A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 1

luck.'
    'And you?' Kalam asked, as he examined his quiver of bolts.
    'You won't see me directly, just my aura,' Quick Ben replied with a grin, 'but I'll be with you all the way.'
    'Well, hopefully this'll go smoothly. We make contact with the Guild, we offer the Empire's contract, they accept and remove for us every major threat in the city.' He shrugged into his black cloak and pulled up the hood.
    'You sure we can't just go downstairs and walk right up to the man, lay it out?'
    Kalam shook his head. 'Not how it's done. We've identified him, he's done the same with us. He's probably just made contact with his commander, and they'll arrange things to their liking. Our man should lead us now to the meet.'
    'Won't it be an ambush we're walking into, then?'
    The large man agreed. 'More or less. But they'll want to know what we want with them first. And once that's out, I doubt the Guild's master will be interested in killing us. You ready?'
    Quick Ben raised a hand towards Kalam, then muttered briefly under his breath.
    Kalam felt a lightness come into him, rising to his skin and emanating a cushion of cool air that enveloped his body. And before his eyes Quick Ben's figure formed a blue-green penumbra, concentrated at the wizard's long-fingered hands. 'I have them,' the assassin said, smiling, 'two old friends.'
    Quick Ben sighed. 'Yes, here we are doing this all over again.' He met his friend's gaze. 'Hood's on our heels, Kal. I can feel his breath on my neck, these days.'
    'You're not alone in that.' Kalam turned to the window. 'Sometimes,' he said drily, 'I have the feeling our Empire wants us dead.' He walked to the window, unlatched the shutters, then swung them inward and leaned both hands on the sill.
    Quick Ben came up beside him and rested a hand on his shoulder. They gazed out at the darkness, a brief sharing of unease passing between them.
    'We've seen too much,' Quick Ben said softly.
    'Hood's Breath,' Kalam growled, 'what are we doing this for anyway?'
    'Maybe if the Empire gets what it wants – Darujhistan – they'll let us slip away.'
    'Sure, but who's going to convince the sergeant to walk out of the Empire?'
    'We show him he hasn't got any choice.'
    Kalam climbed on to the sill. 'Good thing I'm not a Claw any more. Just soldiers, right?'
    Behind him Quick Ben touched his own chest and vanished. His disembodied voice held a note of wry amusement. 'Right. No more cloak-and-dagger games for old Kalam.'
    The assassin pulled himself up, turning to face the wall then beginning his climb to the roof. 'Yeah, I've always hated it.'
    Quick Ben's voice was beside him now. 'No more assassinations.'
    'No more spying,' Kalam added, reaching for the roof's edge.
    'No more disguising spells.'
    Clambering on to the roof, Kalam lay still. 'No more daggers in the back,' he whispered, then sat up and scanned the nearby rooftops. He saw nothing; no unusual huddled shapes, no bright magical auras.
    'Thank the gods,' came Quick Ben's whisper from above.
    'Thank the gods,' Kalam echoed, then looked down over the roof's edge. Below a pool of light marked the inn entrance. 'You take the back door. I've got this one.'
    'Right.'
    Even as the wizard answered Kalam stiffened. 'There he is,' he hissed. 'You still with me?'
    Quick Ben assented.
    They watched the figure of Rallick Nom, now cloaked, crossing to the far side of the street and entering an alley.
    'I'm on him,' Quick Ben said.
    A blue-green glow rose around the wizard. He rose into the air and flew out swiftly across the street, slowing as he reached the alley. Kalam climbed to his feet and padded silently along the roof's edge. Reaching the corner, he glanced down to the rooftop of an adjacent building, then jumped.
    He descended slowly, as if sinking through water, and landed without a sound. Off to his right, moving on a parallel path, was Quick Ben's magical aura. Kalam crossed the rooftop to the next building. Their man was heading for the harbour-front.
    Kalam continued tracking Quick Ben's beacon, moving from one rooftop to the next, sometimes jumping down, at other times climbing. There was little subtlety about Kalam: where others used finesse he used the strength of his thick arms and legs. It made him an unlikely assassin, but he'd learned to use that to his advantage.
    They now approached the harbour area, the buildings single-storeyed and large, the streets rarely lit except around the double-door entrances to warehouses, where the occasional private guard