A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 1

lot more than you think, and that's why you're the most qualified man here.'
    'Barring the necessary brains, of course,' Kruppe said, 'which is my true skill – though one such as Coll would never understand such abilities, alien as they are to him.'
    Coll leaned towards Crokus. 'You're wondering why I'm wearing all this armour,' he whispered loudly. 'It's because Kruppe's in charge. When Kruppe's in charge I don't feel safe unless I'm prepared for war. If it comes to that, lad, I'll get us out alive.' He leaned back and stared straight ahead. 'I've done it before. Right, Kruppe?'
    'Absurd accusations.' Kruppe sniffed.
    'So,' Crokus said, 'what are we supposed to be on the lookout for?'
    'We'll know it when we see it,' Murillio said. He nodded towards the hills rising to the east. 'Up there.'
    Crokus was silent for a time, then his eyes narrowed. 'The Gadrobi Hills, Are we looking for a rumour, Murillio?'
    Murillio stiffened, but it was Kruppe who replied, 'Indeed, lad. Rumours upon rumours. I applaud your cunning conclusion. Now, where is that water jug? Kruppe's thirst has become intense.'
     
    Sorry's departure through Jammit's Gate was casual, unhurried. Tracking the Coin Bearer was simple, and did not require that the boy remain within her range of vision. She sensed Crokus and Kruppe, in the company of two others, on the road a league beyond Worrytown. They did not seem to be in any kind of rush.
    Whatever mission they were on, that it concerned the welfare of Darujhistan was plain. Thinking on it, Sorry was sure that the men within that group were spies and, in all likelihood, able ones. The dandy, Murillio, could move through noble-born circles with an ease coupled with a desirable coyness – the perfect combination for a spy. Rallick, though he did not accompany them on this mission, was the eyes and ears within the Assassins' Guild, thus covering another power base. Kruppe's world was that of the thieves and lower classes, whence rumours sprang to life like weeds in muddy soil. The third man was clearly a military man, no doubt serving as the group's sword arm.
    On a mundane level, then, an adequate group to protect the Coin Bearer, though insufficient to prevent her killing him — especially with the assassin left behind.
    Yet something nagged within Sorry's mind, a vague suspicion that the group was heading into danger – a danger that threatened her as well. Once beyond Worrytown she picked up her pace. As soon as she found herself alone on the road, she opened her Warren of Shadow and slipped into its swift tracks.
     
    The Adjunct could find nothing to set apart the hill they approached. Its grass-cloaked summit was dwarfed by those around it. A half dozen scraggly, wind-twisted scrub oaks climbed one side amid a scree of broken boulders. The summit flattened out into a rough circle, rock pushing through here and there.
    Overhead wheeled ravens, so high as to be no more than specks against the muggy grey sky. Lorn watched Tool striding ahead of her, the Imass choosing an unwavering path towards the hill's base. She slumped in her saddle, feeling defeated by the world around her. The midday heat sapped her strength, and the sluggishness reached through to her thoughts – not Oponn's doing, she knew. This was the pervasive dread clinging to the air, the sense that what they were doing was wrong, terribly wrong.
    To fling this Jaghut Tyrant into the hands of the Empire's enemy, to trust this Tiste Andii Anomander Rake to destroy it, yet at great cost to himself – thus opening the way for Malazan sorceries in turn to kill the Son of Darkness – now seemed precipitous, absurd in its ambitions.
    Tool came to the base of the hill and waited for the Adjunct to arrive. Lorn saw, at Tool's hide-wrapped feet, a grey rock jutting perhaps ten inches from the. earth.
    'Adjunct,' the Imass said, 'this is the barrow marker we seek.'
    She raised an eyebrow. 'There's hardly any soil cover here at all,' she said. 'Are you suggesting this standing stone has eroded down to its present size?'
    'The stone has not eroded,' Tool answered. 'It has stood here since before the sheets of ice came to cover this land. It stood here when the Rhivi Plain was an inland sea, long before the waters withdrew to what is now Lake Azur. Adjunct, the stone is in fact taller than both of us combined, and what you think to be bedrock is shale.'
    Lorn was surprised at the hint of anger in Tool's voice. She dismounted and set to hobbling