A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 1

you?'
    The man shifted uneasily, then shrugged. 'Stood a deck or two in my time, ogre. Besides,' he added, 'the rumour of them's been in the city a week or more.'
    There was a stirring from the Red Sword troop, and Felisin saw mailed hands close on weapon-grips, peaked helms turning as one toward the Adjunct. Sister Tavore, did our brother's disappearance cut you so deep? How great his failing you must imagine, to seek this recompense ... and then, to make your loyalty absolute, you chose between me and Mother for the symbolic sacrifice. Didn't you realize that Hood stood on the side of both choices? At least Mother is with, her beloved husband now ... She watched as Tavore scanned her guard briefly, then say something to T'amber, who edged her own mount towards the East Gate.
    Baudin grunted one more time. 'Look lively, the endless hour's about to begin.'
    It was one thing to accuse the Empress of murder; it was quite another to predict her next move. If only they'd heeded my warning. Heboric winced as they shuffled forward, the shackles cutting hard against his ankles.
    People of civilized countenance made much of exposing the soft underbellies of their psyche – effete and sensitive were the brands of finer breeding. It was easy for them, safe, and that was the whole point, after all: a statement of coddled opulence that burned the throats of the poor more than any ostentatious show of wealth.
    Heboric had said as much in his treatise, and could now admit a bitter admiration for the Empress and for Adjunct Tavore, Laseen's instrument in this. The excessive brutality of the midnight arrests – doors battered down, families dragged from their beds amidst wailing servants – provided the first layer of shock. Dazed by sleep deprivation, the nobles were trussed up and decked in shackles to stand before a drunken magistrate and a jury of beggars dragged in from the streets. A sour and obvious mockery of justice that stripped away the few remaining expectations of civil behaviour – stripped away civilization itself, leaving nothing but the chaos of savagery.
    Shock layered on shock, a rending of those fine underbellies. Tavore knew her own kind, knew their weaknesses and was ruthless in exploiting them. What could drive a person to such viciousness?
    The poor folk mobbed the streets when they heard the details, screaming adoration for their Empress. Carefully triggered riots, looting and slaughter followed, raging through the Noble District, and hunting down those few selected highborns who hadn't been arrested – enough to whet the mob's bloodlust, faces to focus on with rage and hate, then the re-imposition of order, lest the city take flame.
    The Empress made few mistakes. She'd used the opportunity to round up malcontents and unaligned academics, to close the fist of military presence on the capital, drumming the need for more troops, more recruits, more protection against the treasonous scheming of the noble class. The seized assets paid for this martial burgeoning. An exquisite move even if forewarned, rippling out with the force of Imperial Decree through the Empire, the cruel rage now sweeping through each city.
    Bitter admiration. Heboric kept finding the need to spit, something he hadn't done since his cut-purse days in the Mouse Quarter of Malaz City. He could see those layers of shock written on most of the faces in the chain-line. Faces above nightclothes mostly, grimy and filthy from the pits, leaving their wearers bereft: of even the moral armour of regular clothing. Dishevelled hair, stunned expressions, broken poses – everything the mob beyond the Round lusted to see, hungered to flail—
    Welcome to the streets, Heboric thought to himself as the guards prodded the line into motion, the Adjunct looking on, straight in her high saddle and thin face drawn in until nothing but lines remained – the slit of her eyes, the brackets around her uncurved, almost lipless mouth. Damn, but she wasn't born with much, was she? The looks went to her young sister, to the lass stumbling a step ahead of him.
    Heboric's eyes fixed on Adjunct Tavore. Curious, seeking something – a flicker of malicious pleasure, maybe – her icy gaze swept the line and lingered for the briefest of moments on her sister. But the pause was all she revealed, a recognition acknowledged, nothing more. The gaze swept on.
    The guards opened the East Gate two hundred paces ahead, near the front of the chained line. A roar poured through