Thordy wasn’t sure what all that misery was about, though she had some ideas. Her, for one. The pathetic patch of ground she had for her vegetables. Her barren womb. The way age and hard work was wearing her down, stealing the glow she’d once had. Oh, there was plenty about her that made him miserable. And, all things considered, she’d been lucky to have him for so long, especially when he’d worked the nets on that fisher boat, the nets that, alas, had taken all his fingers that night when something big had waited down below, motionless and so unnoticed as the crew hauled the net aboard. Then it exploded in savage power, making for the river like a battering ram. Gaz’s fingers, all entwined, sprang like topped carrots, and now he had thumbs and rows of knuckles and nothing else.

Fists made for fighting, he’d say with an unconscious baring of his teeth. That and nothing moie.

And that was true enough and good reason, she supposed, for getting drunk every chance he could.

Lately, however, she’d been feeling a little less generous-no, she’d been feeling not much of anything at all. Even pity had dwindled, whispered away like a dry leaf on the autumn wind. And it was as if he had changed, right in front of her eyes, though she now understood that what had changed was behind her eyes-not the one looked at, but the one doing the looking. She no longer recoiled in the face of his fury. No longer shied from that marching tilt and all its useless anger, and would now study it, seeing its futility, seeing the self-pity in that wounded pitch.

She was empty, then, and she had first thought she would remain so, probably for the rest of her life. Instead, something had begun to fill the void. At first, it arrived with a start, a twinge of guilt, but not any more. Now, when thoughts oi murder filled her head, it was like immersing herself in a scented bath.

Gaz was miserable. He said so. He’d be happier if he were dead.

And, truth be told, so would she.

All this love, all this desperate need, and he was useless. She should have driven him out of her life long ago, and he knew it. Holding on to him the way she was doing was torture. He’d told her he only fought weaklings. Fools and worse. He told her he did it to keep his arms strong, to harden his knuckles, to hold on to (hah, that was a good one) some kind of reason for staying alive. A man needs a skill, aye, and no matter if it was good or bad, no matter at all. But the truth was, he chose the meanest, biggest bastards he could find. Proving he could, proving those knuckles and their killing ways.

Killing, aye. Four so far, that he was sure of.

Sooner or later, Gaz knew, the coin would flip, and it would be his cold corpse lying face down in some alley. Well enough. When you pay out more than you’re worth, again and again, eventually somebody comes to collect.

She’d not mourn him, he knew. A man in love could see when the one he loved stopped loving him back. He did not blame her, and did not love her any less; no, his need just got worse.

The Blue Ball Tavern occupied one corner of a massive, decrepit heap of tenements that stank of urine and rotting rubbish. In the midst of the fete, the nightly anarchy on these back streets up from the docks reached new heights, and Gaz was not alone in hunting the alleys for trouble.

It occurred to him that maybe he wasn’t as unusual as he might have once believed. That maybe he was just one among thousands of useless thugs in this city, all of them hating themselves and out sniffing trails like so many mangy dogs. Those who knew him gave him space, slinking back from his path as he stalked towards his chosen fighting grounds, behind the Blue Ball. That brief thought-about other people, about the shadowed faces he saw around him-was shortlived, flitting away with the first smell of blood in the damp, sultry air.

Someone had beaten him to it, and might even now be swaggering out the opposite end of the alley. Well, maybe the fool might circle hack, and he could deliver to the bastard what he’d done to somebody else-and there was the body, the huddled, motionless shape. Walking up, Gaz nudged it with one boot. Heard a blood-frothed wheeze. Slammed his heel down on the riboage, just to hear the snap and crunch. A cough, spraying blood, a low groan, then a final exhalation.

Done, easy as that.

‘Are you pleased, Gaz?’

He spun round at the soft, deep voice, forearms lifting Into a guard he expected to fail-but the fist he thought was coming never arrived, and, swearing, he stepped back until his shoulders thudded against the wall, glared in growing fear at the tall, shrouded figure standing before him, ‘I ain’t afraid,’ he said In a bellingerent growl,

Amusement washed up against him like a wave. ‘Open yourself, Gaz. Your soul, Welcome your god,’

Gaz could feel the air on his teeth, could feel his lips stretching until cracks split to ooze blood. His heart hammered at his chest. ‘I ain’t got no god. I’m nothing but curses, and I don’t know you. Not at all.’

‘Of course you do, Gaz. You have made sacrifice to me, six times now. And counting.’

Gaz could not see the face within the hood, but the air between them was suddenly thick with some pungent, cloying scent. Like cold mud, the kind that ran in turgid streams behind slaughterhouses. He thought he heard the buzz of flies, but the sound was coming from somewhere inside his own head. ‘I don’t kill for you,’ he said, his voice thin and weak.

‘You don’t have to. I do not demand sacrifices. There is… no need. You mortals consecrate any ground you choose, even this alley. You drain a life on to it. Nothing more is required. Not intent, not prayer, nor invocation. I am summoned, without end.’

‘What do you want from me?’

‘For now, only that you continue harvesting souls. When the time comes for more than that, Gaz of the Gadrobi, you will be shown what must be done.’

‘And if I don’t want-’

‘Your wants are not relevant.’

He couldn’t get that infernal buzzing out of his skull. He shook his head, squeezed shut his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again the god was gone.

The flies. The flies axe in my head. Gods, get out!

Someone had wandered into the alley, weaving, mumbling, one hand held out to fend off any obstacles.

I can get them out. Yes! And, all at once, he knew the truth of that, knew that killing would silence those cursed flies. Swinging round, he pitched forward, hands lifting, and fast-marched towards the drunken fool.

Who looked up at the last moment, in time to meet those terrible knuckles.

Krute of Talient slowed as he approached the recessed entrance to the tenement where he now lived. Someone was standing in the shadows, blocking the door. He halted ten paces away. ‘That was good work,’ he said. ‘You was behind me most of the way, making me think you wasn’t good at all, but now here you are.’

‘Hello, Krute.’

At that voice Krute started, then leaned forward, trying to pierce the gloom. Nothing but a shape, but it was, he concluded, the right shape. ‘Gods below, I never thought you’d come back. Do you have any idea what’s happened since you vanished?’

‘No. Why don’t you tell me?’

Krute grinned. ‘I can do that, but not out here.’

‘You once lived in a better neighbourhood, Krute.’

He watched Rallick Nom step out from the alcove and his grin broadened. ‘You ain’t changed at all. And yes, I’ve known better times-and I hate to say it, but you’re to blame, Rallick.’

The tall, gaunt assassin turned to study the tenement building. ‘You live here? And it’s my fault?’

‘Come on,’ Krute said, ‘let’s get inside. Top floor, of course, an alley corner-easy to the roof, dark as Hood’s armpit. You’ll love it.’

A short time later they sat in the larger of the two rooms, a scarred table between them on which sat a stubby candle with a badly smoking wick, and a clay jug of sour ale. The two assassins held tin cups, both of which leaked.