Orb, Sceptre, Throne

CHAPTER XIX

Once more Torvald gripped the handles of the quorl saddle and hunched behind Galene’s engraved reflective back. Now that he’d grown accustomed to the noise of flight the experience seemed eerily quiet. The straps and jesses snapped in the rushing wind and the near-invisible wings hummed and hissed. Other than this constant background murmur a serene silence reigned.

He fancied he could almost hear the waves of Lake Azur just beneath as they whipped by, so close it seemed he could reach down and touch them. For they were far out over the lake, scudding over the night-dark waves, headed for Darujhistan. Scarves of cloud passed overhead obscuring the mottled reborn moon with its muted pewter glow. The jade banner of the Scimitar also loomed high among the stars. It seemed to have grown perceptibly of late. He’d heard grumbling among the troops that it was about to smash into the land in a great explosion that would mark the end of the world. Brought about, many claimed, by the hubris of the gods.

Behind and to either side flight after flight of quorl floated and darted over the waves. Each was burdened by a passenger and packs of the fearsome munitions. This was Torvald’s own personal end of the world fear. He and the Malazan ambassador, Aragan, had fought hard to blunt the Moranth’s intent to resolve these hostilities in one massive destructive wave. They had argued instead for this first more targeted attack.

Torvald prayed to all the gods below that it would succeed. For the alternative was just too horrific to contemplate.

Ahead, he could hardly discern the cobalt glow of Darujhistan from the lurid sea-green banner of the Scimitar arcing above. Was there a night fog off the lake? Or some trick or trap awaiting them? Never before could he remember seeing the night so dark over the city. Yet the Scimitar more than made up the difference. Their target was unmistakable. So low did the chevrons of quorl whip across the lake that tiny wakes actually glimmered in phosphor white behind. Fishing boats snapped past not below, but to Torvald’s side. Men and women gaped and pointed in the light of the lanterns they hung to draw in their catch.

The night was warm, he knew, but the wind punished him. His hands were frozen numb and he could only steal quick glimpses through his slitted, watering eyes. Ahead, the differing tiers of the city slowly emerged from the glow. Second Tier, and, above, Third Tier and the rambling stone complex of Majesty Hall. Galene raised an arm, signing a command. Her quorl waggled its wings. Quorls answered around them with similar signals and her flight group peeled off in tilting chevrons. Other groups flitted off in other directions, also spreading out.

Torvald leaned forward to yell: ‘Why the manoeuvring?’

Galene turned her helmed head. ‘This one’s servants are powerful mages, Nom,’ she answered, her voice low and loud. ‘We will take many losses in this assault.’

Torvald didn’t know what to say to that: Darujhistan was about to take many losses itself. And so he leaned back, silent, hunching from the driving wind.

‘You will throw this time, yes?’ she continued, relentless.

He ducked his head. ‘Yes.’

‘Very well. I hope so — for your sake. Ready the packs.’

With numb hands he fumbled with the clasps of the two packs strapped in before him. Four cussers! Two in each pack. Gedderone have mercy. After this there will be no hill left!

In the Great Hall, Coll was speaking to the young, and, he had to admit, very sharp and elegant Councillor Redda Orr. He was worried that she was a touch too forward in her disapproval of the powers the Legate had taken upon himself. He was constantly doing his best to counsel discretion and patience.

In return she’d taken to calling him ‘Grandfather Coll’.

He answered her with ‘Child’.

She broke off their verbal duelling as the murmur of conversation faded away throughout the hall. The Legate was standing before his throne. His wretched Mouthpiece came fumbling to his side. Coll pushed his way to the front of the crowd.

The Legate’s gold oval was tilted up to the arched stone ceiling. Its engraved face, the half-smile, appeared now more like a sneer. ‘Servants attend me,’ the Mouthpiece called, and he clutched at his neck afterwards as if choking.

Baruk and the girl with the silver wristlets and see-through veil stepped up. ‘Defend the Circle,’ the Mouthpiece told them. They bowed, and disappeared in swirls of darkness. The gold oval turned its attention to the Second, whose mask, with its single marring stroke, rose in expectation. ‘Defend the grounds. All of you.’

‘All?’

‘All. I am quite safe here.’

The Second bowed, then signed. The gathered Seguleh left the Great Hall.

The Legate swept back up on to his white throne. ‘We are safe here,’ the Mouthpiece called. ‘The Orb will protect us. Nothing can get through.’ The Legate placed his hands upon the armrests to either side, again utterly still and calm.

‘What is this?’ Redda hissed low to Coll.

He drew her aside to where the two guards stood leaning against a pillar, crossbows hanging loose, peering about as if as confused as everyone else. ‘I don’t know. An attack, obviously. But who? The Malazans?’

‘Let’s take a look.’ She moved to leave.

He held her back with a touch on her arm. ‘Not so easy — he sees everything. If you keep an eye out I’ll sneak off, yes?’

She slitted her gaze as anger gathered in their hazel light. ‘I can manage perfectly-’

He raised a hand for her indulgence. ‘Cunning before beauty,’ he murmured. He moved off, bumping into a group of chattering councillors. ‘Gods, I need a drink!’ he told them, steadying the one he’d knocked off balance, then staggering off.

The looks of venomous derision they shot at his back and the soft mocking laughter they shared made Redda even angrier — yet now for Coll’s sake.

Passing a gap in the buildings of Cuttertown, Yusek paused, her breath catching. There lay Darujhistan, so close she could almost reach out and touch it. Its walls shone blue-tinted. Above them rose the dark roofs of countless buildings, and above these even taller towers jutted into the night sky. Yet, where was this much talked-up gem-like glow of the city? Hardly any blue flames shone, and these mostly confined to the walls and gates. Was this really all there was to the stories?

‘Sall — it is immense, but …’

He waved her on. ‘Come. The Seventh has gone ahead.’

Together they jogged up the road. Yusek slipped next to the Seventh — a position neither Sall nor Lo was prepared to take up. ‘What will you do?’ she asked.

His gaze slid to her. He worked his jaws as if it were necessary to loosen them before he could speak. ‘I don’t know exactly,’ he admitted, with what to Yusek was amazing honesty. She was rather thrown: in Orbern-town she’d become used to the absolute certainty and determined fronts fools threw up to hide behind.

‘Yet you’re going.’

‘Yes. I can’t turn away from this. Cuts too close to home.’

‘Oh?’

The man just gave another sidelong glance. The jaws remained clamped tight.

Shortly afterwards the Seventh stopped to study the vista just as Yusek had herself. Sall and Lo stopped behind, patient as ever.

‘What is it?’ Yusek asked.

‘We should take the Foss Road. Go round.’

She was outraged. ‘Go round! Whatever for?’

It almost appeared as if the man would answer, but he bit down on the words, looking as if he’d swallowed something sharp. Moving on he allowed: ‘In case of a panic.’

In the Finnest house in the grounds of Coll’s estate two strikingly differing yet oddly matched individuals played cards. The tall iron-haired one, Raest, kept raising his shattered corpse-like face to peer into the distance, as if distracted. His partner, the Imass, held his cards steady in hands no more than ligaments wrapped around naked bone.

‘It is your turn, isn’t it?’ Raest said after a time.

The Imass’s fleshless skull shifted from its fixed regard of its cards to glance up.

‘Turn?’ Raest said. ‘Turn, yes? I did explain that, didn’t I?’

The skull now shifted even further, neck crackling with dry sinew, to send a long hard glance up the hall.

Raest looked to the dim ceiling. ‘Not now,’ he said.

The Imass stood, nearly upsetting the table. It spoke in a creaking of leather-hard flesh: ‘I smell … ice.’

Raest waved a dismissive hand. ‘Never mind the ill-mannered neighbours …’

The Imass stepped from the table. Raest tutted: ‘Cards …’ It peered down as if utterly unaware it held anything in its hand, set them face down on the table and shambled off up the hall.

Raest sat for a time, motionless, until the noise of a door slamming echoed through the house. His gaze fell on the cards opposite.

He leaned to peer up the hall; waited a little longer. Then he reached across and lifted them.

Ambassador Aragan flinched as a single quorl stooped above their position. As it passed it waggled its wings, sending up a loud hissing and snapping of cloaks and pennants in its wake. It raced off ahead and disappeared into the darkness, making for the city. He and Fist K’ess shared taut glances. ‘Any time now.’ He rubbed the back of a hand to the bristles at his cheek, adding a low ‘Gods forgive us’.

Fist K’ess, he saw, clutched at his neck where Aragan knew a stone representing Burn hung. Next to the Fist, his aide, Captain Fal-ej, leaned closer to whisper, ‘It is very lovely.’

‘You’ve never seen it?’ K’ess said, surprised.

‘No.’

He cleared his throat, his voice thickening. ‘Shame, that.’

On Aragan’s other side Attache Torn sat awkward on his mount, his helmed head tilted upwards, following the passing quorls.

‘Twins stand aside,’ Aragan offered.

Torn nodded. ‘Yes. Let us hope they succeed.’

Down the lines Bendan stood with Little, now Sergeant Little, Bone and Tarat. He twisted his aching neck where the majority of his shield’s weight hung. ‘Don’t want to see what I think we’re gonna see,’ he growled.

Little eyed him sidelong, her gaze re-evaluating and somehow softer. ‘You’re turning into a regular pacifist, Bendan.’

‘Just wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy, is all.’ He hawked up a mouthful of phlegm to spit.

‘And that is your home, yes?’ Tarat said.

Bendan shook his head in a negative. ‘No. I’m from Maiten.’

Masts of coastal barques and merchant cargo haulers whipped past beneath Torvald’s boots so close he thought he might lose a foot. Abruptly Galene yanked the nose of the quorl up and they climbed fiercely. Torvald hunched into his seat as if a great hand were pressing down upon his head. Then they broke over the lip of the Second Tier Wall and he had a glimpse ahead that disoriented him so thoroughly that he almost tumbled from his seat. ‘What in Oponn’s name is that?’

‘The Orb,’ Galene called over her shoulder. ‘The Orb of the Tyrants.’ She raised an arm, gesturing her commands in broad sweeps. ‘Ready the munitions!’

Torvald reached both hands into the first pack and braced himself with his thighs against the juddering of the quorl.

Spindle was sitting at a table, working on his third glass of wine while he thought about the mystery of when — and how! — to use the chemicals he and Duiker had collected. The damned circle was buried and there were mages keeping an eye out! How were they possibly gonna do the deed?

The historian himself was at the front, keeping his own eye out. Picker and Blend were at the bar, leaning together from opposite sides, communicating in their one-word sentences like the veterans who’d spent a whole lifetime campaigning together that they were. The bard had gone in for an early night.

He was considering his fourth glass when out front passed a noise that sent a shiver down his back and set his hair stirring: swift thrumming and hissing overhead.

He, Blend and Picker shared stunned glances.

As one they jumped to the front, knocking aside chairs and tearing boards from a window to gape up at the night sky, knocking heads and pushing at one another. Something whipped overhead obscuring the darkness for an instant. The oh-so-familiar humming and hissing of gossamer wings whispered past.

‘A Hood-damned assault!’ Blend snarled.

‘A drop!’ Picker barked.

‘I’m on it,’ Spindle declared, and he punched Duiker’s shoulder. ‘Let’s go!’

The historian sadly shook his head. ‘I’m flattered, but no — it’s a young man’s chase. Find a stronger back.’

‘Well, who …’ Spindle looked to Blend and Picker. They shook their heads. ‘We have our post.’

‘Shit!’

Duiker edged a hand to the back and cocked a brow. Spindle’s gaze narrowed; then he smiled evilly. He ran for the rear. ‘Fisher!’ he bellowed. ‘Get out here! We’re on.’

Torvald’s quorl now flitted over the estate district. Since reaching the city, he’d been peering all about for the gas lights but had seen hardly any. The dread gripped him that this was some sort of trap devised by these mages. Yet couldn’t it also be a fantastic blessing? It may be that someone here has shown astounding forethought. He’d like to kiss whoever it was, considering all the munitions now flying over the city. Ahead, the ‘Orb’, as Galene called it, shone with the reflected commingled light of the moon and the Scimitar. It glowed so pale he imagined that in daylight it would be white. And he could see through it as well, as if were as thin and translucent as a bubble. Galene suddenly jerked her straps, urging her mount into a series of jerking rolls and near-spins. Torvald held on for his life.

‘What’s that for!’ he yelled.

His answer came as something lashed from Majesty Hill to strike a chevron of the approaching quorls. For all he could tell it looked like ripples in the air, heat ripples as over a hot road. These disturbances arced out like waves and any quorl they struck tumbled from the sky, its wings shattered like crushed dry leaves. As the creatures fell spinning Torvald suddenly realized what was about to happen. He quickly looked away, yet the glaring bright flash still dazzled his vision. A thunderous roar followed, together with a great black cloud of debris kicking skyward behind. Peering back, it looked as though a block of the waterfront district had been destroyed.

‘Pay attention,’ Galene snarled over the wind.

Their mount now turned sharply, tilting almost sideways. The ghostly pale Orb swung into view. Torvald glimpsed the forested park grounds of Majesty Hill below, and saw masked figures running and one man, bent, his long pale arms malformed, gesturing to wreak such havoc among the quorl chevrons.

‘Ready munitions!’ Galene yelled above the screaming wind.

Torvald pulled out the first cusser and hugged it to his chest.

The quorl turned even more sharply now, arcing until they were riding nearly upside down. The pale lucent wall of the Orb curved directly below, as did a section of Majesty Hall.

‘Drop!’ Galene snapped.

Torvald threw. The cusser fell, tumbling and spinning. He bent backwards, following its descent. The moment it reached the ghostly wall of the Orb he winced, blinded, as a flash jabbed at his vision. An instant later a concussive wall of force knocked their quorl sideways, sending them spinning.

Galene fought to regain control of her mount. They swung round, headed now for the waterfront. ‘What happened?’ she grated, turning back to confront him.

‘It burst early when it struck that wall or whatever it is!’

‘Elders damn that sorcerer!’ She reknotted her hands through the jesses, tightening them. ‘We’ll go high.’

Behind them further bright flashes lit the night, followed closely by the rolling thunder of blast after blast. Torvald was thrown backwards as the quorl’s nose suddenly rose straight up. They climbed and climbed, arching ever backwards until Galene had put the quorl through a complete back loop and rolled to right them. They headed back for another pass.

Torvald fought down the contents of his stomach.

Coll rushed back into the Great Hall to find all the councillors, aristocrats, functionaries and hangers-on jammed together in a tight circle round the raised white throne, where the Legate sat still as immobile as ever. From overhead came an almost constant booming, punishing everyone. Dust sifted down from the stone ceiling.

‘We cannot be harmed!’ the Mouthpiece yelled, his voice cracking and quavering, rather ruining the effect of his claim.

Councillor Redda Orr pushed her way through the crowd to Coll. ‘What now?’ she shouted, and ducked at a particularly close punch of bursting pressure.

‘That wretched weasel Mouthpiece is right,’ he answered. ‘None of this is getting through.’

‘But what if the roof should fall?’

He squinted up at the arched ceiling and saw mortar drifting down from between the stones. ‘You’re right.’ He glared about, searching for an answer. ‘The cellars! We have to get everyone down underground.’

A pall of silence grew over all the shouting and crying around them and Coll looked over. The Legate had stood up. ‘Lady Envy,’ the Mouthpiece said, choking and gasping. ‘Will you not demonstrate why you are the brightest jewel of this court?’

Men and women flinched from one tall woman who remained unbowed beneath the direct regard of the Legate. She crooked her painted lips in an amused smile. Then she lightly inclined her head and sauntered to the doors. All eyes followed her lazy, seemingly unconcerned exit.

Once Lady Envy had turned from sight the Legate gestured and the tall double doors of the Great Hall slammed shut.

This broke whatever spell had been holding the court together. Everyone began yelling in an instant panic, running to find exits, grabbing at one another, trying make themselves understood. Over this Coll used his battlefield bellow to roar: ‘To the cellars!’

The crowd of courtiers and councillors surged after him.

Throughout it all the Legate calmly faced the doors, hands at his sides, immobile, gold oval cocked a touch to one side. As if expecting company.

On the street of the weaponsmiths in the Gadrobi district, a heavyset woman sat out on the steps of a duelling school, letting the cool night air brush her face while she flexed her hand and wrist, which were numb from a long practice session.

A strange sound stilled her and she lifted her head, listening for a time. Then, dismissing the noise, she returned to rolling her wrist. She pushed back her shoulders and edged her neck from side to side, grimacing at the pain of old tight tendons.

A blast rocked her, rattling all the nearby windows and shocking her to her feet. She glared up the street to where smoke and the orange flickering of flames climbed over the city. People screamed in their rooms; others ran out on to the street to peer about.

From the north flashes lit the night, followed shortly by thunder as in a storm. But Stonny knew that sound for no storm. She ran inside and woke a sleeping boy, who blinked up at her, confused.

‘Gather everyone together and come to the front now,’ she whispered, fierce.

‘What? Do what, Mother?’

‘Do it now, lad.’

‘Now?’

‘Yes! Go.’ After making certain the boy was on his way she ran to the practice hall and strapped on two weapons. Another window offered a view of the Third Tier and Majesty Hill and here she stopped, staring, her heart now hammering. Where were all the lights?

‘Fener’s curse,’ she whispered. Bursts of mage-fire illuminated her wide, blunt face. Then something that looked as fragile and tiny as a feather fell, spinning, from the sky further along in the Lakefront district and a blast rocked the school, sending her staggering back. When she returned to the window she saw that the glazing had cracked.

She ran, yelling, ‘Harllo!’

‘There we go,’ murmured Fist K’ess as a burst of light flashed over the north-east. Moments later a muted rumble sounded. Aragan nodded, realized he’d been holding his breath, and eased it out. Further multiple flashes blazed, followed by an eventual continual low rumbling.

And from the ranks came an answer. A low groan sounded up and down the lines as if every trooper felt each burst as a physical blow.

Aragan half raised his hand as if to sign for the advance.

‘We’ll be mobbed, sir,’ K’ess warned, his voice soft. ‘They’ll blame us.’

‘I agree,’ Torn added.

Aragan forced his hand down. ‘Yes. It’s just … Yes.’ He studied the flashes, urging the Moranth on. Get through! Get to him, damn you. Finish it!

K’ess watched the ambassador from the edge of his vision. Poor fellow. Hasn’t seen much direct action. Always coming in behind. Yet to his credit he has that necessary compassion for his fellow soldiers. The gesture speaks well of him.

He remembered the taking of Pale. Been a raw captain then, of the regulars. The memory of that enfilade had yet to let him go. He’d lost so many nights to those images his hope was that no similar cataclysm erupted here. Especially after what they’ve already witnessed. Could be too much. Could break ’em. Hood, have to have a heart of flint not to feel it.

Spindle tottered on the last section of the rising walk up Majesty Hill. He fell against a buttress, banging the crate so that bottles clanked, and winced, biting his lip. Stones clattered down around him and acrid smoke wafted past.

Damn close, that. Fallin’ like flies everywhere, the poor bastards!

He jerked his head to urge Fisher on. The bard straightened and jogged up.

Getting this far had been simple; everyone had run off. And K’rul’s hill was right next to Despot’s Barbican anyway. The district was pretty much entirely abandoned. Even the streetlights were unlit. Seemed the Greyfaces had taken the night off. Damned smart of them, considering. He peered over the wall to eye the nearest forest copse. Overhead the Moranth circled and swooped. A continuous barrage fell on Majesty Hall. Yet this magical barrier, this dome or circle, pretty much invisible up close and seemingly as delicate as a soap bubble, held back an entire war of punishment.

And Spindle knew what anchored it.

So loud were the near-continuous eruptions of munitions that he and Fisher could not speak. He caught the bard’s eye then jerked his head to the woods and ran. Hunched, bottles banging, they jogged through the park forest. At least Spindle knew exactly where he was headed.

He didn’t mean to slam down the crate of wine bottles but in the dark he tripped on a root and fell right on top of it. He rolled off immediately and brushed frantically at his front — which would have been a stupid thing to do if one of the bottles had broken and spilled on him. Should’ve just started yanking off the damn hauberk.

Through the trees he could see the Moranth arcing overhead on their quorls and tossing their charges over Majesty Hall.

Most of the cussers blew far overhead but a few landed now and then on the unprotected hilltop and shook the ground. Off to one side a crater smoked in a reminder of what might happen to them at any moment. The bard didn’t know Malazan hand signs so Spindle was forced to wave and point. He’d found the site of their old excavation.

He threw himself to his knees and started digging in a feverish panic. Fisher joined him.

To make things even worse, through the trees he could see that the Seguleh were out as well. They were keeping to the doors and walls of the many buildings of the Majesty Hall complex. Waiting, watching, masks tilted upwards to follow the Moranth in their circling.

Spindle thought he knew what they were waiting for and he prayed it wouldn’t come to that. Things would get far too crowded then.

Best to have a hidey-hole in that case. And he dug and dug.

Togg, things might get so desperate he might even have to raise his Warren! Gods, that it should come to that …

Barathol was out of bed with the first burst. He peered through the slats of the shutters.

‘What is it?’ Scillara asked from the dark.

A much closer blast; the house shook. A few things fell downstairs. Little Chaur set up a wail. ‘Get him,’ he said, pulling on trousers. ‘I’ll grab some food and water.’

She stood quickly, dressing as well. ‘You’re coming with us, yes?’ she said sharply.

He paused, glancing at her shadowed silhouette. ‘Yes. I’m coming with you.’

Outside, it was jarringly dark. He’d never seen the streets unlit. Now it was the Scimitar’s ill-omened glow that cast shadows across the shopfronts. They joined a swelling crowd jamming the street. He peered to the east, to the higher tiers where flashes lit the night. Flames rose from much closer, however.

Then something slashed overhead, raising shrieks of fear. It hissed arrow-straight up the road, lower than the rooftops. Moranth … attacking? Cover. It’s using the streets to hide. Hide from what?

Another close burst sent up a new wave of shrieks and panic through the pressing crowd.

Barathol turned to Scillara, who carried Chaur pressed against her chest. ‘I’m going to-’

‘No, you’re not!’ she cut in. ‘We’re all going together.’ She twisted a fist in his shirtsleeve, yanking. ‘And we’re going in this goddamned direction!’

He smiled at the admonishment and pressed a hand over hers. ‘Yes. Let’s get out of here.’ He moved out in front of her and started pushing a way through the crowd.

Studious Lock pushed open the main front door of the Nom manor house and regarded the night. It was very dark and very noisy. There was some sort of local celebration going on nearby. Very annoying. No doubt this was what the Mistress’s odd instructions regarded.

‘Guards,’ he called.

Three figures approached from the gloom.

Studious paused, a finger raised. Three? Was his vision going? Seeing triples now? He counted: ‘One, two … three.’

He decided to fall back on the elegance of logic and biology — the process of elimination.

Let us see, now. The tall fat one, Madrun, I know. As do I the tall skinny one, Lazan. That leaves the one in the middle who is neither as tall nor as fat nor as skinny as the other two. There we have it! Logic and biology clarify all issues.

He extended a gauze-wrapped finger towards the middle guard. ‘And you are, what? A polyp? A bud? Has one of you reproduced?’

‘Nay, Studlock,’ the fat one boomed. ‘What we have here is our first apprentice.’

First? Most alarming. ‘Apprentice? Apprentice in what? Guarding?’

‘Our philosophy and concomitant way of life,’ Lazan explained.

Ah, there you have it. All is clear now. ‘Very good.’ He examined the newcomer: wide loose pantaloons ballooning down to tight high leather boots. A wide gold sash over a loose silk shirt of the brightest verdant green. Studious knew himself no reliable judge of expressions and emotions, but it appeared to him as if the man standing before him was a touch embarrassed.

‘Dressed appropriately, I see,’ Studious commented, hoping to set him at ease. ‘Now. I have instructions for you from the Mistress. Please pay due attention and enact due diligence.’

‘Of course,’ Madrun assured him smoothly. ‘We are all seriousness.’

And the man’s face is straight as he says this — humorous byplay perhaps? How quaint.

‘Attend now, please.’

In the Eldra Iron Mongers in the far west of the city a man stood watching from the highest window of the old manor house. Leaning closer to the dirty glazing, he rubbed an even filthier rag over the glass, then hunched, peering. Through the rippled glazing the bursts of munitions reached him like flashes of fireworks during any one of the many religious festivals — fireworks ironically supplied by the Moranth. Beneath the barrage a broad pale dome flickered and winked in and out of sight.

Even at this great distance the window shuddered and rattled lightly.

He glanced to the card he held. So ancient. The Orb of Rulership. A white sphere held upraised in the hand of a cloaked figure.

He squeezed the card until the varnish cracked and shattered.

He only wanted to be safe. He only wanted the city to be strong.

How could he have been so blind?

Rallick was already on the roof when the assault began. For this reason he had mixed feelings regarding the Moranth’s failure to penetrate the Legate’s sorcerous defences. In either case, he felt that he had the best seat in the house, as they say, standing out on the roof peering up at the blinding eruptions where the munitions struck the clear opalescent wall of the Legate’s dome.

He blamed those blasts for his own failure to sense the approach of light slippered feet, and his failure to twist aside soon enough to completely avoid the blades that thrust for his back.

He rolled away but not quickly enough as blazing agony yammered down his back. He faced her now across the run of tiles, his own heavier curved blades out. She advanced, darting in and out. They tested each other’s skill, she stepping lightly with a hungry smile at her lips; he slower, careful on the sloped and shifting ceramic roof tiles.

‘You were a fool to return,’ she shouted over the blasts that rocked them in flashing chiaroscuro.

He said nothing, tensed, waiting for her to commit herself.

He did not have long to wait. She dodged in, feinting side to side, both blades spinning. A run of alternating high and low slashes backed Rallick up to the side of a gable. Here he pushed off, kicking her in the chest, throwing her back two steps. Her face betrayed open shock.

Rallick allowed himself an inward smile. Those slippered tracks at Baruk’s: small but heavy. He’d struck her with all his weight, treating her like an infantryman. Her reaction told him not many ever had.

Her lips pulled back from her small pointed teeth and she readied again, raising her arms high, both blades pointing down. Rallick shuffled away from the gable to clear his retreat. Multiple shadows flashed across them and waves of concussive force popped his ears. ‘There are greater threats,’ he yelled, motioning to the circling Moranth.

‘Their turn will come,’ she answered.

Time to surprise her again, he decided, and rushed. He was right: she was taken off guard. Yet every swing was met by a parrying blade, every spin and slash avoided, every thrust turned or slid aside. His charge ended when a circling counter-parry threw one of his blades wide, opening him to a thrust he avoided only by falling backwards.

He righted himself on the narrow level run along the spine of the roof, now rather surprised himself.

‘Ready?’ the girl asked, grinning.

Despite the agony shooting up his back he crouched, blades out.

The girl daintily slipped a foot forward on the tiled run. To either side the steep roof led down to a fall from the height of the Great Hall.

Rallick braced a foot behind, determined not to give ground this time.

She closed the distance in one leap. Blades clashed, scraping and rebounding again and again in a weaving dance of strike and immediate counter-strike until suddenly the girl pushed herself backwards. She snarled her frustration, her thin chest heaving.

‘Enough,’ she grated, and thrust out a hand.

A wave of pressure washed over Rallick: something like a strong wind or a splash of cold water. It passed on, leaving him untouched. The girl gaped at him. ‘How …’

He lunged and his blade caught her front, slashing scarves and flesh as she twisted sideways, slipping and tumbling down the roof. She bellowed, spat and hissed all the way down the slope until she disappeared over the edge.

Rallick hunched his shoulders and winced at the pain slashing into his back. He knew that that was certainly not the end of the creature. Under the cover of an eaves he knelt, untied a pouch and pulled out a shallow dish that contained a thick honey-like salve. This he scooped up in his hand and, reaching behind under his leather jerkin and shirting, rubbed into the warm wetness smeared there.

Almost immediately the pain lost its cut-glass sharpness and his breath came more easily. Some would think it ironic, he knew, using the alchemist’s offerings while engaged in a battle against him. Rallick wondered whether the term just was more appropriate. He remembered applying another alchemical product on a rather similar night a long time ago: dust of the magic-deadening mineral otataral. And on both nights it saved his life.

They circled high above the complex of Majesty Hall, over the flickering dome that so far seemed to have absorbed every munition dropped upon it. So tightly did they circle that Torvald sat sideways while the wide waist straps of the saddle harness held him tight. Below, the majority of the swooping quorls continued their runs. Blasting up to meet them came the magics of these mage-slaves who the Moranth claimed served the returned Tyrant himself. Torvald had a hard time accepting that, but what he had witnessed so far this night convinced him that something terrible had happened — perhaps deals had been struck with these mages themselves. Exactly what, he didn’t know for certain yet.

Ducking down from the wind he peered into the packs. ‘Last one!’ he called to Galene.

She nodded and adjusted the jesses. They swooped anew and Torvald was thrown backwards, scraping his lower back yet again against the sharp cantle behind. The flashing pale glow of the sorcerous dome rose up to meet them.

Directly over the top Galene shouted, ‘Now!’

Leaning even further over he let the last cusser go. He twisted in his saddle to follow its tumbling descent. It erupted in yet another empty blast against the opalescent curve of the dome. The pressure wave pushed the quorl sideways, slapping him and Galene over for an instant. She fought again to regain control.

‘What now?’ he called.

She turned back to regard him through her narrow visor. ‘Now? Now we land, Councillor!’

Torvald’s stomach twisted more sharply than it had all evening.

They swooped low over the estate district, weaving between lesser hills topped by noble family manors. The coruscating counterattacks of the mages blasted over them. Quorls fell over the city, either spinning tightly or limp like dead weights, to fall in bursts of light and erupting debris of broken brick and shattered wood. He caught glimpses of pockets of fire raging through the city. Thank all the gods the gas seemed to have been cut.

‘You have a quick-release,’ Galene shouted. ‘Pull it and jump when we land.’

‘Yes,’ he answered, though he had no idea what he would do after that. Re-join the Council was what Galene had suggested.

She began her run, angling for Majesty Hill, jerking the quorl from side to side, rolling and swooping. Torvald gripped the sunken handles with hands almost numb. The ribbed thorax of the insectile beast was hot beneath him; the poor thing was probably worn out and couldn’t have carried them much further anyway.

Galene had started to climb when an invisible fist struck them. The air exploded from him in a wet grunt. Galene’s helmed head struck him in the chest. For an instant his vision went black. When he could see again they were spinning sickeningly. Galene yanked the jesses but the quorl responded only fitfully, wings hardly fluttering.

‘Hang on!’ she yelled.

The side of the hill came up suddenly and they struck it a glancing blow, then slid backwards down the slope. They came to rest in a grassy parkland between the hill and the city wall.

Torvald pulled his quick-release and fell from the saddle. ‘Let’s go!’

Galene remained slumped in the saddle. He reached round to pull her release then dragged her down to lie in the tall grass.

‘Galene!’

She moved her arms listlessly. When they had been struck she had obviously taken the brunt and thereby protected him from most of it. Her poor mount was clearly dying.

The bursts and pressure waves thumping his chest lessened. He peered up to see more and more of the circling quorls now swooping down. They alighted for only the briefest pause while both riders jumped from them, and then took off again to flit away far more nimbly than they had come.

They promised a full assault. The munitions failed; now comes the old-fashioned push.

Heaving Galene up by an arm, he headed to a set of rickety stairs that climbed the slope. A sort of servants’ access.

Jan stood with Iralt, Fifteenth, near the main front entrance of Majesty Hall, watching the circling Moranth. Personally, Jan marvelled at the accomplishments of these people: their alchemical researches, their taming, breeding and training of their insectile mounts. An extraordinary race. A pity their ambitions and those of Darujhistan clashed. But then, is that not always the way between any two ascendant peoples?

He could not help but flinch as closer blasts sent invisible shock waves punching his chest. Now he knew something of what Gall had endured. A completely one-sided slaughter. Shameful, some of his brothers and sisters called it. But he did not share that view. Why submit to an opponent’s strengths? If at all possible one must work to avoid them.

As they did now, waiting beneath the protection of the Legate’s sorcery. Too bad such protection could not be removed.

The bursts lessened. The riders appeared to have exhausted their munitions.

Failure, Iralt signed. We have won.

No, Jan signed. They will come at us soon.

An assault? Iralt gestured her surprise. Surely not. They know us — they would not be so foolish.

Do not dismiss the enemy, Jan chided. They are brave. Remember: a challenging opponent is a blessing to one’s skill.

Iralt bowed her head. Thank you, Second.

Go now. Warn for readiness.

Iralt ran from his side. Jan raised his mask to the circling riders, the explosions few and far between now. So, they will land and we will win this engagement. But the war? He looked to the great unprotected spread of the city below and the fires glowing in nearby precincts. As to the war, he knew it was already lost.

Above, a massed flight of the quorl mounts came diving in upon them.

Ah. Now it is our turn.

‘What’s that?’ Yusek asked as something caught her eye from the north: a flickering and winking of lights. Like nothing she’d ever seen before. The Seventh halted, suddenly immobile. Everyone else stopped as well. Then she heard it: a thunderous murmur as of a storm far away.

They were passing through another town beyond the walls and people were leaning out of upper-storey windows, peering at the night sky.

‘A summer storm over the lake?’ she wondered aloud.

‘No,’ the Seventh grated. ‘Another kind of storm. We’ll head on to Worrytown.’

Yusek was outraged. ‘What? Aren’t we going in?’

‘Eventually.’ He headed off, striking a quicker pace.

Sall and Lo, she saw, shared a long look but followed without dispute.

She fell in next to Sall, whispered, ‘What’s going on?’

He answered, just as quietly, ‘I believe it is fighting.’

‘Fighting? Who?’

‘I — should not say yet.’

Oh, this is just great! I finally get to Darujhistan only there’s some kinda damned war on? Just my Twins-cursed luck! I mean, why does everything have to happen to me?

Spindle paused in his frantic digging. Straightening, he peered up over the lip of his and Fisher’s uneven pit. He glanced to the night sky, squinting. Yeah — looks like they’ve thrown the lot. Question is, what’s next?

‘What is it?’ Fisher whispered.

‘Winding down. Gotta hurry.’

He returned to thrusting his shovel into the dirt. Good thing they’d dug here already; the backfill was nice and loose. Moments later a distant staccato popping snapped Spindle’s head up again. Sharpers?

He peered round, keeping his eyes just over the dirt surface. He saw some way off in the grounds a flight of quorls come diving in to land and Moranth throw themselves from the saddles, unslinging heavy shields and forming small squares. In ones and twos Seguleh ran to engage with them.

Spindle flinched as salvos of tossed sharpers lacerated the charging Seguleh; but those that made it through wrought havoc among the squares.

Shit! This is not good. Not good at all. Things are gettin’ too crowded by far.

He returned to his digging.

‘What are you doing?’ a girl’s voice called down to them.

The hair on Spindle’s neck and all across his shirt stirred and straightened at that voice. Oh, Togg take it! He rose, taking hold of one of the bottles as he did so and holding it behind his back. Fisher moved to help conceal the motion. He found himself staring at a damned dancing girl; one who’d been in a fight, it seemed, as her wispy clothes were slashed down the front and speckled with blood. She arched a brow at him and her come-to-me lips lifted into an amused smirk.

Her Warren swirled around her, its aura a storm that nearly blinded Spindle’s mage-sight. Inhuman. No youth could possibly be this strong. Like a damned High Mage, this one is.

‘Ah — maintenance,’ he offered.

Her carmine-tinged eyes shifted, searching the pit and beyond. ‘There’s a witch here. I sense her. Sworn to Ardata, perhaps?’

Uh-oh, Ma’s gettin’ her hair up.

‘Leave while you can, child,’ Fisher said suddenly.

Her brow wrinkled, bemused. ‘What?’

‘Twelve their fell number,’ he sang as if reciting, ‘dragged and chained from Abyss’s deepest pits.’

Her gaze slitted on him. ‘Who are you?’

Spindle pulled the cork from the bottle and held it out. ‘Don’t make me use this!’

She stared, frowning. A girlish giggle escaped her. ‘Is the wine that bad here?’

As an answer he shook a splash on to the roots and grass at her feet. Smoke fumed and a hissing seared the air. The girl flinched an involuntary step away. ‘You wouldn’t dare!’

He threatened her with the bottle. ‘I don’t want to — but I will! I mean it.’

She glared an inhuman fury. Her eyes flared as if aflame and she hissed a snarling gurgle of frustrated rage.

Spindle jerked the bottle, splashing more of the corroding chemical.

At that she spun, blurring, to disappear into her daemonic Warren.

Fisher, at his side, let out a long low breath. Spindle nodded his sincere agreement. They returned to their digging.

High Priestess of Shadow Sordiko Qualm sat cross-legged on her bed, elbows on knees and chin in her hands, intently studying the silk hangings that enclosed the broad four-poster as a wind passed through the chamber, causing the candles on the far walls to cast flickering shadows across the rippling cloth. Within these shifting shadows images and vistas seemed to form spontaneously, only to dissolve away almost instantly as she watched.

From the open window came hammering and flashes as of a summer thunderstorm.

Screams pulled her attention from the shifting hangings and she blinked, shaking her head. The play of shadows dispersed like shredding gauze. She drew a long curved knife from under a pillow, its blade so darkly blued as to be almost invisible, and padded from her chamber, barefoot, her silk shift so thin as to be nearly, well, invisible too.

The inner temple was crowded with men. The priestesses had retreated to the walls, cowering. Sordiko spotted Seguleh and Malazans among the crowd.

‘What is the meaning of this invasion?’ she cried.

The twenty or so men all looked at her. The expressions on their faces changed from suspicion and confusion to something much more familiar in Sordiko’s experience. She became conscious of her rather inadequate dress. ‘Have you a spokesman?’

‘Aye, I suppose.’ A Malazan pushed forward, short, red moustache, looking like he’d just been dragged through an entire campaign; in fact, they all looked as though they’d just finished a siege that they’d lost. ‘This is Darujhistan?’

‘Yes. Temple to Shadow.’ She raised her chin and threw back her shoulders, demanding: ‘What is your business here?’

The men stared. Several let out long sighs. ‘I’m joinin’ Shadow,’ one murmured to his neighbour.

The moustached soldier found his voice: ‘We, ah — we’re …’ He raised a hand for silence. ‘What’s that noise?’

Sordiko nodded to him. ‘War, Malazan. The Legate has called the Seguleh and now they and the Moranth make war upon each other as in ancient times. Only now the city is caught between.’

‘Legate?’ one shouted, stepping forward. Youngest of them, Darujhistani by his tattered clothes and the style of his weapon. In fact … She squinted. ‘You are of the Lim family?’

‘Yes. Corien.’

‘I’m sorry, Corien, but your cousin …’

The Seguleh started for the main exit. A priestess blocked it, shouting, ‘The High Priestess has not given you leave!’

The lead Seguleh, one of the Twenty by his mask, cocked his head towards Sordiko in a silent question. She waved the priestess aside. Unreasonable bastards. They marched out. All of the rest of the ragtag wretches followed. Dammit! ‘You, Malazans! Your troops are west of the city! You three others — who are you? There’s something strange about you! Come back!’

The doors gaped empty until attending priestesses slammed and barred them. Sordiko set her fists to her hips. How do you like that? First time so many men have ever walked out on me …

The streets were jammed with citizenry all attempting to flee at once and therefore unable to flee anywhere because the way was choked. From the steps to the temple to Shadow, Antsy glimpsed a strange darkness that hung over the city, and above this, the circling quorls, and the munitions punishing the hilltop Majesty Hall. An immense opalescent dome shimmered over that hilltop. The Seguleh seemed to be making straight for the hill. The crowds screamed and flinched aside, leaving them clear passage. Antsy urged Corien onward. ‘C’mon!’

‘We’re headin’ west,’ Sergeant Girth shouted. ‘Ain’t our fight. Gonna get yourself kilt!’

Antsy waved the man off. Miserable bastard. Save his skin and that’s the thanks I get. Well, his duty is to get his troops back safe. Fair enough, then.

The Heels marched with him and Corien. They had huge grins pasted to their faces and peered about like country hicks, nudging one another and pointing at buildings as if this was one big night out. Trailing along in the wake of the Seguleh they all made good time. And just what do you plan to do, Antsy? ’Cept maybe get your fool head blown off. Still, these boys and girls had been on a mission. And now they’re charging for their fellows. Something’s definitely up.

A richly appointed carriage careered its way down one of the switchback roads of the Third Tier escarpment. Four panicked horses drew it. The coachman whipped them between terrified glances over his shoulder to Majesty Hill, where bursts of light made him flinch and an accompanying rumbling shook the carriage beneath him.

They roared down the road, sending pedestrians fleeing for the walls. ‘Out of the way!’ the coachman bellowed. ‘Clear way for Lord Pal’ull! Clear way!’

And all the citizenry did dart aside. The carriage swung round a sharp corner, iron rims striking sparks from the flint cobbles, horses’ hooves clattering. A further stretch of jammed pedestrians jumped for the walls — all but for one very tall fellow coming up against the flow.

‘Clear!’ the coachman bellowed. Then his eyes widened and he dropped the whip to yank the reins aside. The horses plunged to the right and passed the tall armoured figure, but the carriage swung sideways and slammed into him in an eruption of splintering wood and bending, wrenching iron. The coachman was thrown from his seat over the road wall while the horses continued down the way, dragging the shattered fore-section of the carriage behind them in a shower of trailing sparks and falling splinters.

The armoured figure, bright reflections flashing from it in emerald and sapphire, hadn’t shifted a fraction. It lifted one heavy foot to crunch down on the broken wreckage, snapping and flattening the siding. Lord and Lady Pal’ull lay unconscious amid the remains. It walked on without pause, crushing all the debris in its way.

After the great lumbering armoured figure had passed, the citizenry descended on the wreckage in a looting horde. Ten minutes later all that remained at the scene was shattered wood and an unconscious lord and lady in their linen underclothes.

Aragan adjusted his seat on his mount — his arse was getting numb. He was still waiting next to Fist K’ess. A short time ago several quorls had come flitting overhead, twin saddles empty. Some limped along on damaged wings, hardly able to stay aloft. A few came soaring down out of the night sky in a sort of controlled fall to land out of sight without any sound of their crash.

He and K’ess shared looks of dread. Fearsome though the Moranth might be, both had hoped it wouldn’t come to this. K’ess had offered marines for the assault but Aragan had vetoed the suggestion. They’d lost enough troops against the Seguleh; no need to lose more. They were the outsiders here. This was an ancient feud. One this Legate had reopened — perhaps to his short-lived regret. Or so Aragan hoped.

Regardless, he would watch and report. And far away, across Seeker’s Deep, Command at Unta would then adjust Imperial strategy accordingly …

A deep murmuring rose to his attention. It hummed in his ears like a shaking of the earth. Standing water in the fields rippled as if vibrating. Aragan turned in his saddle, along with many others, peering about for the source of the penetrating din.

Then the light changed. Something intervened in the night sky between the glowing bright green Scimitar and the ground. He squinted up to look. A cloud. A wide dark cloud sweeping in from the west.

The murmuring swelled to a deafening thrumming that drowned out all other sounds. Aragan hunched beneath the punishing noise, as did K’ess and others all around. Peering up, he caught the cloud of glimmering wings. Each quorl now carried only one rider, but from every saddle hung fat double panniers fore and aft.

Aragan turned a glare on Torn. ‘What is this?’ he shouted.

‘The alternative,’ calmly answered Torn.

‘Give the assault a chance!’

‘We are. We await the signal.’

‘Signal? What signal?’

‘Success or failure.’

Aragan thrust a hand to the city. ‘Gods, man! Give them time to offer terms, or call a truce!’

Torn shook a slow negative. ‘There will be no terms from the Tyrant. We know him of old.’

‘Torn, be careful here. You could be opening a blood-feud that will soak all these lands!’

‘So it was in the old days, Malazan,’ Torn answered, steel in his voice. ‘The lands of Pale were once ours. We had colonies in the lowlands. Where are they now, I ask you! Annihilated. Such are his terms.’

Aragan opened his mouth but no words would come. And above the quorls circled, waiting, a thrumming drone promising a cataclysm of destruction for the unsuspecting city beyond. Mortal enemies, each determined to utterly crush the other. No quarter. No survival for the fallen. These stakes are far too high. And we Malazans, outsiders, no more than impotent witnesses? Yet what can we do? What are our options? Soliel look away! Is there nothing we can do?