Night of Knives_ A Novel of the Malazan Empire - By Ian C. Esslemont Page 0,13
walk. Kiska assumed that under the ponchos each man held a cocked crossbow, possibly of Claw design: screw-tension, bowless. A similar weapon was strapped to her right side, bought with all the money Kiska possessed in the world from a trader who’d had no idea how the unfamiliar mechanism worked.
After squinting into the thickening drizzle and eyeing the stacked cargo, one of the men signalled the ship. He wore a plainsman’s fur cap and boasted the long curled moustache of the Seti tribes. Shaking his head and spitting on the planking, his disgust at the crowded dock, the poor visibility, was obvious even from Kiska’s distant vantage.
A fifth man came down the gangway, medium height, slim. He wore a dark cloth cloak – hooded – leather gloves and boots. He stopped and glanced about. The gusting wind billowed the cowl and Kiska glimpsed a painfully narrow face, mahogany and smooth, with a startling glimmer of shining scalp.
The Seti guard flicked his hand again, signalling. The three others tightened around the man. Kiska recognized a variation of the sign language developed by the marine commando squads and later appropriated by just about every other Imperial corps, Claws included. One she had yet to find a teacher for.
They started up the pier. The drifting rain closed between, the five men blurring into a background of siege-walls and the gloom of an overcast evening. Yet she did not jump up to pursue. Remembering her teaching, she suspected others might remain behind with orders to follow at a distance.
It was her style to allow a quarry plenty of breathing space, especially if they believed themselves free of surveillance. She liked to think she had an instinct for her target’s route, as she always had even as a child blindfolded during street games of hide-and-seek. She liked to joke that she just followed what spoor was left. As it was, she almost yelped in surprise when a grey-garbed man stepped out from a dozen or so weather-stained barrels in front of her. Jerking down out of sight, Kiska watched. She’d been about to let herself over the ship’s side. Where in the Queen’s Mysteries had he come from? While she chewed her lip, the man peeked around the barrel, then continued on with an almost jaunty air, hands clasped behind his back, a bounce to his stride.
Another bodyguard? No one else had left the ship. She was certain of it. A rendezvous? Then why keep back? She decided to rely upon Agayla’s advice that anyone, until proven otherwise, could be an enemy.
She waited while he walked on, then slipped down to the dock. Assuming the fellow, whoever he was, wouldn’t lose the man from the ship, she’d follow him. At the guard hut she looked back to the barrels, realizing what had bothered her about the fellow’s sudden appearance. She’d given all the cargo a good search earlier. The pocket between those barrels had been empty, inaccessible without entering her line of sight.
That left only one option – one that was beyond her, but one this fellow obviously freely employed. The stink of Warren magic cautioned her. Perhaps she should report this after all. But to whom? The Claws had taken command of the Hold in the name of some unknown official. The thought of meekly submitting a report to the Claw she’d already met, or one of his brethren, made her throat burn. Damn them to the Queen’s own eternal mazes. She’d tag along for a while and see what turned up.
At the bottom of Cormorant Road, Temper spotted old Rengel fussing at the shutters of a ground-floor window, a pipe clasped in his teeth. The old man was grumbling to himself, as usual. The road lay empty save for the retired marine and sail-maker, which surprised Temper, seeing as it wasn’t yet the first bell of the night.
‘Evening.’
Rengel turned. ‘Hey? Evening?’ He forced the words through his teeth. Squinting, he nodded sourly, then returned to the shutter. ‘That it is. And an evil one. Surprised to see you about. Thought you’d know better.’
Temper smiled. Rengel’s conversation was either mawkishly nostalgic or blackly cynical, depending upon whether you found him drunk or sober. Temper judged him to be lightly soused at present, but the night was young. He inspected the low clouds coursing overhead.
‘Doesn’t look all that bad.’
‘Hey? Bad?’ Rengel look up, grimaced. ‘Not the blasted weather, you damned fool.’ He pulled at the shutter. ‘Blasted, rusted, Togg damned-to-Hood . . .’