A sound behind him, the faintest scuff, made him turn. A shadow-wrapped figure closed on him. Paran cried out, snatching at his sword. An icy wind washed over him as the figure moved in. The captain backpedalled, seeing the glint of blades in each hand. He twisted to one side, his sword half-way out of the scabbard. His attacker's left hand darted up. Paran jerked his head back, throwing his shoulder forward to block a blade that never arrived. Instead, the long dagger slid like fire into his chest. A second blade sank into his side even as blood gushed up inside to fill his mouth. Coughing and groaning, Paran reeled, careened off a wall, then slid down with one hand grasping futilely at the damp stones, his fingernails gouging tracks through the mould.

A blackness closed around his thoughts which seemed to involve only a deep, heartfelt regret. Faintly, a ringing sound came to his ears, as if something small and metallic was skittering across a hard surface. The sound remained, of something spinning, and the darkness encroached no further.

'Sloppy,' a man said in a thin voice. 'I am surprised.' The accent was familiar, pulling him to a childhood memory, his father dealing with Dal Honese traders.

The answer came from directly above Paran. 'Keeping an eye on me?' Another accent he recognized, Kanese, and the voice seemed to come from a girl, or a child, yet he knew it was the voice of his killer.

'Coincidence,' the other replied, then giggled. 'Someone – something, I should say – has entered our Warren. Uninvited. My Hounds hunt.'

'I don't believe in coincidences.'

Again came the giggle. 'Nor do I. Two years ago we began a game of our own. A simple settling of old scores. It seems we have stumbled into a wholly different game here in Pale.'

'Whose?'

'I shall have that answer soon enough.'

'Don't get distracted, Ammanas. Laseen remains our target, and the collapse of the Empire she rules but never earned.'

'I have, as always, supreme confidence in you, Cotillion.'

'I must be getting back,' the girl said, moving away.

'Of course. So this is the man Lorn sent to find you?'

'I believe so. This should draw her into the fray, in any case.'

'And this is desirable?'

The conversation faded as the two speakers walked away leaving, as the only sound in Paran's head, that whirring hum, as if a coin was spinning, endlessly spinning.

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FOUR

They were of a kind, then

the histories writ large

in tattooed tracery

the tales a tracking

of old wounds

but something glowed hard

in their eyes – those

flame-gnawed arches,

that vanishing span,

they are their own past

each in turn destined

to fall in line

on the quiet wayside

beside the river

they refuse to name ...

The Bridgebumers (IV. i)

Toc the Younger (b.1141)