A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 3

clatter of armour to accompany the incoherent assertion. The hapless man went limp, his limbs flailing about. Ublala dropped him and looked up.
    Guards were streaming towards him from either side of the estate.
    He grunted in alarm, turned about and ran back through the gaping gateway.
    Shurq glanced up at the roof. Four figures up there, looking down at the fleeing giant, two of them readying javelins.
    But he was already through the archway.
    Shurq slipped round the back of the shed and darted across the narrow gap to come alongside the estate wall. She padded towards the stairs, onto the platform and through the unwarded entrance. Outside, she heard someone shout orders for a rearguard to hold the compound, but clearly no-one had turned round to keep an eye on the front doors.
    Shurq found herself in a reception hall, the walls covered in frescos illustrating Gerun's desperate defence of King Ezgara Diskanar. She paused, drew out a knife to scratch a moustache on Gerun's manly, grimacing, triumphant face, then continued on through an archway leading to a large chamber modelled in the fashion of a throne room, although the throne – an ornate, high-backed monstrosity – was simply positioned at the head of a long table instead of surmounting a raised dais.
    Doors at every corner of the chamber, each one elaborately framed. A fifth one, narrow and inset at the back, probably with a servants' passage beyond.
    No doubt the inhabitants were awake by now. Yet, being servants – Indebted one and all – they'd be hiding under their cots during this terrifying tumult.
    She set off towards that last door. The passageway beyond was narrow and poorly lit. Curtained cells lined it, the pathetic residences of the staff. No light showed from beneath any of the hangings, but Shurq caught the sound of scuffing from one room halfway down, and a stifled gasp from one closer, on her left.
    She closed her gloved hand on the grip of the fighting knife strapped beneath her left arm, and ran the back of the blade hard against the scabbard edge as she drew it forth. More gasps. A terrified squeal.
    Slow steps down the narrow passage, pausing every now and then, but never long enough to elicit a scream from anyone, until she came to a T-intersection. To the right the aisle opened out onto the kitchen. To the left, a staircase leading both up and to cellars below ground. Shurq swung round and faced the passageway she had just quitted. Pitching her voice low, she hissed, 'Go to sleep. Was jus' doin' a circuit. No-one here, sweeties. Relax.'
    'Who's that?' a voice asked.
    'Who cares?' another replied. 'Like he said, Prist, go back t'sleep.'
    But Prist continued, 'It's jus' that I don' recognize 'im—'
    'Yeah,' the other countered, 'an' you ain't a gardener but a real live hero, right, Prist?'
    'All I'm sayin' is—'
    Shurq walked back to halt in front of Prist's curtain.
    She heard movement beyond, but the man was silent.
    She drew the dirty linen to one side and slipped into the cramped room. It stank of mud and manure. In the darkness she could just make out a large, crouching figure at the back wall, a blanket drawn up under its chin.
    'Ah, Prist,' Shurq murmured in a voice little more than a whisper and taking another step closer, 'are you any good at keeping quiet? I hope so, because I intend to spend some time with you. Don't worry,' she added as she unbuckled her belt, 'it'll be fun.'
    Two bells later, Shurq lifted her head from the gardener's muscled arm, concentrating to listen beyond his loud snores. Poor bastard had been worn right out – she hoped Ublala could manage better – and all his subsequent whimpering and mewling was disgusting. As the bell's low echoes faded, a solid silence replaced it.
    The guards had returned shortly after Shurq had slipped into Prist's cubicle. Loud with speculation and bitter argument, indicating that Ublala had made good his escape, although a call for the services of the house healer suggested there'd been a clash or two. Since that time, things had settled down. There had been a cursory search of the estate, but not the servants' quarters, suggesting that no suspicion of diversion and infiltration had occurred to the house guards. Careless. Indicative of a sad lack of imagination. All in all, as she had expected. An overbearing master had that effect. Initiative was dangerous, lest it clash with Gerun's formidable ego.
    Shurq pulled herself loose from Prist's exhausted, childlike embrace,