Deadhouse Gates (The Malazan Book of the Fallen #2) 34

The assassin dropped the bow and closed swiftly on the shouting, frightened men. A brace of knives in his right hand, Kalam selected his targets. His left hand was a blur as he threw the first knife. A warrior screamed. Another caught sight of the assassin.

Kalam unsheathed his long-knife and close-work dagger. A tulwar flashed at his head. He ducked, stepped close and stabbed the man under the chin. With no solid bone to bite down on the dagger blade, he was instantly able to withdraw it, in time to parry a lance thrust, take another step and stab the long-knife's point into a man's throat.

A tulwar skidded across his shoulders, the blow too wild to penetrate the chain under Kalam's telaba. He spun, a backhand slice opening the attacker's cheek and nose. The man reeled.

The assassin kicked him away. The three warriors still prepared to fight, and Bordu's guard, all backed off to regroup. Their reaction made it clear that they imagined that a whole squad had attacked them. Kalam took advantage of their frantic searching of the shadows to finish off the man whose face he'd cut.

'Spread out!' one of the warriors hissed. 'Jelem, Hanor, get the crossbows—'

Waiting for that was suicide. Kalam attacked, rushing the man who'd taken command. He backed off desperately, the tulwar in his hand twitching in every direction as he tried to follow the assassin's intricate feints, hoping to catch the one feint that was in fact the genuine attack. Then instinct made the man abandon the effort and lash out in a counterattack.

Which the assassin had been waiting for. He intercepted the downward swing at the man's wrist – with the point of his dagger. Spitting his arm on the blade, the warrior screamed in pain, weapon flying from a spasming hand.

Kalam thrust the long-knife into the man's chest, ducked and spun to evade a rushing attack from Bordu's guard. The move was a surprise, since the assassin had not expected to find much courage in the man. He came very close to dying then. Straightening inside the guard's reach was all that saved him. Kalam drove his dagger low, stabbing just under the man's belt buckle. Hot fluid gushed over the assassin's forearm. The guard shrieked, doubling over, trapping both knife and the hand gripping it.

The assassin surrendered the weapon and stepped around the guard.

The remaining two warriors crouched twenty feet away, loading their crossbows. The weapons were Malazan, assault-issue, and both men revealed a fatal lack of familiarity with the loading mechanisms. Kalam himself could ready such a crossbow in four seconds.

He did not grant the warriors even that, closing with them in a flash. One still tried to lock the crank, his frantic terror undoing his efforts as the quarrel jumped from its slot and fell to the ground. The other man tossed his crossbow down with a snarl and retrieved his tulwar in time to meet Kalam's charge. He had advantage in both the reach and weight of his weapon, yet neither availed him when a sudden loss of courage froze him in his tracks.

'Please—'

The word rode his last breath as Kalam batted the tulwar aside and cross-swung his long-knife's razor-sharp edge, opening the warrior's throat. The swing continued, spinning to transform into a sideways thrust that pierced the other man's chest, through boiled leather, skin, between ribs and into the lung. Choking, the warrior crumpled. The assassin finished him with another thrust.

Behind the moans of Bordu's guard lay silence. From a copse of low trees thirty paces down the river bed came the first peeps of birds awakening to dawn. Kalam dropped to one knee, sucking in lungfuls of sweet, cool air.

He heard a horse descend the south bank and turned to see Minala. The crossbow in her hands pointed from one corpse to the next as she checked the clearing, then she visibly relaxed, fixing Kalam with wide eyes. 'I count eight.'

Still struggling for breath, the assassin nodded. He reached out and cleaned his long-knife's blade and hilt on his last victim's telaba, then checked the weapon's edge before sheathing it at his side.

Bordu's guard finally fell silent.

'Eight.'

'How's the captain?'

'Awake. Groggy, maybe fevered.'

'There's another clearing about forty paces east of here,' Kalam said. 'I suggest we camp there for the day. I need some sleep.'

'Yes.'

'We need to strip this camp ... the bodies...'

'Leave that to Selv and me. We don't shock easily. Any more...'

With a grunt the assassin straightened and went to retrieve his other weapons. Minala watched him.

'There were two others,' she said.

Kalam paused over a body, looked up. 'What?'