A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 1

appearing in her hand as if from nowhere as she backed to the alley's far wall. 'Shedenul's mercy!'
    Boots pounded on the cobbles off to her right and her head whipped around. 'Healer! The bastard's alive!'
     
    The third bell after midnight tolled sonorously through the city of Pale, echoing down streets emptied by the curfew. A light rain had begun, casting the night sky with a murky gold hue. In front of the large, rambling estate, two blocks from the old palace, that had become part of the 2nd's quarters, two marines wrapped in black raincapes stood guard outside the main gate.
    'Damned miserable night, ain't it?' one said, shivering.
    The other shifted his pike to his left shoulder and hawked a mouthful of phlegm into the gutter. 'You just guessing, mind,' he said, wagging his head. 'Any other brilliant insights you feel ready to toss my way, you just speak up, hear?'
    'What did I do?' the first man demanded, hurt.
    The second soldier stiffened. 'Hush, someone coming up the street.'
    The guards waited tensely, hands on their weapons. A figure crossed from the opposite side and stepped into the torchlight.
    'Halt,' the second guard growled. 'Advance slowly, and you'd better have business here.'
    The man took a step closer. 'Kalam, Bridgeburners, the Ninth,' he said quietly.
    The marines remained wary, but the Bridgeburner kept his distance, his dark face glistening in the rain. 'What's your business here?' the second guard asked.
    Kalam grunted and glanced back down the street. 'We didn't expect to be coming back. As for our business, well, it's better that Tayschrenn don't know about it. You with me, soldier?'
    The marine grinned and spat a second time into the gutter. 'Kalam – you'd be Whiskeyjack's corporal.' There was a new tone of respect in his voice. 'Whatever you want you've got.'
    'Damned right,' the other soldier growled. 'I was at Nathilog, sir. You want us blinded by the rain for the next hour or so, you just say the word.'
    'We're bringing in a body,' Kalam said. 'But this never happened on your shift.'
    'Hood's Gate, no,' the second marine said. 'Peaceful as the Seventh Dawn.'
    From down the street came the sounds of a number of men approaching. Kalam waved them forward, then slipped inside as the first guard unlocked the gate. 'What do you figure they're up to?' he asked, after Kalam had disappeared.
    The other shrugged. 'Hope it'll stick something hard and sharp up Tayschrenn, Hood take the treacherous murderer. And, knowing them Bridgeburners, that's exactly what they'll do.' He fell silent as the group arrived. Two men carried a third man between them. The second soldier's eyes widened as he saw the rank of the unconscious man, and the blood staining the front of his baldric. 'Oponn's luck,' he hissed to the Bridgeburner nearest him, a man wearing a tarnished leather cap. 'The pull not the push,' he added.
    The Bridgeburner threw him a sharp look. 'You see a woman come after us you get out of her way, you hear me?'
    .'A woman? Who?'
    'She's in the Ninth, and she might be thirsty for blood,' the man replied, as he and his comrade dragged the captain through the gate. 'Forget security,' he said, over his shoulder. 'Just stay alive if you can.'
    The two marines stared at each other after the men had passed. After a moment the first soldier reached to close the gate. The other man stopped him.
    'Leave it open,' he muttered. 'Let's find some shadows, close but not too close.'
    'Hell of a night,' the first marine said.
    'You got a thing about stating the obvious, haven't you?' the other said, as he moved away from the gate.
    The first man shrugged helplessly, then hurried to follow.
     
    Tattersail stared long and hard at the card centred on the field she had laid down. She had chosen a spiral pattern, working her way through the entire Deck of Dragons and arriving with a final card, which could mark either an apex or an epiphany depending on how it placed itself.
    The spiral had become a pit, a tunnel downward, and at its root, seeming distant and shadow-hazed, waited the image of a Hound. She sensed an immediacy to this reading. High House Shadow had become involved, a challenge to Oponn's command of the game. Her eyes were drawn to the first card she had placed, at the spiral's very beginning. The Mason of High House Death held a minor position among the overall rankings, but now the figure etched on the wood seemed to have risen to an eminent placing. Brother to the Soldier of the same House,