The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen (20 page)

The Knight’s sword reached a black, smoky streak toward the Hound at the spiral’s apex, and in this instance she knew its meaning. The future held a clash between the Knight and High House Shadow. The thought both frightened Tattersail and left her feeling relieved—it would be a confrontation. There would be no alliance between the Houses. It was a rare thing to see such a clear and direct link between two Houses: the potential for devastation left her cold with worry. Blood spilled on such a high level of power cast aftershocks down through the world. Inevitably, people would be hurt. And this thought brought her round back to the Mason of High House Death. Tattersail’s heart thudded heavy in her chest. She blinked sweat from her eyes and managed a few deep breaths.

“Blood,” she murmured, “ever flows downward.”
The Mason’s shaping a barrow—after all, he is Death’s servant—and he will touch me directly. That barrow . . . is it mine? Do I back out? Abandon the Bridgeburners to their fate, flee from Tayschrenn, from the Empire?

An ancient memory flooded her thoughts, which she had repressed for almost two centuries. The image shook her. Once again she walked the muddy streets of the village where she had been born, a child bearing the Talent, a child who had seen the horsemen of war sweeping down into their sheltered lives. A child who had run away from the knowledge, telling no one, and the night came, a night of screams and death.

Guilt rose within her, its specter visage hauntingly familiar. After all these years its face still held the power to shatter her world, making hollow those things she needed solid, rattling her illusion of security with a shame almost two hundred years old.

The image sank once again into its viscid pool, but it left her changed. There would be no running away this time. Her eyes returned one last time to the Hound. The beast’s eyes seemed to burn with yellow fire, boring into her as if seeking to brand her soul.

She stiffened in her chair as a cold presence washed over her from behind. Slowly, Tattersail turned.

“Sorry for not giving you warning,” Quick Ben said, emerging from the swirling cloud of his Warren. It held a strange, spicy scent. “Company’s coming,” he said, seeming distracted. “I’ve called Hairlock. He comes by Warren.”

Tattersail shivered as a wave of premonition brushed her spine. She faced the Deck again and began to collect the cards.

“The situation’s just become a lot more complicated,” the wizard said behind her.

The sorceress paused, giving herself a small, tight smile. “Really?” she murmured.

The wind flung rain against Whiskeyjack’s face. Faintly through the dark night the fourth bell clanged. The sergeant pulled his raincape tighter and wearily shifted his stance. The view from the rooftop of the palace’s east turret was mostly obscured by sheets of rain. “You’ve been chewing on something for days,” he said, to the man beside him. “Let’s hear it, soldier.”

Fiddler wiped the rain from his eyes and squinted into the east. “Not much to tell you, Sarge,” he said gruffly. “Just feelings. That sorceress, for one.”

“Tattersail?”

“Yeah.” Metal clinked as the sapper unstrapped his sword belt. “Hate this damned thing,” he muttered.

Whiskeyjack watched as the man tossed the belt and scabbarded shortsword to the rooftop’s pebbled surface behind them. “Just don’t forget it like you did last time,” the sergeant said, hiding a grin.

Fiddler winced. “Make one mistake and nobody lets you forget it.”

Whiskeyjack made no reply, though his shoulders shook with laughter.

“Hood’s Bones,” Fiddler went on, “I ain’t no fighter. Not like that, anyway. Was born in an alley in Malaz City, learned the stone-cutting trade breaking into barrows up on the plain behind Mock’s Hold.” He glanced up at his sergeant. “You used to be a stonecutter, too. Just like me. Only I’m no fast learner in soldiering like you was. It was the ranks or the mines for me—sometimes I think I went and made the wrong choice.”

Whiskeyjack’s amusement died as a pang followed Fiddler’s words. Learn what? he wondered.
How to kill people? How to send them off to die in some foreign land?
“What’s your feeling on Tattersail?” the sergeant asked curtly.

“Scared,” the sapper responded. “She’s got some old demons riding her, is my guess, and they’re closing in.”

Whiskeyjack grunted. “It’s rare you’ll find a mage with a pleasant past,” he said. “Story goes she wasn’t recruited, she was on the run. Then she messed up with her first posting.”

“It’s bad timing her going all soft on us now.”

“She’s lost her cadre. She’s been betrayed. Without the Empire, what’s she got to hold on to?”
What has any of us got?

“It’s like she’s ready to cry, right on the edge, every single minute. I’m thinking she’s lost her backbone, Sarge. If Tayschrenn puts her under his thumb, she’s liable to squeal.”

“I think you’ve underestimated the sorceress, Fiddler,” Whiskeyjack said. “She’s a survivor—and loyal. It’s not common news, but she’s been offered the title of High Mage more than once and she won’t accept. It doesn’t show, but a head-to-head between her and Tayschrenn would be a close thing. She’s a Master of her Warren, and you don’t acquire that with a weak spine.”

Fiddler whistled softly, leaned his arms on the parapet. “I stand corrected.”

“Anything else, Sapper?”

“Just one,” Fiddler replied, deadpan.

Whiskeyjack stiffened. He knew what that tone implied. “Go on.”

“Something’s about to be unleashed tonight, Sergeant.” Fiddler swung round, his eyes glittering in the darkness. “It’s going to be messy.”

Both men turned at the thumping of the roof’s trap-door. High Fist Dujek Onearm emerged, the light from the room below a broken beacon rising around him. He cleared the ladder’s last rung and stepped onto the roof. “Give me a hand with this damn door here,” he called to the two men.

They strode over, their boots crunching on the gravel scatter. “Any word on Captain Paran, High Fist?” Whiskeyjack asked, as Fiddler crouched over the trap-door and, with a grunt, levered it back into place.

“None,” Dujek said. “He’s disappeared. Then again so has that killer of yours, Kalam.”

Whiskeyjack shook his head. “I know where he is, and where he’s been all night. Hedge and Mallet were the last to see the captain, leaving Knobb’s Inn, and then he just seems to vanish. High Fist, we didn’t kill this Captain Paran.”

“Don’t quibble with words,” Dujek muttered. “Damn it, Fiddler, is that your sword lying over there? In a
puddle
?”

Breath hissed between Fiddler’s teeth and he hurried over to the weapon.

“The man’s a hopeless legend,” Dujek said. “Shedenul bless his hide.” He paused, seeming to reorder his thoughts. “OK, perish the thought, then. You didn’t kill Paran. So where is he?”

“We’re looking,” Whiskeyjack said tonelessly.

The High Fist sighed. “All right. Understood. You want to know who else might be wanting Paran dead, and that means explaining who sent him. Well, he’s Adjunct Lorn’s man, has been for some time. He’s not Claw, though. He’s a bloody noble’s son from Unta.”

Fiddler had donned his weapon and now stood twenty paces away at the roof’s edge, hands on his hips.
A good man. They’re all good, dammit
. Whiskeyjack blinked the rain from his eyes. “From the capital? Could be someone in those circles. Nobody likes the old noble families, not even the nobles themselves.”

“It’s possible,” Dujek conceded, without much conviction. “In any case, he’s to command your squad, and not for just this mission. The assignment’s permanent.”

Whiskeyjack asked, “Is the Darujhistan infiltration his own idea?”

The High Fist replied, “No, but whose it is is anybody’s guess. Maybe the Adjunct, maybe the Empress herself. So what all that means is we’re sending you in anyway.” He scowled briefly. “I’m to relay the final details to you.” He faced the sergeant. “Assuming Paran is gone for good.”

“May I speak freely, High Fist?”

Dujek barked a laugh. “You think I don’t know it, Whiskeyjack? The plan stinks. A tactical nightmare—”

“I don’t agree.”

“What?”

“I think it will do just as it was intended to do,” the sergeant said dully, his gaze at first on the lightening eastern horizon, then on the soldier standing at the roof’s edge.
Because it is intended to get us all killed
.

The High Fist studied the sergeant’s face, then he said, “Come with me.” He led Whiskeyjack over to where Fiddler stood. The sapper gave them a nod. A moment later all three stood looking down on the city. Pale’s ill-lit streets wound between the rough blocks of buildings that seemed unwilling to yield the night; behind curtains of rain their squatting silhouettes appeared to shiver before the coming dawn.

After a while, Dujek said quietly, “Damned lonely out here, isn’t it?”

Fiddler grunted. “That it is, sir.”

Whiskeyjack closed his eyes. Whatever was happening thousands of leagues away was being played out here. Such was Empire, and it always would be, no matter the place or the people. They were all instruments blind to the hands shaping them. The sergeant had faced that truth long ago. It had galled him then and it galled him now. The only relief, these days, seemed to come with exhaustion.

“There’s pressure,” the High Fist continued slowly, “to disband the Bridgeburners. I’ve already received the order to merge the Second with the Fifth and Sixth. We’ll stand as the Fifth, near full complement. The tides are bringing new waters to our shore, gentlemen, and they smell bitter.” He hesitated, then said, “If you and your squad come out of Darujhistan alive, Sergeant, you have my permission just to walk.”

Whiskeyjack’s head snapped around and Fiddler stiffened.

Dujek nodded. “You heard me. And as for the rest of the Bridgeburners, well, rest easy that I’ll take care of them.” The High Fist glanced eastward, baring his teeth in a humorless grin. “They’re pushing me. But there’s no way in hell
they’re going to leave me with no room to manoeuvre. I’ve got ten thousand soldiers I owe a lot to—”

“Excuse me, sir,” Fiddler cut in, “there’s ten thousand soldiers saying they’re the ones owing. You say the word and—”

“Quiet,” Dujek warned.

“Yes, sir.”

Whiskeyjack remained silent, his thoughts a whirling maelstrom. Desertion. That word rang in his head like a dirge. And Fiddler’s assertion was, he felt, a true one. If High Fist Dujek decided it was time to make a move, the last place Whiskeyjack wanted to be was on the run hundreds of leagues away from the center of things. He was too close to Dujek, and though they strove to hide it, the history between them ever churned beneath the surface. There’d been a time when Dujek had called
him
“sir,” and though Whiskeyjack held no grudges he knew that Dujek still had trouble accepting the change of fortunes. If the time came, Whiskeyjack intended to be at Onearm’s side.

“High Fist,” he said at last, aware that both men had been waiting for him to speak, “there’s still a few Bridgeburners left. Fewer hands on the sword. But the sword’s still sharp. It’s not our style to make life easy for those who oppose us—whoever they happen to be. To just quietly walk away . . .” The sergeant sighed. “Well, that’d suit them, wouldn’t it? While there’s a hand on the sword, a single hand, the Bridgeburners won’t back down. It settles on honor, I guess.”

“I hear you,” Dujek said. Then he grunted. “Well, here they come.”

Whiskeyjack looked up, followed the High Fist’s gaze into the eastern sky.

Quick Ben cocked his head, then hissed through his teeth. “The Hounds have caught his trail,” he said.

Kalam cursed vehemently, surging to his feet.

Sitting on the bed, Tattersail frowned bleary-eyed at the bearish man as he paced, his footsteps on the floorboards barely raising a creak. Big as he was, Kalam seemed to glide, giving the scene an almost surreal feel, with the wizard cross-legged and hovering a few inches off the wooden floor in the room’s center.

Tattersail realized she was exhausted. Too much was happening, and it was happening all at once. She shook herself mentally and returned her attention to Quick Ben.

The wizard was linked to Hairlock, and the marionette had been on someone’s—
something’s—
trail, which led down into the Warren of Shadow. Hairlock had reached the very gates of the Shadow Realm, and then he had gone beyond.

For a time Quick Ben had lost contact with the puppet, and those long minutes of silence had left everyone’s nerves in tatters. When Hairlock’s presence returned to the wizard he no longer moved alone.

“He’s coming out,” Quick Ben announced. “Shifting Warrens. With Oponn’s luck he’ll lose the Hounds.”

Tattersail winced at the wizard’s casual use of the Fool’s name. With so many
currents swirling so close beneath the surface it might well call unwelcome attention to them.

Weariness hung heavy in the room like bitter incense, redolent with sweat and tension. After his last words Quick Ben had bowed his head. Tattersail knew his mind now traveled the Warrens, clinging to Hairlock’s shoulder with an unbreakable grip.

Kalam’s pacing brought him before the sorceress. He stopped and faced her. “What about Tayschrenn?” he asked gruffly, his hands twitching.

“He knows something has happened. He’s hunting, but the quarry eludes him.” She smiled up at the assassin. “I feel him moving cautiously. Very cautiously. For all he knows, the quarry might be a rabbit, or a wolf.”

Kalam’s expression remained grim. “Or a Hound,” he muttered, then resumed his pacing.

Tattersail stared at him. Was this what Hairlock was doing? Drawing a Hound after him? Were they all leading Tayschrenn into a deadly ambush? “I trust not,” she said, her eyes hardening on the assassin. “That would be foolish.”

Kalam ignored her, pointedly avoiding her gaze.

Tattersail rose. “Not foolish. Insane. Do you realize what could be unleashed here? Some believe the Hounds are more ancient than the Shadow Realm itself. But it’s not just them—power draws power. If one Ascendant parts the fabric here and now, others will come, smelling blood. Come the dawn every mortal in this city could be dead.”