And we're next.
His uncle had told him that the Council still frantically proclaimed neutrality, desperate in their efforts to separate the city from the now destroyed Free Cities alliance. But the Malazans didn't seem to be listening. And why should they? Uncle Mammot had asked. Darujhistan's army is a contemptible handful of noble sons who do nothing but strut back and forth on Whore Street, gripping their jewelled swords:
Crokus climbed to the estate's roof and padded silently across its tiles.
Another house, of equal height, was before him, its flat top less than six feet away. The thief paused at the edge and looked down to the alley thirty feet below, seeing only a pool of darkness, then he jumped to land softly on the next roof.
He began to cross it. Off to his left rose the stark silhouette of K'rul's belfry tower, gnarled like a bony fist thrust into the night sky. Crokus brought one hand down to the leather bag tied to his belt, probing with his fingers the knot and the condition of the drawstrings. Satisfied that all was secure, he checked the turban tucked beneath a strap of his harness. All was well. He continued his soundless way across the rooftop. A fine night indeed. Crokus smiled to himself.
Talo Krafar opened his eyes. Dazed and uncomprehending, he stared about himself. Where was he? Why did he feel so weak? Then memory returned, and a groan slipped from his lips. He had blacked out, leaning here against this marble pillar. But what had awoken him? Stiffening, the assassin pushed himself up on the dusty column and scanned the rooftops below. There! A figure moved across the flat top of a building less that fifty feet away.
Now, you bastard. Now. He raised his crossbow, anchoring one elbow against the pillar. He had already cocked his weapon, though he had no memory of having done so. At this distance there was no chance of missing. In seconds his stalker would be dead. Talo bared his teeth and took careful aim.
Crokus was half-way across the rooftop, one hand tracing the silk finery of the turban snug over his heart, when a coin clattered loudly at his feet.
Instinctively he pounced down and trapped it beneath both hands.
Something hissed through the air immediately above his head, and he looked up, startled, then ducked again as a ceramic tile shattered twenty feet away.
He moaned with sudden realization. As he clambered to his feet one hand absently collected the coin and tucked it under his belt.
Talo cursed in disbelief. He lowered the crossbow and stared down at the figure, dumbfounded, until his instinct for danger asserted itself one last time. Whirling, he caught a blurred glimpse of a cloaked figure standing before him, arms raised. Then the arms flashed down and two long, grooved daggers slid into Talo's chest. With a final baffled grunt, the assassin died.
A grating sound reached Crokus's ears and he spun to face the belfry. A black shape tumbled from between the pillars and landed with a thump fifteen feet away. Moments later a crossbow clanged down beside it.
Crokus looked up to see a silhouette framed between the pillars, glittering long-bladed knives in its hands. The figure seemed to be studying him.
«Oh, Mowri,» the thief prayed, then turned and ran.
In the K'rul belfry the killer's oddly shaped eyes watched the thief scamper towards the rooftop's far side. With a slight lifting of its head the killer sniffed the air, then frowned. A burst of power had just frayed the fabric of night, like a finger poking through rotted cloth. And, through the rent, something had come.
The thief reached the far edge and disappeared over it. The killer hissed a spell in a language older than the belfry and the temple, a language that had not been heard in this land for millennia, then sprang from the tower. Enwreathed in magic, the killer's descent to the rooftop below was slow, controlled. The landing came as a light brush on the tiles.
A second figure appeared, its cloak spread like a black wing, from the above darkness to join the first. Then a third, also descending in silence, landed on the rooftop. They spoke briefly. The last to arrive muttered a command, then moved off. The remaining two exchanged a few last words, then set out on the thief's trail, the second one preparing its crossbow.
Ten minutes later Crokus leaned against the sloped roof of a merchant's house to regain his breath. He'd seen no one, heard nothing. Either the killer hadn't pursued or he had managed to lose him. Or her. In his mind returned his single vision of the figure as it stood in the belfry. No, unlikely that it could be a woman-too tall, perhaps six and a half feet, and thin.
A tremor ran through the young thief. What had he stumbled on? An assassin had almost skewered him, and then had himself been murdeied.
A Guild war? If so, it made the rooftops a risky place to be.
Warily, Crokus rose and looked about him.
A tile further along the roof clattered down the sloped side. Crokus whirled to see the killer dashing towards him. One look at the two daggers flashing in the air and the thief darted to the roof's edge and leaped out into darkness.
The building across from him was too distant, but Crokus had chosen his resting place on familiar territory. As he fell into the shadows he reached out grasping hands. The guidewire caught his arms near the elbows and he scrambled frantically for a secure grip, then hung dangling twenty feet above the alley.
While most of the clothes-lines spanning the city's streets were just thin, unreliable hemp, among them were wrapped wires. Placed by thieves generations past they were securely bolted to the walls. By day Monkey Road, as the thieves called it, looked no different from any other line, festooned with undergarments and sheets. With the sun's setting, however, came its true purpose.
With hands burned raw Crokus made his way along the wire towards the far wall. He chanced to glance up then, and froze. On the roof's edge before him stood a second hunter, taking careful aim with a heavy, antique crossbow.
Crokus let go of the wire. A quarrel whizzed directly above his head as he fell. From behind and below a window shattered. His drop was cut short by the first of a series of clothes-lines, tugging his limbs and twitching him about before snapping. After what seemed an eternity of bone-wrenching jerks and the whip of cord slicing through his clothes and flaying his skin, Crokus struck the alley's cobblestones, straightlegged and leaning far forward. His knees buckled. He dipped a shoulder enough to earn a slightly cushioned roll, brought up short when his head struck a wall.
Dazed and groaning, Crokus pushed himself upright. He looked up.
Through vision blurred with pain he saw a figure descending in seeming slow-motion immediately overhead. The thief's eyes widened. Sorcery!
He turned and staggered dizzily before managing a limping run down the alleyway. He reached the corner and, briefly lit by gaslight, hurried across a wide street then entered the mouth of another alley. Once in its shadow, Crokus stopped. Cautiously, he poked his head out from the wall's edge for a look. A quarrel struck the brick beside his face. He jumped back into the alley, spun and sprinted.
Above him Crokus heard the flapping of a cloak. A burning spasm in his left hip made him stumble. Another quarrel whipped past his shoulder and skidded on the cobblestones. The spasm passed as quickly as it had come and he staggered on. Ahead, at the alley-mouth, was the lit doorway of a tenement. An old woman sat on the stone steps puffing on a pipe. Her eyes glittered as she watched the thief approach. As Crokus bounded past her and up the steps she rapped the pipe against the sole of her shoe. Sparks rained on to the cobbles.