A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 1

sword belt. 'Hate this damned thing,' he muttered.
    Whiskeyjack watched as the man tossed the belt and scabbarded shortsword to the rooftop's pebbled surface behind them. 'Just don't forget it like you did last time,' the sergeant said, hiding a grin.
    Fiddler winced. 'Make one mistake and nobody lets you forget it.'
    Whiskeyjack made no reply, though his shoulders shook with laughter.
    'Hood's Bones,' Fiddler went on, 'I ain't no fighter. Not like that, anyway. Was born in an alley in Malaz City, learned the stone-cutting trade breaking into barrows up on the plain behind Mock's Hold.' He glanced up at his sergeant. 'You used to be a stone-cutter, too. Just like me. Only I'm no fast learner in soldiering like you was. It was the ranks or the mines for me – sometimes I think I went and made the wrong choice.'
    Whiskeyjack's amusement died as a pang followed Fiddler's words. Learn what? he wondered. How to kill people? How to send them off to die in some foreign land? 'What's your feeling on Tattersail?' the sergeant asked curtly.
    'Scared,' the sapper responded. 'She's got some old demons riding her, is my guess, and they're closing in.'
    Whiskeyjack grunted. 'It's rare you'll find a mage with a pleasant past,' he said. 'Story goes she wasn't recruited, she was on the run. Then she messed up with her first posting.'
    'It's bad timing her going all soft on us now.'
    'She's lost her cadre. She's been betrayed. Without the Empire, what's she got to hold on to?' What has any of us got?
    'It's like she's ready to cry, right on the edge, every single minute. I'm thinking she's lost her backbone, Sarge. If Tayschrenn puts her under his thumb, she's liable to squeal.'
    'I think you've underestimated the sorceress, Fiddler,' Whiskeyjack said. 'She's a survivor – and loyal. It's not common news, but she's been offered the title of High Mage more than once and she won't accept. It doesn't show, but a head-to-head between her and Tayschrenn would be a close thing. She's a Master of her Warren, and you don't acquire that with a weak spine.'
    Fiddler whistled softly, leaned his arms on the parapet. 'I stand corrected.'
    'Anything else, Sapper?'
    'Just one,' Fiddler replied, deadpan.
    Whiskeyjack stiffened. He knew what that tone implied. 'Go on.'
    'Something's about to be unleashed tonight, Sergeant.' Fiddler swung round, his eyes glittering in the darkness. 'It's going to be messy.'
    Both men turned at the thumping of the roof's trap-door. High Fist Dujek Onearm emerged, the light from the room below a broken beacon rising around him. He cleared the ladder's last rung and stepped on to the roof. 'Give me a hand with this damn door here,' he called to the two men.
    They strode over, their boots crunching on the gravel scatter. 'Any word on Captain Paran, High Fist?' Whiskeyjack asked, as Fiddler crouched over the trap-door and, with a grunt, levered it back into place.
    'None,' Dujek said. 'He's disappeared. Then again so has that killer of yours, Kalam.'
    Whiskeyjack shook his head. 'I know where he is, and where he's been all night. Hedge and Mallet were the last to see the captain, leaving Knob's Inn, and then he just seems to vanish. High Fist, we didn't kill this Captain Paran.'
    'Don't quibble with words,' Dujek muttered. 'Damn it, Fiddler, is that your sword lying over there? In a puddle?'
    Breath hissed between Fiddler's teeth and he hurried over to the weapon.
    'The man's a hopeless legend,' Dujek said. 'Shedenul bless his hide.' He paused, seeming to reorder his thoughts. 'OK, perish the thought, then. You didn't kill Paran. So where is he?'
    'We're looking,' Whiskeyjack said tonelessly.
    The High Fist sighed. 'All right. Understood. You want to know who else might be wanting Paran dead, and that means explaining who sent him. Well, he's Adjunct Lorn's man, has been for some time. He's not Claw, though. He's a bloody noble's son from Unta.'
    Fiddler had donned his weapon and now stood twenty paces away at the roof's edge, hands on his hips. A good man. They're all good, dammit. Whiskeyjack blinked the rain from his eyes. 'From the capital? Could be someone in those circles. Nobody likes the old noble families, not even the nobles themselves.'
    'It's possible,' Dujek conceded, without much conviction. 'In any case, he's to command your squad, and not for just this mission. The assignment's permanent.'
    Whiskeyjack asked, 'Is the Darujhistan infiltration his own idea?'
    The High Fist replied, 'No, but whose it is is