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)

by Ian C. Esslemont

  Those she followed walked the deserted lanes boldly. For them tonight held no dangers. If they knew of the legends – which was doubtful – they would probably view it as nothing more than a quaint local custom during which souls, monsters, and fiends purportedly took to the streets. Her home’s backwater superstition shamed Kiska. Yet what if she did break off the surveillance? Run to hide in a sacred precinct or temple? If she abandoned the pursuit now she could already imagine the Claw commander’s sneer. After all, what more could one expect of local talent?

  Ahead in the distance, flattened by the overcast gloom, her quarry and guards continued to climb the cobbled street. Ground fog rose now, swirling in the wind, as her target rounded a corner and vanished. Kiska kept behind cover. For all she knew they could be waiting just ahead. She could walk right past them and not know until cold iron slid between her ribs. Or, more likely, a knotted silk rope snapped about her neck like a noose.

  Kiska tightened her cloak, tried to shake off her dread like the rain from its oiled weave. She would simply have to proceed under the assumption she’d yet to be spotted. Her nerves would rattle to pieces otherwise.

  The corner revealed a carriage way, twin gullies pressed into the stones by centuries of wheels. The party had disappeared. Down the way, between tall walls, stood a massive gateway of carved wooden doors. Kiska knew what lay beyond. The E’Karial family manor. Smallish, compared to some of the town’s grander estates, but comfortable, or so it had looked from the outside on her nocturnal wanderings. It was also long abandoned. If this were a meeting, Kiska imagined its participants couldn’t have planned a more isolated location. Of course, it could also be that some massively ill-informed scion of the E’Karial family had arrived to inspect their inheritance.

  She took several slow breaths, then crossed the carriage way to the mouth of the lane opposite, where ivy hung so thick she could hardly see through it. At each step her back prickled under imagined dagger-points. But the ivy-choked walls swallowed her without incident. She jogged to another alley, this one plain mud, that she knew led to a postern gate behind the estate. Edging around the pooled rainwater and fighting the thorny brush that snagged at her cloak, she nearly missed the recessed entry hidden in the shadows.

  She knelt at the moss-covered door, rearranged her cloak, and listened. Raindrops pattered from leaf-tips, the wind rustled overhead through branches and, no more than a distant murmur, the ever-present surf punished the island’s shores. The door stank of rot while the arched recess retained the must of long-damp humus. She didn’t plan to open the door, of course. One glance was enough to tell anyone that was no longer possible: a portion of the wall’s weight had settled onto the frame. If she pushed on the rotted planks she’d probably tumble right through into the rear garden. This was simply a lower profile for listening than poking her head over the wall.

  She heard no one and gave it long enough: fifty heartbeats. Most likely they were inside the estate. Time to try the wall. She stepped out of the recess and appraised the blocks and the vines that smothered their rough surface. No problem. For cover, she climbed up to where three aruscus trees rose as a clump within the compound. Head and shoulders above the top, she studied the landscaped garden. It looked even worse than the last time she’d seen it. Raised beds now held only dead stalks and weeds. A central tiled patio shone dully under the cover of dead leaves. And there, side by side on a marble bench so white it glowed in the night, two men sat. Kiska froze.

  She’d heard nothing because neither spoke. Both looked to the southern sky. For all she could tell they were quietly studying the clouds. The one on her right was the man she’d followed, hood back, shaved scalp dark as rich loam, a long queue draped forward over one shoulder. The other was an old man, ghostly pale, white-haired, thin shoulders hunched like folded wings, his head tilted at an angle. They sat like that, statues almost, and time stretched. Couldn’t they move, speak, or do something? She wondered how long she could hang there on the wall, toes jammed against a crack.

  Presently, after what seemed a full bell’s time, but was only one hundred and fifty heartbeats, silver light washed over the night as the moon shone through a cloud break. The old man threw back his head, barked a harsh laugh. He sounded vindicated. The man from the message cutter answered, his tone grudging, non-committal; he still studied the night sky. Kiska strained to catch their words, but the branches soughed and rattled overhead.

  After a few more exchanges, the old man clutched the other’s arm and snarled something. The second rose, brushed the hand from his cloak. He spoke softly to the older man who remained unresponsive then he walked away to the front of the grounds. The old man remained seated, head sunk as if he were a seer searching for patterns among the cracked tiles and leaves swirling around them. Kiska eased herself back down the wall.

  What had she just witnessed? Nothing more than a simple meeting between estranged relations, or two who once were friends? Clandestine, yes, but that alone was no crime. The rendezvous had an aspect of ritual about it, an observance of some sort. The old man might be a shunned relation. Perhaps she’d stumbled onto some business the E’Karial family wanted kept hidden, a skeleton in the garden, so to speak. She should make inquiries. Collecting leverage was, after all, part of the job.

  From somewhere far off, in the town, a dog howled at the now brightened moon. The call’s ferocity chilled Kiska, reminding her of the demon hounds that figured so prominently in Shadow Moon legends. If that damned baying kept up all night, as it probably would, she could imagine tomorrow’s tales down in the market, stories of narrow escapes and terrifying visitations of huge supernatural beasts. People would believe what they wished to.

  She was about to push her way back through the wet leaves to the alley mouth when a noise from behind the wall brought her around: tiles clattering. She hesitated, wondered if she’d imagined it, then jumped back up for a second look. The bench was vacant, but next to it knelt the intruder from the wharf, the man who’d earlier surprised her. He straightened up from a bundle at his feet and disappeared into nothingness as though the shadows had wrapped themselves around him. Kiska stared, awed. Warren magic. It took her a few moments before she recognized what he’d left behind crumpled on the patio: the old man, lying face down.

  Kiska dropped and spun, pressed her back into the vines on the wall. Droplets showered her. Had he seen her? Was she next? She pulled out her long-knife. Hilted for parrying, it was the heaviest weapon she carried other than the crossbow, which she now swivelled from her hip to cover the alley. An adept, that was plain. But which Warren? His disappearance resembled Rashan’s blotting darkness, only somehow different. And that scared her the most. An awful thought struck: what if this man were a Claw? He seemed skilled enough. Terror gripped her: the arrival of an unknown high official, Claw bodyguards, a covert visit… had she stumbled onto the Imperial Regent’s house cleaning? If so, she was finished. What was the old saying? Claws only travelled on business! She almost laughed aloud but instead took comfort from the feel of her glove wrapped tight around the knife grip.

  Time passed and eventually, though with an odd reluctance, Kiska had to admit that she wasn’t about to be murdered. She might as well discover as much as she could of what had happened here. She sheathed her gauche and jumped once more onto the wall. The old man’s body still lay behind the bench. No one was about. Moonlight played raggedly over the ruined gardens. A second howl burst out of the night causing her to flinch. Gods! It sounded as if the blasted beast was right at her shoulder!

  Who kept animals like that? Kiska decided that before dawn she’d knife that dog if someone else didn’t get to it first. Cautious, she lowered herself down into the enclosed yard.

  The old man was thrust twice through the back. She wondered if this piece of work was by order of her target. Had he offered the old man a proposition? One that could not be turned down? Perhaps he was unaware of the murder. The Claws, or someone else, might think this meeting shou
ld never have occurred. She nudged the body over and began rifling through its clothes.

  She slipped her hand inside the tunic, still warm with blood. The man snatched her wrist and his eyes snapped open. Automatically, she yanked out her gauche and shoved it into the man’s chest, leaning her full weight onto the blow. It was a mortal thrust, she was certain of it, but still he stared and held his grip. A death rictus? Horribly, he smiled and opened his mouth. A stream of blood welled out, blackening his chin. Steady, unnatural pressure pulled her close. The bloodied lips turned down reprovingly.

  ‘But I am dead, you see,’ he whispered wetly, ‘and the Shadow Moon is risen.’

  Facing a horror she’d been warned of but never actually believed, Kiska’s training – sketchy, only informal – crumbled and she screamed.

  Temper was wrestling with the corroded lock on his door when someone murmured his name from down the hall. He jerked up from examining the stubborn lockplate. Corinn waved from behind a door barely opened. He straightened, would have shouted hello, but something in her tight expression silenced him. She waved again, impatient, and he ambled down the hall. At the door he grinned, tried to look in past her. It was the room Anji and a few other girls used for their whoring. He arched one brow. ‘Well, I thought you’d never—’

  ‘Just get in here, damn you,’ she hissed, pulling open the door and yanking him in.

  Despite the woman’s obvious anger, Temper felt himself grinning idiotically. They stood close in the cramped closet of a room. Her tongue, sharp as a Darujhistan rapier, cut everyone who dared come close. But here, nearly touching her, Temper was suddenly very aware of the depths of her deep brown eyes, and the filigree detail in the black tattooing that ran from the tip of her nose to her forehead.

  He sometimes fancied catching interest in those eyes, sidelong, hidden, but tonight concern tightened them. He’d daydreamed of just such an encounter, usually when drink softened his judgement or loneliness emptied his chest and he desired someone to talk to. But now he felt awkward and self-conscious while she looked straight at him and shook her head.

  ‘You just had to show up tonight, didn’t you.’

  For an instant, Temper felt like a wayward husband finally dragging himself home after a three-day binge. He laughed, pointed back to his room. ‘Corinn – I live here. Where else am I supposed to go?’

  ‘The barracks! You’re supposed to have stayed. Why didn’t you just… Oh, never mind.’ She waved for silence. ‘Listen to me. We’ve only a minute. What I’m going to say and do, I’m doing to save your life. Understand?’

  Standing so close, he caught the dusky hint of her scent – perfume of some unknown flower? Foreign spices? Incense? She was half-Napan, someone had once said: half as dark. He blinked, swallowed. Here he was, an old warhorse long out to pasture, yet flaring its nostrils at a passing mare.

  ‘Saving my life? Corinn, I’m hitting the sack and a bottle of Kanese red. That is, unless you’ve something else in mind…’

  Her eyes flashed with anger. ‘You damned idiot. I’m trying to save your worthless hide.’ She raised a fist, opened it palm up. A small badge lay there on the pale lined flesh, metal painted and enamelled in the sigil of a stone arch over a field of flames. The badge of the Bridgeburners, the very regiment of the man downstairs, once of the Third Army. An army that Dassem, with Temper at his side, had led in Falar and the Seven Cities.

  All he could think was: so it is the smell of smoke that surrounds her. A dusky scent that took on a lethal edge in the face of that small badge. ‘Aw, no,’ he groaned, ‘Hood, no. Why? What do you want?’

  Footsteps sounded from the hall. Corinn leaned close. ‘I want you to do as I say because I know who you are. I recognized you. I was at Y’Ghatan. I saw the Sword broken. I know.’ She took his arm, her hand warm and hard through his shirt. ‘Stand aside tonight and it will remain our secret. Just… stand aside.’

  The door swung open behind him. He turned. The man with the burn scars stood in the hall, two of the men he’d sat with behind him, crossbows levelled. The man eyed Corinn who answered his gaze with a short nod. ‘He’s unarmed,’ she told them.

  All Temper could think of were her words: I know who you are. Did that mean she’d been sent? Been watching him? He was stunned, as if everything he’d hidden from this last year now crashed upon him like an undermined wall.

  The man’s gaze was deceptively bland. ‘My name is Ash,’ he said, his voice soft. ‘Sergeant Ash. You, on the other hand, are my prisoner.’

  They sat him at a rear booth beside Coop, opposite Trenech and old Faro Balkat. The old man appeared asleep, sagging against the wall, eyes staring sightlessly. A drop of saliva hung from purple-stained lips. Oddly, Trenech was gently propping him up with one huge hand. Temper glared at Coop, who appeared more confused than worried, then turned to watch Ash. He claimed to be a sergeant but was probably an officer. In the centre of the room he conferred with Corinn and a few others.

  ‘What will they do?’ Coop whispered. ‘I don’t know.’ At first Temper thought they’d come for him, that they’d finally reached his name on the long list Surly kept of her enemies. But now he wondered.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked Coop.

  Out came a cloth and the brewer wiped his glistening jowls and forehead. ‘I blame myself,’ he stuttered. ‘I can’t believe it. They made me send away all the staff. How could I have fallen for that?’

  ‘For what, man. What?’

  Coop blinked at him. ‘Thieves, of course. A pack of damned thieves!’

  Temper choked down a laugh. He turned away, tried to catch Corinn’s eye. ‘No, Coop. I think it’s something more than that.’

  Corinn met his gaze, but her face remained flat, as if she didn’t know him. He gave the ghost of a nod in response and looked away – straight into Trenech’s eyes. The hulking fellow stared at him, or rather through him. Sweat beaded his brow. His right hand clenched the table in a white-knuckled grip.

  Temper had spoken with the fellow only a few times. He thought him slow-witted, like an infant in a giant’s body. Was he terrified by all this, or mindlessly enraged? Temper imagined he ought to say something reassuring but didn’t know what.

  Turning his head slightly, he studied the men. The majority, some thirty or so, sat gathered towards the door, voices low as they whispered among themselves. Closer, in the flickering light of the fireplace, Ash, Corinn, and a dozen others sat together at two tables.

  Of these, Temper guessed the average age to be around the mid-thirties. They adjusted the straps of their armour and weapon belts. Some smoked short clay pipes. None spoke. Temper identified three Wickan tribesmen, moustached, wearing studded boiled-leather hauberks with mailed sleeves; two dark Dal Honese, one with the raised cuts of facial scarification on his cheeks, the other’s right eye a pale milky orb; one Napan, short and thick-set like a stump, his bluish-toned skin faded to a silty green; two dusky men from Seven Cities in mail shirts under long surcoats that they adjusted and belted snug; and the rest probably Quon Talian, in army-standard Malazan hauberks, one with rows of blued steel lozenges riveted over the leather. Every one of them possessed a cross-bow, either at his back, on the table, or at the bench beside him. Short swords hung sheathed at belts and shoulder harness. Veterans, and probably all Bridgeburners as well.

  The others were the street-sweepings and thugs Temper had identified earlier. Many carried curved short swords sheathed pommel-forward, Jakatan style, while on others Temper identified plain Talian long knives, curved Dal Honese daggers, and on two, long double-edged Untan duelling swords. They wore a mishmash of armour, the heaviest of which amounted to nothing more than boiled-leather vests or padded long shirtings.

  Some pulled at their leathers, obviously uncomfortable in them. Temper looked away in disgust: city toughs, not a veteran among them. What could Ash hope to accomplish with these? And Corinn? Head down, she spoke with the sergeant. Temper eyed her hard, hoping to raise her head by the hea
t of his gaze. He knew she was a mage, but was she really a Bridgeburner cadre mage? He thought they’d all died during the campaigns of Seven Cities and Genabackis.

  He sighed, rubbed his eyes. All the gods above and below. Seven Cities. Y’Ghatan. He could almost smell the desert’s faint cinnamon scent, feel the punishing heat. That day, that betrayal – returned like a stab to the chest, and he shuddered. He remembered how the dust had risen in choking clouds that scoured his throat and blinded vision; the hordes of robed Seven City defenders. He saw Dassem, unbelievably thrust through, supported by Hilt. He recalled the glimpses he’d caught of Dassem stumbling, holding his chest. He’d said something to Temper, some joke or farewell lost amid the screams and clash of battle.

  Temper unclenched his jaws and eased his tension in a long slow exhalation. So now both he and Corinn knew of each other. What was it she wanted from him? Perhaps nothing. Perhaps this was just a warning that he should keep his head down and not interfere or she’d reveal who he was. Like she said, maybe she was just trying to save his sorry ass. Leaning forward, he tried to catch her eye across the room.

  A dog’s howl cut through the stone walls like the concussion of Moranth munitions. It rose and fell, deep, resounding, the most savage and lustful call Temper had ever heard. Corinn flinched as if bitten, snapped a panicked glance to Temper, then turned away. The young toughs peered about, their eyes wide. The veterans’ hands twitched towards their crossbows.

  From the corner of his eye, Temper caught a sly, disturbingly cretinous smile grow on Trenech’s fat lips. Temper swallowed to wet his own suddenly dry mouth. Here he sat, prisoner to a gang of ruthless criminals or deserters – betrayed by a woman, beside a fool, a mindless drooling wreck, and a moron the size of a bhederin – on the most locally dreaded night of this generation. Could things possibly get any worse?