The sergeant's face tightened. “The subject's closed on Sorry. And don't tell me what I think, Wizard.” He faced Kalam. “All right. You think Empire's into killing its own these days. You think Laseen's cleaning house, maybe? Or someone close to her? Getting rid of certain people. Fine. Tell me why.”

“The old guard,” Kalam replied immediately. “Everyone still loyal to Emperor's memory.”

“Doesn't wash,” Whiskeyjack said. “We're all dying off anyway. We don't need Laseen's help. Apart from Dujek there's not a man in this army here who even knows the Emperor's name, and nobody'd give a damn in any case. He's dead. Long live the Empress.”

“She ain't got the patience to wait it out,” Quick Ben said.

Kalam nodded agreement. “She's losing momentum as it is. Things used to be better-it's that memory she wants dead.”

“Hairlock's our snake in the hole,” Quick Ben said with a sharp nod.

“It'll work, Whiskeyjack. I know what I'm doing on this one.”

“We do it the way the Emperor would have,” Kalam added. “We turn the game. We do our own house-cleaning.”

Whiskeyjack raised a hand. “All right. Now be quiet. You're both sounding too damn rehearsed.” He paused. “It's a theory. A complicated one. Who's in the know and who isn't?” He scowled at Quick Ben's expression. “Right, that's Hairlock's task. But what happens when you come face to face with someone big, powerful and mean?”

“Like Tayschrenn?” The Wizard grinned.

“Right. I'm sure you've got an answer. Let's see if I can work it out myself. You look for someone even nastier. You make a deal and you set things up, and if we're quick enough we'll come out smelling of roses. Am I close, Wizard?”

Kalam snorted his amusement.

Quick Ben looked away. “Back in the Seven Cities, before the Empire showed up-”

“Back in the Seven Cities is back in the Seven Cities,” Whiskeyjack said. “Hell, I led the company chasing you across the desert, remember? I know how you work, Quick. And I know you're damn good at this. But I also recall that you were the only one of your cabal to come out alive back then. And this time?”

The wizard seemed hurt by Whiskeyjack's words. His lips thinned to a straight line.

The sergeant sighed. “All right. We go with it. Start things rolling. And pull that sorceress all the way in. We'll need her if Hairlock breaks his chains.”

“And Sorry?” Kalam asked.

Whiskeyjack hesitated. He knew the question behind that question.

Quick Ben was the squad's brains, but Kalam was their killer. Both made him uneasy with their single-minded devotion to their respective talents.

“Leave her alone,” he said at last. “For now.”

Kalam and Quick Ben sighed, sharing a grin behind their sergeant's back.

“Just don't get cocky,” Whiskeyjack said drily.

The grins faded.

The sergeant's gaze returned to the wagons entering the city. Two riders approached. “All right,” he said. “Mount up. Here comes our reception committee.” The riders were from his squad, Fiddler and Sorry.

“You think the new captain's arrived?” Kalam asked, as he climbed into his saddle. His roan mare turned her head and snapped at him. He growled in return. A moment later the two long-time companions settled down into their mutual mistrust.

Whiskeyjack looked on, amused. “Probably. Let's head down to them. Anybody up on the wall watching us might be getting antsy.” Then his humour fell away. They had, indeed, just turned the game. And the timing couldn't have been worse. He knew the full extent of their next mission, and in that he knew more than either Quick Ben or Kalam.

There was no point in complicating things even further, though. They'll find out soon enough.

Tattersail stood half a dozen feet behind High Mage Tayschrenn. The Malazan banners snapped in the wind, the spars creaking above the smoke-stained turret, but here in the shelter of the wall the air was calm.

On the western horizon across from her rose the Moranth Mountains, reaching a mangled arm northward to Genabaris. As the range swept southward it joined the Tahlyn in a jagged line stretching a thousand leagues into the east. Off to her right lay the flat yellow-grassed Rhivi Plain.

Tayschrenn leaned on a merlon looking down on the wagons rolling into the city. From below rose the groans of oxen and shouting soldiers.

The High Mage hadn't moved or said a word in some minutes. Off to his left waited a small wood table, its surface scarred and pitted and crowded with runes cut deep into the oak. Peculiar dark stains blotted the surface here and there.