All three spun round.

The deadening effect of the Adjunct's unsheathed sword was far more efficacious than that of Kalam's long-knife, and its range was revealed as, thirty paces up the street, ten cloaked figures shimmered into existence. 'Take cover!' Kalam hissed, ducking down.

Silvery quarrels flashed, barbed heads flickering in the faint moonlight as they corkscrewed in flight. Multiple impacts on the mossstained wall behind them. Straightening, Kalam cursed to see T'amber rushing the killers.

There's ten of them, you fool!

He raced forward.

Five paces from the fast-closing Claws, T'amber drew her sword.

There was an old saying, that for all the terror waiting in the gloved hands of an assassin, it was as nothing against a professional soldier. T'amber did not even slow down, her blade weaving to either side in a blur. Bodies sprawled in her wake, blood splashing out, knives clattering on the cobbles. A dagger hissed through the air, caught the woman on the right side of her chest, sinking deep. She ignored it – Kalam's eyes widened as he saw a severed head tumble away from what seemed the lightest slash of T'amber s longsword, and then he joined the fight.

Two Claws had darted past, out of T'amber's reach, and set off towards the Adjunct. Kalam shifted to come at them from their left. The nearer one leapt into his path, seeking to hold Kalam long enough for the other killer to close on Tavore.

A dancing flurry of parries from the Claw had begun even before Kalam engaged with his own weapons – and he recognized that form – the Web – 'Gods below, you fool,' he said in a snarl as he reached both longknives into the skein of parries, feinted with minute jabs then, breaking his timing, evaded the knife-blades as they snapped across, and neatly impaled both hands.

The man screamed as Kalam closed in, pushing both stuck hands out to the sides, and head-butted him. Hooded head snapped back – and met the point of Kalam's right-hand long-knife as it completed its disengage to come up behind the Claw. A grating crunch as the point drove up into the base of his brain. Even as he crumpled Kalam was stepping over him, into the wake of the last killer.

The Adjunct watched calmly as the Claw launched himself at her. Her stop-thrust took him in the cup of his throat, between the breastbones, the heavy blade punching through windpipe, then spine, and out the back, stretching but not cutting the cloak.

The Claw had thrown both daggers a heartbeat before spitting himself on the sword, and the Adjunct had lithely evaded both as she turned her body sideways in extending the stop-thrust.

Kalam slowed down, turned round, to see T'amber walking back towards them.

Eight dead Claws. Damned impressive. Even if it took a knife in the lung to do it.

There was frothy blood trickling onto T'amber's chin. She had pulled out the knife and more blood soaked her tunic. Yet her strides were steady.

'Through the gate, then,' Kalam said.

They entered the courtyard. Overgrown, filled with rubbish. A fountain commanded the centre, the pool entirely sheathed in gleaming algae.

Insects rose from it in a cloud that spun and whirled towards them.

Kalam pointed with one weapon to the far wall. 'That old well. There was once a natural cistern in the limestone under all of this. Some enterprising thief broke into it from below, stole an entire fortune from the family living here. Left them destitute. This was long ago – that hoard of wealth bankrolled Kellanved's early ventures in piracy on the lanes between here and the Napan Isles.'

The Adjunct glanced over. 'Kellanved was the enterprising thief?'

'More likely Dancer. The estate was Mock's family, and, accordingly, the hoard was takings from twenty years of piracy. Not long after, Kellanved usurped Mock and annexed the whole island. Birth of the Malazan Empire. Among the few who know about it, this is called the Well of Plenty.'

A cough from T'amber, and she spat out a gout of blood.

Kalam eyed her in the gloom. That perfect face had grown very pale. He faced the well once more. 'I'll go first. The drop is about two and half man-heights – if you can, use the side walls to work your way down as far as possible. Adjunct, do you hear music?'

'Yes. Faint.'

Nodding, Kalam vaulted onto the lip of the well, then worked his way down. Not just me, then. Fiddler, you're breaking my heart.

Four Hands, weapons out, hooded eyes scanning in every direction.

Pearl stood above a body. The poor man's head had been driven into the street, hard enough to turn it into pulp, to push the jaw and the base of the skull into the column of the neck between the shoulders, turing the spine into a coiled, splintered mess.

That was the one thing about Kalam Mekhar that one tended to forget, or even more erroneously, disregard. The bastard's animal strength.

'Westward,' one of his lieutenants said in a whisper. 'Along Lightings, likely to the last gate. They will seek to circle round, pulling loose our established ambushes-'

'Not all of them,' Pearl murmured. 'I did not for a moment believe he would attempt the direct route. In fact, he's about to run into the bulk of my small army.'

The lieutenant actually chuckled – Pearl faced him, stared for a long moment, then said, 'Take two Hands and trail him. Don't close, just get in sight every now and then. Push them onward.'

'They'll turn and ambush us, Clawmaster-'

'Probably. Enjoy your evening. Now go.'

An evil snicker would have been worse, but the chuckle was bad enough.

Pearl drew back the left sleeve of his loose silk shirt. The head of the quarrel set in the wrist-strapped crossbow was sheathed in thick wax. Easily pulled off when the time was propitious. In the meantime, he would not risk any possible contact with the paralt smeared on the head's edges. No, this taste is for you, Kalam.

You've eliminated sorcery, after all. So, you leave me little choice, and no, I do not care about the Code.

He rolled the sleeve back down, looked over at his two chosen Hands, his favoured, elite assassins. Not one of them a mage. Theirs was the most direct kind of talent. Tall, well-muscled, a match for Kalam's brawn. 'We position ourselves south of Admiral Bridge, at the edge of the Mouse.'

One spoke: 'You believe they will get that far, Clawmaster?'

Pearl simply turned away. 'Let's go.'

Kalam edged down the low, narrow tunnel. He could see the brush of the garden disguising the cave mouth ahead. There were broken branches among it, and the air stank of bile and blood. What's this, then?

Weapons out, he drew closer, came to the threshold.

There had been a Hand, positioned around the tunnel entrance. Five corpses, limbs sprawled. Kalam pushed through the brush.

They had been cut to pieces. Arms broken. Legs snapped. Blood everywhere, still dripping from some low branches on the tree commanding the abandoned orchard. Two had been cleanly eviscerated, their intestines tumbled out, trailing across the leaf-littered ground like bloated worms.

Movement behind him and he turned. The Adjunct and T'amber pushed their way into the clearing.

'That was fast,' Tavore said in a whisper.

'Not me, Adjunct.'

'I'm sorry. I realized that. We have friends, it seems.'

'Don't count on it,' Kalam said. 'This has the look of vendetta – someone or ones took out a whole lot of anger on these poor bastards.

I don't think it has anything to do with us. As you said, the Claw is a compromised organization.'

'Have they turned on themselves?'

'Certainly looks that way.'

'Still in our favour, Kalam.'

'Well,' he muttered after a moment, 'that's not as important as the revelation that taking the long way round was anticipated. We've real trouble ahead, Adjunct.'