Lieutenant Jalaz and her cohort ran pounding down the gangway then dashed for the base of the dock. Would-be stevedores and touts went flying from the wood slats to land in the mud. A gang of hires-words had been lounging at the base of the dock amid crates and bales; now they came to their feet and peered up-slope to the fires. From the bows of the Dawn, Jute watched as the Malazans came crashing into them. In a moment, it was over. All of the toughs were down, either knocked unconscious or heaved over the side where they struggled knee-deep in the mud.

Lieutenant Jalaz now held the dock.

‘Captain?’ Jute turned; Letita stood armed and ready, helmet cheek-guards lowered. He shook his head. ‘Stay on board, master-at-arms.’ The woman’s mouth hardened but she did not object. Jute pointed out over the bows. ‘However, we do have a good view of the dock from here …’

Her lips climbed in a savage grin; she turned to the mid-deck. ‘Archers! Form up!’

The shouts and iron-clash of fighting now washed down to the Dawn. A gang of Gell’s thugs rushed Jalaz’s squad. This time blood flowed as swords were drawn.

More tents burst into flame. The yells and cries swelled to a steady roar. Jute could now make out a running mêlée making its way down the tent city. Everything in its way was trampled and destroyed as it came. Men were running both away and towards it.

A solid crowd now pressed against Jalaz’s position; Jute nodded to Letita. ‘Archers,’ the weapons master called, ‘Thin them out – try to avoid our crew.’

Her team of forty archers opened fire on the crowd.

A strange clacking noise pulled Jute’s attention to the rear. He glanced back and blanched: Benevolent gods forgive us. The Ragstopper’s springals were being brought round to bear on the shore.

He’d seen what they’d done to the fortifications at Old Ruse, and now … civilians? Yet could any soul here truly be counted as an innocent civilian? Very few, no doubt. And those should be fleeing the scene rather than closing on it.

The springals released with twin bangs and fat bolts shot overhead in trajectories lower than the Dawn’s tops’l. Twin explosions lit the darkness and sent geysers of wet earth to the night sky – along with cartwheeling doll-like figures. The mud and debris came pattering across the dock and smacked into the mud flats like wet fists.

Into the profound silence following the eruptions, Lieutenant Jalaz’s voice came bellowing out of the darkness: ‘Watch where yer shooting, y’damned apes!’