Night of Knives_ A Novel of the Malazan Empire - By Ian C. Esslemont Page 0,6
legs, and the threadbare black and gold surcoat of a Malazan garrison regular.
‘Start acting the part of a real guard, old man,’ Chase warned. ‘At least while the official’s here. D’rek’s mysteries, man. I might’ve been – what is it?—one of her own.’’ He glanced up to the keep. ‘They would’ve handed you your heart as a warning.’
Temper stiffened at her own. Where had the lad picked that up? It’d been a long time since he last heard that old term for the Imperial security cadre, the Claws. Of course an Imperial Fist would have a detachment of Claws – for protection, intelligence gathering, and darker, unsavoury tasks. Sidelong, he studied the lieutenant and wondered: had that been a probe? But the youth’s clear brown eyes and smooth cheeks behind his helmet’s face-guards appeared no more capable of deceit than a clear grassland stream. Temper recovered, bit down on his paranoia, and thanked the twin gods of luck that Chase had missed it.
He spat onto the crumbling limestone blocks. ‘First of all, lad, I heard you coming. And no one ever hears them. And second, when they do come,’ Temper tapped a finger to his flattened nose, ‘you can always tell by the stench.’
Chase snorted his disbelief. ‘Gods, greybeard. I’ve heard talk of all the damned action you must’ve seen, but don’t pretend those Claws don’t curdle your blood.’
Temper ground his teeth together and quelled an urge to cuff the youth. But what could this pup know of things that turned the stomachs of even hardened veterans? Temper knew the Seven City campaigns; he’d been there when they took Ubaryd. They’d reached the Palace at night. The marble halls had been deserted but for the corpses of functionaries and guards too slow to flee the Emperor’s smashing of the Falah’d’s power. Upstairs they found the private chambers and the Holy One herself tied by silk ropes to a chair. Three Claws stood about her, knives out. Blood gleamed wetly on the blades and dripped from the moist bonds at the Falah’d’s wrists and ankles, pooled on the coral marble. He and Point had held back, unsure, but Dassem surged ahead and thrust aside the Claw standing before the woman. Her head snapped up, long curls flying back, and though her eyes had been gouged out and her mouth hung open, tongueless, blood streaming down her chin, she seemed to address Dassem directly. The Claws, two men and a woman, eyed each other. One backed away, raised his bloodied knife at what he saw in Dassem’s gaze. The Falah’d’s lips moved silently, mouthing some message or a plea. The female Claw’s eyes widened in sudden understanding and she opened her own mouth to shout, but too late. It happened so quickly it was as if Dassem had merely shrugged. The Falah’d’s head spun away. Blood jetted from her torso. The head toppled to the marble flagging. Its long black curls tangled in blood as it rolled.
Though Temper couldn’t be sure, it seemed the words she mouthed had been free me. Thus the end of the last Holy Falah’d of Ubaryd.
Temper rubbed the sickle moon scar that curved down his left temple to his chin and breathed deeply to calm himself. He forced himself to think of what Chase must see when looking at him: a broken-down veteran too incompetent or sodden to have passed corporal’s rank in a lifetime of soldiering. This was, after all, exactly the role he’d created for himself. He said, low and level, ‘They only disgust me.’
Chase stared, unsettled by the emotion in Temper’s voice, then scowled at the implied criticism of the Imperial Throne. He pointed to a corner barbican. ‘You’re relieved, old man.’
Off-duty, Temper hung his spear, surcoat, and regulation boiled-leather hauberk in the barracks armoury. He adjusted the rag swathings at his legs, then rewound the leather straps of his military sandals over them.
He searched for his single extravagance, a lined and brushed felt cloak from Falar. It was in the guardroom wadded up on a bench under Larkin’s wide ass. Seeing that, Temper almost turned and walked away. Larkin knew full well when the shift ended and had sat on the cloak as a challenge. Temper had no choice but to respond.
Larkin was holding court around a table, the other guards crowded close, shoulder to shoulder over the unvarnished slats where enamelled tiles – the Bones – lay arrayed in midplay. None paid the game any attention for Larkin was nearing the climax