The City Watch stood in a ragged line, pikes shifting nervously as the bolder thugs edged forward with taunts and threats.

There were Wickans in those ships out there.

And we want them.

Traitors, one and all, and dealing with traitors was a punishment that belonged to the people. Wasn't the Empress herself up there at Mock's Hold? Here to witness imperial wrath – she's done it before, right, back when she commanded the Claw.

Never mind you're waiting for an officer, you fools, the signals are lit and we ain't stupid – they're telling those bastards to come in.

Tie up. Disembark. Look at 'em, the cowards! They know the time's come to answer their betrayal!

Believe us, we're gonna fill this bay with Wickan heads – won't that be a pretty sight come morning?

Gods below! What's that?

A chorus of voices shouted that, or something similar, and hands lifted, fingers pointing, eyes tracking a blazing ball of fire that slanted down across half the sky to the west, trailing a blue-grey plume of smoke like the track of an eel on black sand. Growing in size with alarming swiftness.

Then… gone… and a moment later, a savage crack rolled in from beyond the bay, where rose a tumbling cloud of steam.

Close! A third of a league, you think?

Less.

Not much impact, though.

Must've been small. Smaller than it looked.

Went right overheadIt's an omen! An omen!

A Wickan head! Did you see it? It was a Wickan head! Sent down by the gods!

Momentarily distracted by the plunging fireball that seemed to land just beyond the bay, the Claw Saygen Maral pushed himself forward once more. The assassin was pleased with the heaving press he moved through, a press settling down once again, although at a higher pitch of anticipation than before.

Up ahead, the crowd had slowed the ex-priest's pace, which was good, since already nothing was going as planned. The target should have been settled in for the night at Coop's, and the Hand was likely closing in on the alley behind the inn, there to await his contacting them with the necessary details.

Pointing the Skull, they used to call it. Identifying the target right there, right then, in person. A proper reward for following the fool around for sometimes weeks on end – seeing the actual assassination.

Be that as it may, as things were turning out he would be bloodying his own hands with this target tonight, now that the decision had been made to kill the drunkard.

A convenient conjoining of Saygen Maral's divided loyalties. Trained from childhood in the Imperial Claw – ever since he had been taken from his dead mother's side, aged fourteen, at the Cull of the Wax Witches in the Mouse Quarter all those years ago – his disaffection with the Empress had taken a long time to emerge, and even then, if not for the Jhistal Master it would never have found focus, or indeed purpose. Of course, discovering precisely how his mother had died had helped considerably.

The empire was rotten through and through, and he knew he wasn't the only Claw to realize this; just as he wasn't the only one who now followed the commands of the Jhistal Master – most of the Hand on its way down from Mock's Hold belonged to the phantom Black Glove that was the name of Mallick Rel's spectral organization. In truth, there was no way of telling just how many of the Imperial Claw had been turned – each agent was aware of but three others, forming a discrete cell – in itself a classic Claw structure.

In any case, Clawmaster Pearl had confirmed the order to kill Banaschar. Comforting, that.

He remained ten paces behind the ex-priest, acutely aware of the seething violence in this mob – encouraged by the idiotic cries of 'An omen!' and 'A Wickan head!' – but he carried on his person certain items, invested with sorcery, that encouraged a lack of attention from everyone he pushed past, that dampened their ire momentarily no matter how rude and painful his jabbing elbows.

They were close to the docks now, and agents of the Jhistal Master were in the milling crowd, working them ever nastier and more belligerent with well-timed shouts and exhortations. No more than fifty City Watch soldiers faced a mass now numbering in the high hundreds, an under-strength presence that had been carefully coordinated by selective incompetence among the officers at the nearby barracks.

He noted a retinue of more heavily armed and armoured soldiers escorting a ranking officer towards the centre dock, before which now loomed the Adjunct's flagship. The captain, Saygen Maral knew, was delivering a most auspicious set of imperial commands. And those, in turn, would lead inexorably to a night of slaughter such as this city had never before experienced. Not even the Cull in the Mouse would compare.

The assassin smiled.

Welcome home, Adjunct.

His breath caught suddenly as a prickling sensation awoke on his left shoulder beneath his clothes. A small sliver of metal threaded under his skin had awakened, informing him that he was being followed by someone with murderous intent. Clumsy. A killer should ever mask such thoughts. After all, Mockra is the most common natural talent, needing no formal training – that whispering unease, the hair rising on the back of the neck – far too many people possess such things.

Nonetheless, even a clumsy killer could know the Lady's' Pull on occasion, just as Saygen Maral, for all his skills and preparation, could stumble – fatally – to the Lord's Push.

Ahead, now fifteen paces away, Banaschar was working free of the crowd, and Saygen sensed the man's warren – Mockra, yes, achieving what my own invested items have done. Uninterest, sudden fugue, confusion – the sharper the mind, after all, the more vulnerable it proves to such passive assaults. To be a killer, of course, one needed to fend off such sorcery. Simple awareness of the trap sufficed, and so Saygen Maral was not concerned. His intent was most singular.

Of course he would have to eliminate his own hunters first.

Banaschar was heading for the Stairs. There was little risk in Saygen effecting a slight delay. He saw an alley mouth off to the left, where the crowd was thin. The assassin angled himself towards it, and, as he stepped past the last figure, quickly turned left and slipped into the alley.

Gloom, rubbish under foot, a tortured, winding route before him. He continued on five more steps, found an alcove and edged into it.

'He's getting ready to take the drunk,' Gentur hissed. 'He'll circle round-'

'Then let's get after 'im,' Mudslinger whispered, pushing his friend on.

They entered the alley, padded forward.

The shadows swallowing the niche were too deep, too opaque to be natural, and both soldiers went right past without a second thought.

A faint sound, whistling past Mudslinger's left shoulder, and Gentur grunted, flinging up his hands as he staggered forward, then collapsed. Whirling, Mudslinger ducked low, but not low enough, as a second tiny quarrel struck him on his chest, directly over his heart, and, still spinning round with his own momentum, the soldier's feet skidded out beneath him. He fell hard, the back of his head crunching on the greasy cobbles.

Saygen Maral studied the two motionless bodies for a moment longer, then he reloaded the corkscrew crossbows strapped to his wrists. First shot, base of the skull. Second shot, heart – that was a lucky one, since I was aiming for low in the gut. Guess he didn't want all that pain. Too bad. Anyway… What were they thinking of doing! Mugging me?

No matter, it's done. Adjusting his sleeves, hiding the weapons once more, he set off after Banaschar.

A sixth of a bell later, the Claw realized that he had lost the man.