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

  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. ‘Put 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 r
ight 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. I’m 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 obliterat
e 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.