Fiddler whistled softly, leaned his arms on the parapet. “I stand corrected.”

“Anything else, Sapper?”

“Just one,” Fiddler replied, deadpan.

Whiskeyjack stiffened. He knew what that tone implied. “Go on.”

“Something's about to be unleashed tonight, Sergeant.” Fiddler swung round, his eyes glittering in the darkness. “It's going to be messy.”

Both men turned at the thumping of the roof's trap-door. High Fist Dujek Onearm. emerged, the light from the room below a broken beacon rising around him. He cleared the ladder's last rung and stepped on to the roof. “Give me a hand with this damn door here,” he called to the two men.

They strode over, their boots crunching on the gravel scatter. “Any word on Captain Paran, High Fist?” Whiskeyjack asked, as Fiddler crouched over the trap-door and, with a grunt, levered it back into place.

“None,” Dujek said. “He's disappeared. Then again so has that killer of yours, Kalam.”

Whiskeyjack shook his head. “I know where he is, and where he's been all night. Hedge and Mallet were the last to see the captain, leaving Knob's Inn, and then he just seems to vanish. High Fist, we didn't kill this Captain Paran.”

“Don't quibble with words,” Dujek muttered. “Damn it, Fiddler, is that your sword lying over there? In a puddle?”

Breath hissed between Fiddler's teeth and he hurried over to the weapon.

“The man's a hopeless legend,” Dujek said. “Shedenul bless his hide.” He paused, seeming to reorder his thoughts. “OK, perish the thought, then. You didn't kill Paran. So where is he?”

“We're looking,” Whiskeyjack said tonelessly.

The High Fist sighed. “All right. Understood. You want to know who else might be wanting Paran dead, and that means explaining who sent him. Well, he's Adjunct Lorn's man, has been for some time. He's not Claw, though. He's a bloody noble's son from Unta.”

Fiddler had donned his weapon and now stood twenty paces away at the roof's edge, hands on his hips. A good man. They're all good, dammit. Whiskeyjack blinked the rain from his eyes. “From the capital? Could be someone in those circles. Nobody likes the old noble families, not even the nobles themselves.”

“It's possible,” Dujek conceded, without much conviction. “In any case, he's to command your squad, and not for just this mission. The assignment's permanent.”

Whiskeyjack asked, “Is the Darujhistan infiltration his own idea?”

The High Fist replied, “No, but whose it is is anybody's guess. Maybe the Adjunct, maybe the Empress herself. So what all that means is we're sending you in anyway.” He scowled briefly. “I'm to relay the final details to you.” He faced the sergeant. “Assuming Paran is gone for good.”

“May I speak freely, High Fist?”

Dujek barked a laugh. “You think I don't know it, Whiskeyjack? The plan stinks. A tactical nightmare”

“I don't agree.”

“What?”

“I think it will do just as it was intended to do,” the sergeant said dully, his gaze at first on the lightening eastern horizon, then on the soldier standing at the roof's edge. Because it is intended to get us all killed.

The High Fist studied the sergeant's face, then he said, “Come with me.” He led Whiskeyjack over to where Fiddler stood. The sapper gave them a nod. A moment later all three stood looking down on the city.

Pale's ill-lit streets wound between the rough blocks of buildings that seemed unwilling to yield the night; behind curtains of rain their squatting silhouettes appeared to shiver before the coming dawn.

After a while, Dujek said quietly, “Danmed lonely out here, isn't it?”

Fiddler grunted. “That it is, sir.”

Whiskeyjack closed his eyes. Whatever was happening thousands of leagues away was being played out here. Such was Empire, and it always would be, no matter the place or the people. They were all instruments blind to the hands shaping them. The sergeant had faced that truth long ago. It had galled him then and it galled him now. The only relief, these days, seemed to come with exhaustion.

“There's pressure,” the High Fist continued slowly, “to disband the Bridgeburners. I've already received the order to merge the Second with the Fifth and Sixth. We'll stand as the Fifth, near full complement. The tides are bringing new waters to our shore, gentlemen, and they smell bitter.” He hesitated, then said, “If you and your squad come out of Darujhistan alive, Sergeant, you have my permission just to walk.”