A moment later the ghost was gone.
The cloth-wrapped figure crouched down and collected the blood-smeared quarrel in one gloved hand. Tucked it into a fold of the sash belt, then straightened, and set off.
Through skeins of vicious sorcery, the lone figure moved with blinding speed down the street, deftly avoiding every snare – the coruscating pockets of High Ruse, the whispering invitations of Mockra – and then into the light-stealing paths of Rashan where assassins of the Claw had raced along only moments earlier – and onto their trail, fast closing, a dagger in each leather-clad hand.
Near the harbourfront the Claws began emerging from their warrens, massing by the score, moments from launching an all-out assault on the foreign soldiers, on everyone aboard the two moored ships.
Approaching fast from behind, the figure's movements acquired a fluidity, sinuous, weaving a flow of shadows, and the approach that had been quick transformed into something else – faster than a mortal eye could perceive in this night of gloom and smoke – and then the lone attacker struck the first of the Hands.
Blood sprayed, sheeted into the air, bodies spun to either side from its path, a whirlwind of death tearing into the ranks. Claws spun round, shouted, screamed, and died.
Clawmaster Pearl turned at the sounds. He was positioned over twenty Hands from the rearguard – a rearguard now down, writhing or motionless on the cobbles, as something – someone – tore through them.
Gods below. A Shadow Dancer. Who – Cotillion? Cold terror seized his chest with piercing talons. The god. The Patron of Assassins – coming for me.
In Kalam Mekhar's name, coming for me!
He spun round, eyes searching frantically for a bolt-hole. To Hood with the Hands! Pearl pushed his way clear, then ran.
An alley, narrow between two warehouses, swallowed in darkness.
Moments to go, then he would open his warren, force a rent, plunge through – through, and away.
Weapons in his hands now. If I go down, it will be fighting – god or no godInto the alley, embraced by darkness – behind him more screams, coming closer – Pearl reached in his mind like a drowning man for his warren.
Mockra. Use it. Twist reality, cut into another warren – Rashan, and then the Imperial, and thenNothing answered his quest. A ragged gasp burst from Pearl's throat as he sprinted onward, up the alleySomething behind him – right behindStrokes of agony, slicing through both Achilles tendons – Pearl shrieked as the severed ligaments rolled up beneath the skin, stumbled on feet that felt like clods of mud, shifting hopelessly beneath him.
Sprawling, refusing to release his weapons, still grasping out for his warrenBlade-edges licking like tongues of acid. Hamstrings, elbows – then he was lifted from the blackened cobbles by a single hand, and thrown into a wall. The impact shattered half his face, and as he fell backward, that hand returned, fingers digging in, forcing his head back. Cold iron slashed into his mouth, slicing, severing his tongue.
Choking on blood, Pearl twisted his head around – he was grasped again, thrown into the opposite wall, breaking his left arm. Landing on his side – a foot hammered down on the point of his hip, the bone cradle collapsing into a splintered mess beneath it – gods, the pain, sweeping up through his mind, overwhelming him – his warren – where?
All motion ceased.
His attacker was standing over him. Crouching down. Pearl could see nothing – blood filled his eyes – a savage ringing filled his head, nausea rising up his throat, spilling out in racking heaves, streaked with gore from the gouting stub of his tongue. Lostara, my love, come close to the gate – and you will see me. Walking.
A voice, soft and low, cut through it all, brutally clear, brutally close. 'My final target. You, Pearl. I had planned to make it quick.'
A long pause, in which he heard slow, even breathing. 'But for Kalam Mekhar.'
Something stabbed into his stomach, was pushed deep. 'I give you back the quarrel that killed him, Pearl.' And the figure straightened once more, walked a few paces away, then returned, even as the first horrifying pulses of fire began to sear his veins, gathering behind his eyes – a poison that would keep him alive for as long as possible, feeding his heart with everything it needed, even as vessels throughout his body burst, again and again and again'Kalam's long-knives, Pearl. You weren't thinking. You cannot open a warren with otataral in your hand. And so, he and I together, we have killed you. Fitting.'
Fires! Gods! Fire!
As Apsalar walked away. Continuing up the alley, away from the harbourfront. Away, from everything.