Reaper's Gale (The Malazan Book of the Fallen #7)

Again, another long wait. Then he heard the sound of the bar scraping clear, and then a weight pushed against him and he scrabbled back to let the door open.

The young face of a soldier peered up at him. ‘Finadd?’

Very young. Sirryn edged down into the entranceway, forcing the soldier back. So young I could kiss him, take him right here, by the Errant! ‘Close this door, quickly!’

‘What has happened?’ the soldier asked, hastening to shut the portal, then, in the sudden darkness, struggling with the heavy bar. ‘Where is the army, sir?’

As the bar clunked back in place, Sirryn allowed himself, at last, to feel safe. Back to his old form. He reached out, grasped a fistful of tunic, and dragged the soldier close. ‘You damned fool! Anybody calling himself a Finadd and you open the damned door? I should have you flailed alive, soldier! In fact, I think I will!’

‘P-please, sir, I just-’

‘Be quiet! You’re going to need to convince me another way, I think.’

‘Sir?’

There was still time. That foreign army was a day away, maybe more. And he was feeling so very alive at this moment. He reached up and stroked the lad’s cheek. And heard a sudden intake of breath. Ah, a quick-witted lad, then. It would be easy to-

A knife-tip pricked just under his right eye, and all at once the soldier’s young voice hardened. ‘Finadd, you want to live to climb out the other end of this tunnel, then you’ll leave off right here. Sir.’

‘I’ll have your name-’

‘You’re welcome to it, Finadd, and may the Errant bless your eternal search-because I wasn’t behind this door as a guard, sir. I was readying to make my escape.’

‘Your what?’

‘The mob rules the streets, Finadd. All we hold right now are the walls and gate houses. Oh, and the Eternal Domicile, where our insane Emperor keeps killing champions like it was a civic holiday. Nobody’s much inter-ested in besieging that place. Besides, the Edur left yesterday. All of them. Gone. So, Finadd, you want to get to your lover Chancellor, well, you’re welcome to try.’

The knife pressed down, punctured skin and drew out a tear of blood. ‘Now, sir. You can make for the dagger at your belt, and die. Or you can let go of my shirt.’

Insolence and cowardice were hardly attractive qualities., ‘Happy to oblige, soldier,’ Sirryn said, releasing his hold on the man. ‘Now, if you’re going out, then I had better remain here and lock the door behind you, yes?’

‘Finadd, you can do whatever you please once I’m gone. So back away, sir. No, farther. That’s good.’

Sirryn waited for the soldier to escape. He could still feel that knife-tip and the wound stung as sweat seeped into it. It was not cowardice, he told himself, that had forced him back, away from this hot-headed bastard busy disgracing his uniform. Simple expedience. He needed to get to the Chancellor, didn’t he? That was paramount.

And now, absurdly, he would have to face making his way, unescorted, through the very city where he had been born, in fear for his life. The world had turned on its end. I could just wait here, yes, in this tunnel, in the dark-no, the foreigners are coming. The Eternal Domicile-where, if surrender is demanded, Triban Gnol can do the negotiating, can oversee the handing over of the Emperor. And the Chancellor will want his loyal guards at his side. He’ll want Finadd Sirryn Kanar, the last survivor of the battle at the river-Sirryn Kanar, who broke through the enemy lines to rush back to his Chancellor, bearer, yes, of grim news. Yet he won through, did he not?

The soldier lowered the door back down from the other side. Sirryn moved up to it, found the bar and lifted it into place. He could reach the Eternal Domicile, even if it meant swimming the damned canals.

I still live. I can win through all of this.

There’s not enough of these foreigners to rule the empire.

They’ll need help, yes.

He set out along the tunnel.

The young soldier was twenty paces from the hidden door when dark figures rose on all sides and he saw those terrifying crossbows aimed at him. He froze, slowly raised his hands.

One figure spoke, then, in a language the soldier did not understand, and he flinched as someone stepped round him from behind-a woman, grinning, daggers in her gloved hands. She met his eyes and winked, then mimed a kiss.

‘We not yet decide let you live,’ the first one then said in rough Letherii. ‘You spy?’

‘No,’ the soldier replied. ‘Deserter.’

‘Honest man, good. You answer all our questions? These doors, tunnels, why do sappers’ work for us? Explain.’