Steven Erikson - Blood follows

“Excellent. Now, take to your bed here-I’ll need you sharp for your efforts tomorrow.”

“Yes, Master. Thank you, Master.” Emancipor went to the bed and laid down on it. Unduly alarm Guld. Of course. Who me, a necromancer? Really, sir. Huh. He was exhausted, but he didn’t expect to sleep well. Not well at all.

Guld stepped through the entrance to Squint’s. He paused in the unlit threshold, eyes already smarting with the thick, heavy wood smoke layering the crowded, low-ceilinged main room, a murky tide of noise washing over him.

The soldier he’d sent to trail the foreigner emerged from the press and stepped close. “He’s at the back, sir. We can get a better look at ’im from the bar.”

“Lead on,” Guld grunted.

Voices fell away to either side as the sergeant and his guardsman pushed their way to the long, sagging bar running the length of one side, voices that then rose again behind them with evident relief. Squint’s rated among the seediest establishments in Lamentable Moll. Had he wished-and had he another thirty guardsmen-Guld could have arrested everyone present, just on principle.

They reached the bar. The young soldier turned and gestured toward the tables at the back. “There, sir.”

Seated alone with his back to the rear wall was a grey-hooded figure, face hidden in shadows. The grey cloak covering his shoulders was threadbare. From Guld’s position the man’s right leg was visible from the knee down, moccasin-clad, a large hunting knife sheathed alongside the calf. The man’s lean, long-fingered hands, wrapped around a tankard, were deeply tanned and scarred. An unstrung longbow leaned against the wall behind him.

Frowning, Guld stepped forward, but was brought up short by the guardsman’s hand. “No, not him. That one.”

“Ah.” Was wondering about the sudden change of attire… The foreigner he’d noted at the last two murder scenes sat at the table next to the hooded man. Still armoured, his back to the room, he was eating, noisily-for even at six paces away and through the reverberating cacophony of the denizens, his lip-smacking, grunting and snorting was audible. “Wait here, soldier,” Guld ordered, then made his way toward the man.

A local was sharing the foreigner’s table, was talking nonstop. “-so I says to myself, self I says, ‘this ain’t my house! Least, I don’t think it is!’ The roof, y’see, started at barely my chest, and I ain’t a tall man as you can see. Were you here for the rains? Two weeks back? A deluge! So, anyway, what happened? Well, the house’d been sitting atop a barrow-no surprise there, not in Lamentable Moll, right? But a drain had blocked, and the water carved another way down to the sea-right through the barrow under us! The whole damned thing slumped, taking the house down with it! And if that wasn’t bad enough, there was my wife, in bed, but not alone! Oh no! Not my beloved, treacherous Mully! Four-count ’em, four — damned ghosts was in there wi’er. Minor ones, of course-that’s all y’ever get from those barrows-but powerful enough to tickle and poke and nudge and stroke and my, wasn’t they having fun with moaning Mully! And she whimperin’ and beggin’ f’more! ‘More!’ she cries. ‘More!’-”

“Enough,” Guld growled.

The local looked up and nodded. “That’s what I said! I said-”

“Be quiet!” the sergeant snapped. “Find another table. Now.”

The foreigner had glanced up at Guld’s interruption, then had resumed his meal.

“Uh,” the local stammered, pushing his chair back. “Okay. Right away. I hear you, Sergeant Guld-oh yes, I know you. Seen you. Hundreds of times-no, I wasn’t doing nothing illegal, nothing y’could prove anyway-”

“Get out right now,” Guld said, “or I will dispense with the need to prove anything, and throw you in the stocks for a week or three.”

“I’m getting out. Here, see, here I go-”

Guld watched the man slip into the crowd, then sighed and slowly settled down in the vacated chair beside the foreigner. “I have a few questions for you,” he said in a low voice.

The foreigner belched, then grunted and continued eating.

“Where are you from? And why are you so damned interested in murder scenes?”

The foreigner snorted and shook his head, still not meeting Guld’s eyes. “Just seeing the sights, Sergeant,” he said, his accent harsh.

“Moll’s not much, but it’s got more to offer than alleys with dismembered corpses.”

The man paused. “Does it now?”

“Unless, of course,” Guld resumed, “killing is what you do.”

The foreigner collected the last of his bread and began soaking up the broth in his bowl. “If it’s what I do, Sergeant, I don’t do it that way.”

“If that’s what you do,” Guld retorted, “then what are you doing here?”

“Passing through.”

“So you’ll be leaving tomorrow.”

The foreigner shrugged. “Could be.”

“Where are you staying?”

The man finally turned a broad smile on Guld. “That guard you’ve got following me should know.”

The sergeant narrowed his gaze. “He reports to me regularly. If I don’t hear from him at the appointed time, I am personally coming looking for you.”

“As you like.”

Guld rose. “You’ve left a piece of bread,” he observed.

“For the gods.”

“What if they’re not hungry?”

“They’re always hungry, Sergeant.”

Steven Erikson

Bauchelain and Korbal Broach

“Y’look horrible, Mancy,” Kreege said with a grin as Emancipor slumped down at the table. “Subly keepin’ you awake at night, old man?” Kreege winked broadly at Dully who sat opposite him. “Y’ask me, she looks to be a woman of, uh, considerable appetites…”

“I wasn’t asking you,” Emancipor growled, glaring down at his mug of dark ale, “and why should I? It’s not like I don’t know, is it?”

“ ’Course not!” Dully loudly agreed.

“Hey,” Kreege said, leaning back, “you ain’t picked up none of that mange your squeakers come down with, have you?”

“No.”

“Glad to hear,” Kreege sighed. “Had that once. Horrible. Gods forbid, the stuff behind your ears-”

“No more a that,” Dully growled.

Emancipor drank deep, then leaned forward on the table. “I need a ship. Sailing out tonight or tomorrow morning.”

Dully’s brows rose. He met Kreege’s eyes, then both men edged closer. “Well,” Dully muttered, “that ain’t too hard.”

“He’s right,” Kreege nodded. “Easy pickings. Though, it all depends on what exactly you’re looking for. Like, if you want circumspect, you don’t want the Barnsider, since that’s Captain Pummel and he’s an upright-by-the-ledger sort.”

“And if you’re looking for fast and seaworthy,” Dully said, “you don’t want Troughbucket, since she’s been shipping bad and Cap’n Turb’s owing half the lenders in Moll, including Obler, so’s he can’t get the repairs done.”

“ Swarmfly might be a good bet but I heard the rats chased the whole damn crew off and there’s no telling when or if they’ll try storming her.” Kreege frowned, then shook his head. “Maybe not so easy after all, come to think of it.”

Dully raised a stubby finger. “Hold on. There’s one. The Suncurl.”

Kreege choked on a mouthful of beer and the next few moments passed as Emancipor and Dully watched the man hack and gag and choke, his face turning purple before he finally managed to draw a clean breath.

Emancipor turned to Dully. “The Suncurl, you said? Don’t know that one-”

“Come in from Stratem,” Dully explained with a casual shrug. “Needed some refitting here. Me and Kreege did some off-loading, then swung them a good price on iron nails.”