From above, the voices of sailors as the ship angled in towards the jetty, and some deeper, more distant sound, from the dockfront itself.
And that one felt… unpleasant.
We've been betrayed. All of us.
The door squealed open behind him.
Bottle closed his eyes.
The Adjunct spoke. 'We're close. The High Mage is ready to send you across – you will find him in my cabin. I trust you are ready, soldier.'
'Aye, Adjunct.' He turned, studied her face in the gloom of the corridor where she stood. The extremity of emotion within her was revealed only in a tightness around her eyes. Desperate.
'You must not fail, Bottle.'
'Adjunct, the odds are against me-'
'T'amber says you must seek help. She says you know who.'
T'amber, the woman with those damned eyes. Like a lioness. What is it, damn it, about those eyes? 'Who is she, Adjunct?'
A flicker of something like sympathy in the woman's gaze. 'Someone… a lot more than she once was, soldier.'
'And you trust her?'
'Trust.' She smiled slightly. 'You must know, as young as you are, Bottle, that truth is found in the touch. Always.'
No, he did not know. He did not understand. Not any of it. Sighing, he rose, stuffing the limp doll beneath his jerkin, where it sat nestled alongside the sheathed knife under his left arm. No uniform, no markings whatsoever that would suggest he was a soldier of the Fourteenth – the absence of fetishes made him feel naked, vulnerable.
'All right,' he said.
She led him to her cabin, then halted at the doorway. 'Go on. I must be on deck, now.'
Bottle hesitated, then said, 'Be careful, Adjunct.'
A faint widening of the eyes, then she turned and walked away.
Kalam stood at the stern, squinting into the darkness beyond where transports were anchoring. He'd thought he'd heard the winching of a longboat, somewhere a few cables distant from shore. Against every damned order the Adjunct's given this night.
Well, even he wasn't pleased with those orders. Quick Ben slicing open a sliver of a gate – even that sliver might get detected, and that would be bad news for poor Bottle. He'd step out into a nest of Claw.
He wouldn't stand a chance. And who might come through the other way?
All too risky. All too… extreme.
He rolled his shoulders, lifting then shrugging off the tension. But the tautness came back only moments later. The palms of the assassin's hands were itching beneath the worn leather of his gloves. Decide, damn you. Just decide.
Something skittered on the planks to his right and he turned to see a shin-high reptilian skeleton, its long snouted head tilting as the empty eye sockets regarded him. The segmented tail flicked.
'Don't you smell nice?' the creature hissed, jaws clacking out of sequence. 'Doesn't he smell nice, Curdle?'
'Oh yes,' said another thin voice, this time to Kalam's left, and he glanced over to see a matching skeleton perched on the stern rail, almost within reach. 'Blood and strength and will and mindfulness, nearly a match to our sweetheart. Imagine the fight between them, Telorast. Wouldn't that be something to see?'
'And where is she?' Kalam asked in a rumble. 'Where's Apsalar hiding?'
'She's gone,' Curdle said, head bobbing.
'What?'
'Gone,' chimed in Telorast with another flick of the tail. 'It's only me and Curdle who are hiding right now. Not that we have to, of course.'
'Expedience,' explained Curdle. 'It's scary out there tonight. You have no idea. None.'
'We know who's here, you see. All of them.'
Now, from the dark waters, Kalam could hear the creak of oars. Someone had indeed dropped a longboat and was making for shore. Damned fools – that mob will tear them to pieces. He turned about and set off for the mid deck.
The huge jetty appeared to starboard as the ship seemed to curl round, its flank sidling ever closer. The assassin saw the Adjunct arrive from below and he approached her.
'We've got trouble,' he said without preamble. 'Someone's going ashore, in a longboat.'
Tavore nodded. 'So I have been informed.'
'Oh. Who, then?'
From nearby T'amber said, 'There is a certain… symmetry to this. A rather bitter one, alas. In the longboat, Kalam Mekhar, are Fist Tene Baralta and his Red Blades.'
The assassin frowned.
'Deeming it probable, perhaps,' T'amber continued, 'that our escort coming down from Mock's Hold will prove insufficient against the mob.'