Kruppe's face remained blank.

“Never mind. Very well, Kruppe.” He turned back to the window once again. “Keep me informed.”

“As always, Baruk, Kruppe's friend.” The man bowed. “And thank you for the wine, it was most delicious.”

Baruk heard the door open then close. He gazed down the street. He'd managed to clamp a hold on his fear. Oponn had a way of making ruins of the most finely wrought plans. Baruk despised that prospect of chance operating in his affairs. He could no longer rely on his ability to predict, to prepare contingencies, to work out every possibility and seek out the one best suited to his desires. As the Coin spun, thus the city.

Added to this the mysterious ways of the Empress. Baruk rubbed his brow. He'd have to instruct Roald to bring him some healing tea. His headache was reaching debilitating proportions. As he brought his hand down past his face his eyes caught a flash of red. He raised both palms into view. Red ink stained them. He leaned forward on the window-sill.

Through a sparkling cloud of dust, Darujhistan's rooftops sprawled, and the harbour beyond. “And you, Empress,” he whispered. “I know you're here, somewhere. Your pawns move unseen as yet, but I will find them.

Be sure of that, with or without Oponn's damned luck.”

BOOK THREE-THE MISSION

Marionettes dance afield beneath masterly hands-

I stumble among them crossed by the strings in tangled two-step and curse all these fools in their mad pirouette-

I shall not live as they do oh, no, leave me in my circled dance-

these unbidden twitchings you see I swear on Hood's Grave is artistry in motion

Sayings of the Fool Theny Bule (b?)

CHAPTER EIGHT

He stepped down then among women and men, the sigil stripped in her foul cleansing of Emperor and First Sword so tragic this treachery. .

He was of the Old Guard commanding the honed edge of Empire's fury, and so in stepping down but not away he remained the remembrance before her eyes, the curse of conscience she would not stand.

A price was placed before him that he glanced over in first passing unknowing and so unprepared in stepping down among women and men, he found what he'd surrendered and damned -

A quarter-hour before dawn the sky held the colour of iron, shot through with streaks of rust. Sergeant Whiskeyjack squatted upon a dome of bedrock up from the pebble beach gazing out over the misty calm surface of Lake Azur. Far to the south on the lake's opposite shore, rose the faint glow of Darujhistan.

The mountain crossing of the night just past had been hell, the Quorl tossed about in the midst of three warring thunderheads. It was a miracle no one had been lost. The rain had since stopped, leaving the air cool and clammy.

He heard the sound of boots accompanied by a clicking noise behind him. Whiskeyjack turned and straightened. Kalam and a Black Moranth approached, picking their way through the mossy tumble of rocks at the base of the slope. Behind them rose the shadowed redwood forest, the patched trunks standing like bearded sentinels against the mountainside.

The sergeant drew a deep breath of the chill morning air.

“Everything's fine,” Kalam said. “The Green Moranth delivered as ordered, and more. Fiddler and Hedge are two happy sappers.”

Whiskeyjack raised an eyebrow. He turned to the Black Moranth. “I thought your munitions were getting scarce.”

The creature's face remained in shadow beneath the hinged helmet.

The words that came from it seemed born from a cavern, hollow and faintly echoing. “Selectively, Bird That Steals. You are well known to us, Bridgeburner. You tread the enemy's shadow. From the Moranth, assistance will never be scarce.”

Surprised, Whiskeyjack looked away, the skin tightening around his eyes.

The Moranth continued. “You asked of the fate of one of our kind. A warrior with but one arm, who fought at your side in the streets of Nathilog many years ago. He lives still.”

The sergeant took a deep breath of the sweet forest air. “Thank you,” he said.

“We wish that the blood you next find on your hands is your enemy's, Bird That Steals.”

He frowned, then gave a brusque nod and turned his attention back to Kalam. “What else?”

The assassin's face became expressionless. “Quick Ben's ready,” he said.

“Good. Gather the others. I'll be laying out my plan.”

“Your plan, Sergeant?”

“Mine,” Whiskeyjack said firmly. “The one devised by the Empress and her tacticians is being rejected, as of now. We're doing it my way. Get going, Corporal.”