A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

man-heights
above him, flattened on the scree, pulling himself upward
with feeble motions.
    Yes, he had smelled the boy.
    Venaz smiled, and then quickly shuttered the lantern. If
Harllo found out he was being chased still, he might try to
kick loose a deadly slide of the rubble – of course, if he did
that it'd take him down with it. Harllo wasn't stupid. Any
wrong move on this slide and they'd both die. The real
risk was when he reached the very top, pulling clear. Then
there could be real trouble for Venaz.
    And smell that downward draught – that was fresh,
clean air. Smelling of reeds and mud. The lake shore.
    Venaz thought about things, and thought some more.
And then settled on a plan. A desperate, risky one. But
really, he had no choice. No matter what, Harllo would
hear him on this climb. Fine, then, let him.
    He laughed, a low, throaty laugh that he knew would
travel up the stones like a hundred serpents, coiling
with icy poison round Harllo's heart. Laughed, and then
crooned, 'Harrrllo! Found youuu!'
    And he heard an answering cry. A squeal like a crippled
puppy underfoot, a whimper of bleak terror. And all of this
was good.
    Panic was what he wanted. Not the kind that would
make the boy scrabble wildly – since that might just send
him all the way back down – but the kind that would, once
he gained the top, send him flying out into the night, to
run and run and run.
    Venaz abandoned the lantern and began climbing.
    The chase was torturous. Like two worms they snaked
up the dusty slabs of shale. Desperate flight and pursuit
were both trapped in the stuttering beating of hearts, the
quaking gasps of needful lungs. All trapped inside, for
their limbs could move but slowly, locked in an agonizing
tentativeness. Minute slides froze them both, queasy shifts
made them spread arms and legs wide, breaths held, eyes
squeezed shut.
    Venaz would have to kill him. For all of this, Harllo
would die. There was no other choice now, and Venaz
found it suddenly easy to think about choking the life
from the boy. His hands round Harllo's chicken neck, the
face above them turning blue, then grey. Jutting tongue,
bulging eyes – yes, that wouldn't be hard at all.
    Sudden scrambling above, a skitter of stones, and then
Venaz realized he was alone on the slide. Harllo had
reached the surface, and thank the gods, he was running.
    Your one mistake, Harllo, and now I'll have you. Your
throat in my hands.
    I have you.
    The soft whisper of arrivals once more awakens, even as
figures depart. From places of hiding, from refuges, from
squalid nests. Into the streams of darkness, shadowy shapes
slide unseen.
    Thordy watched as the killer who was her husband set
out from the cage of lies they called, with quaint irony,
their home. As his chopping footfalls faded, she walked
out to her garden, to stand at the edge of the pavestone
circle. She looked skyward, but there was no moon as
yet, no bright smudge to bleach the blue glow of the city's
gaslight.
    A voice murmured in her head, a heavy, weighted voice.
And what it told her made her heart slow its wild hammering,
brought peace to her thoughts. Even as it spoke, in
measured tones, of a terrible legacy of death.
    She drew the one decent kitchen knife they possessed,
and held the cold flat of the blade against one wrist. In this
odd, ominous stance, she waited.
    In the city, at that moment, Gaz walked an alley.
Wanting to find someone. Anyone. To kill, to beat into
a ruin, smashing bones, bursting eyes, tearing slack lips
across the sharp stumps of broken teeth. Anticipation was
such a delicious game, wasn't it?
    In another home, this one part residence, part studio,
Tiserra dried her freshly washed hands. Every sense within
her felt suddenly raw, as if scraped with crushed glass. She
hesitated, listening, hearing naught but her own breathing,
this frail bellows of life that now seemed so frighteningly
vulnerable. Something had begun. She was, she realized,
terrified.
    Tiserra hurried to a certain place in the house. Began a
frantic search. Found the hidden cache where her husband
had stored his precious gifts from the Blue Moranth.
    Empty.
    Yes, she told herself, her husband was no fool. He was
a survivor – it was his greatest talent. Hard won at that
– nowhere near that treacherous arena where Oponn
played push and pull. He'd taken what he needed. He'd
done what he could.
    She stood, feeling helpless. This particular feeling was
not pleasant, not pleasant at all. It promised