The first three tales of Bauchelain and Korbal Broach, the famed necromancers from the Malazan Book of the Fallen, collected in one volume. BLOOD FOLLOWS In the port city of Lamentable Moll, a diabolical killer stalks the streets and panic grips the citizens like a fever. As Emancipor Reese's legendary ill luck would have it, his previous employer is the unknown killer's latest victim. But two strangers have come to town and they have posted in Fishmonger's Round a note, reeking of death-warded magic, requesting the services of a manservant... THE HEALTHY DEAD The city of Quaint's zeal for goodness can be catastophic, and no one knows this better than Bauchelain and Korbal Broach, two stalwart champions of all things bad.The homicidal necromancers - and their substance-addled manservant, Emancipor Reese - find themeselves ensnared in a scheme to bring goodness into utter ruination. Sometimes you must bring down civilization...in the name of civilization. THE LEES OF LAUGHTER'S END After their blissful sojourn in Lamentable Moll, the sorcerors Bauchelain and Korbal Broach - along with their manservant, Emancipor Reese -set out on the open seas aboard the sturdy ship Suncurl. Alas, there's more baggage in the hold than meets the beady eyes of the crew, and unseemly terrors awaken. For Bauchelain, Korbal Broach and Emancipor Reese, it is just one more night on the high seas, on a journey without end. "This collection of edgy and violent narratives tied to Erikson's Malazon Empire series pushes the boundaries of epic fantasy with morally ambiguous protagonists, bloody altercations and gritty world-building." ― Publishers Weekly STEVEN ERIKSON is an archaeologist and anthropologist and a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. His Malazan Book of the Fallen series has met widespread international acclaim and established him as a major voice in the world of fantasy fiction. The first book in the series, Gardens of the Moon , was shortlisted for a World Fantasy Award. The second novel, Deadhouse Gates , was voted one of the ten best fantasy novels of the year by SF Site . He lives in Canada. Bauchelain and Korbal Broach Three Short Novels of the Malazan Empire Volume One By Steven Erikson A Tom Doherty Associates Copyright © 2007 Steven Erikson All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-7653-2422-1 Contents Blood Follows, The Lees of Laughter's End, The Healthy Dead, Tor Books by Steven Erikson, CHAPTER 1 BLOOD FOLLOWS THE BELLS PEALED ACROSS THE LAMENTABLE CITY OF Moll, clamouring along the crooked, narrow alleys, buffeting the dawn-risers hurriedly laying out their wares in the market rounds. The bells pealed, tumbling over the grimy cobblestones, down to the wharfs and out over the bay's choppy, gray waves. Shrill iron, the bells pealed with the voice of hysteria. The terrible, endless sound echoed deep inside the slate-covered barrows that humped the streets, tilted the houses and cramped the alleyways in every quarter of Moll. Barrows older than the Lamentable City itself, each long ago riven through and tunnelled in fruitless search for plunder, each now remaining like a pock, the scarring of some ancient plague. The bells reached through to the scattered, broken bones bedded down in hollowed-out logs, amidst rotted furs and stone tools and weapons, bone and shell beads and jewellery, the huddled forms of hunting dogs, the occasional horse with its head removed and placed at its master's feet, the skull with the spike-hole gaping between the left eye and ear. Echoing among the dead, bestirring the shades in their centuries-long slumber. A few of these dread shades rose in answer to that call, and in the darkness moments before dawn they'd lifted themselves clear of the slate and earth and potsherds, scenting the presence of ... someone, something. They'd then returned to their dark abodes — and for those who saw them, for those who knew something of shades, their departure seemed more like flight. In Temple Round, as the sun edged higher over the hills inland, the saving wells, fountains and bowl-stones overflowed with coin: silver and gold glinting among the beds of copper. Already crowds gathered outside the high-walled sanctuaries of Burn — relieved and safe under the steamy morning light — there to appease the passing over of sudden death, and to thank the Sleeping Goddess, who slept still. And many a manservant was seen exiting the side-postern of Hood's Temple, for the rich were ever wont to bribe away the Lord of Death, so that they might awaken to yet another day, gentled of spirit in the the Lord of Death, so that they might awaken to yet another day, gentled of spirit in their soft beds. It was the monks of the Queen of Dreams for whom the night just past was cause for mourning, with clanging dirge of iron, civilisation's scarred, midnight face. For that face had a name, and it was Murder. And so the bells rang on, a shroud of fell sound descending upon the port of