Orb Sceptre Throne

And from the ranks came an answer. A low groan sounded up and down the lines as if every trooper felt each burst as a physical blow.

Aragan half raised his hand as if to sign for the advance.

‘We’ll be mobbed, sir,’ K’ess warned, his voice soft. ‘They’ll blame us.’

‘I agree,’ Torn added.

Aragan forced his hand down. ‘Yes. It’s just … Yes.’ He studied the flashes, urging the Moranth on. Get through! Get to him, damn you. Finish it!

K’ess watched the ambassador from the edge of his vision. Poor fellow. Hasn’t seen much direct action. Always coming in behind. Yet to his credit he has that necessary compassion for his fellow soldiers. The gesture speaks well of him.

He remembered the taking of Pale. Been a raw captain then, of the regulars. The memory of that enfilade had yet to let him go. He’d lost so many nights to those images his hope was that no similar cataclysm erupted here. Especially after what they’ve already witnessed. Could be too much. Could break ’em. Hood, have to have a heart of flint not to feel it.

*

Spindle tottered on the last section of the rising walk up Majesty Hill. He fell against a buttress, banging the crate so that bottles clanked, and winced, biting his lip. Stones clattered down around him and acrid smoke wafted past.

Damn close, that. Fallin’ like flies everywhere, the poor bastards!

He jerked his head to urge Fisher on. The bard straightened and jogged up.

Getting this far had been simple; everyone had run off. And K’rul’s hill was right next to Despot’s Barbican anyway. The district was pretty much entirely abandoned. Even the streetlights were unlit. Seemed the Greyfaces had taken the night off. Damned smart of them, considering. He peered over the wall to eye the nearest forest copse. Overhead the Moranth circled and swooped. A continuous barrage fell on Majesty Hall. Yet this magical barrier, this dome or circle, pretty much invisible up close and seemingly as delicate as a soap bubble, held back an entire war of punishment.

And Spindle knew what anchored it.

So loud were the near-continuous eruptions of munitions that he and Fisher could not speak. He caught the bard’s eye then jerked his head to the woods and ran. Hunched, bottles banging, they jogged through the park forest. At least Spindle knew exactly where he was headed.

He didn’t mean to slam down the crate of wine bottles but in the dark he tripped on a root and fell right on top of it. He rolled off immediately and brushed frantically at his front — which would have been a stupid thing to do if one of the bottles had broken and spilled on him. Should’ve just started yanking off the damn hauberk.

Through the trees he could see the Moranth arcing overhead on their quorls and tossing their charges over Majesty Hall.

Most of the cussers blew far overhead but a few landed now and then on the unprotected hilltop and shook the ground. Off to one side a crater smoked in a reminder of what might happen to them at any moment. The bard didn’t know Malazan hand signs so Spindle was forced to wave and point. He’d found the site of their old excavation.

He threw himself to his knees and started digging in a feverish panic. Fisher joined him.

To make things even worse, through the trees he could see that the Seguleh were out as well. They were keeping to the doors and walls of the many buildings of the Majesty Hall complex. Waiting, watching, masks tilted upwards to follow the Moranth in their circling.

Spindle thought he knew what they were waiting for and he prayed it wouldn’t come to that. Things would get far too crowded then.

Best to have a hidey-hole in that case. And he dug and dug.

Togg, things might get so desperate he might even have to raise his Warren! Gods, that it should come to that …

*

Barathol was out of bed with the first burst. He peered through the slats of the shutters.

‘What is it?’ Scillara asked from the dark.

A much closer blast; the house shook. A few things fell downstairs. Little Chaur set up a wail. ‘Get him,’ he said, pulling on trousers. ‘I’ll grab some food and water.’

She stood quickly, dressing as well. ‘You’re coming with us, yes?’ she said sharply.

He paused, glancing at her shadowed silhouette. ‘Yes. I’m coming with you.’

Outside, it was jarringly dark. He’d never seen the streets unlit. Now it was the Scimitar’s ill-omened glow that cast shadows across the shopfronts. They joined a swelling crowd jamming the street. He peered to the east, to the higher tiers where flashes lit the night. Flames rose from much closer, however.

Then something slashed overhead, raising shrieks of fear. It hissed arrow-straight up the road, lower than the rooftops. Moranth … attacking? Cover. It’s using the streets to hide. Hide from what?

Another close burst sent up a new wave of shrieks and panic through the pressing crowd.

Barathol turned to Scillara, who carried Chaur pressed against her chest. ‘I’m going to-’

‘No, you’re not!’ she cut in. ‘We’re all going together.’ She twisted a fist in his shirtsleeve, yanking. ‘And we’re going in this goddamned direction!’

He smiled at the admonishment and pressed a hand over hers. ‘Yes. Let’s get out of here.’ He moved out in front of her and started pushing a way through the crowd.

*

Studious Lock pushed open the main front door of the Nom manor house and regarded the night. It was very dark and very noisy. There was some sort of local celebration going on nearby. Very annoying. No doubt this was what the Mistress’s odd instructions regarded.

‘Guards,’ he called.

Three figures approached from the gloom.

Studious paused, a finger raised. Three? Was his vision going? Seeing triples now? He counted: ‘One, two … three.’

He decided to fall back on the elegance of logic and biology — the process of elimination.

Let us see, now. The tall fat one, Madrun, I know. As do I the tall skinny one, Lazan. That leaves the one in the middle who is neither as tall nor as fat nor as skinny as the other two. There we have it! Logic and biology clarify all issues.

He extended a gauze-wrapped finger towards the middle guard. ‘And you are, what? A polyp? A bud? Has one of you reproduced?’

‘Nay, Studlock,’ the fat one boomed. ‘What we have here is our first apprentice.’

First? Most alarming. ‘Apprentice? Apprentice in what? Guarding?’

‘Our philosophy and concomitant way of life,’ Lazan explained.

Ah, there you have it. All is clear now. ‘Very good.’ He examined the newcomer: wide loose pantaloons ballooning down to tight high leather boots. A wide gold sash over a loose silk shirt of the brightest verdant green. Studious knew himself no reliable judge of expressions and emotions, but it appeared to him as if the man standing before him was a touch embarrassed.

‘Dressed appropriately, I see,’ Studious commented, hoping to set him at ease. ‘Now. I have instructions for you from the Mistress. Please pay due attention and enact due diligence.’

‘Of course,’ Madrun assured him smoothly. ‘We are all seriousness.’

And the man’s face is straight as he says this — humorous byplay perhaps? How quaint.

‘Attend now, please.’

*

In the Eldra Iron Mongers in the far west of the city a man stood watching from the highest window of the old manor house. Leaning closer to the dirty glazing, he rubbed an even filthier rag over the glass, then hunched, peering. Through the rippled glazing the bursts of munitions reached him like flashes of fireworks during any one of