There had been signals – those fools with the lanterns on the rooftops, along the wall's battlements.
And the season itself – a city filled with olive oil, an entire year's harvest – she hadn't rushed the army after Leoman, she hadn't shown any haste at all, when any truly loyal commander would have… would have chased that bastard down, long before he reached Y'Ghatan.
No, the timing was… diabolical.
And here he was, maimed and trapped in the midst of damned traitors.
Yet, again and again, events had transpired to befoul the Adjunct and her treasonous, murderous plans. The survival of the marines – Lostara among them. Then, Quick Ben's unexpected countering of those Edur mages. Oh yes, his soldiers reported to him, every morsel of news.
They understood – although they revealed nothing of their suspicions – he could well see it in their eyes, they understood. That necessary things were coming. Soon.
And it would be Fist Tene Baralta himself who would lead them. Tene Baralta, the Maimed, the Betrayed. Oh yes, there would be names for him. There would be cults to worship him, just as there were cults worshipping other great heroes of the Malazan Empire. Like Coltaine.
Bult. Baria Setral and his brother, Mesker, of the Red Blades.
In such company, Tene Baralta would belong. Such company, he told himself, was his only worthy company.
One eye left, capable of seeing… almost… In daylight a blurred haze swarmed before his vision, and there was pain, so much pain, until he could not even so much as turn his head – oh yes, the healers had worked on him – with orders, he now knew, to fail him again and again, to leave him with a plague of senseless scars and phantom agonies. And, once out of his room, they would laugh, at the imagined success of their charade.
Well, he would deliver their gifts back into their laps, all those healers.
In this soft, warm darkness, he stared upward from where he lay on the cot. Things unseen creaked and groaned. A rat scuttled back and forth along one side of the cramped chamber. His sentinel, his bodyguard, his caged soul.
A strange smell reached him, sweet, cloying, numbing, and he felt his aches fading, the shrieking nerves falling quiescent.
'Who's there?' he croaked.
A rasping reply, 'A friend, Tene Baralta. One, indeed, whose visage matches your own. Like you, assaulted by betrayal. You and I, we are torn and twisted to remind us, again and again, that one who bears no scars cannot be trusted. Ever. It is a truth, my friend, that only a mortal who has been broken can emerge from the other side, whole once more. Complete, and to all his victims, arrayed before him, blindingly bright, yes? The searing white fires of his righteousness. Oh, I promise you, that moment shall taste sweet.'
'An apparition,' Tene Baralta gasped. 'Who has sent you? The Adjunct, yes? A demonic assassin, to end this-'