Return of the Crimson Guard

CHAPTER III

The Rod and Sceptre stood within the south quarter of the Outer Round of Li Heng. This address means nothing to those new to the city, but to any long-time resident it spelled one thing and one thing only: poverty. For Li Heng was a city of Rounds, or nested circular precincts. At its centre was set the Inner Focus, containing at its hub the Palace, and within the Palace, at its cynosure, the City Temple — once sanctified to the Protectress — and now, under Malazan administration, re-sanctified to the full pantheon of Quon Talian Gods, Heroes and Guardian Spirits. Surrounding the Inner Focus lay the Greater Intermediate Round, home to the ancient aristocrat families of Li Heng, the wealthier merchant houses and the government officials. Next came the Lesser Intermediate, wider yet. Here, the majority of city commerce was pursued, for Li Heng stood at the centre of Quon Tali, halfway between coasts astride the main trade artery connecting Unta with distant Tali province to the far west, and trade was the city's lifeblood. Encircling the Lesser Intermediate was the Outer Round, the fourth and widest. Here stood the crowded tenements of the labourers, the manufacturies, the animal corrals and the ghettoes of Seti tribals and other outsiders.

As to what might reside outside its legendary walls — it is telling that within the particular merchant cant of Li Heng there was not even a word for that. Banished, then, to the Outer Precinct, the Rod and Sceptre could not even claim the distinction of proximity to one of the two main gates of the city: the eastward-facing Gate of the Dawn and the westward-facing Gate of the Dusk. No, the inn rested within sight of the far less distinguished or profitable southward-facing Gate of the Mountains. At least, its owner and patrons could congratulate themselves, it was nowhere near the wretched northward-facing Gate of the Plains.

The Rod and Sceptre was also by tradition a martial establishment. In the golden days — before the murder of the Blessed Protectress and the yoke of Malazan occupation — the inn hosted merchant bodyguards and elements of the Protectress's own City Guard. Now, the inn quartered caravan guards and housed Malazan soldiery.

The Malazan contingent currently billeted was of the Malazan Marines, 7th Army, 4th Division, a field-assembled provisional saboteur squad, the 11th, currently attached to the 4th Army Central Command, under Fist Rheena, military governor of Li Heng.

The commander of the 11th saboteurs, field-promoted, was Captain Storo Matash, a Falaran native, of the island of Strike. Currently, Captain Storo was sitting at a table, drinking steadily while listening to a ranking saboteur, Shaky.

‘No sense pursuin’ it, Captain. No sense at all. Can't be done, no way, never.’ Then Shaky raised both hands. ‘Well — maybe it could be done — if you worked real hard on it. Maybe then.’

‘That's Sergeant, Corporal.’

‘Right, Cap'n.’

Storo sighed, rubbed a palm over his brush-cut bristling hair. He looked to his two other saboteurs. ‘What have you two to say for yourselves? Hurl?’

Hurl screwed up her eyes, thinking. ‘With the full resources of the city behind us we could have it done in a year.’

‘Sunny?’

Sunny grimaced, tossed back the contents of his mug, coughed and wiped his mouth. ‘Useless project. No point. Wasn't a moat to begin with anyway.’

Storo glanced around the gloom of the low-roofed common room of the Rod and Sceptre. ‘The locals all say it was moat. Very proud of their ancient moat, these Hengans.’

Sunny snorted his scorn. ‘Weren't no moat.’

‘Then what was it?’

Sunny was called Sunny because of the awfulness of his smiles, which were less like smiles than agonized, toothy glowers. He gave one of these strained leers. ‘Firstly, sure you got your Idryn River cutting right through the city, but it's a muddy river comin’ a long way through a dry plain. Too uncertain to fill a moat — and would only silt it up anyway. Secondly, hey, Hurl — what's the easiest way to raise the walls?’

Hurl winked, and her smiled was much more pleasant. ‘Lower the ground.’

There you go. It was a ditch. A big-ass ditch. Not a pleasant moonlit froggy pool. A dusty rubbish-strewn bung-hole full of dead dogs ‘n’ shit.’

‘OK! I get it.’ Storo signalled to the landlord's wife, Estal, for another round. ‘You don't have to elaborate.’

Sunny frowned. ‘Weren't elaborating. Me ‘n’ Hurl and Shaky, we sank a pit to the bottom of the ditch. That's what we found down there. Dead dogs ‘n’ shit.’

While Estal thumped down a flagon of ale, Storo eyed his crew of saboteurs. He hadn't decided whether to be angered or relieved by the relentless maintenance of the games and habits that had seen them though years of combat in north Genabackis. If he shut his eyes, it was almost as if he were back in the campaigns and Sunny and Hurl were playing Stones with the Mott defenders, shouting their moves out to the night. He rubbed his forehead with a thumb and forefinger, took a long deep drink of the cheap Hengan ale. ‘So. We drop the moat — the ditch.’

Shaky shook his head. ‘No way. Ah, that is, maybe not. Hurl's got an idea.’

Hugging herself, Hurl leaned towards the table, lowered her voice. ‘Sinking that pit.’ She stopped herself, glanced around the room. Perplexed, Storo followed her gaze: the place was empty but for a few drunken caravan guards, and Estal. Hurl leaned forward once again. ‘The ditch is just a big dump fulla wood and litter and rags and has all kinds a gaps. Holes. I say we fill it. But not with water. What say you, Cap'n?’

Sunny smiled his ghastly smile.

Four flagons of ale later, while Shaky, Hurl and Sunny sat playing cards and Storo drank, three Malazan soldiers entered the common room. Two sat at an empty table midway between the door and Storo's table. The third, an officer, stalked up to the table and opened his arms wide. ‘Look who's here.’ He turned to his companions. ‘It is him. Just like Rheena said. OP Sergeant Storo back from Genabackis.’

Shaky, Hurl and Sunny did not look from their cards. Storo squinted blearily up at the man. ‘Do I know you?’

The officer used his boot to hook a chair from the table, sat. The pommels of twin duelling swords thrust forward under his armpits. His black hair hung curled in tight thin rat-tails tied off by bright twists of cloth; these he pushed back from his wide, tanned face. ‘No. Haven't had the pleasure. Allow me to introduce myself. Harmin, Captain Harmin Els D'Shil, of Fist Rheena's staff.’ He inclined his head in the ghost of a bow.

Shaky, Hurl and Sunny glanced sidelong. Storo grunted his recognition. ‘What can I do for you?’

Harmin's smile was as smooth as Sunny's was gnarled yet they seemed eerily akin. ‘Well, imagine my surprise — nay, my dismay — to learn that the hero of the north Genabackis campaigns had returned only to be digging dirt and piling rocks like a convicted criminal.’

Shaky, Hurl and Sunny lowered their cards. Storo growled, ‘Hero?’ He yanked Sunny's hand from the pouch at his side. ‘What do you mean, hero?’

The bright focus of Harmin's smile shifted to Sunny. ‘Surely your men have no doubt heard the story many times by now, yes?’ The smile returned like a bared blade to Storo. ‘How your Sergeant Storo here slew an Avowed of the Crimson Guard?’

Hurl blew her hair from her sweaty grimed forehead, brought her arms down under the table to rest her hands near her belted knives. ‘Yeah. We'd heard. An’ that's Captain, now, ah… Captain.’

Harmin inclined his head to Hurl. ‘I didn't believe it myself when I first heard it, of course. I thought it one of those wild stories you hear of from the front.’ He crossed his arms, leaving his hands near the pommels of his swords. His smile on Storo revealed even more teeth. ‘You know the sort… lies woven by fame hounds…’

Sunny lurched up from his chair only to be pulled down by Storo. Harmin, who had not moved, bestowed his smile once more on Sunny. Storo thumped his elbows to the table, rested his chin in his hands. ‘But you found out it was true.’

Nodding, Harmin slowly uncrossed his arms. He took the cup from in front of Shaky, sniffed at it and set it down untasted. ‘Yes. Needless to say I was astonished. But Fist Rheena assures me of its veracity.’

‘So you have come to get a look at me and to hear how it happened.’

‘Yes, that. And to deliver a message.’ He raised a hand. ‘But please, do not misunderstand. My interest is not merely that of the common dumb gawping foot soldier. I have something of a connection to the Guard. As you can tell from my family name. The D'Avore family are — were — cousins of mine.’

Storo topped up his cup and sat back with a long-suffering sigh. ‘All right. I'll tell you all about it.’ Shaky, Hurl and Sunny all shot their commander surprised looks. Shaky quickly dumped out his own cup on to the straw-heaped floor then refilled it. Storo took a long drink, cleared his throat.

‘It was just outside Owndos, during the siege. My squad was assigned the objective of a tower overlooking the sea of that same name. Take it, or, failing that, destroy it to deny it to the warlord Brood. We were lucky ‘cause we still had our cadre battle mage, Silk — who's still with me now.’ Storo raised his voice. ‘Ain't that so, Silk?’

Harmin glanced around and jerked, startled. A slim, pale man now sat at the next table. He wore a fine dark silk shirt, vest, and trousers now faded and worn. He offered a mocking smile to Harmin who returned it through clenched teeth.

Storo took another drink. ‘Silk scouted the tower, reported a sizeable enemy contingent occupied it: Free City soldiers, Barghast tribals and local townsmen militia. Seemed it offered a strategic view of surrounding forest and Owndos coastline. In any case, we weren't concerned about the locals. We even had Barghast allies of our own — those boys will fight anyone, anywhere. No, the Lad's push of things was that the tower was commanded by four of the Crimson Guard. Now, that was a pause. You know the old official policy — don't engage the Guard unless you outnumber them five to one. We didn't. So that night I sent in Silk and the boys to mine the tower. The next morning a patrol went out led by three of the Guard. That suited us. We sat pretty till they were long gone then we charged the compound. The plan was to hit fast and hard an’ drive them back into the tower then blow it. Sure enough, things sailed along fine. Once most of the defenders retreated to the tower, we blew it. The whole thing went up, came crashing down in a great blast of stone and dust. The remaining Free City soldiers an’ Barghast were just stupefied and we chased them off easily enough.

‘But then the fourth Guard came staggering out of the fire and wreckage — seemed she was an Avowed. She must've been on an upper floor when the blast went off so she didn't get the worst of it. But dropping a four-floor stone tower on her was slowing her down some in any case. She wasn't walking so good — maybe a broken hip — and one arm was all mangled. Our Barghast circled her and thrust her full of javelins and spears. Must've been near ten spears pinning her down on the ground but she was still squirmin’, pulling them out, one by one. That impressed the Barghast no end. Their shamaness called off her boys. Yelled something about spirits and pacts and made it clear they weren't gonna have anything more to do with the Avowed. By this time she was sittin’ up. Only the javelins through her legs were holding her down.’

Storo took a drink, raised and lowered his beefy shoulders. ‘So it was up to me. I charged in and though all she had with her was a knife I nearly got my leg sliced off for my trouble. I went down. She went back to tuggin’ at the javelins. Time was passing, so I limped over to the side of her bad arm and got a few good two-handed licks in. These slowed her down some even more and I was able to tag her head a few times. After that I could really step in and I managed to chop away until her head came away from her neck. And so she died.

‘Later someone told me her name: Sarafa Lenesh.’

While Storo talked Harmin's smile had melted away into an expression of disgust. He let out a low hissed breath. ‘So, you attacked a wounded woman. Cut her head off while she was pinned down.’

Storo nodded. ‘That's about the bare bones of it.’

Harmin seemed at a loss for words; he shook his head in mute denial. ‘You are a barbarian. You destroyed something irreplaceable. Unique in all the world.’

‘They're the goddamned enemy,’ Sunny growled.

Harmin found his smile once more. He stood. ‘Thank you for the story, Storo. Though it does you no credit.’

‘The message?’ Storo asked, and took a drink.

His eyes thinning to slits, Harmin pulled a slip of folded paper from his belt. He tossed it on to the table. ‘Fist Rheena requested I deliver this. It arrived through Imperial administrative channels.’ The smile quirked up. ‘Perhaps it's a notice of retirement. One can always hope.’ After a shallow bow, he turned from the table. The two who had entered with him stood. Just short of the entrance, he paused as he caught sight of two men sitting to either side of the door. Both he knew by sight as the muscle of Storo's under-strength command: Jalor, a Seven Cities tribesman, bearing a tightly trimmed and oiled beard that did little to disguise the scars crisscrossing his dark face; and a fellow named Rell, from Genabackis, slouched in his chair, his greasy black hair hanging down over his face. These two Harmin couldn't be bothered to smile at, and chose to ignore. They returned the favour.

Once Harmin left, Jalor and Rell crossed to the squad's table. Silk caught Storo's eye, glanced significantly to the door.

Storo frowned a negative. ‘Let them go.’ He sat rubbing his fingers over the folded slip.

‘Do you think he read it?’ Shaky asked.

‘A’ course,’ said Sunny.

Hurl blew the hair from her brow. ‘Why'd Rheena send him of all the garrison?’

‘She probably sent someone else,’ offered Silk, ‘but he stepped in.’

Storo grunted his agreement. He opened the paper, stared for a very long time then crumpled it in his hand. He took a drink. His command exchanged glances. Sunny nudged Silk who shifted uncomfortably then finally asked, ‘So. What did it say?’

Storo did not answer. He offered the slip to Shaky who took it and smoothed it out. He read aloud: ‘ “Storo Matash, we regret to inform you that the Graven Heart sank in a storm off Gull Rocks.”’ Shaky looked up. ‘Did you know someone on board?’

‘No. It's code. An old smuggler's code shared by Strike, and Malaz, and Nap, and a few other isles. It's an offer of a meeting from a man I knew when I was young. A friend of my father. A man I'd thought dead a long time ago.’

Sometime later that night Hurl offered to the table, ‘Hey, that guy, Harmin, I think from now on we should call him Smiley’

The ruins of the shore temple were half-submerged in the waters west of Unta Bay. Its broken columns stood in the waves as mere barnacle-encrusted humps. Though an easy day's ride from Unta, this shore was a deserted stretch of rearing cliff-sides home to no more than water-birds and sea otters. A short fat man in a dark ocean-blue cloak carefully picked his way down the treacherous turning footpath that traced a way to the base of the cliff.

Reaching the rocky shore, he dabbed the sheen of sweat from his wide face then pulled a folding camp stool of wood and leather from under his cloak and sat with a weary sigh just short of the misting sea-spray.

Fanning himself, the man addressed the surf: ‘Come now! This coyness achieves nothing.’

Though the waves had been pounding the tumbled rocks at the base of the cliff, the surf stilled, subsiding. The water seemed almost to withdraw. The man cocked his head as if listening to the splashing as one might a voice. And a voice spoke, though few else living would have understood it. ‘You compelled, Mallick?’ came the response sounding from the gurgle and murmur of the waves.

Mallick Rel wiped spots of spray from his cloak. ‘Indeed. What news of the mercenaries?’

‘Their ships converge.’

‘And upon those ships — there are Avowed, yes?’

‘Yes. I sense their presence. What will you do, Mallick, when they come for you?’

‘They will not live long enough.’

A chuckled response, ‘Perhaps it is you who will not live long enough.’

‘I have my guardians, and you have no idea what they are capable of.’

‘You are transparent to me, Mallick. It is you who has no idea of what your guardians are capable. I know this for should you have the slightest inkling you would have come begging for deliverance.’

‘Kellanved had his army of undead, the Imass.’

‘A common misconception — they never died. They were… preserved. Regardless, even they would not tolerate either them — or you.’

‘Fortunately, these Imass are no threat to anyone any longer.’

The voice of splashing and whispering water was silent for a time, then came a wondering ‘How brief the memory of humans.’

Mallick gave a languid wave. ‘Yes, yes. In any case, we were discussing the mercenaries. Do not attempt to deflect me.’

‘Of the Guard, their end has not yet been foreseen.’

‘Do not lie to your High Priest, Mael. It is only through the rituals of Jhistal that you yet have a presence here in the world.’

The water stilled, smoothing to glass. A bulge rose swelling to a broad pillar of water. It wavered, fighting to lean forward towards the seated man, then burst in a great rushing crash. ‘And so the bindings hold,’ came the voice again. ‘Rituals so awful, Mallick, even Kellanved was revolted. Regrettable that some of you escaped.’

The man's thick lips drew down in mock pain. ‘Struck to the core, I am. How can you name your own worship revolting? Shall more innocents have their innards splashed out upon you? Or do you resist?’

‘None of your acts are of my choosing, Mallick. You and your cult pursued your own interests. Not mine.’

‘As is true for all worship. But enough theology, diverting though it may be. When the mercenary ships head for Quon you must rush their passage. They must make Quon with all speed. Do you understand?’

‘Yes.’

‘And speed the ships of the secessionists.’

‘You would have me hurry their progress as well?’

‘Yes.’

More chuckling echoed among the rocks. ‘Mallick — you disgust and amaze me. I wonder who of them will get your head first.’

‘I am not dismayed. It is a sure sign of success when everyone wants your head.’

The captain of her Royal Bodyguard woke the Primogenatrix at midnight. ‘T'enet sends word. The wards of the fourth ring are falling.’

Timmel Orosenn, the Primogenatrix of Umryg, rose naked and waved her servants to her. ‘I felt nothing.’

‘T'enet says they are eroding this last barrier physically.’

‘Physically?’ Timmel turned while her servants dressed her. ‘Physically? Is that possible?’

‘T'enet seems to think so.’

A servant wrapped Timmel's hair in a silk scarf and raised a veil across her face. ‘Immanent, I assume?’

‘Yes, Primogenatrix.’

‘Then let us see.’

Her bodyguard escorted the Primogenatrix's carriage inland to the valley of the burial caverns. Her column passed through the massed ranks of the army, bumped down and up earthworks of ancient defensive lines, up to the front rank of the gathered Circlet of Umryg thaumaturgs who bowed as she arrived. One limped forward, aided by a cane of twisted ivory. He bowed again.

‘Primogenatrix. We believe that this night before dawn the fourth ring shall fall.’

‘T'enet.’ From the extra height of her carriage Timmel peered ahead to where thrown torches lit the bare dead earth before the granite monoliths blocking the cavern's entrance. She probed with her senses and felt the ward's weakening like a weave of cloth stretched ever further by a fist. Soon it would tear. Then it would snap.

She stepped down. Bowing again, T'enet invited her to the tent atop a small hillock overlooking the cavern opening. The Primogenatrix's bodyguard surrounded the entire party.

‘Why here?’ the Primogenatrix asked as they walked. ‘Why not dig out elsewhere in the caves? They must know we are here waiting for them.’

‘No doubt, your highness. We chose wisely, it seems. Like our ancestors who explored them so long ago, these demons have reached the same decision: the caverns, vast through they may be, offer no other exit.’

‘Why erode the ward physically?’

‘Two prime potentials, your highness. One: their practitioners are spent or dead. Two: the practitioners are hoarding their strength against the moment of escape.’

‘Which of these do you favour?’

‘The second, your highness.’

Beneath the tent's awning, the Primogenatrix assumed her seat in a backless leather chair facing the distant entrance. The thaumaturgs of the Circlet arranged themselves before her. Ahead of her position, the group dipped, sloping down to rank after rank of serried Umryg soldiery, wide empty oil traps awaiting the touch of flame, pit traps floored by spikes, and buried nets woven of iron wire.

The Primogenatrix motioned for T'enet who edged his bald head to her, both hands firm at the cane planted before him. ‘You and I alone survive from the entombing, T'enet. So many died in that war. I acquiesced to your council then. Yet here we are once again. It is as if nothing has changed. We may well succeed again, re-establish all the wardings, rebuild all the barriers… Yet something speaks to me that we would be doing our descendants no favours in that. Indeed, they may well curse us for it.’

‘I understand, Primogenatrix. Your concern does you credit. No doubt, however, they are much reduced after their imprisonment. Perhaps we will manage to destroy them this time.’

Timmel said nothing. She remembered what it took just to entomb these twenty remaining foreign horrors her sister had hired — summoned many said now — to aid her in her bid to usurp the throne. It had taken her island kingdom decades to recover from that destruction. That, and the warriors’ dark-red uniforms, had given birth to their name: the Blood Demons.

As the night progressed the migraine pain of her strongest warding fraying and releasing like a taut rope snapping tore a gasp from Timmel. T'enet steadied her with a wave of his own power. She nodded to him. ‘Now.’

T'enet stamped his cane to the ground and a great belling note rang within the valley. Shouts sounded from commanders. A low rustling as of distant rain muttered as the soldiery readied themselves. The pools of oil dug before the entrance flamed alight. Siege catapults and springalds mounted on stands ratcheted taut.

The Primogenatrix stood, gathered her power to her. The Circlet wove its ritual of containment.

They waited. Dust fell from the face of the granite blocks, each the size of a bull, as if the heap had received some sharp blow from within. Men within the ranks shouted their alarm.

Flame-lit, the face of the barrier shifted, tilted outwards as if levered from within.

Great Ancestor, Timmel swore. She had not anticipated this.

The blocks thundered outwards into the pool of burning oil sending a great wave and showers of flame among the front ranks who shrank back amid screams. Storms of arrows and crossbow quarrels shot into the dark within the cave to no effect Timmel could see.

Then, a bloom of muted power within followed by movement. A grey wall broaching the dark. Dust? Smoke? Timmel looked to T'enet. ‘What sorcery is this?’

‘Not sorcery…’ The bald mage paused, watching while the grey wall edged ever forward. Arrows and bolts bounced from its face. ‘Tactics, your highness. Such battle formations are hinted at in foreign sources. Interlocking shields.’

‘They carried no such shields when we forced them in there, T'enet.’

‘No, your highness. These appear to have been carved from stone.’

Hurled grenadoes of oil burst into flames upon the dome of shields. A massive scorpion bolt, three feet of iron, cannoned from the angled face without so much as a quaver.

Timmel's eyes narrowed. Hardened, sorcerously, from within. Very well. So it will be a fight after all. ‘Circlet Master! Slow them down.’

‘Indeed.’ T'enet nodded to his companions. The Circlet brought its will to bear upon the shuffling dome.

Timmel did her best to ignore the screams and clash of battle — the amazed and fear-tinged shouts as the dome broached the first moat of burning oil only to continue on. She reached out her senses to touch this strange foreign presence. First she noted great strength in the mysteries of the earth. That would be difficult to overcome in a direct assault. Timmel's senses next brushed up against a diamond-like lattice of investiture that left her stunned. Years in the manufacture. Such mastery! She would have given anything to speak with the author of such work. It was beyond her. And beneath all, a dark swirling of Shadow mysteries that troubled her. Whence this influence? Not within the shield-dome, now climbing the slope leading up to the first rank of men. Yet striving potently… from where?

Timmel's gaze shot to the gaping cavern entrance, dark, open… ignored. Gods of the Elder Ice. She threw herself aside yet not quickly enough to avoid a stabbing flame of pain that skittered along her scapula to slide in straightening up into her right armpit. She fell on her back, right arm clasped to her side, stared up at an apparition. A walking corpse it seemed to her. Ghostly pale, female, in tattered rags of crimson cloth wrapped at her loins, eyes wild, hair white, matted and as long as her waist.

Looking down at her, the demon woman spoke something in her tongue before disappearing. Timmel recognized none of her words save one that shocked her utterly, Jaghut.

Her bodyguard arrived, glaring, weapons bared. Timmel struggled to her feet. The superior strength and resilience of her line that also brought her potent talents saw her through the shock and pain of her wound.

T'enet, she glimpsed over the heads of the shorter of her bodyguards, was not so lucky. He lay sprawled face down. The Circlet was too committed to their ritual to spare him any attention.

‘Your wounds-’

Timmel waved aside the captain of her bodyguard. ‘The battle?’

The officer bowed to her. Timmel searched for his name… Regar Y'linn.

‘Brief me, Regar.’

The man bowed again. ‘The shield formation makes progress. The second line of defences has been breached. Commander Fanell has been assassinated.’

Timmel cast her senses about the valley, searched for any hint of the Shadow mysteries. Nothing. Gone to ground. ‘Direction?’

Regar frowned his uncertainty. ‘I'm sorry, Primogenatrix?’

‘Direction of the shield-dome?’

‘Ah! South-east, towards the river.’

Timmel nodded to herself. Yes, just as before. Down slope, to water. Ever to water. T'enet had strenuously opposed her before and against her better judgment she had acceded to his council. Now she would do things her way. ‘Have the ranks thinned to the south-east, commander. Then report back.’

Regar hesitated.

‘Commander?’

‘As you order, Primogenatrix.’

Timmel sat heavily in her chair. ‘Circlet?’

‘Yes, Primogenatrix,’ the voice of every thaumaturg, slowly and emotionlessly, responded.

Timmel threw off the shivering terror their shared awarenesses clawed at her. ‘Ease off your efforts.’

‘Yes, Primogenatrix.’

She rested. Her blood dripped from the tips of her numb fingers then ceased as her family lineage's healing abilities knitted the wound. The clash of battle receded as the shield-dome edged ever farther away. That word, that forbidden word. So, all has not been forgotten out there in the wider world. Ancient truths remain alive somewhere. One place too many for her and her kind.

Footsteps approaching roused her. She raised her head to see Regar. ‘Yes?’

‘They are following the course of the river.’

‘Downstream?’

‘Yes.’

Timmel felt a tension slip away that had held her rigid in her chair the entire night. High above, dawn now touched the inland mountain peaks gold and pink. ‘Send a rider to the city, Regar. Have a ship — our sturdiest — waiting at the mouth of the river. Unmanned. Anchored.’

‘I'm sorry, Primogenatrix?’

Timmel straightened in her chair, bringing her almost eye to eye with the soldier. ‘Did you hear me, Commander?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do so. Immediately.’

Regar saluted, turned smartly and hurried off.

‘Circlet?’

‘Yes, Primogenatrix?’

‘Harry them, Circlet. Ride them all the way. Let them know. Let them know they're not wanted here.’ Yes, go. Go with all our curses. You invaders. You Crimson Guardsmen.

‘Yes, Primogenatrix.’

Kital E'sh Oll, newly initiated as full Claw under Commander Urs, straightened from the mummified corpse to scan the layered rock walls of the surrounding canyon here in the Imperial Warren. It seemed eerie to him, the way the smoothly sculpted stone resembled water frozen in mid-fall. How could this be the work of wind alone? Yet things did not always work the same from Realm to Realm.

The remains at his feet were not that old. A few months at most. Scavengers had disturbed the site obscuring any hint of the means of death — and just what those scavengers might be, here in the seemingly lifeless Imperial Warren, was yet another mystery of this place likely never to be solved.

Whoever this had been in life, all indications were that he had been a Malazan Claw. Yet another vital message, and messenger, lost. Kital examined the surrounding dust-laden rock. Who was intercepting Imperial traffic? One of the unknown local denizens? Hood knew they were legion — demons, revenants, spirits lingering from the Warren's cursed past. Yet all these threats were nothing new. Everyone agreed the Warren was haunted. No one walked its paths for longer than absolutely necessary. Why should it suddenly have become so much more perilous?

A faint scratching brought his attention around. A man — or what appeared to be a man — now crouched on a ledge of rock behind. Dust-hued rags of what might have once been rich clothes hung from him and his hair was a tangled white matting. Kital drew his long-knives. ‘You are…?’ The man stood — tallish, Kital noted, with a good reach, though emaciated.

‘Surprised,’ the stranger answered alike in Talian.

‘Surprised? How so?’ Kital glanced about for any others. The man's bearing was unnerving; could he really be alone?

The stranger jumped down, bringing himself almost within striking range. ‘That you keep coming.’

Despite himself, Kital gave ground to the apparition. Rumours of the Warren's hidden past whispered in his ears. Who, or what, was this? What was it talking about? Coming? ‘What do you mean?’

The figure looked down at the half-buried corpse now at his sandalled feet. ‘I mean when will that toad you call your master ever learn.’

‘Toad? I serve the Empress!’

‘So you think, lad. So you think.’ He stretched out his arms. ‘Come. I am unarmed. I will make it quick.’

Kital took in the long thin limbs, the dusky hue of the man's skin beneath the ash-laden dust. Stories whispered beneath breaths in the Claw training halls and dormitories stirred in his memories. ‘Who are you?’

The man assumed a ready stance, hands open. ‘Good question. I have been many men. I was one for some time, then another, and then another, though that last one was a lie. Now, out here for so long alone, I have begun to wonder myself… and I have decided to become the man I could have been and to test myself against the only one who is my peer. That is my goal. For the meantime, I have no name.’

Kital stared. Deranged. The fellow was completely deranged. But then, becoming lost here in the Imperial Warren would do that to anyone.

‘You should have attacked me by now, young initiate. While I so obligingly talked.’

‘My mission is to gather intelligence.’

The madman hung his head for a moment. ‘I understand. You are following your protocols. Well done, Initiate. Well done. A pity.’ He exhaled a long slow breath. ‘You would have been a great asset to the ranks. Now I regret what I must do-’

The man sprang upon him. Parrying, Kital yielded ground. The fool was unarmed! Yet every cut and strike Kital directed at him touched no skin. Knuckles struck his elbow and a long-knife flew from numbed fingers. A blow to his head disoriented him then pain erupted at his chest as his breath was driven from him as if he'd been kicked by a horse. He lay staring up at the dull, slate-hued sky, unable to inhale, his chest aflame. The stranger's face occluded the sky.

‘I am sorry,’ Kital heard him say through the roaring in his ears.

The face so close — those eyes! — Kital guessed the name and mouthed it. The man nodded, placed his hands on either side of Kital's head, hands so warm, and twisted.

Alone once more, flanked by corpses, one fresh, one old, the man straightened. He stood for a time, head cocked, listening, perhaps only to the dreary wind. The shifting of dry soil brought his attention to the older of the two bodies. That corpse's ravaged fingers of tattered sinew and bone now spasmed in the dust. The man edged away, his hands at his sides twitching. The bare broken ribs rose. Air whistled into the cadaver's torn cavities. It lurched up, its desiccated skin creaking like the leather it had become. Gaping eye sockets regarded the man.

Uncertain whether to leap on the body or away, the man offered, warily, ‘Whom am I addressing?’

‘Not the prior occupant.’

‘Hood's messenger, then?’

A laugh no more than air whistling. ‘A message. But not from him.’

‘Who then?’

The corpse jerked its arms, which swung loose from frayed ligaments. ‘Look closely, fool in rags… You see the inevitable. Flesh imperfect. The spirit failing. All is for naught.’ Again the whistling laugh. ‘Come, you are not one to delude yourself like the rest of the common herd. Why pretend? Everything human is flawed and preordained to failure.’

Grimacing his disgust, the man eased his stance. ‘As you can see, my limbs are all whole. You're wasting your time.’

A chuckle dry as ashes. ‘Now you are deluding yourself. Or attempting to deceive me. Surely you above all are aware of the unimportance — the plain cultivated artifice — of all outward appearances.’

The man eyed the ridges above for movement. Was he being delayed? Were agents on the way? What lay behind the Chained One's contact, here, now?

‘I assure you we are quite alone. We have all the time in the world to discuss our mutual interests.’

He regarded the cadaver. ‘You can assure that — here?’

A convulsive laugh raised a cloud of dust from the body. ‘Oh, yes. Most surely. Through the influence of one of my representatives. Which brings me to my point. You, sir, are most qualified to join my House. If the positions as currently revealed do not interest you, then perhaps a new one could be forged. A new card called into creation for you and you alone. Imagine that. Is that not a singular achievement?’

‘It's been done.’

Stillness from the corpse, which the man interpreted as icy irritation. ‘Do not be so impetuous. It ill befits you. Come. Be reasonable. Surely you do not imagine you will survive the forces now arraying themselves against the Throne — and more. Do not throw yourself away needlessly.’

‘Tell me more of these forces.’

A gnawed digit reduced to one knuckle rose to shake a negative. ‘Now, now. We have not yet struck a bargain. Nor does it appear we shall.’ The arm fell and the carious grin widened. ‘A pity. For while you refuse to see wisdom, I've no doubt he shall…’ The corpse laughed its desiccated heaving whistle and with a snarl the man kicked it down. It fell clattering into pieces as the presence animating it withdrew.

The figure in rags stood for a time, silent, listening to that anaemic wind. No, he decided. No one would rob him of his satisfaction — not even the Chained One himself. But he would be no more likely to accept either, would he? No, he knew him too well. They were too much alike. Neither would accept any diversion until the final deed was done, the final knife driven home. And the beauty of all this waiting was that eventually, ultimately, the bastard Cowl would have to come to him.

When Traveller and a few villagers went out to search the highlands for a mast tree, Ereko left the hut at mid-morning. He would have preferred going while the man slept but he was reluctant to pursue a reading at night; only a fool would tempt fate so. The house, a sod-roofed fisherman's dwelling, stood near the edge of the strand's modest lip. A sturdy skiff was pulled up at the shore, a man repairing its side. An old woman sat at the hut's door mending a coat. She looked up at him without fear, the first sign he had of what was to come.

‘I was told a Talent lives here.’

The old woman nodded and set aside her mending. She held out a clawed hand. Ereko set a silver piece into her hardened palm.

She showed no surprise, merely tucked the coin into her wide skirt at the waist. This he should have taken as the second sign.

‘Hrath!’ she called, her voice harsh and clipped, like a sea bird's. ‘Hrath!’

A young boy whom he had noticed earlier playing among the black algae-skirted rocks at the headland ran up to them. The old woman took his hand. ‘The cards, Hrath,’ she said, and pushed him inside.

Ereko noticed immediately the marks of a Talent on the smooth face of the boy. He appeared to be about ten, prepubescent for a certainty — another strong sign. He wondered for how long the entwined strings of fate had woven for this encounter. It had been a long time since he had last dared a reading. For him, more than others, they tended to be messy. For Traveller, they would be deadly.

Stooping, Ereko sat cross-legged on the packed dirt floor of the hut. The old woman now tended a fire at the back of the one room while the boy smoothed the bared dirt of the floor. He stretched the cards out for inspection. Ereko noted their damp chill, another strong sign.

The boy held the deck calmly for a moment then began placing them in a cross design that divided the patch of earth into quarters. An old arrangement. Ereko had been told it was a field not popular in the cities. That it favoured the influence of the Houses too much, so the Talents there complained. When the boy began speaking his voice startled Ereko, so full of assurance and experience it was.

‘The Queen of Life is high,’ the boy began, as most true Talents do for him. ‘Protection, I think. You are favoured. I see House of Death; it is also concerned. How they ever dog each other! Shadow is present, growing over time. The Sceptre close to the Knight of Death reversed… Betrayal. By whom? But no, that is the past. It regards another and intrudes. I see multiple convergences and revenge, but all bitter. Obelisk is close — it travels with you, both a blessing and a burden. Kallor, the High King, twisted inversion of all rulership, stands opposite…’

Ereko was startled. How could this boy know that? Then he chided himself. If a true Talent, the boy knew more than he now spoke even if his poor deck had no cards of the new house.

‘I… that is,‘ something struggled on the face of the boy. ‘So many wrestle here, drawn by the one close to you! I see the ancient past threatening to prove a future preordained. I see fear promising blindness to opportunities — as ever, self-interest threatens to prevent natural fulfilment. For you: only one card remains. Tell him, tell the Soldier of Light — fear none but the Chained.’ These last words rushed out, stopping abruptly as the boy drew one last card that he held up before his face, silenced by its appearance. ‘No,’ he breathed. ‘It cannot be…’ He pitched forward, scattering the cards.

The old woman came and picked up the insensate boy and carried him to a pallet. She crooned over him, caressed his gleaming face. Lying face-up on the beaten earth was the last card: King of Night — the most ill-omened of all stations and attributes. Ereko left without a word. It was as he'd suspected, the fates were done with him; scarcely any of the reading regarded him. He was close now — one card could only mean one remaining path for his future. As he walked back to the keel lain on its rollers and set with its ribs, he wondered: who was the Soldier of Light? And King of Night? That card had always carried symbolic meaning only. How could it have become active? What could it mean? Were they related? And what, if anything, had it all to do with him or Traveller?

The clanging of the iron bar suspended over the mine-head roused Ho from his mid-afternoon doze. Wincing at joints stiff and swollen, he swung his feet down from the sleeping ledge and fumbled about for his tunic and leggings. New arrivals. Surprising, that. Shipments of prisoners to the Otataral mines had thinned to a trickle these last few years. Seemed Laseen was at last running out of enemies. He snorted: not too bloody likely.

Though decades had passed since he'd been the Pit's unofficial mayor and inmate spokesman to the Warder — and who was the damned Warder these days anyway? — Ho still felt obliged to put in a showing at the welcoming ceremony.

He nodded to familiar faces as he tramped the twisting narrow tunnels — shafts themselves once — each following a promising vein of Otataral. Most of those he met returned his nod; it was a small world down here among those exiled for life in these poisonous mines. Poison indeed, for Otataral is anathema to Warren manipulation and magery, and they were all of them down here mages. Each condemned by the emperor, or the Empress in her turn. And Ho had been among the first.

Mine-head was the ragged base of an open cylinder hacked from the rock, about forty paces in diameter and more than twenty man-heights deep. Harsh blue sky glared above, traced by wisps of cloud. A wood platform, cantilevered out over the opening and suspended from rope, was noisily creaking its way up. It was drawn and lowered from above by oxen and a winch at the surface.

The new arrivals stood in a ragged line, four men and one female. The man at one end carried the look of a scholar, emaciated, bearded, blinking at his surroundings in stunned disbelief. The woman was older and dumpy, her mouth tight with disgust. The next man shared her sour disapproval, though tinged with apprehension. All three were older individuals and all three conformed to the norm of those consigned to the Pit: all Talents who have garnered the displeasure of the Throne. The remaining two stood slightly apart, however; their appearance sent alarm bells ringing through Ho's thoughts. Younger, fit men, scarred and tanned — one even carrying the faint blue skin hue of the island of Nap. Battle mages, army cadre possibly. Veterans no doubt. The community would not like this.

The current mayor of the Pit, a Seven Cities mage named Yathengar, swept up before the arrivals, his long robes tattered and rust-stained in Otataral dust. He leaned on a staff trimmed down from a shoring timber.

‘Greetings, newcomers,’ he said in Talian. ‘We speak the Malazan tongue down here as a common language between us Seven Cities natives, Genabackans, Falarans and others. Perversely,’ he added, sliding a glance to Ho, ‘there are precious few Malazans left down here.’

Ho gave the man a thin smile — ex-Faladan of Ehrlitan. Never did forgive us for that. Never did explain why he failed to die defending his city-god, either. Ho watched the newcomers take in the tall bearded patriarch, how their gazes lingered on the stains of his robes. Yath noted the fascination as well; one hand, knotted, dark as the stave's wood, brushed at the cloth.

‘Oh yes, newcomers. It cannot be avoided. It is in the air you are breathing now. The water you will drink, the food you will eat. Your hair, every wrinkle.’

‘Queen protect me,’ breathed the scholar at the far end, appalled.

Yath turned on him. ‘No, she won't.’

‘So what now?’ the woman demanded in strongly accented Talian. ‘You beat us? Search us for valuables? Are we newcomers to be slaves to you thug survivors down here?’

Yath gave a bow of his head. ‘Good points. No, no. No rule of violence here — unlike Skullcap — or Unta, for that matter. We are all scholars and mages here, educated men and women. We have a council. Food is distributed evenly. The sick are cared for-’

‘Sounds like paradise.’ This from the tall veteran cadre mage at the opposite end.

The wood of the stave creaked in Yath's hands. He paced to stand before the two. ‘You three,’ he said to the others, ‘can go.’

Members of the welcoming committee took these three aside to be assigned quarters, receive food bowls and such. Ho remained. Yath held his stave lengthwise across his front, silent until distance from the other newcomers allowed some privacy. The two remained motionless as well, waiting without discussion between them. Companions, Ho decided. Very unusual. Counter to prison procedure, in fact.

‘Do not think that because we are learned men and women down here we will be helpless before you,’ said Yath, his voice low. ‘There are exiles here who do not need the Warrens to kill.’

‘Those stains,’ said the shorter of the two, the Napan, ‘we'd heard the Pit was all mined out.’

Ho swore he could hear Yath's teeth grinding. ‘A few live veins remain,’ he allowed.

‘And let me guess,’ continued the Napan. ‘Everyone gets a turn.’

Straightening, Yath stamped the stave to the sandy ground. He thrust his face forward, his long grey beard bristling. ‘And do you refuse?’

The muscles around the Napan cadre mage's mouth bunched. He examined his hands. ‘No.’

Yath slowly nodded. ‘Good. Your names then?’

‘Grief,’ gave the Napan.

‘Treat,’ said the tall one.

‘Very well. Go and get quarters assigned.’

Ho watched the two leave, guided by old exiles. He'd keep an eye on them; why send two obvious fighting men down here among all us fossils? To dig up information, Ho answered himself. Yath's gaze followed the two as well. Ho translated the man's glower: more damned Malazans.

Amaron was waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs beneath the old Tayliin fortress. My family's ancestral keep. My keep. Ghelel still had trouble believing it. Yet all agreed. She was the third generation in hiding of the old Tayliin family. The clan that hundreds of years ago had extended Quon Talian hegemony across the continent. The troika that had taken power invoked her name; General Choss had been granted command — in her name. Yet she had no illusions: still a puppet. A figurehead needed to lend the veneer of legitimacy to their insurrection. That was all. Yet strings go both ways and even a puppet, should it gather enough strength to itself, can reverse the pull. Or even cut the strings if need be. In any event, she certainly intended to find the full extent of their slack.

Such as now; demanding to see the captive she'd heard languished within her keep. A true Claw captured by Amaron's counter-intelligence. A Claw such as those who slew her family so long ago. All great aunts, uncles, nephews and nieces; all except her grandfather, then a boy, who escaped. She had to meet this murderer. Had to see who it was, what it was, she faced.

The tall and, Ghelel could now see, rather wide around the middle Amaron bowed. ‘M'Lady. I am against this. It's an unnecessary danger.’

‘Surely the Claw didn't get himself captured on the chance of getting to me.’

‘That is not my suggestion. A tiger, though captured, is still a danger.’

‘Perhaps instead you could reassign Quinn to me.’

In the dark the man's deep-blue Napan face was almost unreadable. He shook his head. ‘No, m'Lady. He has duties elsewhere. His work with you is done.’

‘Then at least assign someone other than this Molk fellow. He is completely inappropriate.’

A low rumbling chuckle. ‘I assure you he is completely appropriate.’

Ghelel allowed herself a sigh of exasperation. ‘If this is your idea of negotiation, Amaron, I am not impressed.’

‘I am greatly saddened, m'Lady.’

‘Let's see him.’

‘Please, m'Lady, reconsider. He will only take the opportunity to lie and undermine your trust and confidence.’

‘I understand, Amaron.’

The man was silent, thinking. His presence before her in the dark gave her the impression of a wall of stone; many she'd met in the fortress were in awe of Choss's reputation and were elated to have a military commander of such standing. But those same people were also obviously wary, if not fearful, of this man. Amaron let out a long hard breath. ‘Very well. Do not approach him, yes?’

‘Yes.’

He turned, walked up the dark stone corridor. She followed wondering whether she'd just won a victory of a sort, or had just expended vital goodwill on a useless whim. Amaron unlocked a door and preceeded her into the surprisingly large chamber within. A man sat fettered to a chair at the room's centre.

‘Ghelel Rhik Tayliin!’ the fellow announced once Amaron stood aside. ‘Pleasure to meet you.’

Ghelel strove to suppress a shudder — of fear or disgust — she didn't know. Or the cold: the room was damp and chilly. She took a slow step forward. ‘So you know my name. What is your name?’

The man shrugged, or made a show of it to reveal that his wrists were secured behind his back. ‘What matter names? For example, Claw or Talon? All the same, hey, Amaron?’

Ghelel slid her gaze between the two. ‘What do you mean by that?’

‘M'Lady…’ Amaron began.

‘I mean that Laseen instituted the Claws, yes, but who was in charge of Dancer's own killers, the Talons, way back then? Hmm?’

Ghelel settled her attention on Amaron. ‘So you are a murderer as well.’

The big man rested his hands at his belt. ‘I prefer the term political agent.’

‘There you are,’ the Claw said. ‘You have picked up the very knives that wiped out — or very nearly wiped out — your own family.’

‘We had nothing to do with those killings.’

‘So you say, Amaron… So you say.’

Ghelel again glanced from one to the other, shocked. Why had Amaron allowed her to interview this man knowing what he would no doubt reveal? Was this some sort of a test? But why bother? She suddenly found she could not draw breath; the cell felt as if it had slammed shut upon her. She backed away to the door, searching blindly behind her for the jamb. ‘I will not allow such things,’ she managed, her voice hardly audible to her.

The Claw arched a brow. ‘Not even for those who deserve it? Laseen, perhaps? Be assured, Tayliin, that list, once begun, will grow long and long…’

‘Never.’

‘So be it. You will fail then. And all those soldiers who will die for your cause will have died in vain.’

Ghelel felt as if the man had stabbed her then and there. ‘What are you doing?’ She wiped wetness from her eyes.

‘Educating you,’ he said. But his eyes were on Amaron and the smile that had been playing about his mouth was gone. It seemed to Ghelel that the man was now uncertain of something. He's wondering why Amaron is letting him talk! Yes, she had been wondering as well. She drew strength from the man's doubt.

‘Yes? To what end?’

The Claw laughed his derision. ‘You stupid child! Can't you see you'll end up exactly like her? You say you hate Laseen yet to succeed in the path you have chosen you must pick up the tools of power — the very tools you pretend to scorn!’

Amaron cleared his throat. ‘That's enough, I think. M'Lady…?’

‘Yes.’ Ghelel pulled a hand across her face. Yes, more than enough. She turned and left the cell. The Claw did not call after her. Amaron locked the cell and followed. At the stairs, she stopped and stood waiting, hugging herself. He stopped as well and studied her with what she thought a dispassionate evaluative gaze.

‘Why did you allow that? Why not have him killed?’

A slow thoughtful shrug. ‘You would have heard this accusation eventually. Better directly now than whisperings later when you might wonder if I had tried to cover it up. This way there is a chance — a small chance — that you might come to trust me.’

Right now she could hardly trust herself to speak. ‘You play a dangerous game, Amaron,’ she managed, her voice dry and hoarse. He was a solid shape in the darkness, silent for a time.

‘That is the only kind worth playing.’

Ghelel studied the man, his aged, lined dark face that had seen, what, a century of service? Yes, she could see how the old ogre must've liked this one. ‘No killings in my name, Amaron. That I will not allow.’ He frowned, considering.

‘Hard to guarantee. But I will promise this — I'll ask first.’

Ghelel hugged herself even more tightly, as if afraid of what might happen should she let go. ‘Yes. You can ask. But I swear. Not the way it used to be. It will not be like that.’

Amaron nodded. And as Ghelel climbed the stairs, still hugging herself, it seemed to her that in the man's slow assent she read the surety on his part that, eventually, things would slide that way — if only through their own accumulating weight. Please Burn and Fanderay preserve her from that! Please preserve her!

The night of the meeting, Hurl watched Storo push himself from his seat in the Rod and Sceptre after the gongs of the wandering street watch rang the half-night call. The squad had all cleared out long before then. No sense hanging around exactly where anyone watching would want you to be. She and Sunny had a corner across the way, eyeing the Cap'n as he wandered — well, swayed, really — drunk as a Dal Hon trader up the street. They followed far back.

Sunny and me, we're army sappers, she reflected. What in Hood's name do we know about following people and bein’ sneaky ‘n’ all? Truth is — nothing. Zilch. But then we're not supposed to be successful. We're the stalking horse. Leastways, that was how Silk explained it once. We're here because the people watching expect someone to be here, and so here we are. Simple. Ha. Truth is, she wouldn't be here at all if it weren't for the fact that Sunny was the meanest saboteur in a fight any of them knew and she's the only one he'll listen to.

Sunny tapped Hurl on the arm, motioned ahead; the Captain was heading west around the main curve of the Outer Round to the Idryn River. They slowed their pace to keep the distance. The Round wasn't nearly as quiet or deserted as Hurl imagined it would be at this hour. This section of the way was a run-down night market. Torches burned at stalls and at the open doors of inns and taverns. Benches and stools spilled out across the cobbles holding the most resilient drunks while she and Sunny stepped over the less hardy. Whores called from fires at tall iron braziers. Their ages looked to Hurl to vary directly with their distance from the light. Some shops appeared to never close: a blacksmith hammered on into the night. The lonesome ringing reminded Hurl of her youth in Cawn, her own father downstairs hunched over, tapping at his smithing. A sound that ached of sadness and waste to her. A lifetime of sweat and scrimping wiped away by a noble who refused his debts, leaving her family imprisoned. Joining up or whoring had been the only two legal choices left for her — that was, if she didn't want to starve.

They passed a Seti horse-minder standing watch with his sons over his charges all roped together while a pack of the mongrel Seti dogs roamed the Round snarling at everyone. In the chaos it seemed a miracle to Hurl that they didn't lose the Captain, but the man was making no effort to hide.

All around them in the dark she imagined a constant dance of positions and vantages. Silk was out there in the night, maybe overhead on the domed rooftops these Heng architects seemed to favour. Jalor and Rell were also following, but on a far lower profile — Jalor because that son of the Seven Cities could move like a cat, while Rell, well, that guy was just amazing — none of the squad could figure out why he was wasting his time with them. Storo had tried to promote him more times than Hurl could recall but he wasn't having it. The young fellow would just look away all shamefaced whenever the subject of promotion or commendation came up. As for Shaky, Hurl suspected the bastard had just plain slunk off on everyone like he always did.

Now, Hurl knew the Captain was on his way to meet a crew he'd warned them was the ruthless gang of pirates he'd started out with long ago. A gang he said was outlawed by the Empress. Were they watching to see whether Storo had reported the contact to Fist Rheena? Hurl's back itched trying this alley-work. This was Silk's trade, not hers.

‘They're gonna try to turn him,’ she whispered to Sunny as the Captain angled on to the main way to the riverfront warehouses. Sunny grunted his assent. ‘Will he, do you think?’

‘Will he what?’ Sunny growled.

‘Turn.’

Sunny pulled Hurl to a plaster wall. Tut it this way,’ he said, smiling his toothy leer, and he opened the cloak he wore over his armour. Pockets and bags held sharpers, cussors, smokers, crackers and burners — their entire treasure hoard, piled up over the years.

She gaped. ‘Dammitall! When did you dig them up?’

‘Right after you turned your back.’ He closed the cloak. ‘That's your problem, Hurl. You're too trusting.’ He grinned again. ‘Need me to take care of you.’

Hurl thought of her own two measly sharpers. ‘Well, hand some over!’

He pushed himself from the wall. ‘Cap'n's gettin’ too far ahead…’

Clamping down hard on her urge to cuff the bastard, she followed with hands tight and hot on the grip of the crossbow she carried flat under her cloak. Grisan scum! How dare he! Then she slowed, thinking, He'd taken all of it? Truthfully? What a hole that would make. Maybe take out an entire fortress…

Ahead, the Captain yanked open a slim door to a gable-roofed warehouse and disappeared inside. A faint glow of lantern-light shone from its barred windows. Sunny edged his way down a side alley. Hurl followed, her back itching worse than ever: wouldn't whoever was waiting inside have sentinels on the roof armed with bows? Swordsmen posted in the alley? Sunny didn't hesitate, but then he never did. Even on the battlefield. He waved her to a narrow side-door, rolled his eyes. It was secured by a bronze lock-plate bolted to planks with an iron padlock. Solid enough for everyday. Whoever was inside might even feel confident of its strength. But against a trained Malazan engineer armed with Moranth alchemicals it was a joke. Hurl took out her tools.

While she worked Hurl thought again of her father. He'd been a smith. A whitesmith specializing in acid etching. She'd been his unofficial apprentice all her youth — unofficial because of course no girl could apprentice. Never mind she was ten times better at the work than her doltish brothers. At least, she thought, he'd given her that much — if only that. She brought those skills with her when she signed up and the Malazans shipped her fast as they could to the engineering academy. There the instructors introduced her to Moranth alchemy and it was love at first smell.

The most dilute mixture Hurl could manage on the spot did the job. She gave Sunny the nod and he levered a knife-blade into the wood surrounding the lock-plate. It gave like wet leather. He had to fight a bit at the end to open the door as the planks were thick and the acid barely weakened the innermost finger's breadth. All the while Hurl covered the alley with her crossbow, wondering why they weren't yet full of arrows. This wasn't how she'd be guarding some kind of secret meet.

Sunny hissed to wave her in. She pulled the door closed behind them. They were in a thin passage between crates and barrels piled almost as high as the ceiling. The light was a weak wash of distant lanterns and starlight from high barred windows. Glaring, Sunny raised his knife. Pitting and staining marred the iron blade. She shrugged, mouthed, ‘Shoulda used an old one.’

Sunny took breath to snarl something but Hurl motioned to the maze of passages ahead and that silenced him. Grumbling far beneath his breath, he took the lead. Hurl smiled — just the way she wanted him for a fight, feeling ornery.

Voices murmured ahead from the dark. They edged closer. Hurl's back was on fire now. No way they should have been able to get this close. They must be walking into an ambush. She was about to signal Sunny when he stopped before a turn in the passage. He pointed up. Hurl studied the stacked crates — possible. It looked possible. She let her crossbow hang from the strap around her neck and one shoulder. She unpinned and dropped her cloak. A twist and the weapon hung at her back. Sunny covered her while she heaved herself up to the first slim ledge.

The climb itself was easy but she took it slowly, trying to be as quiet as she could. As it was, she was sure everyone in the blasted echoing warehouse heard her. At the top she lay flat, surprised that no one had been there to greet her with a thrust in the face. Where was everyone? Had they called it off?

While Sunny climbed Hurl unslung the crossbow and exchanged the bolt for one set with a sharper at its head. Reaching the top, Sunny crouched, drew his twinned long-knives. The crates rocked and creaked alarmingly beneath them. He lifted his chin to the centre of the long barn-like building and carefully made his way forward. Hurl followed, crouched as low as she could. The rafters loomed from the dark just above. They stank of tar and dust and bat droppings and trailed cobwebs that caught at Hurl's shoulders. Talking echoed from below much more clearly now; she could make out the odd word, recognize Storo's voice. Sunny lay down at the cliff-edge of their long rectangular island of stacked goods. Hurl lay beside him, peeked over the wooden lip.

In a central cleared square of bare beaten earth the Captain was leaning on a barrel and facing two men and a woman. No one Hurl knew. To her they looked seasoned, especially a silver-haired Dal Honese fellow as broad across the beam as they come. ‘Captain now, is it?’ the big Dal Hon was saying. And he whistled. ‘My, my. Coming up in the world, are we?’

The Captain was just looking down, giving his half-smile, and rubbing his hand over his nearly bald head the way Hurl knew he did when he was dismissing what you're saying but didn't want you to know it.

‘I would have seen you a commander, Storo. You know that. A Fist even. We reward talent. That's our way. If your father hadn't gone down off Genabaris he'd be standing here right now saying the same thing.’

‘She has talent,’ the Captain said, still looking down. The three strangers exchanged glances. The woman signed something to the Dal Hon fellow. Looking closer Hurl saw that though slim and sword-straight, she was an older gal herself. This crew was what in Imperial service everyone referred to as Old Hands and the little hairs on Hurl's arms prickled at the thought of just what they might be facing here. And what of the Captain? He knew this crew. Just what had he been hiding all this time?

The Dal Honese hooked his meaty hands under his arms, sighed. ‘Look, Storo. We need to know tonight. Now. For old times’ sake we've gone out of our way here. But all that only goes so far. We want you — could really use you — but we need to know.’

The Captain pulled a hand down his face to rub his unshaven jowls, grimaced. He shrugged. ‘I think you know the answer already, Orlat…’

Orlat! Familiar, thought Hurl. She just couldn't place it. In any case, Orlat was nodding. He looked genuinely regretful himself. ‘Yeah. I know. I was just hoping you'd come to your senses. I'm sorry it has to be this way

‘So am I, Orlat. So am I.’

The man and woman with Orlat disappeared. Hood take it! Old cadre mages! Six swordsmen entered the square to take Orlat's side, hardened veterans every one of them. Rell stepped out of the dark to take the Captain's side. Neither Storo nor Orlat moved a muscle. Six veterans! This could give Rell a run for his money.

Then the needle point of a knife touched Hurl's back and she flinched. ‘Turn around real slow,’ someone said from behind. Hurl hung her head — the Lady's Pull! She rolled on to her back. A little runt of a guy dressed all in dark colours knelt over both her and Sunny. Twin long blackened poniard blades hovered a finger's breadth over their vitals. ‘Now,’ this guy said, and his lips pulled back over grey rotting teeth, ‘you got just one chance to give the right answer to the question-’

And darkness opened up, swallowing him. And he disappeared. Hurl looked to Sunny, blinked. ‘Well, I guess we'll never know what the right answer was.’ Silk floated up from within the crates. ‘Where'd he go?’ Sunny asked him.

Silk smiled and winked. ‘Elsewhere.’

‘What's the plan?’ Hurl whispered.

‘Living through the night. The exits are all sealed. Open a way out to the riverside. We'll keep them occupied.’

‘The riverside? Why there?’ But Silk was already sinking from view. Ym busy, he mouthed and was gone. Sunny crawled to another edge, waved Hurl over. She threw herself down next to him. ‘This is bad. Real bad.’

‘Yeah. We'll be dead any minute for sure.’

‘Wonderful.’

He motioned to the stacked crates and barrels across the narrow passage. ‘Have to jump it.’

‘What?’ But the fool was already backing up. ‘Listen, let's talk about this-’ Sunny kicked himself into a run and the crates swayed beneath them. As he took long strides to gather speed Hurl suddenly remembered just what he carried snug in the pockets of his cloak and vest and bags. A vision of the entire warehouse and surrounding buildings disappearing in an eruption of light froze her. Sweet Twins, no! She flinched away.

A crack sounded as Sunny jumped — the release of a crossbow — then a crash of him lying dead flat on his back on the crates that rocked, creaking and scraping against one another. Swords rang from the dark below followed by a gasp and panting and Hurl knew that couldn't be Rell because he never made a sound when he fought, ever. She peeked down to see Rell holding off four remaining soldiers while the Captain was drawing his sword. Orlat's gaze was narrow as he watched Rell's form. ‘No sense making this any harder than it has to be,’ he told Storo, though he sounded less sure of himself.

‘That's what I was thinking,’ answered the Captain.

Hurl backed up and ran for the gap. The crossbow on her back slammed her down as her feet hit the crates and that sent her face-first into the unfinished wood, knocking the breath from her. The side of her face scraped raw. Finding her breath again, she touched her cheek and came away with blood. She sat up to see Sunny holding his leg from which a quarrel jutted. Shit.

‘That was not a nice trick your friend pulled,’ a familiar voice called from across the way. It was Runty the Knifer, back from who-knew-where. He jumped the gap with ease, came down standing. The crates rocked beneath them all like a lazy sea swell. ‘But I got friends too. Now, where was I? Oh yeah,’ he raised his knives. ‘Killing you two.’

‘Shut the Hood up,’ Sunny snarled, tossing something at the fellow's feet that went off with an ear-splitting bang. Though she recognized it as a smoker, Hurl flinched. Black impenetrable clouds engulfed them, blinding and choking. She was sure that whatever the Moranth put in those was not meant to be inhaled. Sunny took her shoulder, yanked her to the edge of the crates. They hung for an instant at the lip, held on to break the distance, then they fell. Sunny roared as his weight hit his wounded leg. They both lay winded on the beaten earth.

The fellow landed lithely as a cat next to them. Flat on her stomach, Hurl groaned her disgust. He waggled a blade and shrugged. ‘Nothing personal, you understand. Just business.’

‘Well, you missed your chance,’ said Sunny smiling nastily as he glanced up the alley.

Runty cursed, twisting, but a thrown knife took him in the side. He went down, rolled, and dived from sight around a corner. Jalor came jogging up, the gold rings at his fingers bright. He grinned but blood smeared his teeth and was running from his mouth down over his trimmed beard. The dark robes he wore over his armour were slashed. He drew another knife to replace the one he'd thrown and kept his beatific grin. ‘It is good to kill Malazans again!’

Hurl helped Sunny to his feet. ‘Just don't make a habit of it.’

He frowned. ‘Why?’ then added, ‘Didn't Silk give you two a job to do?’

‘Yeah,’ said Sunny. ‘Gotta blow us all up.’

Jalor shrugged. ‘As I've said — I should have died a long time ago.’

Sunny grumbled under his breath, ‘Just do us a favour and do it tomorrow.’ Jalor grinned and offered Hurl a wink. He set off after Runty.

Hurl tried to take Sunny's arm but he shook her off. ‘Fine. Be that way.’

‘What do you think,’ he panted as he limped, his voice taut with pain, ‘a cracker?’

‘Yeah. That should overkill it nicely.’

The passage opened on to an open square of beaten earth that ended at a wide sliding door. Hurl held Sunny's arm to halt him. Silk had said the exits were sealed; what had he meant by that? ‘What are you waiting for?’ Sunny hissed.

‘Silk warned us off the doors.’

He pulled his arm free. ‘Just blast it and let's go!’

While Hurl watched, shadows on the panels shifted and stretched. They seemed to drip on to the ground then they snaked out like wet black ink reaching towards them. Shit again.

Flinching back, Sunny almost knocked her down.

Light blazed across the square in a cutting curtain of blinding white. Blinking away the after-images Hurl saw the shadows on the door writhing as if in pain. In the darkness of an alley across the way she glimpsed the slim older woman who had stood with Orlat. She was examining the door as well. Then she turned her lazy gaze to them. ‘Your friend is good,’ she called, ‘but we'll corner him.’ She frowned. ‘Ule should've finished with you two already.’

Without aiming Hurl lifted the crossbow from under her arm and fired. It wasn't bang-on, but it was close. She was sure the blast caught the woman before she entered her Warren. As it was, she at least blew up two barrels damn good. Sunny offered her a reluctant nod. ‘Nice one.’

They ran to the wall as far from the loading dock as possible. ‘I'll take that,’ said Sunny, holding out a cracker. They exchanged. Sunny covered her while she studied the wall and kicked at its base: solid hand-shaved planks sunk far into beaten earth. Tricky. The cracker could obliterate any section above but it would need a solid foundation to direct the blast. She drew her shortest blade and started hacking at the dry packed earth. While she worked she saw Sunny set down the crossbow and unwrap a cussor. He caught her watching him. ‘I'm tired of playing around.’

‘Might as well chuck it against the wall now.’

‘That'd be a waste.’

Hurl had to agree. The cracker was bad enough, but a cussor used against a wall of timbers was enough to make any sapper cry. Used against any one particular enemy who has pissed you off mightily, well, that was pretty much a tradition in the corps started by Hedge. Sword-play and stamping feet echoed up the alley behind. She hurriedly set the cracker, kicked the earth down around it. ‘Have to do.’

‘Now,’ came Sunny's tight warning.

She risked a glance: Storo and Rell were shuffling in a fighting retreat against a pressing gang of swordsmen. She let two drops of undiluted acid fall on to the dirt packed over the cracker, then, jumping up, took Sunny's arm to help him run aside and yelled the standard sapper warning: ‘Munitions!’

They dived. The eruption was like twin hammers slamming into her head from either side. Shredded timber tumbled down all around. Though Sunny and she were insanely close they were still in one piece because the whole point behind crackers was to direct the main force of the blast in one direction — up the wall in this case. Lying there, shaking off the effect of the explosion, she found that instinctively she'd thrown herself on top of Sunny to protect what he carried, and that he was curled on to his side facing away from the impact, despite the quarrel sticking out of his leg. The risks they were taking with their ordnance appalled her.

An arm yanked her, marched her to the smoking gap — Rell. Somehow the Genabackan swordsman retained his grip of both weapons while hooking one arm around her. Wet gore covered both blades and splashed his leathers. None, she was sure, was his. He urged her on through the jagged hole.

The riverside wharf-front was dark. Watch torches lit the Idryn's far shore. Dirt gave way to the wood planks of the wharf and docks. Storo pushed Sunny through to Hurl then he and Rell covered the smoking gap in the warehouse wall. Planking from the roof fell all around. ‘Where to?’ she yelled.

‘The river!’ Storo answered.

Hurl staggered backwards with Sunny who fought to remain. ‘We'll cover them,’ she told him and he subsided. A shout sounded — a Seven Cities war challenge — and Jalor erupted from the blasted section at a dead run. Men poured out after him. Arrows nicked the ground all around, fired from the roof.

While Hurl hobbled with Sunny a familiar thump sounded from the docks and she grinned, tracing an imaginary path through the night sky to the roof behind and was rewarded by the crack of a sharper clearing the archers from one side of the roof. ‘Shaky has us covered!’ she laughed. Sunny's look told her she'd sounded a touch panicked.

Storo, Rell and Jalor fought a tight retreat. Pot-shots from Shaky cleared any group that pressed too close. Hurl found him crouched behind cover next to a moored river launch. ‘Get in,’ he snarled and reached for her crossbow. Hurl let Sunny down and raised the weapon herself.

From the wharf-walk Hurl saw that things were finally getting ugly. Some kind of summoning stepped out of a Warren. She imagined you'd call it a demon, or monster, all scales and jagged horns. In any case, it sure wasn't one of theirs. It turned on the Captain and closed ground. Rell actually looked ready to take it on but Storo pulled him back, bellowing, ‘Silk!’

Hurl held her breath, but nothing happened. Usually when the Captain called that loud for their cadre mage, smoke, flame and lightning and you name it came flying. But now nothing. A nagging thought surfaced; had the old gal and her buddy finally managed to corner him?

A whistle brought Hurl's attention around: Sunny on the launch. He held up a cussor then tossed it. She practically fired her crossbow in her panic to empty her hands. She let the cussor strike her chest and closed her arms around it then lay down to take the weight from her sagging knees. Gods! Cussor tossing! No matter that it took more than a shock to set them off — the imagination did wonders.

Shaky was looking down at her. ‘They're too close anyway.’ Arrows pattered around like rain. A bestial roar rattled the dock, echoing from the wharf-walk. Hurl peered over the piled cargo.

The demon was sinking. At least that was how it looked. The beast was up to its scaled waist in dirt and flailing madly. Everyone had stopped to watch, fascinated, the way Hurl had seen the fighting on battlefields halt when a particularly impressive piece of magery was in the process of going horribly awry. It sank to its chest, its neck, then, roaring what sounded like panic, disappeared but for its spasming arms. Those arms remained standing from the streaming dirt like two malformed plants, jerking and clawing.

‘Hood's bones!’ Shaky breathed. ‘What a way to go.’

‘Shoot, dammit!’ Sunny called from the launch. ‘Shoot!’

Hurl took aim and fired at the firmer parts of the warehouse roof where the archers had edged forward once more. Shaky dropped one into the closest knot of Orlat's men. That broke the spell. Men dived for cover. The rest of the squad made the dock. Hurl and Shaky fired last warning shots as the launch unmoored then everyone jumped for it. The archers peppered the boat as they drifted away into the dark. Rell and Sunny rowed while everyone else ducked for cover.

Shaky relieved Sunny who eased himself down next to Jalor who lay, eyes shut, breathing wetly. He looked to have taken a beating. The launch rocked alarmingly, dipping at the bow, and there was Silk, his trademark dark silks smoking and tattered. His long blond hair plastered his head, soaked in sweat. He let himself slump on to a thwart and leaned back, breathing in deep lungfuls of the cool river air.

So, they'd all made it. But what now? Hurl eyed the Captain. He was looking ahead, downriver, his gaze thoughtful. Would he send Silk by Warren to Fist Rheena? Surely now he had to let her know that a gang of pirates were in the city recruiting. She cleared her throat. The Captain nodded, grimacing. ‘Yes, Hurl… What now?’

‘Tell Rheena. She's been square.’

He rubbed an unshaven cheek, wincing at Hurl's words. ‘Yeah. Well, that's the problem. That just makes this all the harder.’

‘What?’

‘She's dead,’ said Silk.

Storo nodded sourly.

‘What do you mean?’

‘He means,’ continued Silk, ‘that there's been a coup tonight in the city. Rheena is surely dead. We're all alone.’

‘C'mon, a coup? That's ridiculous. The Claws would crush it.’ But Sunny, Hurl noticed, wasn't sneering. Holding his leg, he looked personally affronted by the news. She bent to that wound, tore the trousers for a better look.

‘Not if they're too busy elsewhere,’ said Storo.

‘Where?’ Hurl took hold of the quarrel shaft, held Sunny's eyes. Rell eased over to take hold of his shoulders. He gave a sharp nod, gasped, ‘Do it.’

Hurl leaned her weight on to the shaft, bore on to it until the head burst through the other side of the thigh. Sunny thrashed in Rell's grip, snarled through his teeth clamped in his permanent leer. She eased off. He lay limp, his face glistening in a cold sweat. She unrolled her kit and set to work.

‘Orlat and I had a chat,’ continued Storo. ‘From what he hinted at I got the idea that the Seti were rising, as was Tali, and others of the old kingdoms. An organized insurrection. Laseen's been bleeding the garrisons dry for years now to fuel those overseas wars of hers. There's hardly more than a division between here and Unta. And most of those probably turned.’

‘Turned to who?’ Hurl glanced to the Captain. He was looking away, over the river to the torches and golden lanterns gleaming over the domes of the city.

‘Did you recognize the name Orlat?’ he asked.

‘Sounded familiar.’ Everyone, Hurl noted, was watching the Captain now. Even Sunny, who'd come to.

‘Orlat Kepten. Was captain of the Spear long ago. I was his first mate.’

Kepten! Yes, Fat Kepten. How could she have not made the connection? But he'd been a captain in Urko's fleet. That meant… ‘You served with Urko?’

Looking embarrassed, Storo rubbed again at his jowls. ‘Yeah. There at the end. My father served much longer. He was one of the first Falarans to join up — even before the invasions.’

While Storo was speaking, Silk had taken the stern and now directed them to the north shore. Storo turned to him. ‘What's this?’

‘My arrangements,’ Silk answered. He studied the maze of docks and jetties cluttering the shore like a mess of snaggled teeth. They slid under one sagging dock and Silk grabbed hold of a timber and they waited, silent. Waves licked at the glistening slimed wood of the old posts. Rell cleaned his blades in the water then ran an oiled cloth over them and sheathed them. Once again, Hurl saw, the youth had escaped any injury. In all the years campaigning together she'd yet to see him cut. There was something unnatural about that. She turned to Jalor's wounds.

‘That's all right, Hurl. Help should be coming,’ Silk told her gently.

‘You're just full of arrangements this night, ain't ya?’ Sunny challenged, watching the mage through slit eyes. Silk answered with an enigmatic smile of his own — one that Hurl had seen turn many a girl's head.

‘What do you mean?’ asked Shaky.

‘I mean Silk here showed a lot more tricks tonight than ever before. Those two mages must've been damn good but he kept both busy. How does a plain squad mage manage that? And these arrangements… he knew something was up for tonight.’

Shaky was watching Sunny; Hurl saw his eyes bugging out the way they did when he was scared. ‘What're you sayin?’

Sunny's smile was a death's-head. ‘I'm sayin’ maybe we don't need to tell Rheena anything because maybe Laseen already knows. What say you, Silk? Gonna fess up?’

Shaky gaped at Silk. ‘You a Claw, Silk?’

‘Quiet,’ Storo said. ‘We've enough to worry about.’

Silk raised a hand. ‘It's all right, Captain. I'll talk. Truth is, I happen to be from Heng. I grew up here. This is home turf for me. I pull more out of myself here than anywhere.’

An old woman's crow of a laugh sounded from above. ‘Bicker, bicker. I smell sour defeat!’

Silk pushed his fingers through his hair, sighing. ‘Down here, Liss.’

Hard heels clacked and clattered above. Rell and Storo eased the launch to a floating dock. Two youths, no more than ragged street urchins, helped an old woman down the short ladder to the dock. She took hold of the gunwales of the launch with hands all gnarled and disfigured with arthritis and in a very unladylike manner swung a leg over the side. Grinning a dark wide mouth full of rotten stumps she squatted over Jalor, cackling at what she saw. Hurl backed away because the old hag stank of rotting fish.

‘Greetings, Loyalists,’ she said, laughing.

Loyalists? Hurl wondered. What did the old crow mean by that?

‘Morning,’ answered Storo.

‘Ah, the great Slayer of Avowed. Captain Matash himself!’ She squinted at him, snorted. ‘You don't look like much.’

‘Liss…’ Silk whispered, warning.

‘Yes, yes.’ She took hold of Jalor's head, twisted it side to side while he grunted his pain. ‘Ah! Courage and resilience here. Good. He will live.’ She turned on Sunny who flinched from her swollen hands. Those hands darted out to his leg. ‘Ah! Stubbornness here. Good. He will walk again.’ One of those hands then snapped to Hurl's upper arm and clenched there, squeezing the bone; Hurl winced at the woman's strength. The fetid stink of a muddy river bank at low-water assaulted her and she turned her head away. Seeing that, the old woman cackled. Hurl didn't find it funny at all. ‘Greetings, Builder. I am pleased to meet you.’ Builder? She must mean engineer.

The old woman faced Rell next. He sat motionless, his limbs tense, almost quivering, looking up through his long tangled hair. She pulled her hands from him at the last moment and a long breath hissed from her. Turning away she inclined her head, mouthing something beneath her breath. It seemed to Hurl there was certainly significance to the woman's actions but for the life of her she had no idea what it might be.

The youths helped the old woman out of the launch. From the dock she reached down to flick a tear in Silk's shirt. ‘All faded now,’ she chuckled. ‘What's become of us, hmm?’

‘The Twins turn, Liss,’ Silk murmured with an affectionate smile.

‘Hunh! They do, do they? Well, they're taking their own sweet time about it.’

‘Many thanks,’ Silk said softly and he pushed off.

As they drifted away Hurl heard her call after them, ‘Protectress Bless you!’

They drifted downriver, east with the sluggish current. Soon the next broad curve of the Idryn would bring them to the first of the River Gates, the huge iron grills sunk from bridges that served as extensions of the curtain walls surrounding the city. Jalor suddenly lurched upright, nearly swamping them. He glared about as if still in the fight then eased back under Shaky and Rell's grip.

‘How's the leg?’ Storo asked Sunny.

‘Fine,’ he grunted, sour.

‘Good. ‘Cause you're going to need it.’

Sunny's smile slid back to its usual sneer. ‘Why?’

‘Because we're headed to the Palace.’

Everyone gabbled at once. The Captain raised a hand for silence. ‘We've no choice. We have to act now before they firm up control. Before everyone salutes them tomorrow.’

Shaky goggled at Storo. ‘What? Us against the whole garrison?’

Storo waved that aside. ‘There's only a handful of officers behind any coup. Them plus some outside muscle. Can't be more than that. The soldiers are just waiting it out. They'll take their orders from whoever's around tomorrow at the dawn mustering.’

‘What about Orlat and his crew?’ asked Sunny.

‘They have to stay behind the scenes for now. Can't show themselves. But we'll have to keep an eye out.’

Hurl caught Sunny's gaze. ‘For sure Smiley's one of ‘em.’

Sunny showed even more teeth. Then he frowned. ‘Don't matter, do it? We'll never make it to the Palace. There's two River Gates ‘tween us ‘n’ them.’

‘No, there isn't,’ said Silk from the bow. He gestured ahead.

Sure enough, as they'd drifted along, helped by Rell and Shaky's rowing, the bend of the Idryn brought the hulking barrier into view and in the faint light of torches and lanterns Hurl saw that the centre river portcullis was raised. She skewered Silk with a glare. ‘How did you know?’

He smiled back. ‘Don't you see, Hurl? They raised it themselves to bring in their own men. Now it's our way in too.’

She wouldn't let go of Silk's gaze. ‘Too convenient, Silk.’

He gave his most charming smile — the one that she'd seen never fail on any female. Any except her. ‘As you've seen, Hurl. I still have a few old friends here. They jammed the gates for me.’

Sunny snorted his scorn. Hurl sat back, now convinced. Sunny had it half right: more than he seems, yes. But no Claw. No, maybe more than that. Yet the Captain trusted him as his second in command, and that was good enough for her.

‘What's the plan?’ asked Shaky while he sorted through his remaining crossbow quarrels.

Storo was watching the dark shore, his gaze tight. ‘Silk here will get us into the Palace. We have to establish control of what used to be the old Protectress's Throne room, the City Temple. From there, we work our way out to the garrison's marshalling grounds. We want to be there when the sergeants come out to test which way the wind's blowing.’

Sunny sneered at Silk. ‘What'ya going to do, Silk? Bring us in by Warren? The Imperial Warren maybe?’

The mage brushed dirt from his torn vest of dark green silk. He needn't have bothered, it was long past salvaging. Tor your information, Sunny, no one can enter or exit the City Temple by Warren.’ He gave the condescending smile that Hurl knew drove Sunny insane. ‘We'll take the secret entrance.’

Silk's secret entrance turned out to be a fetid sewer tunnel hardly above the sullen waves of the Idryn. Shaky took one whiff of the damp fumes limping from the brick archway and rocked the boat in his effort to flinch away. ‘Aw, Gods! Give us a break, Silk! You can't mean it…’

‘Don't be so dainty,’ Silk purred. ‘Remember, you're a sapper, right?’

‘Don't rub it in,’ Hurl grumbled beneath her breath.

‘Let's just go,’ Sunny announced, and he nearly swamped the boat as he set one boot on to the slimed bricks. One by one, they carefully stepped out on to the ledge. Hurl hissed her disgust as to steady herself she couldn't help but touch the soft wet walls. Storo ordered Jalor to let the boat slip away. Great, Hurl thought. Now there was no going back. The stench was a physical thing jabbing its furry fingers down her throat, gagging her. Silk lit a hooded lantern and moved to lead the way but Rell stepped in front of him, both swords out, to take point.

‘What're we goin’ to do?’ Sunny said, ‘Pull ourselves up through a privy hole and say, Hello!’

‘A reverse birth for you, eh, Sunny?’ called Shaky — from the rear.

Sunny just smiled, his teeth bright in the gloom.

‘For your information, yes, something just like that,’ said Silk from up front with Rell.

‘You just had to ask,’ Hurl whispered to Sunny.

‘Quiet.’ This from the Captain behind.

Stooped, wincing at the stench, they sloshed along, slipping and skidding on the centuries’ accumulation of the city's ruling elite's excrement. How fitting! Hurl imagined floors above, in a dark alcove, some magistrate extending his withered arse out over her head and wrinkling up his monkey face in effort to deposit… suddenly dizzy she almost heaved and had to lean against the slimy wall. Storo steadied her. ‘You OK?’

‘I can't do this.’

‘Just a bit further. Bear down on it.’

‘Please! Cap'n!’

‘Sorry.’

Ahead, a yell of mingled anger and disgust from Sunny echoed through the tunnel. They groped into a broad underground chamber, dome-roofed, lit by the lantern carried by Silk. Sunny stood knee deep in the pool of filth filling its floor. Everyone else kept to the shallows at its edges. ‘Poliel's rotting tits!’ he snarled. ‘I can't believe the mage led us to this!’ He pointed a long-knife to the far side. There, the flow of excrement dribbled from a sculpture twice Hurl's height — that of a closed snouted dog's maw. As Hurl's vision adjusted she could make out more detail: long pointed ears, slanted canine eyes. An entire carved hound's head, down here! In the dark! What could be the reason for that?

But the nose was too long, the head too narrow. All of a sudden she recognized it: a jackal. Ryllandaras. The White Jackal of Winter. Quon's Curse. The man-jackal First Hero who rampaged for centuries across these central plains rendering them all but impassable but for the intercession of the tribes who worshipped him — the Old Seti.

Silk pushed his way forward through the sluggish wash until he touched the gigantic head. He turned to them. ‘Who recognizes this?’

‘Ryllandaras,’ Hurl supplied.

He nodded, pleased. ‘Yes, I thought you might know, Hurl. Though none of you has ever seen him. Gone from these plains for near a century now. Great was the hatred of this city for their ancient enemy, the man-jackal of the grasslands. As you can see.’

‘We all know the stories,’ Sunny sneered. ‘Until the emperor, or Dancer, slew him. Get on with it.’

‘That's one version of things… in any case, this is an entrance. A very old one. One dating back far before the current Empire when Heng was an independent city state, and the third most powerful one on the continent. Back then Ryllandaras and the Seti tribes were the eternal enemy, ever washing up against its walls…’

The mage was silent for a time, regarding the faeces-smeared titanic statue. He shook his head as if reliving old memories. Hurl shot a questioning look to Storo but the Captain frowned a negative. Not now.

Silk edged himself up a forelimb, leaned forward up beside the head and whispered something into one tall stone ear. One word. After a moment the stones groaned, grated, clots of muck and excrement showered down. The pointed teeth scraped as they parted.

The maw reared open.

‘Hood's balls!’ said Shaky. ‘I ain't goin’ in there!’

‘Then wait out here alone in the dark,’ Storo suggested.

Rell had already ducked within. He returned, gesturing them on.

‘There is a raised walk.’

Along the walkway Hurl manoeuvred next to Silk. ‘You've shown too much of your hand,’ she said in an undertone.

‘This night it's all or nothing.’

‘You were a city mage back then, weren't you? When Kellanved came.’ The man was silent for a time. Perhaps he thought it too obvious for comment. Well, if the piece won't give in one place, try another, as her old Da used to say. ‘What is this place?’

‘A final bolt-hole retreat. It leads from the City Temple.’

‘But it wasn't used.’

‘No. She wouldn't flee. We… everyone, should've known she'd never abandon her city.’

The hairs on the back of Hurl's neck and arms prickled. Her. Shalmanat. Protectress of Li Heng for millennia. Some said since its first founding as a caravan crossroads. Slain by Kellanved — or Dancer, to be precise. Her gaze slid sideways to the slim mage with his long blond hair and tattered silks — always an object of mockery and scorn among the troops. Just who was he? And why was he here, in Li Heng, at this moment in time? ‘This is no accident,’ she said as she thought it, then damned the short connection between her thoughts and her mouth. He said nothing. ‘You, finding yourself here for this coup I mean. You knew.’

He flashed his most winning smile, the warm yet teasingly distant, slightly impish expression that captured camp followers and serving girls. It only raised Hurl's ire. ‘Don't try that on me. You knew.’

‘I only knew something was coming, Hurl. That's all. A change in the day's light.’

And that had brought him here? She considered the hidden implications of that claim. Bluster? Bluff? Or what if it was true? What influence could he have had on their, admittedly unusual, posting? Did he actually mean to imply that he…

Hurl stopped walking. Silk carried on. The Captain urged her forward with one big hand at her back. He'd brought her in. That is, she remembered him asking what she thought of Storo and the next thing she knew she was somehow transferred to this squad. He'd even brought in Rell. She remembered him taking the Captain to see this swordsman he'd come across in the Malyntaeas gaol. Shortly after that new recruit Rell was in the squad. By all the Gods above and below — had Silk somehow been recruiting? All with an eye to this evening, this eventuality? No. That was too outrageous. Just who was he?

The stone-flagged walkway ended at a locked iron door that Silk opened, and that in turn led to a hall and a stone circular stairway. He stopped them here then pushed back his hair and tied it with a faded strip of silk. ‘Ready yourselves,’ he whispered. The door above opens on to the City Temple. There's no way of knowing who's within, or how many.’ He looked to Storo, who cleared his throat.

‘Right. So, saboteurs — put away the crossbows.’

‘Bullshit,’ said Shaky. ‘From my dead hands maybe.’

Storo eyed him. ‘Don't tempt me… Crossbows away. Each of you ready a satchel of sharpers and smokers and such — all we've got. This is gonna be room to room. Me ‘n’ Jalor will be up front. OK? OK.’

Shaky and Hurl pillaged Sunny's hoard even as he squirmed and snarled and tried to snatch it all back. Storo unslung his two-handed cutlass while Jalor tightened the strap of his domed helmet then drew his long-knives. Rell unsheathed each of his two odd slim longswords, single-edged, slightly curved, and then threw the sheaths away into the dark. That gesture dried Hurl's mouth.

As they climbed the stairs, Silk leading, Hurl hooked the crossbow on her belt and used her foot to cock it, then left it hanging from its shoulder-strap. They got to the door, or what Silk indicated was the door: it looked like just another length of wall to Hurl. Using battle signs Storo ordered an initial charge followed by a halt during which he and the heavies would defend while the saboteurs cleared the room. Everyone signed their understanding.

Silk did something there at the wall and a door appeared. He stepped through then aside. Storo, Rell and Jalor followed in as silently as they could but for the soft jangling of armour. Hurl came in next. She blinked in the brightness. Squinting, one hand holding a sharper shading her eyes, she saw an empty room.

It struck her that she didn't know what people imagined when someone said Throne room, but what came to her mind were images of large raised thrones occupied by a dried-up man or woman, simpering concubines, monkey-faced ministers eyeing the slave boys, and eunuch clerks eyeing the silverware. In any case, the room was empty, domed and circular. It was also very clean and very white and bright — though no source of light was visible.

So this was it. The Cynosure of Heng. Hurl was disappointed but also strangely impressed. The Inner Focus. The City Temple at last. Where was everyone?

Silk gestured opposite to a set of nearly indistinguishable double doors. The Captain signed the advance and they crossed the chamber.

As they came to the middle they found that in fact the chamber was not empty. Dead centre they reached a small seat. Nothing more than a leather-saddled folding camp stool with wooden armrests. Everyone except Rell stopped to stare down at it. No one spoke a word. Was this the Throne of Li Heng? Hurl didn't know what to think — it was too strange. Yet as he was looking down, Silk's face held that sadness, that mysterious yearning, that so drew the serving wenches. Of them all Rell had kept his eyes on the doors. The Captain signed to move on.

Hurl came alongside Silk. ‘I don't see any lamps or smell smoke. How's this place lit?’

That smile. ‘Just the fading afterglow of the glory that was, Hurl.’

‘Quiet.’ The Captain.

Jalor pulled open the doors revealing the backs of four guards who turned, amazed. Rell lunged, his blades flashing, and the four were down before they could unsheathe their weapons.

Everyone stared, just as stunned. ‘I thought you had some kinda code,’ Shaky said to Rell. ‘Ain't that against your code, them being unarmed ‘n’ all?’

‘They were armed,’ answered Rell without even turning. ‘They were just slow.’

They now faced a long hallway ending at another, much taller, set of double doors. Small portals opened on to the hall down its length. ‘Don't like this,’ grumbled Shaky.

Silk pointed to the doors opposite. ‘That is the only entrance to these temple quarters.’

‘Down the hall, double-time,’ ordered Storo.

They charged. Civilians gaped from archways. One tall bearded fellow bellowed something — they ignored him. Just as they reached the doors they opened at the hands of the old gal herself at the head of a column of some fifteen men, soldiers obviously, though none wore Malazan livery.

‘Get them!’ she managed before Rell's blades pierced the air where she'd been an instant before. The men snarled and drew. Rell almost threw himself upon them but was muscled back by the Captain with a growled ‘Not… yet.’

Silk had already disappeared. Jalor and the Captain crossed blades with the front of the column. Rell moved to cover the rear. Sunny raised a fist, shouting, ‘’Ware!’ The men went ashen-faced and flinched — definitely veterans. Sunny threw and ducked, as did everyone. The sharper cracked just past the threshold in the midst of the column. The detonation threw bodies to the walls in a flash of sprayed gore. Jalor and the Captain finished off the stunned survivors.

‘What is the meaning of this slaughter!’

Hurl turned; it was the bearded old fellow. He wore long dark robes of some rich cloth Hurl knew she'd probably never even touched in her life and came marching up to Rell who stopped him with one glistening wet sword point. The man should thank all the Gods that he was unarmed.

Storo crossed to him. He touched the rim of his helmet. ‘Magistrate Plengyllen. What can I do for you?’

‘Do! Do!’ the man spluttered. ‘These are sacred precincts! Holy grounds! How dare you pollute-’

‘There's been a coup,’ Storo cut in. ‘Fist Rheena has been murdered.’

The magistrate subsided at that. He straightened his robes. ‘Yes. I was informed that assassins…’ His voice trailed away and his eyes bulged. He pointed. ‘You! Burn protect us!’ He backed away, arms raised, then fled through a portal shouting, ‘Guards! Assassins! Murder!’

‘Should I shut him up?’ asked Sunny.

Storo waved him off, sighing, ‘Never mind.’

‘Reinforcements!’ Shaky called from the double doors.

They pushed their way through the halls of the City Temple. Hurl reflected that Fat Kepten had come with a lot more men than the Captain had thought; that or that Storo had underbid, not wanting them to back out right from the start. In any case, Kepten's men — plain hireswords or true-believing soldiers out of uniform — kept coming. Though the garrison did keep out of it, as the Captain had said they would. Whenever crossbowmen massed at a corner or doorway Shaky and Hurl rousted them with munitions. The squad made it plain that whenever Kepten's crew resorted to missile-fire they'd return in kind, and theirs blew up. They took the hint. Hurl wasn't sure why they hadn't come with any alchemicals of their own, but they did have the mages. Ropes of flame would lash out only to be snuffed by Silk. Some kind of shadow thing took a bite out of the Captain only to disappear in a flash of blinding pure white light. Hurl's old friend Runty even appeared in their midst, knifed three including her, and brought down Jalor only to be thrust through the back by Rell. Shaky took a knife in the side and dropped a sharper closer to himself than the enemy. The Captain took the brunt of that. Hurl thought it a shame; the Captain been doing damn fine until then.

After kicking aside the bodies blocking the outer doors, only the Captain, Hurl, Sunny and Rell remained standing. And only Rell was in any shape to fight. All through the night Hurl had wondered why the Captain had constantly shouldered the Genabackan youth to rear guard. Now she saw the light. Canny Captain. Reserves. Rell was by far the best fighter of them all and he was fresh. The poor lad fairly vibrated with the need to slay.

Weaving, the Captain leaned against the stout oak doors and wiped an arm across his glistening face. Hurl sheathed her long-knife and opened her satchel: two left. She looked to Sunny who held up one finger then tried to smile; he could only muster a grimace.

The Captain pushed open the outer doors. In a brightening pink light, past white marble stairs, on stone flags surrounding the broad empty marshalling grounds, stood Fat Kepten and some fifty men. The men, Hurl noted, standing far apart. The sight took the strength from her legs and she nearly sat right then and there.

Storo straightened, his jaws working against the pain, and he pushed his helmet back to point to Kepten. ‘It's nearly dawn, Orlat. The garrison's watching. They know me. They don't know you from a mule's arse. Maybe you should pack it all in and go back to fishing.’

Kepten gave a low laugh. ‘Like I said, Storo. We really could've used you. Too bad. You have no idea who you are up against. As you can see — I brought the whole crew. Tell you what. One last chance. You lay down your weapons right now and you'll have safe passage. Right now. You've done yourself proud, I have to say. But it's over now. Time to walk away — no shame in that.’

Hurl looked to the Captain. Would he accept? Surely they were finished now; how could they beat more than they'd faced so far? They'd had a damned good run. In truth, they got farther than she'd thought possible. Then she blinked away the sweat and salt stinging her eyes. Damn this mind-numbing exhaustion! These pirates would cut them down the minute the weapons left their hands! Surely the Captain must know that.

Storo hawked up a mouthful of phlegm and spat. ‘No, Orlat. It's you that's got no idea who you're facing.’ The Cap'n nodded to Rell. ‘Your turn. We'll guard your back. Hold the door, lad.’

The swordsman's eyes were practically shining. His voice thick with emotion he barely managed, ‘You have no idea the gift you have given me…’

‘Take it easy, lad. I plan on living through this.’

The youth ducked his head, murmuring, ‘I plan on nothing.’

‘Yeah, whatever,’ snarled Sunny. ‘Here they come.’

With a roar, the first of the squads charged.

True to his promise, Rell held the door. Hurl was astonished by his form, speed and, most of all, his ruthless surgical efficiency. He seemed to have been trained exactly how to cut for maximum disabling or plain maiming power. Men fell gushing blood from severed thigh arteries, inner arms slashed, necks slit, disembowelled and eviscerated like fish. Hurl found it terrifying to watch; it was more a slaughter than a fight. Blood painted the bright white marble steps black. She wondered if it would ever be scrubbed away. Sunny merely stepped in now and then when some wounded fool tried to crawl closer for a jab.

All the while she stood behind Rell, a cussor raised in one hand, with a look in her eye that she hoped promised utter annihilation the moment Rell should fall. She liked to think that put a bit of hesitation into their limbs.

In any case, the siege ended with a furious yell from Orlat. The men backed off and Hurl did a quick head-count. Twenty-nine men still standing. Rell had put out of action or outright slain over twenty-one men. Astounding. She glanced back to see the Captain down, slumped along the wall, head sunk to his chest. Damn. Loss of blood. All those holes Shaky's sharper had punched in him. Orlat, she could see now, was far beyond banter. He gestured angrily and the remaining men spread out.

‘This has gone too far, Storo,’ he called. ‘Should've backed down when I gave you the chance.’ He nodded to some unseen presence and his two mages appeared at his sides, the old gal and her near twin, a rail-thin old guy with grey brush-cut hair. They snapped their arms down and both burst into flames.

Hood's grin.

‘Take ‘em!’ Sunny yelled, throwing his last sharper. Both mages thrust their arms forward as if repelling something and Hurl felt the heat wash over her even from that distance — the breath of a kiln glowing yellow. The sharper burst in the air long before reaching the mages.

The cussor even felt warm in Hurl's hands. Togg's shit! She thrust the munition back into the satchel then backed off to slide it far down the hall as gently as she could. She returned to find Sunny and Rell arguing.

‘Leave me,’ Rell was saying.

Sunny had him by the jerkin. ‘No. We gotta retreat. Jump them inside on the sly.’

‘I have my charge. Go if you wish.’

All the while the heat was devastating. The mages advanced side by side, twin pyres, ropes of flame chaining between them. The Warren of Thyr unleashed like Hurl had never seen or heard of. Some kind of ritual battle magery. The metal fittings of her armour made her wince when they touched her flesh. The hairs on her arms were crisping.

‘We have to retreat,’ she shouted to Rell. ‘Don't be a fool! They've won this round.’

But the damned fool would not budge.

‘Fine!’ Sunny snarled and he backed off, shading his face from the heat. Hurl threw one last begging look to Rell who shook his head, then to her shame she too was driven back by the excruciating heat. And where was Silk!

They dragged the Captain with them up the hall. The mages had advanced into view. The blood pooled at the threshold and stairs boiled, steaming, then crisped, flaking into ash that flew driven into Hurl's eyes. The corpses abandoned before the entrance burst into flames. The unfettered power of the Warren drove seared flesh into the air like smoke. Greasy soot coated Hurl's face and arms. She gagged worse than she ever had in the sewer. Through the haze she saw Rell still held the doorway, swords raised. Smoke streamed from his smouldering hair. Somehow, he hadn't even shifted from his ready stance. How was such inhuman discipline possible?

‘No,’ came a voice from Hurl's side. She turned, arm shielding her face, and there was Silk. The man's eyes blazed a rage she had never seen upon him. ‘Not again.’ The searing incandescent heat suddenly diminished to an uncomfortable glow. The mage advanced into the storm. Hurl pulled herself along in his wake.

Silk reached the threshold and took it from Rell whom he eased backwards to Hurl. ‘You have done more than we could have hoped and more,’ he told the swordsman. Rell was like an ember in Hurl's arms as she dragged him back. Crisp skin sloughed from his arms where she held him.

Silk now faced the twin pillars of flame that had halted, perhaps uncertain. ‘You would dare unleash such flames upon this threshold? His outrage pierced the furnace roar. ‘Bastard practitioners of a degenerate Warren! Thyr! Retarded child of incestuous union! You provoke me now to teach you the blind shortcomings of your sad ignorance! Behold now, for the last instant of your consciousness, the true wellspring of power of which yours is but a corrupted rivulet!’

Silk threw his arms wide and Hurl gaped. Of all the Forgotten Gods! Had the man lost his mind?

‘I summon you!’ His words shook the stones beneath Hurl's feet. She winced at their power. ‘Come! You who have been gone so long! Grant us a glimpse of that which has gone out from the World! Show us how it was when Light first cleaved Night! Bless us with a vision of Pure Undiluted Light, Kurald Liosan!’

Nothing happened. Hurl, recovering, almost cursed the man. Orlat, she saw far beyond, had cocked his head as if reaching the same conclusion as her: poor guy, the pressure was just too much.

Then something struck Hurl from behind. Not a fist or a club, but a wall. It was like falling backwards into water only it was the water that was rushing up to hit her. Then nothing. Silence. Whiteness. The physical presence of light like a sea of blinding radiance. Silk in silhouette like a shadow eroding. The two mages and Orlat and his men, black paper cutouts shredding and wisping away like dust in a wind of Light.

Then gone. Dawn coming like darkness, so pale and weak was it. The ceiling dim above her. A face, close. Bearded. Malazan greys. A voice near but sounding so far away. ‘Bring healers.’