A man stepped out from an open archway. A priest of Fener, complete with boar’s tusk tattoos curling across his cheeks. He smiled as he saw her. ‘So this is our fearsome invader.’

Kiska backed away around the walkway.

‘Wait! Stay!’

She heard him coming after her and stepped up and out onto another boar’s head finial, where the wind tugged at her wet clothes.

‘Fener’s blood, child. Don’t!’

She pushed off with her legs as strongly as she could. Her outstretched hands slapped against the ledge of the building opposite. One knee cracked into the stone facings and she almost lost her grip at the shooting pain. She heaved herself up, thanked the gods for the crammed cheek-by-jowl housing of the city, as well as the cheapness of her fellow Malazans, too tight-pursed to pull it all down and start over again.

Prostrate on the rain-slick roof, Kiska saw that the priest still watched her, his face wrinkled with concern. She dragged herself to her feet, then waved.

The old man cupped his hands at his mouth, yelled through the gusting wind: ‘I’ll send a prayer after you!’

She waved one hand in thanks, and limped on despite the burning of her knee.

The final expanse of roof to cross stopped her. Sucking in gulps of cold night air, she stood at the very lip of a third-storey gable, overlooking the stretch of copses and hilly meadow littered by the ruins everyone called Mossy Tors.

She studied the rooftops behind her. What a fool she’d been! To imagine she’d be safe anywhere out of doors! Gods above. Here was high sorcery such as she’d never dreamed to see. It was like stories of great Imperial engagements, when the Malazan mage cadre smashed the Protectress of Heng; the breaking of the legendary island defences of Kartool; the siege of the Holy Cities; or the massed battles far overseas on the Genabakan continent.

As the fear gradually drained away and her heart slowed, she brought her respiration back under control. Dread eased into excitement, a rush such as she’d never known. Her limbs tingled and clenched for action; she felt potent, competent. She could smell the power out there, and she wanted it for herself.

Kiska studied the thinly forested commons. Perhaps her flight hadn’t been as blind as she’d thought. Something was out there, among the trees. She lay down on her stomach alongside the gable. She watched for a time, motionless. Ragged moonlight shone down through the wood; aruscus trunks glowed in the monochrome light as if aflame.

Then movement… what she’d thought to be shadows of branches shifting in the uneven wind resolved themselves into shapes flitting from cover to cover. Grey-clad figures, ghostlike, crawled and darted as they closed on the largest of the moss-covered stone mounds. Through the branches of twin tall cedars a flash glimmered then disappeared – what might have been the faintest reflection of moonlight on polished metal.

Well, these cultists had been following her target earlier, so why not now? After all, how many others could be stupid enough to be out on a night like this, other than herself? Kiska turned to find a route down.

After running across a lane and pushing through thick brush, Kiska edged from tree to tree. Near the middle of the green she stumbled across a body. Whoever this grey – Shadow cultist, she corrected herself – had been, she couldn’t have been much older than herself. Her body slumped to one side, propped up at the base of a lone leafless oak. Kiska knelt to inspect the corpse. The robes were fine-spun linen and from their disarray she guessed the body had been searched. She’d been killed quickly, professionally, by the single thrust of a large weapon from the front. Blood pooled on the girl’s lap, blackening the knotted tree roots beneath her.

Gloves on, Kiska took a handful of the long sandy hair and lifted the head. No one she recognized. But that didn’t mean much if the society was as secret as Agayla claimed. For all Kiska knew, the woman could’ve come all the way from the Free Confederacies said to lie far to the south of Genabackis.

Letting the head loll forward, Kiska glimpsed a discolouration on the woman’s chest. The thin tunic beneath the robes had been torn open. She carefully peeled back the fold of cloth. A tattoo rode high on the woman’s chest: the likeness of a severed bird’s foot. A bird of prey, perhaps a falcon or a hawk. Kiska studied the mark, wondering about its significance. Agayla had mentioned Talons, old rivals to the Claws, but it was the first she’d heard of them. A pocket of wind-driven rain pattered down and droplets fell from her hair. They struck the tattoo and its colours blurred. Fascinated, Kiska rubbed two fingers across the sigil. It smeared into a mess of pigments.

She sat back on her haunches. Well, well. Some sort of recognition sign? A pass? Why a bird’s foot? The Claws came to mind, but she knew the sign of the Claws and this wasn’t it. Yet another mystery in a night virtually raining mysteries. She’d file this one away for later investigation; it had delayed her long enough.

The oak the body lay under rose from a hollow between two low stone walls, so buried in damp blankets of moss as to appear no more than twin and parallel lumps. The cultist might have been guarding this route because it led to a hillock of blocks that, if memory served, should lie along one side of the main formation. Studying the woods, Kiska realized that the unnerving shadow-shifting had ceased. The night was still now. Either the phenomena came and went, or this area was somehow unaffected. Alternately crouching and crawling, she reached a wall that she thought ought to offer a view of the main ruins. She leaned against it, gathered herself, checked her crossbow, then peeked over the top.

She spotted the one she sought almost instantly. He sat against a stone, legs straight out before him, arms crossed, his hood pulled back. His queue of long black hair hung forward over one shoulder. Raising a dark and lean face towards the night sky, he scowled, not liking what he saw. His four bodyguards occupied positions around him: two hunched behind blocks, two standing edge-on against pillars of vine and moss-encrusted stone. Further out, encircling the ancient mound, waited cloaked shapes as motionless as the rocks. Fifty at least. They’d harried her target here, that much was plain. And now they waited – but for what?

Though she wore gloves, Kiska rubbed a hand on her thigh as if to wipe sweat from her palm. No doubt they meant to send the man to their master, just as they’d tried with her. Yet they appeared to be waiting for someone or something… some sign. She damned her luck. Here she was in sight of her quarry, yet he remained as unreachable as if she’d never found him. Damn Fate and the feckless Twins – they played havoc tonight!

The bodyguard with the long tribesman’s moustache and fur cap approached her man, gestured to the north – Mock’s Hold? He nodded, stood, brushed at his loose pants. He pulled his cloak tightly about himself. The guards fell in about him.

Some of the cultists stirred, closing on the outcrop. Kiska counted fifteen. She wanted to hail a warning, but surely the man must know. Then she glanced back over the encirclement and froze. Three extraordinarily tall and thin cultists in ash-pale robes now stood to one side. Where in the Queen’s Mysteries had they come from? It was as if they’d stepped out of the night.

One raised a gloved hand in a negligent gesture and the cultists charged in.

Kiska dashed to new cover to keep her quarry in sight. He and his guards maintained a steady and tight retreat. Cultists darted in, knives flashed, robes twisted and flew, and the man and his companions kept backing off, leaving dead behind. The three commanders, or priests, followed at a distance, observing. Kiska moved parallel to the fight, catching glimpses through the trees: the guards duelling, disengaging, ever edging backwards around her target. Their skill amazed her.