‘They attacked at night like plain thieves,’ Larkin spat, disgusted by such underhanded tactics.
Temper stopped himself from laughing out loud – well did he remember similar moonlit engagements, but with the Malazans themselves the attackers!
‘Was utter chaos. Screaming Barghast leaping out of the darkness. They were behind us, in front of us, circling our flanks. We were totally surrounded. There was nowhere to go. I joined a knot of men at a tall boulder lit by the light of brush fires. Together we held a perimeter, wounded at our rear. We repulsed three Barghast assaults.’
Larkin coughed into his fist, scowled, then fell silent. Temper gave him a hard look. Was it the horror, the memory of lost friends? Then why so eager to drag out the yarn every other night?
‘I saw three Guardsmen in the distance, through the undergrowth. I didn’t recognize any of them. Then Halfdan jogged past. I knew him by his size – half indeed!’
The guards chuckled at this cue. ‘Once served under Skinner, they say,’ added Cullen.
Larkin nodded. ‘Then another Guardsman came out of the night. I’ll never forget the way he stepped from the darkness… like some fiend out of Hood’s own Paths. His surcoat shone in the flames like fresh blood. Lazar it was, with his visored helm and black shield. We fought, but it was no use…’ Larkin slapped his game leg and shook his head.
Temper threw himself from the room. He cooled the back of his neck against the damp stone wall. Fener’s bones! The lying bastard. Fought Lazar! Temper himself had never faced the Guard but Dassem had clashed with them for decades – and that alone was enough to give anyone pause regarding their prowess. Dassem never spoke of those engagements. It was said the Avowed were unstoppable, but Dassem had slain every one who had challenged him: Shirdar, Keal, Bartok. Only Skinner, they say, had come away alive from their clash.
Laughter brought Temper’s attention around. The carved tiles of the Bones clacked against wood. He took a long breath, stepped back inside.
‘Larkin. You’re on my cloak.’
Larkin looked up, tapped a tile against the table. He hooked one beefy arm over the shoulder rest, gestured to the table where the tiles lay like a confused map of flagged paths. The paint of their symbols were chipped, the tiles soiled by generations of soldiers’ grimy fingers.
‘I’m playing,’ he grunted, and lowered his head. ‘Just raise your fat ass so I can get my cloak.’
Larkin didn’t answer. Two of the guards shrugged, pursed their lips and glanced their apologies to Temper. Larkin set his tile down by pressing it in place with the end of one thick finger. Temper strode foreword and plucked it from the table. Five sets of eyes followed Temper’s hand then swung back to Larkin.
Larkin let out his own version of a long-suffering sigh. ‘Don’t you know it’s bad luck to disrupt a game?’
Their eyes met. It was clear that the fool meant to put him, the only other veteran here, in his place. He’d been avoiding the man for just this very reason: questions of where he’d fought and with whom were the last he wanted to answer. He’d been doing his best to stay anonymous, but this was too much to stomach. He couldn’t have this ass lording it over him like a barracks bully.
‘Give me the damn piece,’ Larkin said, and he edged himself back from the table. ‘Or I’ll have to take it from you, old-timer.’
The guards lost their half-smiles, dropped their amused glances. One blew out a breath as if already regretting what was about to happen. Temper thrust out his hand, the tile in his open palm. ‘Take it.’ A part of him, the part Temper hadn’t heard in a year, urged the man on. Try it, the voice whispered, smooth and edged at the same time. Just try it.
Larkin’s eyes, small and hidden in his wide face, shifted about the room as if wondering what was going on, just who was joking whom. This clearly wasn’t going the way he’d imagined. But then he shrugged his round shoulders, and in the way his lips drew down, confident and bored, Temper saw the reaction of a man far too full of himself to listen to anyone.
Shaking his head as if at the senile antics of the aged, Larkin reached for the tile, but Temper snatched his wide wrist and squeezed. The tile clattered to the table.
Larkin jerked as if bit by a serpent. His lips clenched in surprise and pain. The guards caught their breath. Larkin tried yanking back his arm. It didn’t move.
Temper smiled then at Larkin, and the man must’ve read something in that grin because his free hand went to the dirk at his waist. The short-bladed knife shot up from the table and Temper’s other hand snapped out and clasped that wrist with a slap.
Larkin’s laboured breathing filled the room. The blade twisted relentlessly to one side, edged its way toward his forearm. Panting, face red with effort, he lunged to his feet, the bench slamming backwards. The blade kissed his forearm, began sawing back and forth just up from the wrist. All the while Temper trapped the man’s eyes with his. Blood welled up, dripped to the table with quiet pats.
By his wrists, Temper heaved Larkin close, whispered into his ear: ‘Lazar would’ve sliced you open like a pig.’
Hands and arms clasped around Temper. They yanked, urged. The guards shouted but Temper wasn’t listening. Larkin threw back his head and roared. Then Temper released him and he stumbled backwards onto the flagged stone floor and sat cradling his arm. The guards pulled Temper into the hall where they whispered their amazement, watching him warily. One slipped a truncheon back into its mounting on the wall.
After a few minutes one came out with Temper’s rolled cloak. He heard them whisper how they’d never seen anything like it, but was preoccupied by the awful consequences of what he’d just done. Standing over the table, he’d seen droplets of blood spatter the Bones.
Soldier, Maiden, King, and the rune of the Obelisk. For damn sure that meant a boat full of bad luck about to cross his bow.
As far as Kiska could tell the crew of the message cutter acted as expected during docking: stowing gear, securing the ship against the first chill storm of Osserc’s Rule blowing over the island from the south. But details gave them away. Where were the chiding, the complaints, the banter of a crew at port? The eagerness to be ashore? And not one malingered. The hand supposedly doing just that – loitering at the gangway – scanned the wharf with the lazy indifference of a lookout. And she should recognize the pose; she had trained herself in the same posture.
Flat on the deck of the next ship opposite the pier, Kiska rested her chin in one gloved fist and quietly watched. The slightest drizzle was sifting down, slicking hair to her face, but she didn’t stir. The men were just killing time: re-coiling ropes, strapping down dunnage. Waiting. Waiting on one person, one action. That meant all worked for the same individual.
Odd. An Imperial message cutter crewed by sailors all of whom appeared to be guards for whoever had commissioned the ship. Kiska had grown up clambering over these wharves. To her such an arrangement smelled of clout, of influence great enough to procure one of these vessels – an accomplishment in itself – topped by the authority to replace the regular crew with his or her own private staff.
The question was what to do about the discovery? She looked to the mottled seaward wall of Mock’s Hold rearing above the harbour. Report it to the Claws? Why should she go to them after they’d made it so clear they had no use for her?
She recalled how she’d felt when dawn, just a few days before, had revealed the Imperial warship Inexorable anchored in the harbour. It had seemed the most important day of her life, an unlooked-for, and unhoped-for, second chance. But already she felt as if she’d aged a lifetime. No longer the girl who climbed over the tall stone walls enclosing the military wharf; that sneaked up onto the flat roof of a government warehouse to watch the docks. Had she lost something that child possessed? Or gained? A knowledge seared into everyone at some point in their life.
That morning she had watched while the first skiff returned from the ship burdened by seven hooded figures. Imperial officers from the capital,
she was sure. From where else could they have come but Unta, across the straits? They clambered to the dock and drew off their travelling cloaks, folding them over arms and shoulders. At first she’d been disappointed. Merchants in Malaz dressed more richly than this: plain silk shirts, broad sashes, loose pantaloons. Yet one shorter figure failed to shed its cloak. That one gestured and Kiska thrilled to see the other six spread out. Bodyguards!
Who was this? A new garrison commander? Or an Imperial inspector dispatched from the capital to take Pell to task? If so, gods pity the Sub-Fist for what the officer would find in Mock’s Hold: chickens cackling in the bailey, pigs rooting in the cracked and empty reservoir. Kiska eased herself to her haunches as the party took the main route inland, up a gently rising hillside. She vaulted from roof to roof and balanced on the lip of a wall to reach an overlook which the party ought to pass beneath. Gulls exploded from her path, squalled their outrage.
She’d find out. She would present herself to the representative. Offer her services. Perhaps she’d gain a commission. An Imperial official such as this would certainly see that talents such as hers were wasted on this wretched island.
Up the narrow walled road the party approached. Kiska eased herself forward to watch. The first two, a slim man and a heavier woman, walked nonchalantly, hands clasped behind their backs. Kiska spied no weapons. What sort of bodyguards could these be? Aides, perhaps, or clerks. Nobles out for a walk among the rustics. This last thought raised a sour taste in her throat. The shorter figure appeared; hood so large as to hang past the face, hands hidden in long sleeves. Kiska strained to discern some detail from the loose, brushing folds of the cloak – black was it? Or darkest carmine night?
Something yanked her belt from behind, pulling her from her perch. She spun, lips open to yell, but a gloved hand pressed itself to her mouth. She stared up into hazel eyes in a man’s face, angular, dark with bluish tones, the tight curls of his hair gleaming in the dawning light. Napan, Kiska realized.
‘Who are you?’ he asked. Kiska did not recognize him from those who’d disembarked. In fact, she had never seen the man before – and she would have known if one such as this lived on the island.
The hand withdrew. Kiska cleared her throat, swallowed hard. Stunning eyes devoid of expression seemed to look right through her. Eyes like glass.
‘I… I live here.’
‘Yes. And?’
Kiska swallowed again. ‘I…’ Her gaze caught a brooch on the man’s left breast, a silver bird’s claw gripping a seed pearl. A Claw! Imperial intelligence officers, mages, enforcers of the Emperor’s will. This was a greater discovery than she’d imagined. No mere inspection, this. Only the highest-ranking officers rated Claw bodyguards. This visitor might even be an Imperial Fist. ‘I meant no harm!’ she gasped, and damned herself for sounding so… so inexperienced.
The Claw’s lips tightened in what Kiska took to be distaste. ‘I know you didn’t,’ and he stepped away. Soundless, she marvelled, even on a broken tiled roof spotted with bird droppings. Then she started, remembering. ‘Wait! Sir!’
At the wall’s ledge he paused. ‘Yes?’
‘Please. I want, that is, could I meet him or her – this official?’
The man’s hands twitched like wings then settled on the sash at his waist. ‘Why?’
Kiska stopped herself from clasping her hands together, took a deep breath. ‘I want to be hired. I want a chance. Please. I have talent, really, I do. You’ll see. All I need is a chance.’
The Claw’s hands slid from his sash, clasped themselves at his back. He gave a one-sided smile that didn’t make him look at all amused. ‘So. You have talent, have you?’
Kiska’s heart lurched. She faltered, but stammered on, ‘Yes. Yes, I do.’
The Claw shrugged. ‘This is a matter for the local commander. A Sub-Fist Pell, I believe. Take it up with him.’
‘Yes, I have, but he—’
The man stepped noiselessly off the wall and disappeared. Kiska lunged to the edge. Nothing. A good three man-height’s fall to a cobbled road, empty. Kiska’s blood surged. She hugged herself, thrilled at the encounter. Amazing. The blunt mottled walls of Mock’s Hold beckoned above and she raised her fist.
She’d take it up all right. As high as she could! How could they possibly refuse her?
Crossing the inner bailey of Mock’s Hold, Temper shook out his cloak and pulled it over his shoulders. The courtyard was empty. All non-essential personnel had been cleared from the Hold. The guard complement either stood their posts or slept in the barracks. Everyone had been pulling double shifts since the nameless Imperial ‘High Official’ had arrived. She and her entourage had taken over the top three storeys of the inner keep, evicting the garrison commander, Pell, who now slept in the armoury drinking even more than his usual.
Why the visit? Temper had heard twenty opinions. Talk at the Hanged Man ran to the view that command at Unta was thinking about finally closing down the garrison and abandoning the island to the fishermen, the cliff rookeries, and the seal colony south at Benaress Rocks. In the meantime no extra shifts had been assigned his way. Seniority of age did carry some privileges. He smiled, anticipating an evening sampling Coop’s Old Malazan Dark.
At the fortified gate house, Lubben, the gatekeeper, limped out of the darkness within. His huge iron ring of keys rattled at his side. The hunch of his back appeared worse than usual, and his one good eye gleamed as he scanned the yard. Temper was about to ask what calamity had shaken him from his usual post snoring by the guardhouse brazier, when a flick of his hand warned him away.
‘Gate’s closed for the night, soldier.’
‘Soldier? What’s the matter, Lubben? Gone blind from drink?’
Lubben jerked a thumb to the dark corridor at his rear, mouthed something Temper couldn’t hear.
‘What in the Enchantress’s unsleeping eyes is going—’ Temper broke off as someone else stepped soundlessly from the shadows. An Imperial Claw in an ankle-length black cloak, hood up. Lubben grimaced, offered Temper a small helpless shrug of apology. The Claw’s hood revealed only the lower half of a lined and lean face tattooed with cabalistic characters. Symbols that looked to Temper like the angular script of those who delve the Warren of Rashan, the Path of Darkness. The Claw turned to Lubben.
‘Trouble, gatekeeper?’
Lubben bowed deeply. ‘No, sir. No trouble at all.’ The hood swung to Temper, who immediately jerked his head down. Perhaps he was being too careful, but the Claw might interpret the act as deference. He’d seen in the past how deference pleased them.
‘What do you want, soldier?’
Temper squeezed his belt in both hands until his fingers numbed. Staring at the courtyard flagstones – two broken, four chipped – he began, cautiously. ‘Well, sir, I’m pretty much retired from service y’know, and I’ve a room of my own in town. I was only called up on account of the visit. Extra guards, y’see.’
‘Gatekeeper. Do you vouch for this man?’
Lubben flashed Temper a wink. ‘Oh, aye, sir. ’Tis as the man says.’
‘I see.’
The Claw stepped close. Temper raised his head, but kept his gaze averted. Sidelong, he watched the Claw examine him. The last time he’d stood this close to one of these assassins had been a year ago and that time they’d been trying to kill him. He’d been prepared then, ready for the fight. All he felt now was shocked amazement at actually having run into one of the official’s escorts. Were they out patrolling as Chase suggested? Why this night?
‘You’re a veteran. Where are your campaign badges?’
‘I don’t wear them, sir.’
‘Ashamed?’
‘No, sir. Just consider myself retired.’
‘In a hurry to leave Imperial service?’
‘No, sir. I’ve just worked hard for my pension.’ Temper took a breath, then hurried on: ‘I’m building a boat you see. She’s the prettiest thing you’d ever—’
A hand rose from within
the cloak to wave silence. ‘Very well. Gatekeeper, allow the man to pass.’
‘Aye, sir.’
At the far end of the entrance tunnel, Lubben lifted his ring of keys and unlocked the small thieves’ door in the main gate. Temper stepped through. Lubben poked his head out after him and grinned lop-sided, ‘You never told me you were building yourself a pretty little boat.’
‘Kiss Hood, you sawed-off hunchback.’
Laughing silently, Lubben answered with a gesture that needed no words then slammed the door. The lock rattled shut.
Temper started down Rampart Way’s steep slope. A staircase cut from the very stone of the cliff, it switched back four times as it descended the promontory’s side. Every foot of it lay within range of the Hold’s townward springalds and catapults. Above, a cloud front rolled in over the island, massing up from the Sea of Storms. The night looked to be shaping into one to avoid. Island superstition had it that the Stormriders themselves were responsible for the worst of the icy seasonal maelstroms that came raging out of the south.
The cliff rose as a knife-edge demarking the port city of Malaz’s northern border. Hugging its base was the Lightings, the rich estate district, taking what security it could from the shadow of the Hold above. South and west the city curved in a jumble of crooked lanes around the river and the marshy shore of Malaz Bay. Inland, modest hills rolled into the distance. Wood smoke drifted low over slate and flint roofs. A few lanterns glowed here and there. A weak drizzle drifted in behind the cloud front, obscuring Temper’s view of the harbour. Droplets brushed his neck like cold spit.
Of late the harbour served mainly as a military transit point, yet still retained some trade, a portion of which was even legitimate. All in all it was a lean shadow of what it had been. Deserted houses faced sagging warehouses and tottering, wave-eroded piers. Once home port to a piratical navy, then a thalassocracy, then an empire, the city now seemed crowded more by ghosts than people. It had given the empire its name, but had lost all tactical and strategic value, save as a staging point as the empire’s borders swept on to distant seas.
The Malazan Empire Series: (Night of Knives, Return of the Crimson Guard, Stonewielder, Orb Sceptre Throne, Blood and Bone, Assail) (Novels of the Malazan Empire) Page 3
