Night of Knives

and so he was overwhelmed.’

‘She had no way of foreseeing the deeper consequences of her actions.’

‘You did.’

Obo spun around. 7s that so?’

His face a mask, Tayschrenn clasped his hands at his knees. ‘I did have some presentiment of it, yes. Unease at the alteration of such an age-old balance of power.’ He met Obo’s glare. ‘But I swear upon the Nameless Ones I had no suspicion of anything this profound… this… perilous.’

Looking at Agayla, Obo spat. ‘And this is the one you would approach.’

The strength of the anger that clutched Tayschrenn’s chest in response to Obo’s scorn surprised him; no one treated him in this manner. He had tolerated Kellanved’s mockery and now ignored Surly’s mistaken rivalry, but no one ever spurned him with contempt. From a pocket in the lining of his cloak he drew out a pair of wet kidskin gloves and struggled to slip them over his hands. Clenching and unclenching his fingers, he reflected that Obo was, after all, Obo. The man would slam a door in the face of Hood himself.

Agayla merely watched, her gaze weighing. Tayschrenn shook the uncomfortable sensation of being judged — and found wanting.

‘Yet you allowed it,’ Agayla observed, speculatively.

Tayschrenn accepted the opening to explain. ‘To have opposed Surly’s orders would have aroused unnecessary suspicion.’

‘Suspicion of…?’

‘Collusion, communication, sympathizing with him.’

‘Ah. I see.’ She pushed the strands of wet hair from her face, wiped a hand over her brow. Tayschrenn would have offered a cloth had he anything not already sodden. She sighed, peered up at him. ‘Poor Tayschrenn. One day you will wake up and abandon this petty politicking and manoeuvring. It will burn you so many times, and you will scald so many others before you discover wisdom.’ The woman’s dark eyes probed his awareness. She whispered, ‘You have not yet even journeyed far enough to wonder on the cost, have you?’

Tayshcrenn stared — never, not since his training in the temple, had anyone brushed aside his defences with such ease. He shook himself. ‘Do you wish my aid or not?’

‘That is just it, you see. We may not want your aid.’

Staggered, Tayschrenn wiped a hand across his mouth. Here stood two powers — yes, he could admit to that, powers — facing annihilation under the heels of an enemy of incalculable might, and they would reject his aid?

‘But, the island… thousands of souls.’

‘Oh, come. More died at the fall of Unta alone. Do not pretend their fate concerns you. No, if we fall then you will have to commit yourself, won’t you?’

‘Would I? You say I care nothing for these lives, yet I would commit myself to their defence? I am sorry to disappoint you Agayla. I would stand aside.’

Obo, silent for so long, snorted his derision at that.

‘Oh?’ Agayla breathed, turning her face to the south. ’Would you?’

Her gaze drew Tayschrenn’s own. What he saw drove all conscious thought from his mind, as if a veil had been ripped aside, and now he saw for the first time the appalling truth of what, to normal senses, resembled a storm-front of unprecedented scale. The weather was the mere side effect of a much more profound battle between contending Realms. Summoning his Thyr Warren, he probed the work of the Stormriders’ mysterious sorcerers, the Wandwielders. It appeared like a curtain of energy, a replica of the shimmering light that sometimes played above the northern night sky. Streaming down from the heights of the atmosphere, it cut a dividing line that, unlike most human theurgical manipulations, did not end at the water but plunged downward through it. With his inner-eye, Tayschrenn followed its dizzying descent and was horrified to see it continue unbroken, down through the depths of the cut into unplumbed crevasses, where he glimpsed a glowing heart of otherworldly ice. A heart that, as he watched, throbbed and swelled. He broke away, dazed by a vertiginous sense of power such as he had known only once before — as a supplicant before his old master, D’rek, the Worm of Autumn that gnaws at the World.

‘You may choose to stand aside, Tayschrenn,’ Agayla observed. ‘Malaz would fall, no longer a barrier forestalling the Riders’ expanse. That is the ancient worry, is it not? That free of the confines of the strait, they would dominate the seas? A menace to all?’

Tayschrenn nodded warily, uncertain of her point. ‘Yes. Of course.’

Shuddering, she crossed her arms then met Tayschrenn’s gaze squarely. ‘But what if it was not the island itself they sought? Think on it. What sits in Malaz, within a stone’s throw of the shore? What if this was not some mindless storm seeking escape, but a calculated reach for power, for influence?’ She swept an arm out to the horizon-spanning cataclysm of sky and sea. ‘Tell me, Tayschrenn — could the House withstand all this?’

He stared, stunned. The House? What could it be to these alien beings? Yet… what were they to anyone? An enigma. A focal point of power and potentialities. That much was certain: it was possible. Perhaps the island was not simply in their way. Perhaps they wanted it; wanted the prize it held. Tayschrenn damned the sorceress — she and all others aligned with the Enchantress — their eyes saw everywhere. Yet he had to help. He could not risk the alternative she had set before him as, he was certain, she’d known all along.

‘Very well, Agayla.’ He bowed his head. ‘You win. You shall have all my strength. Every ounce I possess. The Riders must be contained.’

‘Don’t expect me to get all slobbery,’ Obo muttered.

At first Kiska thought it a dream. A tingling prickled her skin. She felt as if someone were watching her. Slowly, awareness of just where she slept trickled into her thoughts and she snapped awake.

A dark woman bent over her, hands out as if grasping for her. Kiska jumped to her feet and the woman flinched away, startled. Kiska’s hands flew reflexively to her waist, sleeves, and collar but came away empty. She snarled, arms raised.

The woman straightened, held out open hands. ‘Hold on, child. You gave me quite a start there.’

Kiska glanced around. Hattar was gone, as was his weapon belt. Embers glowed in the hearth and the candles had burned low. Her own blade lay sheathed on the table. Someone stood in the doorway: it was the hunchback, the very man who had lent her the weapon.

‘I startled you?’ Kiska laughed. She straightened, wincing at the pain that lanced her side and knee.

The woman was the Napan mercenary mage. She nodded. ‘Yes. You were under a light ward — a healing slumber. I was only testing its strength but you awoke and broke it easily. Your resistance is unusually strong.’

Kiska snorted, dismissing the woman’s words. What was she really up to? Where was Hattar? Or Tayschrenn, for that matter? ‘Where is everyone? What time is it?’

The woman knelt to warm her hands at the hearth and, Kiska supposed, to reassure her. ‘We were hoping you could tell us. No one’s here. The hold is empty. And the time?’ She shrugged. ‘After the tenth bell of the night, I believe.’

Kiska picked up the weapon and tucked it at her side. ‘If you want answers just go upstairs. I’m sure the Claws would be happy to help you.’

The jangle of steel announced the hunchback’s shambling advance. In the hearth’s faint glow Kiska saw that he wore a rusted and battered steel pot helmet. Armour hung from his bent frame in layers of mail folds with steel scales at the shoulders, chest, stomach and arms. He also carried a long-hafted throwing-axe. Kiska stared, appalled, certain that any normal man would’ve collapsed under that load.

‘She means you no harm, lass,’ he growled. ‘Everyone’s gone. What do you know of it?’

She looked from one to the other. ‘What does it matter? It’s finished. Surly won.’

The woman flinched. ‘You were there? You saw it?’

Then Kiska remembered with whom she spoke and her breath caught. ‘Oh, and Ash. I saw him. He’s dead. I’m sorry.’

The woman brushed back her long hair, sighed. ‘I’m not. The man’s better off dead. He should have died a long time ago. These times were not to his liking. Still, I owed him a great debt.’