Midnight Tides & The Bonehunters - By Steven Erikson Page 0,682

its keel and metalwork from somewhere else entirely. Fenn – can't be more than a handful of keel-carvers and blacksmiths left among the squalid remnants ... but they made that keel and they made those fittings, and there's nothing insensate or inert about them. In any case, Bottle was glad they were on that ship riding the swells three reaches to starboard. Not quite far enough away for his comfort, but it would have to do. He could picture those two skeletal reptiles scurrying around in the hold below, hunting rats ...

'So it was Grub who held onto that whistle?' Fiddler asked Gesler in the cabin.

Beneath the table, Y'Ghatan's tattered ears perked up.

'Aye. Keneb's lad. Now there's a strange one for ya. Said he knew we were coming. Now, maybe I believe that. Maybe I don't. But it was the first thing I got back.'

'Good thing, too,' Stormy said, audibly scratching his beard. 'I'm feeling right at home—'

'That's a joke,' Gesler cut in. 'Last time we was on this damned ship, Stormy, you spent most of the time cowering in a corner.'

'Just took a while getting used to it, that's all.'

Fiddler said, 'Look what some bright spark left in my loot.' Something thumped onto the table.

'Gods below,' Sergeant Balm muttered. 'Is it complete?'

'Hard to say. There are cards in there I've never seen before. One for the Apocalyptic – it's an Unaligned – and there's something called the House of War, showing as its ranked card a bone throne, unoccupied, flanked by two wolves. And in that House there's a card called the Mercenary, and another – done by a different hand – that I think is named something like Guardians of the Dead, and it shows ghostly soldiers standing in the middle of a burning bridge ...'

A moment of silence, then Gesler: 'Recognize any faces, Fid?'

'Didn't want to look too closely at that one. There's the House of Chains, and the King of that House – the King in Chains – is sitting on a throne. The scene is very dark, swallowed in shadows, except I'd swear that poor bastard is screaming. And the look in his eyes ...'

'What else?' Balm asked.

'Stop sounding so eager, you Dal Honese rock-toad.'

'All right, if you don't like your new present, Fiddler, give it to me.'

'Right, and you'd probably lay a field right here, on this ship.'

'So?'

'So, you want to open a door to this Tiste and Tellann nightmare of warrens? To the Crippled God, too?'

'Oh.'

'Anyway, there's more Unaligned. Master of the Deck, and aye, him I recognize. And Chain – a knot in the centre, with links stretching out in all directions. Don't like the look of that one.'

'Some gift, Fid.'

'Aye, like a rock thrown to a drowning sailor.'

'Put it away,' Gesler said.

The rat listened as the Deck was dragged back from the centre of the table.

'We got us a problem,' Gesler continued.

'Only,' Stormy added, 'we don't know what it is. We only know that something's rattled Keneb, and that assassin friend of yours, Fid. And Quick Ben. Rattled them all.'

'The Adjunct,' Fiddler said. 'Kalam and Quick weren't talking, but they're not happy.' A pause, then, 'Could be it's the way Pearl just vanished, right after Y'Ghatan, likely straight back to the Empress. Just a Claw operative delivering his report? Maybe. But even that leaves a sour taste in the mouth – he was too quick to act, too quick to reach conclusions – as if what he thought happened at Y'Ghatan was only confirming suspicions he already held. Think on it – do you really suppose a report like that has anything good to say?'

'She killed Sha'ik,' Balm said, exasperated. 'She broke open that wasp nest in Raraku and damned nothing came buzzing out. She nabbed Korbolo Dom and sent him back in shackles. And she did all that with us not losing nobody, or almost nobody – the scraps on the way were expected, and not nearly so bad as they could've been. Then she chases Leoman to Y'Ghatan. Unless you got someone on the inside to crack open the gate, sieges are costly, especially when the attackers got no time to wait it out. And we didn't, did we? There was a damned plague on the way!'

'Calm down,' Fiddler said, 'we lived through all that, too, remember?'

'Aye, and did any one of us really think Leoman would broil his own people? That he'd turn a whole city into a heap of ashes and rivers of lead? All I'm saying,