“It had the smell of Empire about it,” Rake muttered, his gaze on the smouldering patch that had begun to eat its way into the roof. “One of Tayschrenn's conjurings, I should think.” A savage grin flashed. “Pity to have disturbed his sleep this night.”
“Dashtal was struck by a poisoned quarrel,” Serrat said. “One of the Guild's assassins managed that.” She hesitated. “Lord. We were hard pressed in Brood's campaign. We're in need of rest. Mistakes were made this night. Some of the Guild slipped through our fingers and, had you not answered my request, we would have suffered more casualties destroying this demon.”
Rake placed his hands on his hips and surveyed the morning sky. After a moment he sighed. “Ah, Serrat. Don't think me insensitive. But the Guild Master must be flushed. This Guild must be shut down.” He eyed his lieutenant. “This Claw you encountered, do you think a meet was being established?”
“Not a meet,” Serrat answered. “A trap.”
Rake nodded. “Good.” He paused, his eyes matching Serrat's with a shade of violet. “Return to Moon's Spawn, then. Have the High Priestess herself attend to Jekaral.”
Serrat bowed. “Thank you, Lord.” She turned and gestured to the others.
“Oh,” Rake said, raising his voice to address his cadre of assassin-mages, “one last thing. You've done well, exceptionally well. You've earned a rest. Three days and nights are yours to do with as you please.”
Serrat bowed again. “We will mourn, Lord.”
“Mourn?”
“The poisoned quarrel killed Dashtal. The poison was the product of an alchemist, Lord. One of some ability. It contained paralt.”
“I see.”
“Will you return with us?”
“No.”
The lieutenant bowed a third time. As one, the eight Tiste And? raised their hands, then vanished.
Rake glanced down at the sizzling patch just as it ate through the roof and fell into darkness. There came a faint crash from below. Lord Anomander Rake swung his gaze back to the sky, then sighed.
Sergeant Whiskeyjack rocked his chair on to its back two legs and anchored it against the crumbling wall. The small, dingy room reeked of urine and damp. Two single beds, wood-framed with burlap mattresses stuffed with straw, ran along the wall to his left. The three other rickety chairs had been pulled up around the lone table in the room's centre.
Above the table hung an oil lantern, which shone down on Fiddler, Hedge and Mallet as they sat playing cards.
They'd done their work, finishing with the coming of dusk just outside Majesty Hall. Until the alliance with the Moranth, the Malazan saboteur had been nothing more than a glorified sapper, a digger of tunnels and breaker of city gates. Moranth alchemy had introduced to the Empire a variety of chemical and powder explosives, most of which detonated when exposed to air. Applying a slow-working acid worm-holed the unfired clay shells. Sabotage had become an art, the precise equation of clay thickness and acid strength was tricky, and few survived to learn from their mistakes.
To Whiskeyjack's mind, Hedge and Fiddler were terrible soldiers. He had trouble recalling the last time they'd unsheathed their shortswords.
Whatever discipline that had been part of their basic training had disintegrated through years in the field. Still, when it came to sabotage they had no equals.
Through hooded eyes Whiskeyjack studied the three men sitting at the table. It had been some minutes since any of them had made a move or said a word. One of Fiddler's new games, he decided, the man was forever inventing new ones, improvising the rules whenever they gave him an edge.
Despite the endless arguments Fiddler was never short of players.
“And that's what boredom can do,” he said to himself. But, no, it was more than just boredom. Waiting gnawed, especially when it had to do with friends. Quick Ben and Kalam might be face down in some alley for all they knew. And that made it hard.
Whiskeyjack's gaze strayed to one of the beds, on which lay his armour and longsword. Rust stained the hauberk's tattered chain like old blood. The links were missing in some places, torn in others. In his bones and muscles the memory of that damage remained: every cut, every blow now haunted him with aches, greeting him each morning like old comrades. The sword, with its plain leather-wrapped grip and stub hilt, lay in its hide-over-wood scabbard, the belt and straps draped over the bedside.
That weapon had come to him after his first battle, found amid a field of dead. He'd still had the chalk of his father's quarry on his boots then, and a world's promise stretched out before him on the banners of Empire. The sword had come to him shiny, without even so much as a nick in its honed blade, and he had taken it as his own personal standard.