Orb Sceptre Throne (91 page)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He ducked his head. ‘Yes.’

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

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

*

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

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

He answered her with ‘Child’.

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

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

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

‘All?’

‘All. I am quite safe here.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*

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

‘Sall – it is immense, but …’

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

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

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

‘Yet you’re going.’

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

‘Oh?’

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

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

‘What is it?’ Yusek asked.

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

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

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

*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*

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

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

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

‘No.’

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

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

‘Twins stand aside,’ Aragan offered.

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

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

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

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

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

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

*

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

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

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

*

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

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

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

He, Blend and Picker shared stunned glances.

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

‘A Hood-damned assault!’ Blend snarled.

‘A drop!’ Picker barked.

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

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

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

‘
Shit!
’

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

*

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

‘What’s that for!’ he yelled.

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