The hissing became a loud seething. The drummers now hammered with all their might. Up from the many holes came a boiling tide of writhing insects.
The priestess’s mouth opened in a scream of utter horror that was inaudible beneath the coursing of millions of grating carapaces. A living flood that was now engulfing the pit.
Again, to her credit, she did not try to run, for there was nowhere to flee. She found the tallest of the cracked rocks and stepped up upon it; a promontory of perhaps no more than shin height. There she stood, weaving slightly, a pale island surrounded by a rising sea of ten million hungry mouths.
The carpet of vermin now covered the entire floor of the pit. Waves seemed to course through it as if it were searching, frustrated. Searching for something it knew to be present. Still it rose, deepening. Outliers of beetles and centipedes scuttled up the stone wall. Children armed with sticks ran back and forth, laughing, to flick them back into the mass beneath. Some they captured in tiny wicker baskets to keep as pets.
Eventually, some grubs or maggots climbed the rock the condemned had retreated to and found her naked feet. The entire chitinous sea seemed to flinch. It pulled away from the edges of the pit, gathering towards the middle. The woman screamed again, soundlessly, as the rising flood washed over her feet. It covered her legs, climbing in a thick layer up beneath her skirts. She buckled in agony, mouthing something more, and toppled, to disappear beneath the foaming blanket.
The shapeless hump writhed for a time, struggling, then fell still. After a few moments it began to move – perhaps being dragged, or rolled – towards the nearest opening. While the crowd watched, silent and awed, the seething bulge slid over the edge and disappeared as if down a throat.
The flood of insects followed down the many pit openings like a draining ocean of foam, leaving the bare rock floor picked clean of every scrap of litter and thrown refuse. Of the condemned, there remained not one sign.
The crowd began to rise, heading for the exits. The oldsters in the priests’ section hobbled to their feet. Some walked with the aid of twisted and polished wooden canes. A few helped others with hands under their arms. Koarsden stretched, shading his eyes to study the sun in the sky. ‘That took longer than I thought it would.’ He turned to Tayschrenn. ‘Well … what do you say we find some lunch?’
* * *
Dancer did not think much of this so-called capital city of Malaz. Judging from its grim and derelict character the island itself must be dirt-poor indeed. Low, ancient stone buildings squatted like tombs in the cold rain, roofed in slate, grey shakes, or ceramic tiles. Most were too far apart to allow rooftop runs, except for the very city centre.
He and Wu stood pressed against one of these cold and damp stone walls under the cover of a roof’s ledge while rain pattered down a night-time alley. To warm himself he crossed his arms beneath his cloak and gripped the baldrics over his chest.
‘Damned cold rain,’ he grumbled beneath his breath to Wu.
‘It’s the Storm Straits,’ Wu answered, just as low. ‘A very cold sea. Subaqueous abode, they say, of the daemon Stormriders.’
Dancer snorted at that. ‘Children’s stories.’
‘Not so. We of southern Dal Hon know of them.’ The mage straightened. ‘Here they come.’
Dancer pulled a scarf up over his nose and mouth, shifted his grip to the cold damp iron of his throwing knives.
Two figures came tramping out of the gloom of the alleyway, side by side, hands hidden beneath their oiled sealskin cloaks. Holding loaded crossbows, point down, Dancer judged. Behind came a small woman in a similar cloak, and behind her two more guards.
Dancer stepped out to block the way, throwing blades drawn. The leading pair jerked to a halt, quite startled by his sudden appearance. Their cloaks bulged outwards as the crossbows rose.
Dancer pointed one dagger past them to the woman, who had also halted. ‘Drop your shipment.’ Droplets of rain, he noted, fell from the tip of his extended blade.
‘Who the fuck are you?’ one guard asked, incredulous.
Dancer ignored him. ‘Drop the package,’ he insisted. The woman’s hands remained hidden beneath her cloak. Her eyes moved from Dancer to her guards and back. Her black hair was plastered flat to her skull by the rain. Silver earrings glimmered wet and bright in the dark.
‘Is this, like, a dumbass hijack?’ The guard’s tone held a near-laughing note of utter disbelief.
‘Just take him,’ the woman hissed.
‘Stupid bumpkin,’ the guard sighed, and he and his partner shot from beneath their cloaks. In the same instant, Dancer dropped to the ground, rolled forward, and jammed his blades into their thighs. Both grunted their pain and went down to the wet cobbles, clutching their legs. Springing up, Dancer landed before the woman and slashed her cloak open to reveal sewn pouches hung about her shoulders. These he also slashed loose. The woman pulled a knife from the back of her belt but he grasped her wrist and twisted; the knife fell from her numb fingers. ‘Your men require attention,’ he told her.
‘Get him, damn you!’ she grated, glancing back over her shoulder, then froze; the guards behind her also lay prone on the cobbles. She glared murder at Dancer. ‘You are dead right now.’ He threw a piece of the slashed cloak over her head. ‘We will find you and kill you.’ He tied the cloth there like a hood and pushed her down. ‘It’s a damned small island!’
‘Don’t move till you count to fifty.’
‘Bugger you!’
The pouches, he noted, were already gone. He jogged off up the alleyway. Behind, the woman was already up and tearing at the hood. He turned a corner, picking up his pace, and watched, impressed, as the murk of the shadows seemed to thicken all along his path. He wondered where the little fellow was; surely he wasn’t capable of keeping up with him? Watching from his Warren, he decided. Tracing him somehow.
After taking a very long way round, checking that he was not being followed, he returned to the bar whose ridiculous name Wu had refused to change. Smiley’s. Personally, he hated it. Yet everyone on the island knew it by that name and so he had little choice but to go along with the idiocy.
By this time it was close to dawn. He pushed open the heavy front door and shut it firmly behind him, locking it. Crossing the main common room he paused as a sound reached him.
He scanned the gloom of the murky room until he made out someone sitting at a table, a steaming hot drink before her. Their hostess, Surly. He let his hands fall from his baldrics. ‘You’re up early.’
‘And you’re out late.’
‘My morning constitutional.’
‘Or evening rendezvous.’
‘Nothing for you to trouble yourself over.’
‘True.’ She rose, taking her cup with her, and came to stand before him, arms crossed and cup steaming between them. He was a little surprised, and again impressed, to find that she was almost exactly his height. ‘Unless you’re bringing trouble here,’ she continued. ‘Then I’d be upset. Because, you see, we’ve worked hard to find a place here and we wouldn’t want it pulled out from under us.’
‘“We” being you and your Napan friends.’
She took a sip of her tea, watching him over the brim of the cup. ‘That’s right. Do you have any idea how hard it is to be Napan here on Malaz? Of course you don’t. Our two islands have warred for control of the seas for all history. No one will even give us a berth as a damned rower. It’s a goddamned insult.’
He thought of his own youthful attempts to establish himself from Tali to Heng, and the stinging backhanded treatment he had received from everyone – except Wu. ‘Don’t complain to me about how tough it is, okay? Because you have no idea either.’