Dust of Dreams

foot to the other, and then sighed. ‘Aye, way too easy.’
    ‘Here come Balm and Gesler.’
    The two sergeants arrived.
    ‘What are we doing here?’ Balm asked, eyes wide.
    Gesler said, ‘He’s in his funk again, never mind him. We got us a fight ahead, I figure. A nasty one. He won’t go down easy.’
    ‘What’s the plan, then?’ Koryk asked.
    ‘Stormy leads the way. He’s going to spring him loose—if he heads for the back door your friends will take him down. Same for if he goes up. My guess is, he’ll dodge round Stormy and try for the front door—that’s what I’d do. Stormy’s huge and mean but he ain’t fast. And that’s what we’re counting on. The four of us will be waiting for the bastard—we’ll take him down. With Stormy coming up behind him and holding the doorway to stop any retreat.’
    ‘He’s looking nervous and in a bad mood in there,’ Bottle said. ‘Warn Stormy—he just might stand and fight.’
    ‘We hear a scrap start and in we go,’ said Gesler.
    The gold-hued sergeant went off to brief Stormy. Balm stood beside Koryk, looking bewildered.
    People were rolling in and out of the tavern like it was a fast brothel. Stormy then appeared, looming over almost everyone else, his visage red and his beard even redder, as if his entire face was aflame. He tugged loose the peace-strap on his sword as he lumbered towards the door. Seeing him, people scattered aside. He met one more customer at the threshold and took hold of the man by the front of his shirt, then threw him into his own wake—the poor fool yelped as he landed face first on the cobbles not three paces from the three Malazans, where he writhed, hands up at his bloodied chin.
    As Stormy plunged into the tavern, Gesler arrived, stepping over the fallen citizen, and hissed, ‘To the door now, all of us, quick!’
    Bottle let Koryk take the lead, and held back even for Balm who almost startedwalking the other way—before Gesler yanked the man back. If there was going to be a scrap, Bottle preferred to leave most of the nasty work to the others. He’d done his job, after all, in tracking and finding the quarry.
    Chaos erupted in the tavern, furniture crashing, startled shouts and terrified screams. Then something went
thump
! And all at once white smoke was billowing out from the doorway. More splintering furniture, a heavy crash, and then a figure sprinted out from the smoke.
    An elbow cracked hard on Koryk’s jaw and he toppled like a tree.
    Gesler ducked a lashing fist, just in time to meet an upthrust knee, and the sound the impact made was of two coconuts in collision. The quarry’s leg spun round, taking the rest of the man with it in a wild pirouette, whilst Gesler rocked back to promptly sit down on the cobbles, his eyes glazed.
    Shrieking, Balm back-stepped, reaching for his short sword—and Bottle leapt forward to pin the sergeant’s arm—as the target lunged past them all, running hard but unevenly for the bridge.
    Stormy stumbled out from the tavern, his nose streaming blood. ‘You didn’t get him? You damned idiots—look at my face! I took this for nothing!’
    Other customers pushed out round the huge Falari, eyes streaming and coughing.
    Gesler was climbing upright, wobbly, shaking his head. ‘Come on,’ he mumbled, ‘let’s get after him, and hope Throatslitter and Smiles can slow him down some.’
    Tarr and Corabb showed up and surveyed the scene. ‘Corabb,’ said Tarr, ‘stay with Koryk and try bringing him round.’ And then he joined Bottle, Gesler, Stormy and Balm as they set out after their target.
    Balm glared across at Bottle. ‘I coulda had him!’
    ‘We need the fool alive, you idiot,’ snapped Bottle.
    The sergeant gaped. ‘We do?’
     
    ‘Look at that,’ hissed Throatslitter. ‘Here he comes!’
    ‘Limping bad, too,’ observed Smiles, sheathing her dagger once more. ‘We come up both sides and go for his ankles.’
    ‘Good idea.’
    Throatslitter went left, Smiles went right, and they crouched at either end of the landing on this side of the bridge. They listened to the
step-scruff
of the limping fugitive as he reached the span, drawing ever closer. From the edge of the market street on the opposite side, shouts rang through the air. The scuffling run on the bridge picked up pace.
    At the proper moment, as the target reached the end and stepped out on to the street’s cobbles, the two Malazan marines leapt out from their hiding places, converging, each