Thomas descended cautiously. The chirring grew louder. It was if he were entering a field full of crickets.
The crypt was significantly dimmer than above—enough so that he held his position on the bottom steps, bow drawn, while his eyes adjusted to the gloom.
Six funnel-shaped pillars supported the ceiling in two rows of three, while eighteen recesses lined the long side walls. These looked to contain bones—the remains of monks, or perhaps abbots. Down the center of the crypt stood four stone vaults, which appeared to be identical at first. But the lid on the last one was askew. He crept the rest of the way down, but kept his attention on that last box between the pillars.
Nothing moved, though surely Alderman Stroud knew he was here. The alderman must be behind one of the pillars or crouched behind one of the vaults. Or else he had climbed into that last vault but not had time to pull the lid straight in order to hide. Thomas remained at the base of the stairs, where he could see all of the space. Impatiently, he waited for his enemy to show himself.
The crooked lid of the last vault lifted and budged slightly, the grinding sound of it almost painful. It wasn’t being drawn closed. It was sliding open.
Thomas crept to the nearest pillar, bow raised now. He edged around it and stole to the next. Leaned out enough to watch the fourth vault.
A pale, iron-colored hand with long insectile fingers and growths like thorns dotting its knuckles reached out of it, grabbed hold of the lid. Another hand clutched the lip of the vault itself, and a figure sat up in the opening, head peering out. It was sharp-faced, sheathed in chitinous black—spiky and unnatural all over, it seemed. Like its fingers, the face was abnormally long. The creature pulled itself up, one arm seeming to bend the wrong way, and stood unsteadily, surveying the vault. It stared right at the pillar behind which he hid. Too late now—he’d been seen.
Thomas stepped out and loosed his arrow. It struck the creature solidly in the chest, but instead of killing it, the arrow only knocked it off-balance; the arrow bounced off the hard black armor, and the creature caught itself against the vault before it could fall. It hissed and its golden eyes fixed on him.
At the same moment, he saw his error. It hadn’t been him the creature spied. The alderman lunged around the pillar and struck him from behind, a hard blow to the head that drove Thomas against the side of the nearest vault. He doubled over it, fell to his knees, then scrambled away as something struck the stone where he’d been, sending up gravel-like bits. He embraced the second vault, head still ringing, then turned around.
The alderman wielded a thigh bone in his good left hand, raised now to bash in Thomas’s face, but a sharp whistle from behind made him whip about defensively.
Waldroup crouched halfway down the steps. He had grabbed the dead soldier’s bow and quiver. He shook his head at the alderman, who obediently lowered the leg bone. Then with the slightest movement, Waldroup adjusted his aim, and fired his arrow between the two of them, and straight into the waking spiky creature’s unprotected forehead.
Stroud gasped, almost a whine. The creature squealed—the same noise they had heard at the death of Baldie. It collapsed upon the lid, then slid back into the vault, leaving one arm outflung in the opening. Waldroup already had another arrow nocked and aimed at the alderman. He gestured that Stroud should let go of the bone.
He complied, darkly. “You’ve killed a great one,” he said sourly, “killed an immortal. You’ve no idea what this will bring down upon you.”
“Well, I expect you’ll tell me, since we’re going have us a wee conversation.”
“I’ll tell you nothing,” the alderman sneered.
“And will you still say that after I’ve pinned your other shoulder to a pillar and put arrows in both your knees? There are many ways for you not to die, you see, and no one and nothing is comin’ to rescue you now. All your men are dead. As well as your . . . what was he, the immortal?”
The alderman glared his refusal to answer. As promised, Waldroup shot him through his good shoulder. The arrow spun him around. He collapsed, falling onto the shaft itself, which made him squeal with pain.
Thomas, unsteadily—and though he could feel the wetness of blood trickling down the back of his neck—almost went to his aid. He had known the alderman most of his life, though only as part of the local landscape, a figure who engaged his father in conversations, given to, or perhaps mimicking, laughter and camaraderie. Had he always been turned? Waldroup seemed to sense something of his empathy and stepped in his path before coldly standing over the alderman.
“I’ll ask you again,” he said. “What was he? Elf? Fae?”
“Yvag,” the alderman replied through clenched teeth.
“Which is what?”
“Your mangled word is ‘elven.’”
“So then it’s true.” Waldroup looked amazed. “The black-armored things are denizens of Ailfion.”
“Ailfion. Elfhaven. Álfheim. Ildathach. So many of you have tried to own it by naming it. You know nothing still.”
“We’ve gotten it wrong, have we?” The alderman shrugged. “So what name do you give it?”
“Yvagddu.”
“Sounds like it ought to be a village in Wales.”
The alderman smirked. “The Welsh would be tywyllwch llwyr. Is it important to you to know all of this?”
Waldroup sighed bitterly. “Whatever they’re called, you help them, against your own kind.”
The alderman met his gaze and laughed. “You’ve no idea.”
Thomas interjected, “What was Balthair MacGillean?”
Stroud seemed to have lost interest in them and was gazing around as if he might find a weapon or an escape. Waldroup made as if to aim at his knee, and he snapped back to attention.
“There was no Balthair. There was Elgadorn.” With his chin he gestured toward the vault and the protruding arm.
“Meaning?” Waldroup asked.
“He was the same.”
Thomas replied, “The same, how? I don’t understand.”
“A conveyance,” Stroud snapped. “A lich.”
Thomas and Waldroup exchanged a look, neither quite understanding. Waldroup said, “Explain.”
“Ask me something else—something you might understand.”
Waldroup’s eyes narrowed, but Thomas had gotten to his feet, and came around him. “What is this?” he asked. He extended his hand toward the alderman. On his palm lay the strange stone with blue etching.
