire pain. There was no more singing from below, no sound of clinking tankards or muttered jokes.
Suddenly everyone in the room was looking right at Croy. Croy, who had sworn an oath to protect the people of Skrae. They were looking to him, he knew, for an explanation of the noise. Well they should, he thought. As a knight of the king, it was his sworn duty to keep the king’s peace—which, by the sound of it, was being violated most egregiously in the room below.
If he were truly honest Croy had never been so grateful for a distraction in his life. “I should go investigate that,” he announced. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.” He was already headed down the stairs.
CHAPTER SIX
A flying tankard full of beer nearly struck Croy’s face as he hurried down the stairs. He dodged and let it smash messily against the wall. Leaping down the last few steps, he pushed his way into a throng of people in the common room, all but a few of whom were trying desperately to get out. Some hurried up the stairs, some rushed for the door or ran toward the kitchens. For a moment even Croy had trouble swimming against the tide of panicked humanity—but then, suddenly, the room was cleared, and he was standing alone.
Alone save for a barbarian in a wolf fur cloak, and the six bravos who had stayed to fight him.
The bravos were of the ordinary sort who haunted every tavern in the city, men of Ness who were good with a blade or a club but lacked any other trade. When they found work it was as bodyguards or hired thugs, but they spent most of their time drinking, gambling, and whoring. They dressed to intimidate, in boiled leather or in black cloaks, and they went everywhere armed. The six facing the barbarian carried knives as long as their forearms. Illegal, of course, but easily concealed. One—obviously the smartest of the lot—had a buckler on his left wrist. They had formed a rough semi-circle before the barbarian, and were edging back and forth, trying to get behind him.
Their opponent stood head and shoulders taller than any of them. His head was shorn down to mere stubble and the lower half of his face was painted red as if he’d been drinking blood. Under that paint huge white teeth showed, for he was smiling. Beaming. He was either very drunk or very confident.
Croy flicked his eyes to the side to learn how this had started. He saw a man slumped against a cracked wooden pillar behind the barbarian. That accounted for the great crash Croy had heard, which shook the tavern like an earthquake. He was certain the column had not been cracked when he came into this place earlier.
The barbarian reached up and unlaced the front of his cloak. Pushing it away from his shoulders he revealed rippling muscle beneath—as well as a small arsenal of weaponry. A sword hung from his belt, reaching near his ankle. A cruel-bladed bearded axe hung at his other side. Knives were tied to his upper arms and a mace dangled on a thong at the back of his hip. He reached for the axe, first.
One of the bravos danced forward, knife slashing up from a low start. It was a good strike, timed perfectly. The barbarian brought up one massive forearm and took the cut on the back of his wrist. Blood ran down toward his elbow. Before the bravo could finish his swing, the axe came around in a powerful swing that carved right through the bravo’s leather pauldron and sheared off half his bicep. The bravo howled and spun away from the mêlée.
One of his fellows tried to duck low under the axe and get a knife point into the barbarian’s ribs, but the barbarian stepped aside at the perfect moment and the knife missed him entirely. The axe swung back and the end of its haft came down hard enough to crack the attacker’s skull. As the bravo fell the barbarian kicked his insensate body away, so as not to tangle his footing.
The man was fast, and exceeding strong, Croy saw. He would make short work of his six assailants if he wasn’t stopped. Rushing forward with his hands held high, Croy called, “Fellows, good men all, stop this now, let us converse, and see if—”
His words were lost in the noise as the barbarian’s mace—held in his presumably weaker left hand—caught a third bravo in the stomach and sent him sprawling across the room. The injured man screamed with a horrible wet sound that suggested half his innards had just been ruptured.
The remaining three all rushed the barbarian at once, their knives flashing high. The one with the buckler took a mace blow perfectly, catching it on the small shield and knocking it backward toward the barbarian’s face. The barbarian took a step backward, surprised at this resistance—the first real challenge he’d met—and another bravo took the opportunity to lunge forward with his knife and prick the barbarian’s chest. The barbarian howled and brought his axe around to slice off his foeman’s cheek. The axe was red with blood when it came back around, whirling in its master’s hand. Continuing his swing, the barbarian brought it behind his back and embedded it deep in the buckler, splitting the wooden shield and the wrist that held it. Two more bodies struck the floor.
Croy felt no fear at watching this spectacle of gore. He had trained himself, over the course of many years, to ride the wave of giddiness that threatened to freeze him to the spot. He took another step forward and raised his hands again for attention. “Stop this. Now,” he said.
“Just a moment,” the barbarian said. Then he swung around on one foot, his mace whistling through the air. The final bravo had edged around behind him and was about to stab him in the back. Instead the mace shattered the bones of his forearm and he dropped the weapon. For a moment he stared at his hand dangling at the end of a crushed arm, and then he began to scream.
There was no other sound in the room. The air seemed to hang perfectly still, as if it had turned to glass and held every object secure in its place. Croy felt rooted to the spot, unable to move an inch.
It was no magic spell that made Croy feel that way, but the simple focus of battle joined. It was clear this barbarian would not surrender without a fight. Based on what little Croy knew of his people, that was no surprise. The barbarians of the eastern steppes were born warriors all—they spent their entire lives hunting and fighting, and they were renowned for their pure bloody courage. Only a thin range of mountains separated their land from the kingdom of Skrae, but that fluke of geography was a true blessing. If the barbarians ever came to Skrae in pursuit of conquest, even Croy doubted the kingdom could stand for long against them.
Now he was face to face with a perfect specimen of that warrior culture, and he didn’t know if he could prevail.
“I believe you wished to say something,” the barbarian said. His lips drew back in what might have been a friendly grin—if the posture of his body and the set of his muscles didn’t suggest he was about to spring forward in a deadly attack.
Croy scowled and drew his sword. He had trained for fighting, himself. He had made a study of taking down opponents like this. He considered his strategy in the moments he had left before the attack came. He could parry the axe, he knew, if he used a cross slash