David Chandler - Den of Thieves: The Ancient Blades Trilogy: Book One

Den of Thieves

The Ancient Blades Trilogy:
Book One

David Chandler

For F.L., M.M., and R.E.H., the Grand Masters

Contents

Maldens Luck had Returned.

The doorway that had been jammed shut by the demons bulk collapsed in front of him, its stones shattered by the creatures thrashing. Suddenly the way back to the moonlit corridor was openand Malden was given a chance at survival.

He had nearly squandered it. Because even as the tower was collapsing over his head, when the stone was shrieking and roaring and smashing all around him, he had heard a voice calling him. A voice of authority that demanded respect. A voice that could have commanded nations.

Thief , the voice had said. And that was all. It had not been his ears that heard the voice, of that he was certain. Though it had sounded exactly like someone shouting just behind him, he knew the voice was inside his head.

He had turned away from escape and safety to see who had spoken. It was not the demonthe thing had no voice, and even if it could speak, it would not have sounded like that. It was a human voice. Which meant, absurd as it might sound, that it was the crown that spoke.

The simple golden coronet of the Burgrave.

N early one hundred thousand people lived in the Free City of Ness, stuffed like rats in a sack too small to contain them all. The city was less than a mile across and filled every cranny of the hill encircled by its high defensive wall. At midnight, seen from a hill two miles to the north, it was the only light in the nighttime landscape, a bright ember smoldering in the midst of dark fields that rolled to the horizon. It looked, frankly, like all it needed was one good gust of wind to stir it up into a great whoosh of flame.

Bikker grinned to see it, though he knew it was only a trick of perspective. He was a giant of a man with a wild, coarse beard and a magic sword on his belt. He did not know how the other two members of the cabal felt, but for himself, hed love to watch the Free City of Ness burn.

The lights he saw came from a thousand windows and the forges of a hundred workshops and manufactories. The city supplied the kingdom of Skrae with all the iron and steel it needed, most of the leather goods, and an endless river of spoons and buckles, as well as lanterns and combs made of horn. The guilds worked through the night, every night, filling the endless demand. Streamers of smoke rose from every chimney, rising like boiling columns of darkness that obliterated the stars, while half the windows in the city were illuminated by burning candles as an army of scribes, clerks, and accounters scratched at their ledger books.

On the near side of the river, gambling houses blazed with light, while whores marched up and down long avenues carrying lanterns to attract passersby. Half the city, it seemed, was still awake. Dyou suppose any of em know whats coming? Bikker asked.

For the sake of our scheme, I pray they do not, his employer said. Bikker had never seen the man. Even now the mastermind of the cabal was ensconced in a darkened carriage pulled by two white horses that pawed at the turf. The horses bore no brands or marks, and the driver wore no livery. The coach might have belonged to any number of fine housesall its insignia had been removed.

A slender white hand emerged from a window of the coach, holding a purse of gold by its strings. Bikker took the paymentthe latest of many suchand shoved it inside his chain mail shirt. For your sake, I advise sealed lips.

Dont worry, I can be discreet when I choose, Bikker said with a laugh. Though what a juicy tale I could tell! In a month the city will be torn in half, and the streets will be lined with the dead. How many lights do you think will show then? And no one will ever know what part I played in it all.

No, they will not, the third member of the cabal said. Bikker turned to face Hazoth, whose visage was covered in a thick veil of black crepe. As much as Bikker disliked this business of unseen associates, he supposed he was glad for that veil. It was not good to look on the naked face of a sorcerer. If you cannot maintain silence, I can enforce it on you. Dont forget your place. Your part in this is minimal.

Bikker shrugged. He knew that perfectly well. Hed been hired to perform a variety of small services, but mostly because he was probably the only person in the city who could stop these two, if he so chose. When hed agreed to meet with themand then agreed to their tentative, secretive offertheyd been comically grateful. His reputation preceded him, and they didnt dare offend his vanity. But they never truly let him forget that he was their lackey. I do what Im told... when Im paid. Gold has a way of stifling the tongue. I know better than to ask of him, Bikker said, jutting one thumb toward the occupant of the coach, but what are you getting out of this, wizard? What could he pay you that you cant just magic up on your own?

Ive agreed to turn a blind eye to Hazoths... experiments, the coachs occupant said, once I rule the city. Does that trouble you?

There had been a time when that would have given Bikker pause, indeed. Sorcerers could be dangerous. Hazoth stank of brimstone and the pit, and he was capable of things mortal men should never try. Sometimes sorcerers made mistakes and the whole world paid. The sword at Bikkers side was a testament to how high the price had once beenit was sworn to the defense of the realm against the demons a sorcerer could summon up but couldnt always control.

Thered been a time when Bikker was sworn to that same defense. But the world had changed. Times had changed. He too had changed. Any belief hed had in nobility or service was ground down by a mill wheel that moved very slowly, but never stopped. Once, hed been a champion of humankind.

Now he only shrugged. He peered down at the city. From here, it might have been a nest of termites clambering over themselves and their dung heap. Slaughter em all. Feed em to your pets, Hazoth, if you like! By then Ill be far enough away not to care.

Indeed. The gold in that purse will take you far. And there is more to come, once you have fulfilled your part of our design. You know the next step?

Oh, aye, Bikker said. He spat in the direction of the city as if he would put out all those fires with one gob. Next thing to do is find our unwitting fourth. A fool was required, someone who would have no idea what he was doing. Without such a pawn, the plan could go nowhere. I need to scare us up a thief.

Part I
A Thiefs Ransom

T here were evil little things skulking in the shadows, their eyes very bright in the gloom. In every burned-out shell of an old house, Malden could hear their tiny footsteps and the occasional whisper. No lights at all showed in this part of town, and the fog hid both moon and stars. The lantern Malden carried could paint a crumbling wall with yellow light, or show him where the cobblestones had been pried up and deep pools of mud awaited an unwary step. It could not, however, pierce the darkness that coiled inside the ruined houses and stables, nor show who was watching him so intently.

He didnt like this.

He didnt like the time of the meeting, an hour past midnight. He did not like the location: down by the wall, near the river gate, in the wasteland called the Ashes. In the same year he was born this whole district had been consumed by the Seven Day Fire. Because the doss-houses and knackeries down here belonged to the poorest of the poor, no effort was made since then to rebuild or even to tear down the gutted remains. No one lived here if they had any choice, and the Ashes had been abandoned to decay. Now limp weeds were sprouting from between the forgotten cobbles, while vines strangled the fallen roof timbers or slowly chewed on the ancient smoke-damaged bricks. Eventually nature would reclaim this zone entirely, and Malden, who had never set foot outside the city since he was born, found this distinctly uncomfortablethe concept that part of the city itself, which was his whole notion of permanence, could rot and die and be effaced.