where the shout had come from. Nestled the knife up against the Ishlinak s neck.
Don t you move, he murmured, and felt Elkret stiffen away from the touch of the steel.
Don t don t kill him. Harath, stumbling upright from Alnarh s limp form, panting from the fight. Come on, man. You don t have to do that.
I think we do, actually.
But he could already feel the resolve slipping away. The fight had come and gone too fast to arouse the berserker battle fury in him, and now it felt grubby and pointless.
Harath took a step forward, hands out, mastering his breathing.
Come on, brother. He s a friend.
He s not my fucking friend. Egar sighed and shoved Elkret away from him, practically into Harath s arms. Fine, brother. It s your face he s seen. Do what you like.
Harath fumbled the catch, let Elkret slip past him. The injured Ishlinak dropped to his knees, hale arm hanging as slack as the wrecked one. He stared down at Alnarh s body.
The fuck ve you done, man, he mumbled.
What the fuck have you done?
It wasn t immediately clear who he was talking to. But Alnarh at least would not be answering Harath had crushed his old comrade s throat in with the staff lance, and the shaft still lay across the corpse s neck. Eyes and distended tongue bulged outward. In the lantern flicker, it gave the Ishlinak s face the comic-hideous look of a Shaktur devil mask.
We d better get out of here, Harath muttered.
Oh, no. We came here for a reason. Egar nodded at the door. Get that open. One of them has to have keys.
Harath, what the fuck have you done?
Look, we made a lot of noise. They
That s the second time I got to remind you who s paying the piper here? Look for the fucking key.
Harath flinched. But he started pawing over Alnarh s corpse. Egar watched him for a moment, then went to check on the man he d stabbed to death.
The Ishlinak had bled out all over the dusty floor. The leakage looked like some stagnant midnight road puddle the dead man had fallen into from an unruly horse. Egar crouched to search clothing for the keys, saw the vague bulk and motion of his head and shoulders reflected up in the blood as he leaned over. For one slightly dizzying moment, it was as if there was something murky down there in the puddle, staring back up at him. the fuck have you done, Harath
Look, just shut it. Harath s hissed tones, cooking frustration and guilt toward anger. You re fucking alive, aren t you? That s a fucking Dragonbane over there. You know how close he was to slitting your fucking throat like you were livestock? Found it! Here s the fucking key!
Egar stirred from staring down at his blood-sunk other self. Got up away from the black pool with something weirdly approaching relief. Turned back to the others.
Elkret was still kneeling where they d left him, like one of those half-wit penitents you sometimes saw out by the Saffron gate. Harath stood near him, holding up an ornate iron key. He still looked a little sick around the gills, but he was grinning haggardly with it.
Kay?
So open it up.
Elkret looked up at the Dragonbane s voice. His face was a shocked blank.
You d better get out of here, he said quietly. Before they come.
Egar felt an unreasonable creeping at the back of his neck. He glanced around at the shadowed architecture. Before who come?
The angels.
Got no angels following me, son. I m not a convert.
Doesn t matter, Elkret told him. They re watching from on high. Touch what s theirs and they ll come. This was promised. We are all marked as their servants, our suffering will be redeemed.
It rang like scripture, the same shit everyone down here could reel off by the yard, seemingly to gild any given situation the day had to offer. Egar had asked Imrana once if there was a verse to cover shitting correctly, and she d replied soberly that yes, of course there was, there were correct rituals to ablutions as to anything else. He was never very sure whether she was winding him up or not.
Coming out of a Majak s mouth like this, it sounded oddly twisted.
Hey, fuck that shit! Harath, harsh-toned and apparently sharing Egar s distaste. This fucking city s rotted your brains, Elkret. We re Majak the Sky Dwellers are watching over us. That s good enough for me, brother.
The Dwellers won t stop them. It s a light no one can stand against. I ve seen it.
Egar nodded, gave him a tight smile, and hit him. Hook punch, in from the side, palm like a blade, thumb joint into the temple. The old horse-thief standby, knockout in a single unguarded moment the Ishlinak crumpled without a sound.
Right, let s make this fast, shall we?
Harath stared down at Elkret. You didn t have to do that.
Yeah, I did. Now let s go. This place is starting to give me the creeps.
On the other side of the door, the slave quarters were better appointed than some harems Egar had broken into in his time. There was space because in an empty temple, what else are you going to have and an endless retreat of rooms opening off one another left and right like feints from some effete knife fighter falling back. From what they could see in the lantern light, some attempt had been made to clean the place up. There was furniture of sorts scattered at random through the rooms; colored shawls and other makeshift drapery hung at windows, twitching in the night breeze. The ghost scents of cheap soap and cooked food hung in the air.
The slaves were scattered few and far between, much like the furniture. They slept on thin mattresses on the floors or on carved stone benches and alcoves set into the walls. As far as Egar could see beneath the blankets they used to cover themselves, most were young and female, with a few boys leavened into the mix. All were of northern complexion, faces making pale smudges in the gloom. Some of them raised their heads as the two Majak went by, the way hounds will when their master walks past the hearth. But they said nothing, only watched with wary, light-sleeper eyes.
Egar marched Harath back and forth until he had the plan of the place more or less sorted out. The rooms looked to be knotted figure-of-eight style about a pair of narrow courtyards roofed in with stone trelliswork. The sensation of infinite recess was cunningly provided by smaller chambers off to the sides here and there. He guessed they might once have been monk s cells or something
They drifted to a halt, under the eaves in a corner of one of the courtyards.
See her? he asked Harath.
No, man. Irritable, throwaway tone. She s not here. How long are we going to
Egar looked balefully at him and he raised placatory hands.
Yeah, okay, brother, okay. I m paid. I know. But they change the guard at midnight. What are we doing here? What s the plan?
He had a point.
Whatever you came here to do, Dragonbane, better work out what it was, and then get on and do it.
Come with me.
Egar ducked back inside, approached a young girl in an alcove who d propped herself up to look as they passed. Soft-featured, snub nose and small, frightened eyes, he reckoned her not much older than fifteen or sixteen. He set down the lantern, crouched before her to make himself smaller to her terrified gaze. He jerked a thumb back at Harath, spoke soothingly low in Tethanne.
Listen, do you know him?
The girl shrank back into the alcove s limited depths. Face lowered, shaking her head repeatedly.
You sure? He had a thing with one of the girls here, a few weeks back.
Couple of months, corrected Harath.
The dry-trickle thread of a voice. I don t we re not supposed to it s forbidden, please
