Vaster Golt dug his fingers into the underside of the gutter and heaved himself onto the roof of the Hirger family’s estate. Overhead loomed Nizwel’s central monument, a blocky pillar some past mayor had commissioned in a lofty attempt to mimic the Spiral Tower that sat in the centre of Kasvaun. As a tribute, it failed miserably; the solid steelstone was too heavy to stay upright on the cracked ground at its base and now leaned towards the gibbous moon like a drunk peering down a barmaid’s shirt.
Already on the rooftop, Gedwen waited in a crouch, her pale skin gleaming in the moonlight and her fair hair swept into a knot at the nape of her neck. A year or so younger than Vaster at seventeen, she carried herself like a dancer even with her lithe body hidden by a thick cloak similar to Vaster’s and her feet clad in worn leather shoes sturdy enough not to let the rain through.
Her serious eyes were fixed on the northwest courtyard. “Can’t see any runes on the outside.”
“They wouldn’t be there.” The house was more solid than the rotting shacks that filled the part of the city that he was most familiar with, but ordinary stone couldn’t hold an inscription for long. No, the true defences would be on the inside.
Gedwen huffed. “There were runes on the outer wall, though. Hope those scrabblers keeping watch aren’t fool enough to try to follow us.”
“They’ll learn.” Harsh, maybe, but most of the others Svolger had chosen for the mission were newcomers to the Steel Spiders keen to prove themselves to their new master. The sooner someone lifted the veil from their eyes the better, and falling afoul of whatever defences the Hirgers’ hired Scribe had etched onto their property would be nothing compared to the punishment Svolger would inflict upon them for disobeying a direct order.
Vaster and Gedwen had, of course, found a way around those defences, by the laughably simple measure of scaling a nearby tree.
“Or they’ll trip an alarm and get us all thrown into the Pit.”
“You’re in a cheery mood tonight.” To Vaster, not even Gedwen’s pessimism could dampen the gratification at being offered a real challenge, and one that didn’t involve crawling through sewage tunnels. Not yet, anyway.
Gedwen hissed between her teeth. “Doesn’t it bother you that he gave us both runestones? What manner of obstacles does he think we’re likely to run into?”
“The sort that require stealth.” One stone they’d each been given was inscribed with a rune that would dampen the sound of their footsteps, lessening the odds that a wandering servant would discover their entry. “And that promise a high reward.”
“As if Svolger would ever let us keep any of it.”
“He might.” He wouldn’t, but Vaster wanted to draw out the part of her that embraced the upcoming challenge and revelled in both the thrill of skirting the edge of danger and the prospect of ending the night with their limbs entangled in his bunk at the Steel Spiders’ base.
Peering over the darkened courtyard, he picked out the closed door through which they might enter and followed the roof to a promising patch of bushes nestled beneath.
“I hope Vanfeld was right when he told us the vault was under the drawing room,” Gedwen muttered as she followed him. “We don’t need to spend hours stumbling around in the dark.”
“Trust me, it’s in there.” Vaster couldn’t explain how he knew. Something in the runes drew him, always had, and the runes etched into the Hirger family’s vault vibrated beneath his skin like the thrum of a harpist’s string.
After checking for watchful eyes at the windows, he and Gedwen pushed off the roof and landed in the soft tangle of bushes. The stealth runestones dampened the rustle of leaves as they crept out of the greenery and made their cautious way towards the door. A simple lockpick was sufficient to gain entry.
We’re in. Vaster had to shake his head at the Hirgers’ carelessness. Yes, the family would have assumed any intruders would fall afoul of the traps inscribed upon the exterior wall, but any thief with half a brain would have been able to evade them with a little thought. Then again, the nobles’ wealth was matched only by their arrogance.
No torches were lit inside, and while he carried a stone engraved with a light rune in his pocket, the bright glare risked exposing them to anyone who might be roaming the house at this late hour. Instead, he trailed his fingers along the stone wall, following the vibration that told him they were heading the right way. Gedwen’s harsh breathing indicated that she dearly wanted to ask him how he knew they were following the path to the vault and not lost in some unknown corridor in the maze of the Hirger estate.
Really, it was a waste for one small family to occupy such a large space; the Steel Spiders’ entire scrabble-house could fit into a single corner and leave room for more.
The runes’ presence vibrated sharp and strong, prompting him to reach into the pocket of his coat and withdraw the wad of fabric that concealed the light runestone. With careful fingers, he adjusted the fabric to expose a thin stream of light that showed enough of the corridor for him to make out the outline of the vault. As he’d suspected, the door was solid steelstone with runes etched deep into the surface.
Gedwen’s warm hand enclosed the fabric in his palm, plunging them into darkness again. Her breath was a feather touch against his ear. “Put that away.”
“My sight isn’t good enough to read in total darkness,” he murmured back. He’d recognised some of the runes carved into the door but not all, and the last thing they needed to do was touch a rune designed to alert the family to trespassers and set off a blaring alarm throughout the house. Even their stealth runestones wouldn’t dampen that racket.
Gedwen didn’t utter an argument, so he risked exposing the beam of light to examine the door. Standard runes, mostly, but there were a few he didn’t know and that he suspected would make a cacophony of noise if either of them so much as brushed against the surface. It took a great deal of practise for a Scribe not to accidentally trigger the rune with their own hand upon its completion.
This time reaching into his leftmost pocket rather than the right, Vaster palmed the small bottle containing some of Svolger’s most valuable concoction. Meltmetal, or Scribes’ Tears, as it was colloquially known, would render every rune etched upon the door as useless as a child’s scrawl on a scrap of paper.
In Nizwel, Svolger controlled what little trade in the rare substance existed, and that he’d trusted Vaster with even a small bottle like this one proved that whatever lay in the vault must be valuable beyond compare. Excitement tasted sharp on his tongue as he carefully tilted the bottle to spill some of the concoction upon the exposed stone. The liquid would cause less damage than the runes but caused an unpleasant itch when applied to bare skin.
As he watched, silver-blue liquid seeped over the runes and ate into the steelstone beneath, turning the intricate symbols into a ragged mess. Once he was sure every rune was obscured, Vaster reached for his lockpick.
A satisfying click accompanied the vault’s opening. Fighting a smile, he beckoned Gedwen after him.
The vault door closed on their heels. Gedwen swore softly when he exposed the glowing stone to show them the tunnel beyond, lined with gleaming markings on the walls. “The whole scuffing tunnel is carved from steelstone?”
“I thought so.” The vibration had been too strong to have come from the door alone and had not ceased upon the runes’ erasure, but he hadn’t thought even a prestigious family like the Hirgers would be able to afford this much of the substance that made up the walls encircling Nizwel’s boundary. Strong walls inscribed with runes were necessary to keep the Forest of Stone from devouring Nizwel as it had so many other towns and cities across Yodren, but as a deterrent for a pair of skinny teenage thieves, this seemed excessive.
“We don’t have enough meltmetal for this.”
“Then we’ll have to watch where we tread.” Strange, perhaps, that he felt no fear, but the runes’ vibration coupled with the adrenaline racing through his veins left little room for anything but excitement at the prospect of thwarting this trap-laden corridor to gain the prize at the end. A prize that wasn’t theirs to claim, but to him, the challenge was reward enough on its own.
Gedwen growled under her breath. “If I trip, I’m taking you down with me.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything less.”
She wouldn’t fall. Her balance was matched only by her aim, two facts Svolger had doubtless noted when he’d watched her knife-throwing act at a travelling circus doing the rounds of Nizwel during one long winter when the ground had frozen beneath their feet and the Pit had become a death sentence. Her first night in the scrabble-house, he’d caught her trying to flee, and when he’d pulled her back in to spare her that fate, she’d broken two of his fingers. It set the tone for how matters had progressed between them: two blades striking one another with enough impact to conjure sparks. They fought as hard as they fucked, but her companionship was a welcome diversion in a life that came with precious few pleasures.
Moving on careful feet, they followed the tunnel’s sloping path. The runes were intermittent at first, easy to avoid with a combination of the light rune and the ever-present vibration beneath Vaster’s skin, but soon, they grew more complex, a web of intertwining symbols that must have taken hours for their hired Scribe to engrave.
The runes came to an abrupt halt at the base of another steelstone door ahead of them, etched with as many runes as the exterior one.
“Shit.” Gedwen slowed. “Is the real vault behind there?”
Curse those Scribes. They’d already used more than half the bottle of meltmetal getting this far. “I’d say yes.”
Some runes carved into the door were familiar to him, others less so. He reached into his pocket and found a scrap of torn paper that would be enough for a test. Balling it up in his hand, he took aim at the door.
The runes’ power came to life in a bright blue flare, catching the projectile mid-throw. The balled-up paper crisped around the edges as if placed too close to a candle flame. Heat rune. The door would burn hot enough to blister any skin that touched the surface. Clever.
Vaster stilled at the muffled but distinct creak of a door opening. Someone else had entered the vault.
He met Gedwen’s eyes, saw the restrained panic give way to disbelief. A young woman dressed in a thin lace shift had entered the corridor, her moon-pale face surrounded by a halo of red hair. Upon seeing them, she let out a shrill cry. “Thieves!”
He hastened to cover the light rune, but too late. A gong-like sound rang out, echoing down the tunnel and into the house beyond.
“Shut up,” Gedwen hissed. “Vaster, put the light out. We need to stop that noise.”
I know. He uncovered the light rune enough to reveal the girl huddled at the vault’s entrance, clutching the blaring stone in one hand. The other gripped a gleaming metal spike, carefully filed into a sharp point. A runespike. A jolt sang through Vaster’s nerves, a rush of reckless excitement tempered by the grim knowledge that the noise would have awakened everyone on the property.
“Svolger didn’t mention they had a fucking Scribe.”
“No,” Gedwen said in a low voice. “He didn’t.”
His street instincts urged him to get out, while hard-earned lessons told him to follow Svolger’s orders to the last. And that new sensation, the heady thrill of finally encountering a true runespike with his own eyes, enticed him to stay and see its effects for himself.
Gedwen made the decision for him. She approached the girl, her feet treading amid the runes etched on the floor but never triggering one, a hand reaching for one of the twin knives sheathed at her waist. The blade arced through the air, its hilt knocking the stone out of the girl’s hands and sending it clattering a short distance down the tunnel. The alarm ceased, and Vaster allowed himself a moment of admiration for Gedwen’s skill.
The girl flinched, but she didn’t flee the vault, as he might have expected. “You’re robbing us, aren’t you?”
“No, we’re having a picnic.” At an exasperated glare from Gedwen, he fixed on a glare. “Obviously we’re robbing you.”
“Not if I stop you first.” The girl’s voice trembled, but she spoke with a surprising level of control as she reached down to retrieve the stone.
Gedwen lifted her second dagger in warning. “Get out, kid. Or the next one’ll hit your throat.”
A sudden tremor rang through the tunnel, and Vaster braced his feet as the ground seemed to shift beneath his soles. A thrill seized him as he saw the girl’s runespike part the steelstone floor, etching a rune he couldn’t make out from this angle.
Gedwen hurled her knife, but the sudden shift of stone threw off her aim, and the blade skimmed past its target. Vaster bit out a curse. “What’s she carving?”
The lines spiralling from the runespike sent tremors through the tunnel; when cracks began to appear in the walls, the girl lifted her head, uncertainty crossing her face. I’m taking a wild guess that she’s never used that rune before.
“You’re going to get us all killed if you carry on like that,” he called to her. “Didn’t your Kasvaun masters teach you restraint?”
He might have offered a more marked comment if not for Gedwen’s disgruntled presence beside him, but it was plain that the fool girl had that combination of lofty education and wide-eyed ignorance that risked her turning the house into a tomb for her entire family without being any the wiser until the walls collapsed on her own head.
Nothing for it. He reached into his leftmost pocket, his fingers closing around his lockpick. As Gedwen attempted to take aim at the girl again, Vaster pressed the sharpened metal point to the wall.
The lockpick was no substitute for a true runespike, but the steelstone responded to him as it would anyone with the gift, cleaving enough for him to mark out the same sun-shaped symbol etched upon the light runestone he carried. When the sun was near complete, he slashed a diagonal line through it, that simple mark reversing the rune’s effect.
Rather than light, darkness seeped out of the stone, billowing down the tunnel towards the girl. The tremors ceased as she abandoned her rune, no longer able to see where she was carving. Steadying himself against the wall with one hand, he ignored Gedwen’s frantic cursing and swivelled back to the closed door. The darkness wouldn’t linger for long—the lockpick had only made the shallowest of markings on the steelstone—but it would win them time to get into the vault.
If they didn’t run out of meltmetal first. He reached for the container and loosened the lid, relying entirely upon the vibration in his fingertips to take aim in the dark haze.
“Vaster,” Gedwen hissed. “How the fuck do you know where you’re aiming?”
Her tone carried a new layer of suspicion. She hadn’t seen him carve a rune with his own hand, but his explanations had worn thin, and he sensed her patience fraying at the edges as sharply as the humming runes beneath his skin.
“Later.” He felt the moment the door’s vibration stilled. Shoving the lockpick in, he pushed the door inward and took Gedwen’s arm. Her muscles tensed, but she let him pull her through and close the door on their heels.
They’d successfully made it into the vault. All they had to do now was get their hands on the treasure—and make their escape before the Scribe on the other side of the door got them killed.
