A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

severing the tendons of the nearer arm of
the man to her left. Ducking beneath the first man as he
toppled forward, she thrust one of her daggers into the
chest of the third assassin. The point punched through
chain and the blade snapped. She brought the other one
forward in an upper cut, stabbing between the man's legs.
As he went down, Blend tore the knife free and spun to
slash at the face of the second assassin. Throwing his head
back to avoid the blade drove it into a low rafter. There
was a heavy crunch and the man sagged on watery knees.
Blend stabbed him through an eye.
    She heard a fourth crossbow release and something
punched her left shoulder, flinging her round. The arm
below that shoulder seemed to have vanished – she could
feel nothing – and she heard the knife clunk on the floor,
even as the assassin who had held back in the doorway now
rushed towards her, crossbow discarded and daggers drawn.
    Mallet had opened the door at the moment that Picker –
leaning out of the window – gave a startled yelp. A quarrel
slammed into the wall not an arm's reach from the healer's
head. Ducking, he threw himself out into the corridor.
    As he half straightened, he saw figures pouring from
round the corner to his left. Cords thrummed. One bolt
punched into his stomach. The other ripped through his
throat. He fell backward in a wash of blood and pain.
    Lying on his back, hearing footfalls fast approach, Mallet
reached up to his neck – he couldn't breathe – blood
gushed down into his lungs, hot and numbing. Frantic, he
summoned High Denul—
    A shadow descended over him and he looked up into a
passive young face, the eyes blank as a dagger lifted into
view.
    Kick open the gate, Whiskeyjack—
    Mallet watched the point flash down.
    A sting in his right eye, and then darkness.
    Mallet's killer straightened, withdrawing the dagger, and he
wondered, briefly, at the odd smile on the dead man's face.
    Emerging from the kitchen, ducking beneath the low crossbeam
of the doorway leading into the taproom, Bluepearl
heard crossbows loose, heard screams, and then the hiss of
swords whipped free of scabbards. He looked up.
    A flung dagger pinned his right hand to the cask.
Shouting at the fiery agony, he staggered back as two
assassins rushed towards him. One with a knife, the other
with a long, thin-bladed sword.
    The attacker with the knife was in the lead, his weapon
raised.
    Bluepearl spat at him.
    That pearlescent globule transmogrified in the air, expanding
into a writhing ball of serpents. A dozen fanged
jaws struck the assassin in the face. He screamed in horror,
slashing at his own face with his knife.
    Bluepearl sought to drop the cask, only to have its
weight tug his arm downward – his hand still pinned – and
he shrieked at the burst of agony.
    He had time to look up and see the sword as it was thrust
into his face. Into the side of his nose, the point punching
deeper, upward, driving into his forebrain.
    At the threshold to the cellar, Antsy heard the scrap erupt
in the taproom. Whirling round, loosing twenty curses in
fourteen different languages, readjusting his grip on his
shortsword. Gods, it sounded like unholy slaughter out
there. He needed a damned shield!
    The cooks and scullions were rushing for the back door –
and all at once there were screams from the alley beyond.
    Antsy plunged into the storeroom on the left. To the
crate at the far end, beneath the folds of burlap. He jimmied
the lid open and plucked out three, four sharpers, stuffing
them beneath his shirt. A fifth one for his left hand. Then
he rushed back out into the kitchen.
    One cook and two scullions – both girls – were running
back inside, and Antsy saw cloaked forms crowding
the back door. 'Down!' he screamed, throwing the sharper
overhand, hard, straight past the two assassins in the doorway.
The sharper struck the alley wall and exploded.
    He saw red mist burst round the two visible assassins,
like Hood's own haloes. They both slammed down face
first. From the alley beyond, a chorus of terrible shrieks.
Antsy drew out another sharper, ran to the doorway.
Standing on the backs of the dead assassins, he leaned out
and threw the grenado into the alley. Another snapping,
fierce detonation. And there were no more cries out there.
    'Chew on that, you fuckin' arseholes!'
    *
    Picker rolled across the floor in the wake of that first
quarrel. She saw Mallet lunge into the corridor, saw the
bolts take him down. Scrambling – knowing