‘What are we doing here?’ Balm asked, eyes wide.

Gesler said, ‘He’s in his funk again, never mind him. We got us a fight ahead, I figure. A nasty one. He won’t go down easy.’

‘What’s the plan, then?’ Koryk asked.

‘Stormy leads the way. He’s going to spring him loose-if he heads for the back door your friends will take him down. Same for if he goes up. My guess is, he’ll dodge round Stormy and try for the front door-that’s what I’d do. Stormy’s huge and mean but he ain’t fast. And that’s what we’re counting on. The four of us will be waiting for the bastard-we’ll take him down. With Stormy coming up behind him and holding the doorway to stop any retreat.’

‘He’s looking nervous and in a bad mood in there,’ Bottle said. ‘Warn Stormy-he just might stand and fight.’

‘We hear a scrap start and in we go,’ said Gesler.

The gold-hued sergeant went off to brief Stormy. Balm stood beside Koryk, looking bewildered.

People were rolling in and out of the tavern like it was a fast brothel. Stormy then appeared, looming over almost everyone else, his visage red and his beard even redder, as if his entire face was aflame. He tugged loose the peace-strap on his sword as he lumbered towards the door. Seeing him, people scattered aside. He met one more customer at the threshold and took hold of the man by the front of his shirt, then threw him into his own wake-the poor fool yelped as he landed face first on the cobbles not three paces from the three Malazans, where he writhed, hands up at his bloodied chin.

As Stormy plunged into the tavern, Gesler arrived, stepping over the fallen citizen, and hissed, ‘To the door now, all of us, quick!’

Bottle let Koryk take the lead, and held back even for Balm who almost started walking the other way-before Gesler yanked the man back. If there was going to be a scrap, Bottle preferred to leave most of the nasty work to the others. He’d done his job, after all, in tracking and finding the quarry.

Chaos erupted in the tavern, furniture crashing, startled shouts and terrified screams. Then something went thump! And all at once white smoke was billowing out from the doorway. More splintering furniture, a heavy crash, and then a figure sprinted out from the smoke.

An elbow cracked hard on Koryk’s jaw and he toppled like a tree.

Gesler ducked a lashing fist, just in time to meet an upthrust knee, and the sound the impact made was of two coconuts in collision. The quarry’s leg spun round, taking the rest of the man with it in a wild pirouette, whilst Gesler rocked back to promptly sit down on the cobbles, his eyes glazed.

Shrieking, Balm back-stepped, reaching for his short sword-and Bottle leapt forward to pin the sergeant’s arm-as the target lunged past them all, running hard but unevenly for the bridge.

Stormy stumbled out from the tavern, his nose streaming blood. ‘You didn’t get him? You damned idiots-look at my face! I took this for nothing!’

Other customers pushed out round the huge Falari, eyes streaming and coughing.

Gesler was climbing upright, wobbly, shaking his head. ‘Come on,’ he mumbled, ‘let’s get after him, and hope Throatslitter and Smiles can slow him down some.’

Tarr and Corabb showed up and surveyed the scene. ‘Corabb,’ said Tarr, ‘stay with Koryk and try bringing him round.’ And then he joined Bottle, Gesler, Stormy and Balm as they set out after their target.

Balm glared across at Bottle. ‘I coulda had him!’

‘We need the fool alive, you idiot,’ snapped Bottle.

The sergeant gaped. ‘We do?’

‘Look at that,’ hissed Throatslitter. ‘Here he comes!’

‘Limping bad, too,’ observed Smiles, sheathing her dagger once more. ‘We come up both sides and go for his ankles.’

‘Good idea.’

Throatslitter went left, Smiles went right, and they crouched at either end of the landing on this side of the bridge. They listened to the step-scruff of the limping fugitive as he reached the span, drawing ever closer. From the edge of the market street on the opposite side, shouts rang through the air. The scuffling run on the bridge picked up pace.

At the proper moment, as the target reached the end and stepped out on to the street’s cobbles, the two Malazan marines leapt out from their hiding places, converging, each wrapping arms round one of the man’s legs.

The three went down in a heap.

Moments later, amidst a flurry of snarled curses, gouging thumbs and frantic kicking, the rest of the hunters arrived, and finally succeeded in pinning down their quarry.

Bottle edged closer to gaze down at their victim’s bruised, flushed visage. ‘Really, Sergeant, you had to know it was hopeless.’

Fiddler glared.

‘Look what you did to my nose!’ Stormy said, gripping one of Fiddler’s arms and apparently contemplating breaking it in two.

‘You used a smoker in the tavern, didn’t you?’ Bottle asked. ‘What a waste.’

‘You’ll all pay for this,’ said Fiddler. ‘You have no idea-’

‘He’s probably right,’ said Gesler. ‘So, Fid, we gonna have to hold you down here for ever, or will you come peacefully now? What the Adjunct wants, the Adjunct gets.’

‘Easy for you,’ hissed Fiddler. ‘Just look at Bottle there. Does he look happy?’

Bottle scowled. ‘No, I’m not happy, but orders are orders, Sergeant. You can’t just run away.’

‘Wish I’d brought a sharper or two,’ Fiddler said, ‘that would’ve settled it just fine. All right now, you can all let me up-I think my knee’s busted anyway. Gesler, you got a granite jaw, did you know that?’

‘And it cuts me a fine profile besides,’ said Gesler.

‘We was hunting Fiddler?’ Balm suddenly asked. ‘Gods below, he mutiny or something?’

Throatslitter patted his sergeant on the shoulder. ‘It’s all right now, Sergeant. Adjunct wants Fiddler to do a reading, that’s all.’

Bottle winced. That’s all. Sure, nothing to it. I can’t wait.

They dragged Fiddler to his feet, and wisely held on to the man as they marched him back to the barracks.

Grey and ghostly, the oblong shape hung beneath the lintel over the dead Azath’s doorway. It looked lifeless, but of course it wasn’t.

‘We could throw stones,’ said Sinn. ‘They sleep at night, don’t they?’

‘Mostly,’ replied Grub.

‘Maybe if we’re quiet.’

‘Maybe.’

Sinn fidgeted. ‘Stones?’

‘Hit it and they’ll wake up, and then out they’ll come, in a black swarm.’

‘I’ve always hated wasps. For as long as I can remember-I must’ve been bad stung once, do you think?’

‘Who hasn’t?’ Grub said, shrugging.

‘I could just set it on fire.’

‘No sorcery, Sinn, not here.’

‘I thought you said the house was dead.’

‘It is… I think. But maybe the yard isn’t.’

She glanced round. ‘People been digging here.’

‘You ever gonna talk to anybody but me?’ Grub asked.

‘No.’ The single word was absolute, immutable, and it did not invite any further discussion on that issue.

He eyed her. ‘You know what’s happening tonight, don’t you?’

‘I don’t care. I’m not going anywhere near that.’

‘Doesn’t matter.’

‘Maybe, if we hide inside the house, it won’t reach us.’

‘Maybe,’ Grub allowed. ‘But I doubt the Deck works like that.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Well, I don’t. Only, Uncle Keneb told me Fiddler talked about me last time, and I was jumping into the sea around then-I wasn’t in the cabin. But he just knew, he knew exactly what I was doing.’

‘What were you doing?’

‘I went to find the Nachts.’

‘But how did you know they were there? You don’t make sense, Grub. And anyway, what use are they? They just follow Withal around.’

‘When they’re not hunting little lizards,’ Grub said, smiling.

But Sinn was not in the mood for easy distraction. ‘I look at you and I think… Mockra.’