Return of the Crimson Guard

CHAPTER II

‘O Belisk High, Deathslayer close, crown inverted, the Apocalyptic!’

Arm raised to throw, Nait stared at Heuk, the company cadre mage. ‘So? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?’

The old man blinked sallow bloodshot eyes and fell back into his seat. He gestured to the cards. ‘It means something's happening.’

At the company table, Least let go a great farting noise. Nait kept his hand high, shaking the bone dice. ‘Something's always happening somewhere, you daft codger!’

‘Swearing,’ Corporal Hands warned, ‘and throw the damned dice.’

‘Fine!’ Nait shook the dice in Hands’ broad sweaty face. ‘You want me to throw, I'll throw!’ He threw; the dice bounced from the box, disappeared among the sawdust, straw and warped boards of the Figurehead Inn's floor.

‘Aw, you dumb bumpkin!’ said Honey Boy.

‘Shithead.’

‘Swearing!’

‘Look, you better find them,’ said Honey Boy, ‘they're made from my grandmother's own knucklebones.’

‘Then she can bloody well find them.’

Hands, Honey Boy and Least all stared. Nait threw up his arms. ‘Fine! I'll look.’ He got on his hands and knees between the crowded tables. ‘Can't find shit down here anyway.’

‘I did,’ Least said, serious.

Nait searched the floor, deciding to look more for dropped coins than anything else. The door banged open and a man stopped in the threshold blocking the bright light of midday. ‘It's the end of the world, he bellowed into the common room. Conversation and the thumping of pewter tankards stopped. Everyone turned to squint at the man, his eyes wide, hair dishevelled, fine velvet jacket askew and wrenched. ‘Hood's Gates have opened and the dead of all the Abyss are vomiting up upon us!’

Nait, straightening, banged the back of his head on the table. ‘What in Hood's ass?’

‘Flee! Run!’ and, taking his own advice, the man ran.

Nait looked to Hands who looked to Honey Boy. A few patrons peered out the oiled and stretched hides that served as blurry windows. The light shining in the door did have a strange greenish cast to it — like that of an approaching storm front. A number of blurred figures, no more than wavering shadows, ran past the windows like fleeing ghosts. Shrugging, most patrons returned to talking — now discussing even stranger things they'd seen; the day a two-headed cat haunted the streets of Unta and the whole quarter was turned upside down so that the cursed thing could be caught and drowned in a trough; or that night not so long ago when a falling god — perhaps Fener himself — turned the night into day.

Yet Nait thought he heard distant yells of alarm and wonder from the open door. Sighing, Hands pushed herself up from the table and stretched her arms, straining the broad front lacings of her linen shirt. Looking up from the table, Least whimpered and Honey Boy sank his head into his hands. Hands glared, ‘Oh, c'mon!’ She drew on her padded vest and hauberk, took her belt and sword from the back of the chair. Nait pocketed his coins from the table, pushed the birdbone toothpick into the corner of his mouth. He eyed them at the table. ‘Well? C'mon, you limpdicks.’

Watching Hands go, Least rumbled sadly, ‘Not so limp now.’

Honey Boy slapped the Barghast on the back of his bhederin cloak. ‘Wasn't that swearing? I'm sure he swore.’

Nait just spat. One of these days, Hands, I'll pull those big ol’ boots off you.

Outside the sky over Unta Bay flickered with a strange aura. It reminded Nait of the lights that play over the Straits that some say presage the arrival of the Stormriders; not that he'd ever seen any of those demons himself, being from far inland. The glow was receding or dying away even as he watched, leaving behind the normal midday blue vault laced with high thin clouds.

Honey Boy grunted, pointing to the mouth of the harbour. Two ships had entered, both alarmingly low in the water. One's masts hung shattered, the other listed. Sweeps propelled them, but raggedly, all of them unaccountably short, many broken to stubs. Both vessels seemed to glow as if painted white. The squad headed for the wharf.

Commerce on this reach of the mercantile berthings had stuttered to a halt. Bales and sacks lay abandoned. As they ambled past, labourers gingerly straightened from cover. Sailors watched from the rails of merchantmen. One raised a warding gesture against evil. ‘It's the drowned returned — as at the end of times!’

‘Damned few of them,’ Honey Boy opined.

They came abreast of the guard shack and Nait stepped in, ‘Hey, Sarge, did you-’

Sergeant Tinsmith and another stood at one window. The other wore the rags of a dock rat but stood straight with arms folded, a hand at his chin as he peered out. ‘Who in the Queen's privates is this?’ Nait said.

‘Manners,’ Sergeant Tinsmith ground out. ‘This is a guest.’

‘What do you think?’ the fellow asked the sergeant.

Tinsmith stroked his grey moustache. ‘One of them has a Genabackan cut but the other,’ he shook his head, ‘I've never seen the like. What's left of it, anyway. No flagging.’

‘No, none.’

While they watched, the listing one of the vessels came abreast of an anchored Kanese merchantman. The crew of the sinking vessel swarmed over the sides on to the merchantman. Shortly thereafter, that vessel raised anchor, lowered sweeps and headed for the wharf. The abandoned vessel promptly sank in its wake.

‘Damned brazen,’ the dock rat observed.

‘Get the full company down here, Honey Boy,’ Tinsmith shouted outside.

‘Aye, sir.’

‘They're in an awful hurry to get themselves arrested,’ said Nait.

The dock rat regarded him for a moment with hard, amused eyes. ‘We'll see.’

The vessels reached the head of the wharf. Figures climbed down, all armed and armoured, though also bizarrely pale as if whitewashed, or ghosts. A thought struck Nait and he laughed aloud. Tinsmith raised a brow. ‘I was just thinking, sir. It's the sorriest-ass invasion fleet I've ever seen.’ Both men regarded him in silence. ‘Just a thought.’

The dock rat returned to the window. ‘There's something…’ he began, then fell silent. He jerked backwards a step as if struck. ‘Hood no!’ He gestured and Nait felt the prickling sensation of Warren energies gathering. The hairs of his nape tickled and a wind blew about the hut, raising clouds of dust. Nait covered his eyes. A blow sounded, meaty and final, followed by a gurgle. Nait threw himself into a corner, knife out before him. The wind dispersed. He found himself looking up at the long slim legs of a woman who would have been beautiful if she wasn't covered in filth. Her white hair was matted into tangled locks. A crust of white scale limned her bare muscular arms. A tattered shirt and shorts hung in rags limp on her frame. She had Tinsmith up against one wall, an elbow under his neck, knife to his chin. Hands filled the doorway, two dirks out. Tinsmith waved her down.

‘Water…’ the woman croaked through lips swollen and bloodied. Tinsmith glanced aside to a pail. The woman let him fall, grasped the pail and upended it over her head. Hands cocked a questioning look to Tinsmith who waved wait.

The woman spluttered and gasped, swallowing. Panting, she turned to them. Order your men to stand aside, sergeant, and they won't be harmed. Our argument isn't with you.‘ Tinsmith rubbed his neck and slowly nodded his agreement. ‘Very wise, sergeant.’ She gestured and the wind rose again, raising dust and sand and Nait glanced away, shielding his eyes. When he looked back, she was gone.

‘Who the Abyss was that?’ Hands demanded.

Tinsmith crouched at the side of the dock rat, felt at his neck. The man looked to have been slain by a single thrust. The sergeant returned to the window. ‘So they're back,’ he said as if thinking aloud.

‘Who?’ said Hands.

The Crimson Guard.’

Nait barked a sneering laugh. ‘A name to frighten children!’

‘Pass the word, Corporal. No hostilities. Fight only if attacked.’

Hands frowned her disapproval, her thick dark brows knotting. But she nodded and withdrew.

‘And Corporal!’

‘Aye?’

Put everyone to work readying the chains.’

Aye, sir.’

His back to Nait, Tinsmith said, ‘That was Isha. Lieutenant of Cowl.’

Nait opened his mouth to laugh again but the name Cowl silenced him. Cowl, truly? But he'd been the long-time rival of… Dancer. And Dancer was… gone… as was Kellanved. And Dassem. In fact, no one was left. None who could oppose them. Nait dropped his gaze to his knife; he sheathed it. As the sergeant says, no hostilities.

Mallick Rell was reclined on a divan enjoying a lunch of Talian grapes and a Seven Cities recipe for spiced roast lamb when a servant entered. ‘The streets are seething with news, sir,’ the servant offered, his voice low.

‘Oh, yes? And this news contains specifics?’

The servant paused, coughed into a fist. ‘Well, sir. They say the Crimson Guard has returned.’

Mallick chewed a pinch of lamb meat, savouring it. ‘You interrupt my meal to tell me this? A rumour I myself started?’

‘Ah, no. Sir. I understand they're here now. In the harbour.’

Mallick gagged on the meat, spat it to the marble floor. ‘What?’

‘That is what some are saying, sir. Reliably.’

Sitting up, Mallick wiped his face, waved the cloth at the servant. ‘Get out. Now.’

The servant bowed.

‘I said get out of my sight!’

The servant hurried out. Mallick gulped a glass of wine, straightened his robes. ‘Oryan!’

A shimmer of heat-rippled air and the old man appeared. He bowed. ‘Yes?’

‘The Crimson Guard are here, Oryan?’

The Seven Cities mage blinked his black stone eyes. ‘Some entities of great potential have entered the harbour, yes.’

‘Some entities…’ Mallick reached out as if to strangle the old man. He let his arms fall. ‘That is the Guard.’

‘So you say, Master.’

Mallick's voice was a snake hiss, ‘Yes.’ He snatched up a crystal carafe of red wine, pressed the cold vessel to his brow, sighing. ‘Gods deliver me… At least Korbolo isn't in the city.’

The old man snorted his scorn. ‘How unfortunate for him.’

‘Now, now. So, what steps have you been taking?’

‘I have been raising wards, strengthening protections…’

The carafe slammed cracking to the marble table. ‘What?’

‘Strengthening-’

‘No!’

Oryan blinked anew. ‘I'm sorry, Master?’

‘No, you fool! You'll only pique Cowl's interest. Drop them. Drop them all then hide.’

The mage's wrinkled face puckered in consternation. ‘I'm sorry…’

‘Hide, Oryan. That's your only hope. Now go.’

Visibly struggling with his commands, the old man bowed, arms crossed. The air sighed, shifting, and he was gone. For a moment Mallick thought he could detect a sharp spice scent in the air in the man's passing, but it drifted away before he could identify it. He raised the carafe to pour himself another glass but he found it empty, the blood-red wine pooled on the marble flagging; he threw the carafe aside. The fools! They weren't supposed to come here. What could they hope to — Mallick clasped his hands in front of his face as if praying. Of course! ‘Sennit. Sennit!’

A far door opened, the servant reappeared. ‘Yes, sir?’

‘Ready my carriage. I will travel to the Palace.’

‘Sir?’

‘The Palace, man! The Palace! We have important guests.’

Shimmer set her mailed feet on the stone wharf and paused to offer up a prayer of gratitude to any of the Gods who had had a hand in their deliverance from Mael's Shoals of the Forgotten. Gods! What a trial. Mael, you have made your point! A third of their force lost to thirst, exhaustion, sickness and those monstrous eels. And how long had it taken to bull their way through the maze of becalmed rotting vessels — some still manned by crews driven insane by their torment? Months? A year? Who knew? Time did not run parallel from Realm to Realm or even Warren to Warren. And that the least of the dangers of daring such short-cuts.

Yet against all odds they had returned. Once more the Guard faced its true opponent — the entity they had vowed to see negated. The Imperium. She waved Smoky to her. ‘Activity?’

The mage rubbed the crust of salt and blood from his lips. ‘Negligible,’ he croaked. ‘But he is here.’

He. The mage who overturned all the comparisons of numbers and strategies. Tayschrenn, their old nemesis. Shimmer adjusted the hang of her mail coat; damned loose, she'd lost a lot of weight. She drank a long pull from a skin of water scavenged from the merchantman they'd taken. ‘He's Cowl's worry. It's the Palace for us.’

‘Cowl might not be up to it.’

‘Then Skinner will be.’

Smoky picked at the salt-sores on his forehead, frowned in thought. ‘True.’

‘Blades form up!’ Shimmer called, and she started up the wharf. Greymane came to her side.

‘I'll take possession of some better vessels, and await your return, if you don't mind?’

Shimmer eyed the renegade. Ah! Ex-Malazan, of course. ‘Our return you say?’

The man's glacial-blue eyes shared the humour. ‘If necessary, of course.’

‘Very well. You have command.’

Greymane bowed, waved for a sergeant.

It had been over half a century since Shimmer had last seen Unta. It looked bigger, more prosperous, as befitted the adopted Imperial capital. Stone jetties and a curved sea-wall of fitted blocks now rose where wood and tossed rubbish once served. Many more towers punched high into the air over the sprawling streets, including those of the tallest, the Palace.

They formed into column at the mouth of a main thoroughfare leading to Reacher's Square and the government precincts beyond. She and Skinner led; he ordered the silver dragon banner unfurled. As they marched Shimmer watched the gazes of the citizens who jammed the storefronts and stalls lining the sides of the thoroughfare. She searched their faces hoping to see eager friendliness, even welcome, fearing that she would instead meet hostility and resentment. Yet what she found troubled her even more: open perplexity and confusion. Some even pointed and laughed. One woman called out to ask whether they'd come from Seven Cities. Had none of them any idea who they were? Smoky, at her side, muttered, ‘It's like the goddamned carnival's hit town and we're it.’

‘Perhaps we have outlived ourselves…’ And she felt dismay close even more tightly upon her, for the capital was a much larger city than she remembered. The populace lining the street numbered perhaps more than a hundred thousand and it seemed to her that, should they be roused, they could tear them limb from limb. ‘Cowl?’ she asked of Smoky.

‘Dancing with the Claws. Right now they're holding off. Seems they're curious too.’

Shimmer eyed the armoured back of Skinner who had strode ahead with the standard-bearer, Lazar. ‘As am I, Smoky. As am I.’

Guards bowed and opened every sealed door he met, locks clicked and yielded, and wards parted like thinnest cloth before his questings, until Cowl found himself before the final barrier between himself and the innermost sanctum of Tayschrenn's quarters. He reached out to the door then hesitated; why should he have been invited onward? Was it a trap? Yet his every sense told him the High Mage awaited within — he and none other. Alone. As it should be; he and Tay, duelling once again.

He pushed the door open with a blow that sent it banging from the wall. A bare empty room, lit by open windows, and at its centre wards carved into the very stone of the marble floor and filled with poured and hardened gold and silver filigree in concentric circles surrounding a bowed, cross-legged man, long scraggly hair fallen forward over his face.

‘Greetings, Tay.’

The seated figure did not raise his head. ‘You should not have come, Cowl,’ the man intoned in a rough voice. ‘Yet I knew you could not have stayed away.’

‘Getting all mystical in your old age, I see.’ Cowl walked the edge of the craven wards — these he could pass but they would send him to wherever it was Tayschrenn had taken himself off to, and all indications were it was a place he would not wish to be. While Cowl paced the circle Tayschrenn failed to respond, so, impatient with the man's theatrics — some things never change — Cowl said directly, ‘Will you stand aside?’

‘If you mean, shall I intervene? The answer is no, I shall not.’

Cowl did not bother keeping a smile of victory from his face. ‘Wise move, Tay. All alone now, you would fall to my knives.’

The head rose, greasy lank hair shifting to reveal a haggard strained face, eyes sunken, fevered. ‘Wise?’ the unnerving figure demanded. ‘Do you know the final attainment of absolute power, Cowl?’

‘The final what of what?’

‘Powerlessness, Cowl. Absolute power diffuses into powerlessness.’

Cowl stepped away from the warded figure. ‘Is this some kind of elaborate self-justification for cowardice?’

Tayschrenn continued as if Cowl hadn't spoken, ‘I have stretched myself further than I have ever dared before probing onward ahead into the possibilities of what might come. I have glimpsed things that both terrify and exult. Can you answer this puzzle, Cowl? How can both of these things be?’

Despite his dismissal of this Hermetic side of Warren manipulation, Cowl found himself responding by rote, ‘Because the future holds everything.’

‘Exactly, Cowl. I see that it is possible that you are in fact worthy of the title High Mage. And so, the question then follows, what course of action should I take in the present? Which steps might lead to all that which terrifies, which steps might lead to all that which exults? The answer is of course that I cannot know for certain. Thus I am held back from all choice. Total awareness, my friend, results in paralysis.’ The head sank once more, as if dismissing Cowl, indeed as if dismissing all physical reality.

Cowl relaxed, let his hands fall from the crossed baldrics and belts beneath his cloak. He had weapons invested and aspected that might just reach the man, but what he'd found here was no threat to anyone. It was now clear to him that the twisted Gnostic innards of theurgy had claimed the mind of the most promising mage of his generation.

He turned and left the chamber.

Once Cowl exited the room light shimmered next to the open door revealing a woman with short black hair in ash-hued tunic and trousers and carrying a long slim stave. This she planted with a sharp blow upon the marble flags. ‘He should never have been allowed to get this close.’

‘I am beyond his physical reach,’ Tayschrenn answered mildly.

‘Yet he is also a formidable mage, so I understand.’

‘In certain narrow and sharp applications, yes.’

The woman swung the stave across her shoulders, draped her arms over it. ‘And now?’

‘They will see that nothing can be decided here. It all lies upon Heng's walls, as before. And they will go.’

‘Before?’

Tayschrenn nodded, his eyes closed. ‘Yes. When the Protectress fell to Kellanved and Dancer everyone realized that no one was safe from them — all proceeded logically from that.’

The woman stood still for some time, head cocked as if listening. Tayschrenn's head sank lower, his breathing shallowed to imperceptibility. She stepped to the open door. ‘Do not involve yourself,’ announced the motionless Tayschrenn.

The woman froze, mouthed a silent curse. She set the stave against the wall. ‘Just going to keep an eye on things.’ She waited a time for an answer but none came. She cursed again and left.

Leaning against a street-side stall, Possum watched the ragged, exhausted column of Crimson Guardsmen enter the tall bronze doors of the Palace precincts. He didn't know whether to laugh or cry; was this it then? The much vaunted Guard? Had the stories over the years so grown in the telling? And what of Cowl? Had he survived?

A Hand-commander stopped at his side. One of the second echelon, vice-commanders. Coil was her name. ‘Anand wishes to know if he can count on us cooperating with the barricades.’

Possum leaned forward blocking one nostril to blow his nose to the street. ‘Yes. Seed the crowds. Tell everyone to keep their distance.’

‘Very good.’ Still, the woman did not move. She watched the outer gates swinging ponderously shut.

‘Yes, Coil?’

‘Hard to believe, yes?’

Irritated by the familiarity, Possum demanded, ‘What? That they returned? Or the condition in which they did? Or the chances that they should pick this time to show up?’

Coil did not turn to her head to glance to him. ‘Chance? I don't believe in it. And I don't take them.’

Which is why, Coil, you'll never stand where I am. ‘You have your orders.’

Coil glanced to him with her half-lidded hard eyes. ‘And these orders — from the Empress?’

The Hand-commander's tone quickened Possum's pulse. By the Queen's Mysteries, was she challenging his authority? ‘Immaterial. You've just heard them from me.’

Smiling, Coil inclined her head in the shallowest of bows, and sauntered away. Possum watched her go. Why so bold? No need to advertise what everyone in the ranks understands — that all those beneath you think they can do a better job, and are ever watchful for opportunities to demonstrate such by ousting said superior.

Blowing his nose once more, Possum dismissed Coil from his mind. She'd been merely angling for news of the Empress. No need to tell her he'd searched the Palace earlier and found no sign of her; sensibly, she'd run off. No point being disappointed about it. What could she be expected to do against some fifty Avowed and seven hundred Guardsmen? Bravely face them only to be captured? Reduced thereafter to a hostage or mere bargaining chip? What would be the sense in that? No, to Possum's way of thinking she'd done the wise thing. Let the Guard blunder like clod-footed fools through the Palace. What did they expect? To just sit on the throne and be obeyed? No, this whole episode was the shabby and frankly rather embarrassing final chapter to what had once been a noble career. Possum wiped his nose. Yes, thinking about it, he realized that he was quite disappointed by the whole thing and more than a little resentful that they'd bothered showing up at all; they'd ruined the legend for him and for everyone.

For her part, Shimmer saw the humour. She, Skinner and a handful of Avowed marching through the inner precincts, the majority of the force left behind in the marshalling grounds. What could they hope to accomplish, or more precisely, what did Cowl or Skinner have in mind? Surely Laseen would have fled by now, or carried on the ancient solution and taken poison — one could always hope. Perhaps they would end up joining the queue of petitioners hoping for their turn before the August Personage.

But no. Skinner did not stop on his relentless march to the Throne room. Functionaries and clerks pressed themselves against walls and gaped as they strode through colonnaded approaches, seating halls, and long reception chambers. All guards were notable by their absence — almost as if they'd been pulled for service elsewhere — and the where of that troubled Shimmer.

The final tall set of double doors crashed open under Skinner's armoured forearm and they faced the long sable carpet leading up to an empty throne. The throne of Malaz, assembled from bones. A not so subtle reminder of the true power behind it, the T'lan Imass. A cold grim seat, it seemed to Shimmer. Skinner set his gauntleted hands to his belt and nodded his head within his tall helm, as if confirming to himself what he'd been expecting all along.

‘Empty,’ Shimmer said, mostly because someone had to.

‘Almost,’ Skinner corrected, pointing aside.

A short chubby man in rich blue and green robes bowed where he waited next to a pillar. He gestured to a table holding carafes of clear water. ‘Refresh yourselves please, honoured ones. I see that your passage has been a particularly desiccating one.’

Skinner turned away, dismissing him. ‘Poison is useless against us.’

The man bowed again. ‘As I know. Which is why I would never make such an ill-advised attempt.’

Shimmer drew off her helmet, tucked it under one arm. ‘You are?’

‘Mallick Rel. Duly elected spokesman for the Assembly of regional governors and representatives.’ He smiled unctuously, bobbing his head.

Shimmer helped herself to the water, drank deeply and found it wonderfully refreshing. ‘Come to take the measure of your new masters?’

The man's lips drew back in a thin smile, revealing sickly green teeth. ‘If the Gods should will it so…’

It seemed to Shimmer that this man was not nearly as nervous as he should be. Skinner had turned at the man's words and now regarded him. ‘Perhaps I should kill you,’ he said, his voice bland.

The man's eyes fluttered as he blinked his confusion. ‘But wasn't the water cool and fresh?’

Shimmer laughed. ‘It was that. My thanks.’

‘Excellent. A job well done is its own reward.’

Now it was Shimmer's turn to stare, uncertain. This man's game was deep — was he angling to maintain his position, or was that actually… mockery?

But Skinner waved curt dismissal. ‘Leave us.’

The man bowed and backed out. Lazar pulled the doors shut.

This whole thing is a mistake, Skinner,‘ Smoky said — for the tenth time. ‘And that guy was the oddest of it.’ Shimmer had to agree. Why had he elected to be here to meet them? What was his purpose?

Skinner faced them. ‘Yes, enough of this foolish charade. Laseen has fled. What we have shown here is that no one dares face us. Shimmer, take the command back to the ships to withdraw down the coast to the west and link up with the rest of the forces when they arrive. Cowl and I will join you later.’

Shimmer bowed. ‘You are going on alone?’

‘Yes. There is are some… options… Cowl and I wish to look into.’

Shimmer bowed again. ‘As you order.’ She gestured Smoky behind her, faced Lazar, Black the Lesser, Shijel and Kalt. ‘Form up and have a care.’

They'd left behind the inner halls and were close to the marshalling grounds when the first ambush took them. A concerted toss of Moranth munitions blew Kalt into fragments. Withering volleys from crossbows and bows kept them pinned until Smoky drove the soldiers back with a liquid wall of flame that billowed down the hall. Shimmer stepped out among the still burning tapestries and furniture, waved the smoke aside, squinting ahead. She pointed Lazar back to get Skinner even though she was certain he was gone — if he'd been around he would have come. Smoky raised a hand for silence. ‘The Brethren clamour. Listen.’

The muted, distant murmur of battle; her command was under attack.

Possum strode beneath the fluttering awnings of Collunus Bourse, the second largest of the covered exchanges specializing in imported goods. Deserted, now, in the chaos and rioting of this evening. His guards flanked him and Claw runners came and went reporting developments among the splintered broadening front that, he had to admit, was rapidly gyring beyond his grip. Down narrow passing ways he glimpsed black smoke pluming from the worst of the engagements: burning barricades, the flames of which had surged out of control swallowing defenders, attackers and bystanders alike. Runners reported that the Guard had been held up in its efforts to push through to the harbour. Elements of the 4th had even managed to separate small bands of Guardsmen. He was on his way to one such engagement now, a chance to actually continue with the plan thrown together when the Guard entered the city — to take them out piece by piece.

A runner arrived from the engagement. ‘They have them pinned down in a tenement.’ He gestured to an alley.

Possum did not try to answer for now they had entered the clamour of the battle zone. Malazan regulars came and went, hustling equipment to the engagement: flammables, shields, sheaths of arrows and crossbow bolts. The disassembled components of a harbour siege weapon came dragged by. Possum thought that a damned good idea. But the regulars were few, vastly outnumbered by the Untan citizen volunteer militia that had arisen to the challenge with a will and a fury no one, certainly not Possum, had anticipated. He couldn't help reflecting with a dose of his old cynicism that it mustn't have hurt that the Claw had spread the offer of ten thousand Imperial gold discs for the head of each Avowed.

The runner led them to a sunken rear entrance then stairs up to a trap and the roof. Here, an individual Claw awaited them, the local Hand-commander. Scrabbling forward, they looked across and down at the target. Below them the militia kept up a ruthless barrage of crossbow fire into the front of the tenement. To Possum's experienced eye what the barrage lacked in accuracy it more than made up for in enthusiasm. Yet while the heads of the Guardsmen were being kept down, it was obvious no one on either side was eager for a rush. A standoff. But one that could break either way, depending on how it played out.

‘How many?’

‘A few — less than ten. Maybe a blade.’

Possum took the opportunity to look out over the city. The sky was taking on an orange glow, tinted by the flames; the afternoon was giving way to evening. Smoke plumes rose like a handful of tossed markers announcing a ragged line that ran practically half way across the city. Things would soon devolve far beyond any chance of intervention from him. Decisions would fall to the individual judgment of Hand-commanders, so he might as well enter the fray. ‘How many munitions do you have access to?’ he asked the commander.

‘Munitions?’

‘Yes.’

The man, his face marred by a severe youthful dose of the pox, glanced sidelong to the runner and Possum's own guards. ‘Shouldn't we wait before trying something like that?’

‘Wait?

‘Yes.’

‘Wait for what? For Gods or Ascendants to appear in the bloody streets? We don't have to wait for anything! I'm the Lady-damned Clawmaster!’

The man hunched beneath Possum's tirade, exchanged glances with his runner as if blaming each other. Once again Possum found himself disheartened by the state of the organization since its gutting on Malaz Isle. Kellanved's Revenge, some called that night, evoking the stories that this newly arisen Shadowthrone was in fact the old emperor. It was said that in revenge for past slights, his assassination not the least of them, Kellanved had sent the curse of his own Shadow Queen upon them to harrow the ranks. And what a harrowing that night had been!

Luckily, Possum had then been elsewhere engaged. Now, this night, he almost demoted this Hand-commander on the spot but decided against it; no sense doing what the upcoming fight might accomplish all on its own. ‘Spread the word below. We're taking over here. We'll open with a volley of whatever munitions you can pull together then close to finish up the survivors.’ He indicated the roof opposite. ‘Let's come down from above.’

‘As you order,’ barked the Hand-commander, all obedience now. Far too late for that, friend.

They reached the roof together, Possum with his guards and the commander's Hand of five. Eljin, the man had given his name as. Another Hand now kept watch from the ground where the fusillade of crossbow fire had diminished. Possum hoped the mercenaries wouldn't get too suspicious. He signed for the attack — before the Guard decided to rush the damned street in the lull.

Eljin pumped his fist over the lip of the roof then threw himself down. ‘Incoming!’ The entire Hand lay flat on the steeply sloped tiled roof. A moment later the ancient wooden three-storey tenement jumped beneath Possum's body, tossing him into the air. A Claw screamed as he tumbled down the roof, tiles clattering around him. The building settled with a screeching pained groan like a ship wallowing. Smoke and dust shot up the open roof trap. Possum pushed himself to his feet and stood spread-legged for balance. ‘Go, go, go!’

They charged down the stairs. Carnage greeted them; the building hadn't been emptied. Its inhabitants crammed the stairwell, screaming, clambering over one another in a tumble. Flames now flickered below at the first floor and Eljin, to his credit leading the way, found himself facing a tide of panicked citizenry determined to climb the stairs to escape the fire.

He dealt with this barrier through the simple expediency of kicking down those foremost and pushing over the railing anyone too slow to cooperate. All the while he bellowed, ‘Down! Get down!’

Possum almost cried his frustration. Time. They were recovering! Get out of the way, you stupid bhederin! Then the wood stairway sagged beneath them, timbers splintering and bursting like small secondary explosions. This cleared the way. Like a herd checked by an immovable obstacle, it turned as one mind and reversed course. Eljin helped them on with the pommels of his knives. After the citizens had fled they found a large open space cleared by the explosions. A number of the interior walls had been swept away. The stairwell hung canted behind them, a hundred years of dust sifting down from it.

The Hand spread out among the wreckage. Possum walked to the front. Small fires flickered amid the fallen walls and splintered furniture. Gone. The delay had ruined their attack. He checked the street; had they bulled out the front?

A wet blow, like that of a butcher's strike, snapped his attention around. Eljin stared his stunned surprise at a blade now hung caught in his chest having swept down from behind through his collarbone and upper ribs severing his torso almost in two halves. So much for the man's demotion. The armoured giant behind Eljin raised a mailed foot to push the standing corpse from his blade. All around Guardsmen erupted from the wreckage engaging Claws and Possum could only stare stunned like Eljin. They'd laid their own blasted trap!

As the first echoes of battle hidden far inland reached them, and plumes of smoke rose shortly thereafter over the city, Nait watched the Guardsman commanding the force at the harbour order a withdrawal. They climbed aboard their two commandeered vessels and oared out to the bay where they dropped anchor, waiting. From the wharf side Nait waved every obscene gesture he knew until Hands cuffed him. ‘Why'd they go?’ she asked Tinsmith. ‘Abandon their friends?’

Tinsmith merely spat into the water. ‘Don't have enough men to secure the harbour. They're safe from the mob out there.’

‘But not them,’ Nait said, pointing to the top of the harbour curtain wall. There catapults and mangonels glowed in the light of torches held by their busy attendants. ‘Gonna be a pheasant shoot for them,’ he chuckled gleefully.

‘Don't know about that,’ Honey Boy objected, ‘don't think I've ever seen them actually shoot one of those rusted things.’

Tinsmith did not look impressed either. ‘Let's leave them to their job. Now it's time for us to do ours.’

Nait adjusted the bird-bone toothpick at the corner of his mouth, his eyes narrowing. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Secure the harbour, of course. We are the harbour guard.’

Hands pulled her gauntlets from her belt. ‘About bloody time.’

Least frowned his agreement. Nait could only stare from grim face to grim face. ‘Are you all crazy? 1 know there's only one of them left on the wharf but do you know what he must be?’

‘He's a Trake-cursed invader!’ said Hands.

He's probably from Unta, Nait silently rejoined.

Tinsmith walked up to the single Guardsman left behind at the foot of the stone wharf. As he got close the man turned to him, his eyes hidden within the helm's closed visor. Whoever he was, he wore a thick scaled hauberk and mailed leggings, and bore a broad shield on his back. His surcoat had originally no doubt been deep crimson but now dried salt scale had turned it white. Close, Tinsmith opened his hands to show he meant no harm.

‘You are the sergeant of the Harbour Guard,’ the man said.

‘Yes. Sergeant Tinsmith. And you?’

‘Black.’

Tinsmith nodded a cautious hello. ‘Well, Black. Hostilities have been declared. Looks like we're gonna have to do our job.’

‘You do yours and I'll do mine.’

Tinsmith nodded again and backed away. A third up the length of the wharf he gestured a signal and ten of the harbour guard rose with crossbows readied. The instant they fired the Avowed leapt behind piled cargo. Having fired, these first ten knelt and a second rank straightened. ‘Hold fire!’ Tinsmith ordered.

He eyed the piled sacks and barrels now feathered by bolts. Had the Avowed retreated or was he manoeuvring for another approach? Yet no clear path existed, Tinsmith had made sure of that. The man stood suddenly, shield raised, and charged.

‘Fire!’

The Avowed dived for new cover but not before bolts slammed into his shield. ‘Next rank,’ Tinsmith ordered. The first rank straightened once again, crossbows levelled. The Avowed had closed about six paces.

‘Now?’ Nait asked of Tinsmith where he crouched on his knees behind cover, a heavy sledge in his hands.

‘Not yet.’

The Avowed rose again. With an angry swipe he broke the bolts from his shield. He advanced despite a bolt that ran straight through one thigh. ‘Fire!’

This time the Avowed did not bother ducking. Bolts slammed into his shield, rocking him backwards. One tore through his right calf, sending him to one knee.

‘Next rank,’ Tinsmith ordered.

‘He's gotta be there by now!’ Nait pleaded.

‘Almost.’

The next rank stood but three had not yet finished cocking their weapons. This volley, rushed, most wide, did not slow the Avowed. ‘Now,’ Tinsmith judged. Nait swept up the sledge and slammed it down on the iron pin jammed between chain links at his feet. Nothing happened. ‘I said now,’ Tinsmith repeated.

‘She's as tight as a ten-year-old's-’

‘Watch it!’ snarled Hands next to Tinsmith, sword ready.

Tinsmith was eyeing the closing Avowed. ‘Now would be a good time.’

Nait pulled down the sledge with a frantic, urgent swing. The head banged from the pin, which shot from the links like a bolt itself, so great was the pressure upon it. ‘She's away!’ Nait yelled.

The harbour guard threw themselves down. Chain links rattled, snarling against stone. The Avowed paused, uncertain. Then in an explosion of heaped cargo, a length of chain came sweeping across the width of the wharf, tossing barrels, tearing sacks, splintering timbers, until it came to snatch away the Avowed as it he were a doll and sweep him aside into the water.

Nait ran to the stone ledge of the wharf, danced from foot to foot. ‘Ha! We got you! Ha! Not so big now, hey?’ Tinsmith came to his side followed by Heuk. All three peered down into the churned, dirty green waves. ‘Ha! He's dead.’

Heuk shook his head. ‘Not necessarily. Might still be alive. It's a real debate — I'd like to stay to see.’

‘Can't.’ Tinsmith gestured to the two Guard ships, ‘they saw it all. So maybe we should go join the fight.’

Nait lost his smile. ‘Oh, right. Yeah. Maybe so.’

Tinsmith signed the guard to form up.

The mute shuffling and grunts of continued fighting prodded Possum to crack open an eye. The noises came from out back; everyone inside was quite obviously dead. He rose silently to his feet and as he did so the mortal slash that laid open his entrails disappeared leaving behind a much shallower, albeit deep enough, cut. Bodies strewed the blown-out first storey, Claws and Guardsmen alike. Wincing, Possum clenched an arm across his slashed abdomen and surveyed the carnage. He and the seven Claws had managed to take down the five Guard — all but one, an Avowed, who then finished off the two remaining Claw and Possum himself, or thought he had.

Yet the fighting continued. Stiff with pain, Possum crossed carefully to a window looking out on the rubbish-strewn enclosure behind the tenement. There the Avowed duelled a single Claw. Possum stared. Run, you damned fool! Who was this idiot? He'd not authorized any lone hunters this night. The man, woman, Possum corrected himself, had elected to face the Avowed barehanded. Possum could not understand it, the highest, most exacting of the disciplines taught at the Claw cre?ches and the Academy, yes, but against an armoured opponent wielding a longsword? Granted, the Avowed moved rather awkwardly having been thrust through the back and front scores of times by Possum and his own guards before managing to cut them all down, but still: bare hands against iron mail?

The Claw, wrapped all over in black cloth strips, including her head, leaving only a slit for her eyes, circled the Avowed, probing, shifting her stance. He waited, sword raised, his other arm hanging useless having been shattered in the explosion. Possum decided that though she might be the stupidest of his ranks she deserved help if only for, well… sheer brainless audacity. He calmed himself to summon his Warren.

A cold knife blade bit his neck. He froze. From behind, a head nestled its weight on his left shoulder. A woman's low voice breathed hot and damp into his ear, ‘Let's see what she's got.’ Despite the blazing pain of his abdomen Possum felt a shiver of hunger to know the possessor of such a voice.

The flickering glow of burning city blocks lit the enclosure and painted the night sky orange. Distant screams and the murmur of battle marked the front where the Guard inexorably bulled its way back to the harbour. The Claw continued her circling dance while the Avowed clumsily tracked her, one lumbering step after another. So swiftly that Possum missed it, one foot lashed in to swipe the side of the Avowed's helmet, the sword swung after, and the armoured giant righted himself, shaking his head. Fool! What did that accomplish? You'll only break the bones of your foot. Another kick, this one connecting square in the chest, rocking the Avowed backwards — again, another slow swing. The woman at his shoulder snorted her impatience and Possum had to agree; what was the point in this wasted time and effort?

Yet useless punishment was not the Claw's purpose, as became clear to Possum in an instant as another kick brought another swing, but this time the arm was trapped, locked and the Claw's own elbow pushed in and the mailed arm snapped backwards with an audible wet popping. The Claw sprang away. The woman at Possum's shoulder grunted her appreciation of the move. The sword had fallen from the numb grip and now the Avowed struggled with his shattered arm to reach a dirk sheathed at his belt. The Claw launched herself upon him, legs twisting around his torso. Hands jabbed straight over the Avowed's vision slit, fisted, thumbs extended to disappear entirely within.

The Avowed bellowed his excruciating pain — the first sound Possum recalled hearing from him. The Claw sprang free once more, faced the blinded, crippled giant. He sank to his knees. He appeared to say something which was lost in the din of the surrounding battle;

she answered. He lowered his helmeted head. The Claw spun, leg lashing out to take the man low on the neck beneath the lip of the helmet, snapping the head sickeningly aside. The Avowed toppled to his side.

Possum could not believe what he'd just seen; how was this possible? Hood preserve him! Who was this woman? None he knew of in the ranks. The one holding the blade to his throat snarled something in a language unknown to Possum and withdrew. He spun but she was gone. So quick! A mage as well; and damned good.

Turning back, he caught the one wrapped in black swathings staring right at him. He took a breath to call but she ran, disappearing into another tenement. He cradled his front with a gasp; that sudden breath hadn't been a good idea. When he looked up again another lone Claw had entered the garbage-strewn enclosure. This one wore grey cloth, her short black hair uncovered. Great Fanderay! Yet another one! And another female to boot! Where were they all coming from? The Claw knelt to examine the fallen Avowed. Possum limped to the shattered rear door.

By the time he reached the Guardsman this third mystery woman was of course gone. He shuffled to the fallen Avowed. A hand at the man's broken neck assured him that the man was indeed dead — asphyxiation, Possum assumed, from feeling his crushed larynx.

He straightened from the corpse. Intriguing mysteries, yes, but all would have to wait. He studied the glow of flames brightening the night sky, black smoke billowing from nearby. Time to reassert some measure of control — if possible. And find a healer too. He probed the slit across his front gummed with drying blood, and grimaced; yes, definitely the closest he'd yet come to the end of his career. A wave and an opening to darkness appeared. Possum stepped through delicately.

Coming up the Way of Opals, Nait and the harbour guard met a wagon headed the opposite way. A tarp covered its contents and the drover was afoot, pulling on the tack of the two harnessed oxen. His face glistened with sweat and his eyes were wide with terror as he nodded to Sergeant Tinsmith. Up the road fires looked to be gathering Strength in the fine tailoring district. ‘How goes things?’ Sergeant Tinsmith called to the man.

‘Very good, sir. Very good. Just trying to save some possessions from the fires.’ He pulled two-handed on the yoke, muttered feverishly to the oxen.

‘I meant with the battle,’ Tinsmith said.

Men and women came running down the street carrying bundles and baskets. A crying child was being dragged along by her shirt-front. The man blinked at Tinsmith. Oh, that! Have no idea. Sorry. You'll have to reach the Gemcutters’ Bourse for that.’

‘The gemcutters?’ said Nait. ‘They're fighting there? Sergeant, please, we've to get a piece of that’

The man clenched both hands in his hair and he stared pleadingly at the oxen. ‘There's some kind of riot in the district. Something about protection fees. Move, you great anuses!’

Tinsmith raised an eyebrow. ‘I'm sorry…?’

The man yanked on his hair so hard it was as if he was attempting to raise himself from the ground. ‘Not you — them! Why won't you move? Please! Come ow.’

‘Maybe we can help,’ offered Hands.

Tinsmith glared at her. To the man, ‘Good luck.’

‘I'll fucking kill you!’ the man yelled at the oxen.

Honey Boy tapped a finger to the side of his head. Least nodded, the fetishes tied in his hair jangling. As they moved up the Way of Opals the stream of refugees grew so congested they had to push to make any headway. It occurred to Nait that toe-to-toe fighting was not why he'd signed up with the harbour guard, but it looked like that was exactly where the sergeant was taking him unless he could think of something quick. It also occurred to him that he'd seen that fellow before. And recently too. He pushed his way to Tinsmith's side. ‘Something strange about that fellow and his wagon, sir.’

‘That there certainly was.’

‘I mean, he was probably on his way to the harbour, don't you think?’

Tinsmith slowed. ‘What tells you that, Nait?’

‘Just a hunch.’

Tinsmith shook his head. ‘Not good enough, Nait.’ He waved a go-ahead to a glaring Hands.

‘I've seen that scraggle-haired fellow before, sir,’ Nait called.

‘Where was that?’ Tinsmith called back.

‘On board the Ragstopper.’

Sergeant Tinsmith stopped. He turned to Nait. ‘You sure?’

‘My nose tells me so.’ He tapped the side of it.

Hands sneered. ‘He just doesn't want a sword shoved up it.’

A comment similar in kind occurred to Nait but Tinsmith waved for silence. He stroked his grey moustache. ‘OK. Let's check it out.’

He raised his voice, ‘Load crossbows! Spread out!’ Hands signalled a reverse.

They found the wagon not too far down the way from where they'd left it. The drover ignored them, yanking on the harnessing. He was weeping. Tinsmith walked up, followed by Hands, Nait and Least.

‘You with the Ragstopper?’ Tinsmith called out.

The man jumped as if stabbed. He spun, dragged a sleeve across his face. ‘What? Why? Who're you?’

‘Sergeant Tinsmith, harbour guard. Are you with the Ragstopper? Is that cargo?’

The man wrung his hands. ‘What's that? Cargo? No, of course not.’ He climbed up on to the seat, took up a whip. ‘Now, I have to go. Goodbye!’

‘Oughtn't we…’ began Hands. Tinsmith waved for her to wait.

The man cracked the whip over the oxen. ‘Go! Run! Move!’

Tinsmith, Hands and Nait watched him. Nait moved his toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other. ‘What'cha got back there, friend?’

He stared at them, then threw down the whip. ‘Nothing! Just some supplies.’ He clambered up on to the load of tarped boxes. ‘You have no right to stop me. This isn't the harbour. Go away!’

Tinsmith sighed, looked up and down the street, watched the citizenry streaming past on their way to the waterfront to escape what might burgeon into a firestorm. ‘Looks to me like this wagon represents a blockage in a public thoroughfare. Therefore, by the power invested in me as a public servant and enforcer of civil writs, it lies within my authorization to have this conveyance seized and impounded.’

On his hands and knees on top of the piled boxes, the fellow stared down at them. ‘What?’

‘Least, Honey Boy, get this wagon off the main road.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Least. He waved Honey Boy to him and the two yanked the oxen by their nose rings into the mouth of an alley. The man threw himself flat, hugging the tarp.

‘No! You mustn't! You don't understand — it's mine! Mine!’

‘Keep your invoice?’ Nait asked with an evil grin.

The fellow rolled off the back. His hands went to his hair, yanked furiously, then flew out wide. He ran down the street, waving his arms, shrieking, ‘Noooooo!’

Nait and Tinsmith watched him go. ‘Oughtn't we…’ said Hands. Tinsmith just waved the thought aside. He turned to the wagon.

‘All right, let's take a look.’ They untied the tarp, threw it up, lowered the gate. Boxes. Identical boxes of dark wood piled four deep in six rows. Nait examined the latches of the nearest. There didn't appear to be a lock plate or a keyhole. He pulled out his knife. ‘How do you open these things?’ He jammed the point of his knife into the wood.

Tinsmith suddenly knocked the knife flying from his hands. Nait glared at his sergeant. ‘What?’

‘Blame my nose,‘ Tinsmith said. ‘Now stand back. I seem to remember seeing boxes like these back in my old days with the marines in Genabackis.’ He stood up on the lowered gate and gingerly felt at the twin latches of one of the top rear boxes. These gave easily. Kneeling, his face close, he lifted the lid a finger's width. Nothing happened. He stared inside for a time, motionless.

‘Sergeant?’ Hands asked.

Tinsmith cleared his throat. ‘Corporal, how close would you say those fires are now?’

‘A few blocks — getting closer.’

He closed the box, jumped down. ‘Back up the oxen. Get ‘em moving. Now.’

‘They ain't interested,’ complained Least.

‘Use your knives.’

Honey Boy blew out a breath and raised his brows as if to say, ‘my goodness’.

Nait followed Tinsmith out on to the street. ‘What's in the boxes?’ His sergeant ignored him, peering up and down the thoroughfare.

‘Corporal Hands,’ he ordered, ‘send men to confiscate and ready a launch large enough for this load.’

‘Aye, aye, sir.’

‘Is it gold?’

‘Least, organize a perimeter of men around the wagon. Don't let anyone on to it.’

‘Aye, sir.’

‘Is it maybe the Imperial jewels looted from the twelve continents?’

Sergeant Tinsmith snatched the front of Nait's jerkin, lifted him on to his toes. Face to face, he growled, ‘I'm going to actually tell you, Nait. But only because I know that if I don't you're going to stick your ugly face into one of them and kill us all. So, what's inside?’ He lowered his voice and his eyes held a fey look that Nait had never seen in his sergeant before. ‘There's enough Moranth munitions in that wagon to turn the city's entire waterfront into dust and smoke. All of it sealed with the mark of the Imperial Arsenal.’

‘No shit?’ Nait managed, pulling at Tinsmith's fist.

‘But what really worries me, Nait, is the fact that someone's pillaging the Arsenal. And sooner or later, that someone's going to make a mistake — and when that happens I plan to be as far away as possible.’

Shimmer glared out the window of the Black Nacht tavern to the fires that seemed to have spontaneously sprung to life all over the city. Crossbow bolts slammed intermittently into half-closed shutters and bounced from the stone wall with sharp metallic tings. Turning, she crooked a finger to Smoky. The mage opened his arms helplessly. ‘Don't look at me. Honest. I'm just playing support here. It's the citizens. They're looting and rioting to cover their looting. Honest.’

She crossed her arms. ‘I hope so because we do not want to test Tayschrenn's forbearance.’

‘Really!’

‘Fine.’ She faced the two blades that remained with her. ‘We've made a mistake, let them pin us down. Their numbers are just growing out there. We have to keep moving.’ Her glance fell to the sturdy tavern tables, their hand-adzed timbers fully four fingers thick; she studied the doors — of similar construction. She looked to Voss, a blade saboteur. He nodded and a broad smile gathered at his mouth.

Mantlets was one name Shimmer knew for them. Rattels, else-where, pavises as well. In practice they could take many shapes, depending upon the purposes one had in mind and the material available. Large movable shields usually built during sieges to defend attacking crossbowmen, bowmen or sappers. Voss supervised the construction of as many as they could pull together. Held side by side in a tight circle Shimmer would move her command inside a turtle — just like the one the remnants of the 3rd Company reported using to escape their imprisonment.

Yells and the crash of wood in the distance marked another element advancing — Shimmer watched down a side street while hundreds of armed citizens, this Untan volunteer militia, ran to cover the shifting action. Gods, everyone in the city had a crossbow and armfuls of bolts. It was as if they'd kicked a hornet's nest and now couldn't extricate their foot from it. Voss came to her side. ‘How many?’ she asked.

‘Enough — better than none.’

‘Are we ready?’

‘Could use more time. Do the job right, you know. But they're gathering out there, aren't they.’

‘Yes. We have no time. Pull the door and let's go.’

Voss saluted, the single fist to the chest. ‘Aye, sir.’

The sturdy front door was yanked from its hinges. Bolts stormed through the opening like driven rain. Everyone had already taken cover. Two mantlets were brought up side by side then edged out one after the other to cover the opening in a ‘V shape. Shimmer waved up the next pair. Crossbow bolts slammed into the shields in a steady driven rhythm like hail. A tossed lit lantern smashed against the wall spraying burning oil. The Guardsmen flinched, but continued on. At her side Smoky pointed, mouthed, ‘See!’

Eventually a full turtle of hefted tall shields now protected her command. Snipers in the taller buildings would still have line of sight down within, but it was the best they could throw together. The tavern's front door served as the final rear mantlet closing all egress. Shimmer peeked ahead through a gap in the timbers. Tossed torches, lamps and lanterns now punished them. The ferocity of the attack amazed her; it was as if the citizens were determined to burn down their own city to get them. Voss had everyone who could carrying water and had doused everyone as they exited, but the flames still inflicted casualties. It was an ugly way to go — Shimmer would prefer anything quicker.

‘Left,’ she called, directing them to a narrower alley. Before them a ragged mob of armed citizen militia struggled to simultaneously fire their crossbows and retreat. It proved too much for them and they melted away in a general panic of falling bodies and dropped weapons. As they passed over the spot the Guardsmen helped themselves to the weapons. Yet the punishment from the rear was intense; the occasional bolt found an opening and men fell.

‘Return fire!’ Voss was yelling in the rear.

‘Smoky!’ Shimmer called.

‘On it.’

Flames roared up behind the turtle of jostled mantlets, cutting off the alley.

‘How long?’ she asked.

‘Not long.’

They emerged on to a major north-south avenue lined by vendors’ stalls fronting three-storey brick merchants’ shops. Fleeing citizenry thronged its centre, flowing south to the waterfront. Bands of armed militia crossed the flow, shifting to new hot spots. All of the citizens stopped, stared at the emerging turtle and fled screaming.

‘Left again,’ Shimmer called.

Bumping and banging, the ungainly beast lurched left. Through the gap Shimmer could now see down the long slow descent of the avenue to ship masts lit by the glow of the widespread flames. ‘I see the harbour!’ she called. A cheer went up within the turtle. The staccato impacts of bolts picked up now that their pursuers had poured into the avenue and flowed to surround them once again. A lantern tossed from a third-storey window burst among them splashing burning oil everywhere.

‘Hold tight!’ Shimmer yelled over the screams as men and women clawed at themselves and rolled to the cobbles. ‘Douse them! Cloaks!’ Abandoned, a mantlet table-top fell and a storm of bolts lashed into the exposed interior. ‘Tighten up!’

A bolt slammed into Shimmer's side, knocking her to her knees. ‘Close up!’ she gasped, righting herself.

‘They're rushing us,’ a Guardsman warned.

‘Ready weapons! Keep moving!’ Shimmer took a long-knife from the belt of the Guardsman supporting the mantlet before her,

‘Prepare to repel boarders!’ some wit called out.

A spear thrust between mantlets, its leaf-shaped blade skittering from Shimmer's armour. She dropped the long-knife, took hold of the spear and yanked it from its bearer. Holding it up tall to reverse it, she then pushed it out, impaling the man. ‘My thanks!’

She thrust to keep the militia back from the mantlets, called again and again, ‘Keep moving!’ At every breath the bolt in her side sent a sheer of agony through her that darkened her vision.

Then the hand of a God knocked everyone flat.

A great wall of air punched the breath from Shimmer's chest. Dust, smoke and debris stormed over them, obliterating all visibility as if the entire city were being carried out to sea. A moment later all the roof tiles suddenly leapt from the buildings to fly like birds off in a wind of smoke and ash. More crashed down all about like rain. The ground shuddered, bouncing them. She squinted through the dust to see an enormous billowing cloud swelling over the city. It was lit from within by lurid bursts of flame, bloating, climbing, taller it seemed than any mountain. Across the way a three-storey brick building was obliterated by a solid stone block the size of a small boat smashing down into it.

The wall of thunder slowly faded. Small pieces of burning debris fell about like intermittent rain. Carefully, amazed by the mere fact of her continued life, Shimmer pushed herself upright. She weaved, clutched at her side where the bolt emerged obscenely. Without daring to stop to think about what she meant to do, she took hold with all her strength and yanked it out. The white-hot resistance of her own flesh drove her to her knees again. All about, men and women, citizens and Guardsmen, were standing, peering about amazed. A pale white ash began to fall from the swelling churning cloud. It drifted thickly like tattered feathers and covered everything as if in a layer of down. ‘The harbour,’ Shimmer croaked and kicked the nearest Guard. ‘Smoky!’

‘Aye…’ A ghost-like shape beneath a blanket of ash stirred to life, sat up.

‘What in Hood's Own Shade was that?’

Dark eyes in a white mask blinked to life. He stood, shook his kinky hair raising a cloud of dust. ‘I think that was maybe the greatest natural explosion ever yet set off by humans.’

‘I've never seen anything like it.’

‘No. Nor will we ever again, I expect.’

‘Gods on earthy she breathed amazed. ‘We better get out of here before these Untan fools decide we did it. They'll tear us limb from limb.’

Smoky glanced around at the ash-cloaked figures dazedly stirring to life and wandering aimlessly: a city of ghosts awakening. He blinked owlishly. ‘I expect you're right…’

‘Move out, Guardsmen!’

Greymane did not witness the actual explosion. He'd been looking away, scanning for activity among the anchored Malazan man-o-wars, when the light suddenly changed — a great white flash threw his shadow across the deck and punched shouts of amazement and alarm from the men on the vessel. When he turned to look the light was gone. In its place rose an immense cloud of smoke that swelled even as he watched, billowing and burgeoning over the city. All across the waterfront great knots of birds scattered, wheeling their panic. While Greymane stared a wave seemed to pass over the city, bursting tiled rooftops, toppling spires, racing outward from the blast until it reached the waterfront. He had a moment to yell, ‘Brace yourselves!’ as it jumped the intervening water of the harbour, frothing the calm surface as it charged. Then it struck the vessel, tearing away half-lowered sails like paper and batting the ship like a toy. The thunderclap was so loud it deadened Greymane's ears, leaving him insensible of any sounds; men's mouths moved and equipment fell but no sound reached him. His first thought was: so ends the Guard. Obliterated by Laseen in one titanic explosion. But the blast seemed to have originated much farther inland from the fires marking the fighting. He'd have to make sure.

He righted a man, waved to the wharf and the sweeps. Then the ship shuddered again. He spun; men pointed to the deck — there gaped a smoking hole that hadn't existed a moment ago. Burn's Mercy — and how many leagues away was that explosion? A moment later a sailor came up from below carrying a pot. It held a piece of rock still hot to the touch. A shard of scorched building stone. Greymane waved the staring men to the sweeps. There must be some survivors, but he feared the worst.

They passed only one other vessel underway — an old scow merchantman, alarmingly low in the water, sails hanging in shreds, deck a mess of tossed gear, with its wiry, grey-haired Napan captain bellowing scalding invective at his scrambling crew. Greymane was surprised by the name gouged in the rotting wood of the bow; he didn't think anyone would've dared use the name Ragstopper after the career of its predecessor, pirate admiral, lieutenant of Laseen then known as Surly, and brother of Urko — Cartharon Crust.

But the mystery of the Ragstopper had to wait, for crewmen pointed to the wharf, shouting their amazement. There, massed like an army of shades, waited the surviving Guardsmen. Even as the ship closed more came marching down thoroughfares, surrounded by citizens, weapons held ready, though none attacked. Rather, an unofficial truce seemed to have been agreed upon — perhaps so long as it was obvious that the Guard wanted nothing more than to get away, and the citizens were more than happy to prod them along. All appeared shocked numb by the monumental explosion, while the unearthly white ash that rained down rendered all alike: uniformly pale ghosts, and everyone uniformly eerily silent.

Greymane supervised the loading of the survivors and there found Shimmer, carried on a tabletop serving as a litter, attended by Avowed mages Smoky, Lor-sinn and Shell. ‘Take us west,’ she gasped, pale with lost blood, long hair sweat-matted to her face.

‘Skinner?’

She waved him on. ‘He'll find us.’

The last Guardsman to step from the stone wharf was an Avowed named Black. Water dripped from him as he stood scanning the gathering crowd of Untan citizenry that edged ever closer, yelling obscenities. A few pieces of broken litter flew.

‘We have to go!’ Greymane shouted.

Reluctantly, limping, the man abandoned the wharf. Rocks, broken tiles, offal and vegetables now pelted down upon them as the crowd roared, some even jeering their scorn. Greymane ordered double-time on the sweeps, called to Black, ‘What is it?’

‘Nothing. You didn't happen — there the bastards are!’ Pointing, the Avowed threw himself to the railing, almost falling out of the ship.

There, low in the water under a pier, a small crew in a launch waved farewell. Greymane recognized the harbour guard. One of them, a skinny pox-faced fellow, stood and bared his arse to them until the heavyset woman in armour next to him kicked him into the water. The crowd howled their appreciation.

‘I swear to Hood I'll find you!’ Black was yelling as the open water grew between them. ‘I swear!’

When the ship came alongside the harbour mole they found it lined by fist-waving youths. The Guard oared from the harbour accompanied by distant taunts and thrown trash. At the side of the trailing vessel Greymane watched the gesturing youths. His thoughts turned to the Guard and its vow. How could they hope to free a citizenry from their rulers when they so obviously did not wish to be freed? The Guard seemed to have outlived its relevance. Though it did seem from the intelligence they'd gleaned so far that elsewhere the move to end Imperial rule had come very far indeed. From Shimmer's orders to go west he assumed the Avowed intended to link up with that movement. Yet he was troubled. His experience with political power told him that no vacuum would long endure. With what, he wondered, did this secessionist movement — or the Avowed for that matter — intend to replace Imperial rule?

The next day, escorted by a guard of fifty Malazan regulars, Empress Laseen surveyed the damage of the eruption of the Imperial Arsenal. She picked her way through the still smoking scoured bare dirt of the blast crater, greater than a stone's throw across, where once the Arsenal and surrounding buildings had stood. Havva Gulen paced at her side. ‘Could have been worse,’ the mage said, hands clasped at the front of her broad stomach.

Laseen shook her head. ‘I'm thinking that it should have been much worse.’

‘Oh?’

The Empress continued on ahead of the High Mage, kicked at the pulverized ground. ‘It was impressive, yes. But more of the city should've been destroyed. The Arsenal couldn't have been half-full.’

‘Really? The Guard, you think?’

‘Possibly. This whole incident could've been nothing more than a raid to collect munitions — or to simply deplete ours.’

‘Alarming strategic thinking on their part, if that be the case.’

‘Yes. And no sign of K'azz?’

‘No. Skinner seemed to be in charge.’

Laseen took up a handful of the blackened, burnt soil, sifted it through her fingers. ‘Skinner. Not known for his subtlety.’

‘No. However,’ and Havva paused, as if unsure whether to continue.

Facing away, Laseen asked, tiredly, ‘Yes?’

‘They say Greymane was seen with them at the harbour.’

‘Greymane?’ She straightened. ‘Really? Greymane…’ She scanned the wreckage but her mind was obviously far away. She nodded to herself.

‘Yes,’ Havva said. ‘The one place he must've thought himself safe from everyone.’ She gave a deep belly-laugh. ‘Imagine his dismay to find the Guard actually returning! Now he might face his own officers-’

Laseen regarded her silently then glanced away.

Havva decided she'd said quite enough. Further intelligence would have to wait, perhaps for ever. Oh, my Empress! You are alone; the walls you have raised have driven all from your side. Was it arrogance? Contempt? Failure to understand anything beyond your own drive to rule? Yet you say nothing and so we who could help you cannot know for certain. And there is too much to lose in that uncertainty. Now you stand apart. All alone but perhaps for poor blind Possum. Perhaps that is the cruel logic of your silence. Laseen, if I chose this private moment together to tell you all I know perhaps we would have a chance — a slim chance — of victory against the conspiracy that has closed itself around us. I have been doing all I can. But I dare not speak openly. I dare not take the chance. I am ashamed and so sorry, my Empress. I too have failed you. All because my time in the Archives was not wasted. I know the name Jhistal. And I fear I do not have the power to oppose it.

The ranks of surrounding guard parted to admit the spear-slim form of High Fist Anand followed by a waddling, sweaty Mallick Rel fanning himself and grimacing at the stink of stale smouldering fires and burnt flesh. A white cloth encircled his head. ‘Congratulations, Empress! A great victory!’ the councilman called.

‘Victory?’ Laseen repeated flatly. ‘A few hundred of the Crimson Guard visit us for less than a day and half the capital is blown up and burnt to the ground?’

‘An invasion grandly repulsed!’

‘They left because they saw there was nothing here for them,’ Havva said.

Anand shook his head. ‘I have to admit that it was the volunteer citizen militia that drove them off.’ He sounded as if he were still surprised by the fact. ‘And for that I apologize, Empress. I hadn't thought them a force worth considering before. They have no formal command structure or professional officer corps.’

‘A mere mob,’ Mallick sneered.

‘Mobs rule urban warfare,’ Anand said. ‘Bring enough numbers to bear from all directions and you smother any opponent.’

‘Apology accepted, High Fist,’ Laseen said, cutting through the confrontation. ‘Their numbers?’

‘My officers in the streets put their numbers as high as ten thousand. And climbing — more are joining every day. There are lines outside their headquarters.’

‘And just where are these vaunted headquarters, High Fist?’ Mallick inquired mildly, his round face gleaming.

Anand paused, reluctant to answer, then reconsidered, stating boldly, ‘neighbourhood taverns.’

‘Faugh! Rabble who would melt at the first clash of iron. Empress, such forces are useless. The First Sword would have nothing to do with these undisciplined amateurs.’

‘To their great relief, no doubt,’ Anand observed. ‘In any case, they themselves recognize their shortcomings and they've put out a call for retired regular and marine officers to join them. I understand a ship full of retired sergeants and officers just put in from Malaz Isle. Old Braven Tooth himself among them.’

‘Braven Tooth!’ Laseen repeated, amazed. ‘I thought he was dead.’

‘So did everyone.’ Anand's smile held rueful affection. ‘Seems he sank his decades of back-pay and pension into some kind of Denul ritual that turned him into an oak stump.’

‘Unnecessarily,’ Laseen remarked, facing aside.

Mallick sucked his stained teeth loudly. ‘All very well. However, it would take months to hammer such a force into an army. Time we do not have.’

‘What happened to your head?’ Havva asked him.

‘What?’

Havva gestured to the cloth. ‘Your head.’

Mallick's hands flew to the wrap, straightened it. ‘The blast. A lamp fell on me.’

Pity that was all. ‘Wounded in defence of the city. How noble.’

Mallick's gaze narrowed to slits. ‘And where were you, Havva Gulien? Cowering in the Archive's sub-basement, sharpened quill raised?’

Always closer than you know, Mallick Rel.

‘I agree with your estimate of our time, Mallick,’ Laseen said. ‘When is the First Sword expected?’

‘Later today,’ Anand supplied.

‘When he returns, inform him that we will be departing from Unta with all haste. Close the harbour, Anand. Confiscate every vessel. We sail with every available man and woman.’

Anand bowed. ‘Very good, Empress.’

‘We?’ Mallick asked, arched.

‘Not you, Spokesman for the Assembly. Will you remain here in Unta, overseeing the rebuilding and the defence of the capital?’

Mallick's brows rose and he bowed. ‘It would be my honour, of course. I will report daily on the progress.’

‘That will be difficult, Mallick, because I will be leading the army.’

A gasp from Anand, ‘Empress!’

Laseen raised a hand to silence all objections. ‘It is decided. We must leave immediately.’

Though clearly unhappy, Anand gathered himself and bowed stiffly. Havva bowed as well. So shall I too go. As will Possum and the majority of the Claw. In the field again, as it was so long ago.

‘I shall raise a magnificent monument to your future victories on this very site,’ Mallick said, bowing.

‘Wait until I have won them,’ Laseen said, her unreadable gaze steady on the man.

In an urban garden servants brushed ash from laden tree-branches while workers dismantled one of its collapsed brick walls. A man in loose trousers and a long plain maroon shirt stood at a planting bed, examining a potted flower. His long black hair hung loose. A woman with a heart-shaped face and short black hair entered the garden and walked swiftly upon him. Without turning, he said, ‘A rare specimen from Avalli, Kiska. Undamaged, thankfully.’

The woman covered her nose. ‘It stinks.’

‘Its scent imitates the smell of weakness: rot and death. Attracting flies and other insect scavengers. Which it then eats.’

‘Disgusting.’

‘Revelatory. There is a lesson here for anyone who cares to reflect upon it.’

‘Avoid stinking plants.’

Tayschrenn sighed, set down the pot. ‘You are too much the child of the city, Kiska.’ He faced her, set his darkly tanned hands on his waist. ‘Could not stay away, could you? I suppose I should have known better.’

Kiska studied the workmen, the usual local labourers hired to maintain Tayschrenn's home, all cleared by Hattar. ‘I just kept an eye on things.’

‘Good. I see that some wisdom has penetrated your thick stubbornness. But one does not merely “keep an eye” on men such as Cowl.’

‘He left by Warren.’

‘Which?’

‘Hood's.’

Tayschrenn grunted. ‘How appropriate. So, what did you witness — other than futility and waste?’

Flicking back her short bangs, Kiska tilted her head to one side, frowning. ‘I saw a number of Claws fleeing Avowed open ways into the Imperial Warren.’

‘Yes?’

‘They never returned.’

‘Indeed.’

‘I saw an Avowed named Amatt break a barricade of burning wagons and piled timbers simply by walking into it and pushing a section aside. I counted seven crossbow bolts in him. He then walked down to the ships, pulling the bolts out as they struck him.’ She shook her head, amazed. ‘I tell you, I do not want to face those Guardsmen again.’

‘I agree. It would be a great waste.’

‘Waste?’

Tayschrenn merely rubbed his face, gestured for Kiska to continue.

‘Mostly I shadowed a female Claw — or someone who resembled a Claw. She was hunting Avowed. I saw her stalk and kill two, barehanded. I say she looked like a Claw in that their — our — training resembled her skills in the way a child's sketch resembles a masterpiece.’

‘Indeed.’

‘And there was another woman out there as well. One who moved with ease in and out of Warrens. Like nothing I've ever heard of before.’

He stilled, his gaze in the distance. ‘Is that so? Interesting…’

Kiska swung a kick at the planting bed. ‘Is that all you have to say? Interesting? What's going on, damn it all to Trake!’

Dark eyes focused on Kiska; the long shaved jaw writhed, tightening. ‘A trial is approaching us. I ask a difficult thing of you — restraint. I foresee a chance of… chaos… arising out of the coming confrontation. I may have to act quickly and there is someone among us who will try to take advantage. Do you understand?’

Kiska bowed. ‘I will inform Hattar.’

‘My thanks.’ As she turned to go he called after her, ‘Tell me, Kiska, why did you not remain in the Claw? You could be a Hand-commander by now, perhaps more.’

She shrugged. ‘I came to understand that I'd always wanted to serve something greater than myself. It became obvious to me rather quickly that those in the Claw serve only themselves. Why?’

But the tall mage was now bent over regarding his plants. ‘Just wondering.’

Kiska bowed and left. Someone, he says. Well, she had a pretty good idea who that might be. She and Hattar would have to put their heads together to figure out a way to counter that fat conniving priest. As for the Claw who hunted Avowed, Kiska felt a thrill shiver through her. Could it have truly have been her? Tayschrenn hadn't seemed surprised — after all, he'd seen her in action so many years ago. Yet by now everyone seemed to have forgotten, or been deliberately led to forget, that long ago when the fighting had been the thickest, and Dancer guarded Kellanved, it had been Surly, Mistress of the Claw, who had stalked and slain their enemies.