Every field of battle holds every cry uttered
Threaded like roots between stones and broken armour, shattered weapons, leather clasps rotting into the earth.
Centuries are as nothing to those voices, those aggrieved souls.
They die in the now
And the now is for ever.
– On the Deal Plains, Rael of Longspit,
Fire had taken the grasses. Wind and water had taken the soil. The level stretch where the two drainage channels debouched was a scatter of button cacti, fist-sized cobbles and fire-cracked rock. The Letherii outrider’s corpse had rolled down from the ridge leaving a path of spattered blood now black as ink on the rocks. Coyotes, wolves or perhaps Awl dogs had chewed away the softer tissues-face and gut, buttocks and inner thighs-leaving the rest to the flies and their maggot spawn.
Overseer Brohl Handar-who knew he should have died at Bast Fulmar, had indeed believed at that last moment that he would, absurdly killed by his own sword-gestured to two of his troop to remain on the ridge and waved the others to the highest rise thirty paces away, on the other side of one of the gullies, then walked his horse down onto the flat. Steeling himself against the stench of the dead soldier, he forced his reluctant mount closer.
The K’risnan had reached him in time. With the power to heal, a power pure-no stain of chaos-that was, Brohl Handar now understood, a blessing. Kurald Emurlahn. Darkness reborn. He would not question it, would not doubt it. Blessing.
The stub of an arrow jutted from the outrider’s throat. His weapons had been taken, as had the vest of fine chain beneath the light tanned leather shirt. There was no sign of the Letherii’s horse. The buzz of the flies seemed preter-naturally loud.
Brohl Handar wheeled his mount round and guided it back up onto the ridge. He spoke to the Sollanta scout. ‘Tracks?’
‘Just his horse, Overseer,’ the warrior replied. ‘The ambusher was, I believe, on foot.’
Brohl nodded. This had been the pattern. The Awl were collecting horses, weapons and armour. The Atri-Preda had since commanded that no outrider scout alone. To this Redmask would no doubt add more ambushers.
‘The Awl rode southeast, Overseer.’
Days ago, alas. There was no point in pursuing.
Eyes narrowed against the harsh sunlight, Brohl Handar scanned the plain on all sides. How could a warrior hide in this empty land? The drainage gullies had seemed an obvious answer, and as soon as one was spotted a troop would dismount, advance on foot, and plunge into it seeking to flush out the enemy. All they had found were bedded deer and coyote dens.
Areas of high grasses were virtually attacked, both mounted and on foot. Again, nothing but the occasional deer bolting almost from the feet of some startled, cursing soldier; or ptarmigan or thrushes exploding skyward in a flurry of feathers and drumming wings.
The mages insisted that sorcery was not at work here; indeed, much of the Awl’dan seemed strangely bereft of whatever was necessary to shape magic. The valley known as Bast Fulmar had been, it was becoming clear, in no way unique. Brohl Handar had begun with the belief that the plains were but southern versions of tundra. In some ways this was true; in others it was anything but. Horizons deceived, distances lied. Valleys hid from the eye until one was upon them. Yet, so much like the tundra, a terrible place to fight a war.
Redmask and his army had disappeared. Oh, there were trails aplenty; huge swaths of trodden ground wending this way and that. But some were from bhederin herds; others were old and still others seemed to indicate travel in opposite directions, overlapping back and forth until all sense was lost. And so, day after day, the Letherii forces set out, their supplies dwindling, losing outriders to ambushes, marching this way and that, as if doomed to pursue a mythic battle that would never come.
Brohl Handar had assembled thirty of his best riders, and each day he led them out from the column, pushing far onto the flanks-dangerously far-in hopes of sighting the Awl.
He now squinted at the Sollanta scout. ‘Where have they gone?’
The warrior grimaced. ‘I have given this some thought, Overseer. Indeed, it is all I have thought about this past week. The enemy, I believe, is all around us. After Bast Fulmar, Redmask split the tribes. Each segment employed wagons to make them indistinguishable-as we have seen from the countless trails, those wagons are drawn from side to side to side, eight or ten across, and they move last, thus obliterating signs of all that precedes them on the trail. Could be a hundred warriors ahead, could be five thousand.’
‘If so,’ Brohl objected, ‘we should have caught up with at least one such train.’
‘We do not move fast enough, Overseer. Recall, we remained encamped on the south side of Bast Fulmar for two entire days. That gave them a crucial head start. Their columns, wagons and all, move faster than ours. It is as simple as that.’
‘And the Atri-Preda refuses to send out reconnaissance in force,’ Brohl said, nodding.
A wise decision,’ the scout said.
‘How so?’
‘Redmask would turn on such a force. He would overwhelm it and slaughter every soldier in it. Either way, Overseer, we are playing his game.’
‘That is… unacceptable.’
‘I imagine the Atri-Preda agrees with you, sir.’
‘What can be done?’
The warrior’s brows lifted. ‘I do not command this army, Overseer.’
Nor do I. ‘If you did?’
Sudden unease in the scout’s face and he glanced over at the other outrider with them on the ridge, but that man seemed intent on something else, far off on the horizon, as he tore loose bits of dried meat from the thin strip in his left hand, and slowly chewed.
‘Never mind,’ Brohl said, sighing. An unfair question.’
‘Yet I would answer still, Overseer, if you like.’
‘Go on.’
‘Retreat, sir. Back to Drene. Resume claiming land, and protect it well. Redmask, then, will have to come to us, if lie would contest the theft of Awl land.’
I agree. But she will not have it. ‘Sound the recall,’ he said.
‘We’re returning to the column.’
The sun had crawled past noon by the time the Tiste Edur troop came within sight of the Letherii column, and it was immediately evident that something had happened. Supply wagons were drawn into a hollow square formation, the oxen and mules already unhitched and led into two separate kraals within that defensive array. Elements of the various brigades and regiments were drawing into order both north and south of the square, with mounted troops well out east and west.
Brohl Handar led his troop into a quick canter. To his lead scout he said, ‘Rejoin my Arapay-I see them to the west.’
‘Yes sir.’
As the troop turned behind him, the Overseer kicked his horse into a gallop and rode for the small forest of standards marking the Atri-Preda’s position, just outside the east j barrier of wagons. The land here was relatively flat. Another ridge of slightly higher ground ran roughly east-west a thousand paces to the south, while the topography on this north side was more or less level with the trail, thick with the waist-high silver-bladed grass known as knifegrass, a direct translation of the Awl name, masthebe.
Redmask would be a fool to meet us here.
He eased his horse down to a fast trot as he drew nearer. He could see the Atri-Preda now, the flush of excitement on her face replacing the strain that had seemed to age her a year for every day since Bast Fulmar. She had gathered her officers, and they were now pulling away in answer to her orders. By the time the Overseer arrived only a few messengers remained, along with the standard bearer of Bivatt’s own command.
He reined in. ‘What has happened?’
‘Seems he’s grown weary of running,’ Bivatt replied with a fiercely satisfied expression.
‘You have found him?’
‘He even now marches for us, Overseer.’
‘But… why would he do that?’
There was a flicker of unease in her eyes, then she looked away, fixing her gaze to the southeast, where Brohl could now see a dust cloud on the horizon. ‘He believes us tired, worn out. He knows we are short of food and decent forage, and that we have wagons crowded with wounded. He means to savage us yet again.’
The sweat on Brohl Handar’s brow was plucked away by a gust of warm wind. Ceaseless breath of the plains, that wind, always from the west or northwest. It devoured every drop of moisture, turning the skin leathery and burnished. Licking chapped lips, the Overseer cleared his throat, then said, ‘Can sorcery be unleashed here, Atri-Preda?’
Her eyes flashed. ‘Yes. And with that, we will give answer.’
‘And their shamans? What of the Awl shamans?’
‘Useless, Overseer. Their rituals are too slow for combat. Nor can they make use of raw power. We will have at them this day, Brohl Handar.’
‘You have positioned the Tiste Edur once again to the rear. Are we to guard the dung left by the oxen, Atri-Preda?’
‘Not at all. I believe you will see plenty of fighting today. There are bound to be flanking strikes, seeking our supplies, and I will need you and your Edur to throw them back. Recall, as well, those two demons.’
‘They are difficult to forget,’ he replied. ‘Very well, we shall position ourselves defensively.’ He collected his reins. ‘Enjoy your battle, Atri-Preda.’
Bivatt watched the Overseer ride off, irritated with his questions, his scepticism. Redmask was as mortal as any man. He was not immune to mistakes, and this day he had made one. The defender was ever at an advantage, and the general rule was that an attacker required substantial numerical superiority. Bivatt had lost to death or wounding over eight hundred of her soldiers in the debacle that was Bast Fulmar. Even with that, Redmask did not possess sufficient numbers, assuming he intended to advance beyond initial sighting.
Ideally, she would have liked to position her forces along the ridge to the south, but there had been no time for that; and by staying where she was, she would prevent that ridge from factoring in the battle to come. There was the chance that Redmask would simply take the ridge then await her, but she would not play into his hands again. If he sought battle this day, he would have to advance. And quickly. Standing and waiting on the ridge would not be tolerated, not when Bivatt had her mages. Stand there if you dare, Redmask, in the face of wave upon wave of sorcery.
But he was coming. Bivatt did not believe he would seek the ridge then simply wait, expecting her to yield her defensive formation in order to march upon him.
No, he has lost his patience. Revealed his weakness.
She scanned the positioning of her troops. Crimson Rampant heavy infantry to anchor the far left, the easternmost end of her line. Merchants’ Battalion heavy infantry to the far right. Artisan Battalion heavy infantry at the centre. To their flanks, extending out and at double-depth-twenty rather than ten lines-were the assorted medium infantry of her force. Reserve elements of her remaining skirmishers, the Drene Garrison and medium infantry were arrayed closer to the square of wagons. The Bluerose cavalry, divided into two wings, she held back to await a quick response, as either counter-attack or riding to close a breach.
Brohl Handar’s Tiste Edur guarded the north. They would be facing away from the main battle, yet Bivatt was certain there would be an attack on them, another strike for the supplies. And she suspected it would come from the high grasses on the north side of the track.
Rising on her stirrups, she studied the approaching dust cloud. Her scouts had confirmed that this was indeed Redmask, leading what had to be the majority of his warriors. That haze of dust seemed to be angling towards the ridge. The Atri-Preda sneered, then gestured a messenger over. ‘Bring me my mages. On the double.’
The old man had been found dead in his tent that morning. The imprints of the hands that had strangled him left a mottled map of brutality below his bloated face and bulging eyes. His murderer had sat atop him, staring down to witness death’s arrival. The last elder of the Renfayar, Redmask’s own tribe, perhaps the most ancient man among the entire Awl. The Blind Stalker that was death should have reached out a most gentle touch upon such a man.
In the camp fear and dismay whistled and spun like a trapped wind in a gorge, punctuated by terrible wails from the crones and cries announcing ill omen. Redmask had arrived to look down upon the corpse when it had been carried into the open, and of course none could see what lay behind his scaled mask, but he did not fall to his knees beside the body of his kin, his wise adviser. He had stood, motionless, cadaran whip wrapped crossways about his torso, the rygtha crescent axe held loose in his left hand.
Dogs were howling, their voices awakened by the mourners, and on the flanks of the slopes to the south the rodara herds shifted this way and that, nervous and fretful.
Redmask had turned away, then. His copper-masked officers drew closer, along with Masarch and, trailing a few steps behind, Toc Anaster.
‘We are done fleeing,’ Redmask said. ‘Today, we will spill yet more Letherii blood.’
This was what the Awl warriors had been waiting to hear. Their loyalty was not in question, not since Bast Fulmar, yet they were young and they had tasted blood. They wanted to taste it again. The elaborate hare-dance in which they had led the Letherii had gone on too long. Even the clever ambushes sprung on the enemy outriders and scouts had not been enough. The wending, chaotic march had seemed too much like flight.
The warriors were assembled north of the encampment with dawn still fresh in the air, the dog-masters and their helpers leashing the snapping, restless beasts and positioning their charges slightly to the east. Horses stamped on the dew-smeared ground, clan pennons wavering like tall reeds. Scouts were sent off with horse-archers to make contact with the Letherii outriders and drive them back to their nest. This would ensure that the specific presentation of Redmask’s forces would remain unknown for as long as possible.
Moments before the army set out, Torrent arrived to position himself at Toc’s side. The warrior was scowling, as he did most mornings-and afternoons and evenings-when he had forgotten to don his mask of paint. Since it had begun to give him a blotchy rash on cheeks, chin and forehead, he ‘forgot’ more often these days-and Toc answered that belligerent expression with a bright smile.
‘Swords unsheathed this day, Torrent.’
‘Has Redmask given you leave to ride to battle?’
Toc shrugged. ‘He’s said nothing either way, which I suppose is leave enough.’
‘It is not.’ Torrent backed his horse away, then swung it round to ride to where Redmask sat astride his Letherii mount beyond the rough line of readied riders.
Settling back in the strange boxy Awl saddle, Toc examined once again his bow, then the arrows in the quiver strapped to his right thigh. He wasn’t much interested in actually fighting, but at the very least he would be ready to defend himself if necessary. Ill omens. Clearly Redmask was indifferent to such notions. Toc scratched at the lurid tissue surrounding his eyeless socket. I miss that eye, gift of High Derail in what seems ages past. Gods knew, made me a real archer again-these days I’m damned near useless. Fast and inaccurate, that’s Toc the Unlucky.
Would Redmask forbid him his ride this day? Toc did not think so. He could see Torrent exchanging words with the war leader, the unmasked warrior’s horse sidestepping and tossing its head. True enough, how the beast comes to resemble its master. Imagine all the one’eyed dogs I might have owned. Torrent then wheeled his mount and made his way back towards Toc at a quick canter.
The scowl had darkened. Toc smiled once more. ‘Swords unsheathed this day, Torrent.’
‘You’ve said that before.’
‘I thought we might start over.’
‘He wants you out of danger.’
‘But I can still ride with the army.’
‘I do not trust you, so do not think that anything you do will not be unwitnessed.’
‘Too many nots there, I think, Torrent. But I’m feeling generous this morning so I’ll leave the reins loose.’
‘One must never knot his reins,’ Torrent said. ‘Any fool knows that.’
‘As you say.’
The army set out, all mounted for the moment-including the dog-masters-but’ that would not last. Nor, Toc suspected, would the force remain united. Redmask saw no battle as a singular event. Rather, he saw a collection of clashes, an engagement of wills; where one was blunted he would shift his attention to resume the sparring elsewhere, and it was in the orchestration of these numerous meetings that a battle was won or lost. Flanking elements would spin off from the main column. More than one attack, more than one objective.
Toc understood this well enough. It was, he suspected, the essence of tactics among successful commanders the world over. Certainly the Malazans had fought that way, with great success. Eschewing the notion of feints, every engagement was deliberate and deliberately intended to lock an enemy down, into fierce, desperate combat.
‘Leave feints to the nobility,’ Kellanved had once said. ‘And they can take their clever elegance to the barrow.’ That had been while he and Dassem Ultor had observed the Untan knights on the field of battle east of Jurda. Riding back and forth, back and forth. Tiring their burdened warhorses, sowing confusion in the dust-clouds engulfing their own ranks. Feint and blind. Dassem had ignored the pureblood fools, and before the day’s battle was done he had shattered the entire Untan army, including those vaunted, once-feared knights.
The Letherii did not possess heavy cavalry. But if they did, Toc believed, they would play feint and blind all day long.
Or perhaps not. Their sorcery in battle was neither subtle nor elegant. Ugly as a Fenn’s fist, in fact. This suggested a certain pragmatism, an interest in efficiency over pomp, and, indeed, a kind of impatience regarding the mannerisms of war.
Sorcery. Had Redmask forgotten the Letherii mages?
The vast level plain where the enemy waited-the Awl called it Pradegar, Old Salt-was not magically dead. Redmask’s shamans had made use of the residual magic there to track the movements of the enemy army, after all.
Redmask, have you lost your mind?
The Awl rode on.
More than swords unsheathed this day, 1 fear. He scratched again at his gaping socket, then kicked his horse into motion.
Orbyn Truthfinder disliked the feel of soft ground beneath him. Earth, loam, sand, anything that seemed uneasy beneath his weight. He would suffer a ride in a carriage, since the wheels were solid enough, the side to side lurching above the rocky trail serving to reassure him whenever he thought of that uncertainty below. He stood now on firm stone, a bulge of scraped bedrock just up from the trail that wound the length of the valley floor.
The air’s breath was sun-warmed, smelling of cold water and pine. Midges wandered in swarms along the streams of ice-melt threading down the mountainsides, slanting this way and that whenever a dragonfly darted into their midst.
The sky was cloudless, the blue so sharp and clean compared to the dusty atmosphere of Drene-or any other city for that matter-that Orbyn found himself glancing upward again and again, struggling with something like disbelief.
When not looking skyward, the Patriotist’s eyes were fixed on the three riders descending from the pass ahead. They had moved well in advance of his company, climbing the heights, then traversing the spine of the mountains to the far pass, where a garrison had been slaughtered. Where, more importantly, a certain shipment of weapons had not arrived. In the grander scheme, such a loss meant little, but Factor Letur Anict was not a man of grand schemes. His motivations were truncated, parsed into a language of precision, intolerant of deviation, almost neurotic when faced with anything messy. And this, indeed, was messy. In short, Letur Anict, for all his wealth and power, was a bureaucrat in the truest sense of the word.
The advance riders were returning, at long last, but Orbyn was not particularly pleased by that. They would have nothing good to say, he knew. Tales of rotting corpses, charred wood, squalling ravens and mice among mouldering bones. At the very least, he could force himself once again into the Factor’s carriage to sit opposite that obnoxious number-chewer, and counsel-with greater veracity this time-that they turn their column round and head back to Drene.
Not that he would succeed, he knew. For Letur Anict, every insult was grievous, and every failure was an insult. Someone would pay. Someone always did.
Some instinct made Orbyn glance back at the camp and he saw the Factor emerging from his carriage. Well, that was a relief, since Orbyn was in the habit of sweating pro-fusely in Letur’s cramped contrivance. He watched as the washed-out man picked a delicate path up to where stood Orbyn. Overdressed for the mild air, his lank, white hair covered by a broad-rimmed hat to keep the sun from pallid skin, his strangely round face already flushed with exertion.
Truthfinder,’ he said as soon as he reached the bulge of bedrock, ‘we both know what our scouts will tell us.’
‘Indeed, Factor.’
‘So… where are they?’
Orbyn’s thin brows rose, and he blinked to clear the sudden sweat stinging his eyes. ‘As you know, they never descended farther than this-where we are camped right now. Leaving three possibilities. One, they turned round, back up and through the pass-’
‘They were not seen to do that.’
‘No. Two, they left the trail here and went south, perhaps seeking the Pearls Pass into south Bluerose.’
‘Travelling the spine of the mountains? That seems unlikely, Truthfinder.’
‘Three, they went north from here.’
The Factor licked his lips, as if considering something. Inflectionless, he asked, ‘Why would they do that?’
Orbyn shrugged. ‘One could, if one so desired, skirt the range until one reached the coast, then hire a craft to take one to virtually any coastal village or port of the Bluerose Sea.’
‘Months.’
‘Fear Sengar and his companions are well used to that, Factor. No fugitive party has ever fled for as long within the confines of the empire as have they.’
‘Not through skill alone, Truthfinder. We both know that the Edur could have taken them a hundred times, in a hundred different places… And further, we both know why they have not done so. The question you and I have danced round for a long, long time is what, if anything, are we going to do regarding all of that.’
‘That question, alas,’ said Orbyn, ‘is one that can only be addressed by our masters, back in Letheras.’
‘Masters?’ Letur Anict snorted. ‘They have other, more pressing concerns. We must act independently, in keeping with the responsibilities granted us; indeed, in keeping with the very expectation that we will meet those responsibilities.
Do we stand aside while Fear Sengar searches for the Edur god? Do we stand aside while Hannan Mosag and his so-called hunters work their deft incompetence in this so-called pursuit? Is there any doubt in your mind, Orbyn Truthfinder, that Hannan Mosag is committing treason? Against the Emperor? Against the empire?’
‘Karos Invictad, and, I’m sure, the Chancellor, are dealing with the matter of the Warlock King’s treason.’
‘No doubt. Yet what might occur to their plans if Fear Sengar should succeed? What will happen to all of our plans, should the Edur God of Shadows rise again?’
‘That, Factor, is highly unlikely.’ No, it is in fact impossible.
‘I am well acquainted,’ Letur Anict said testily, ‘with probabilities and risk assessment, Truthfinder.’
‘What is it you desire?’ Orbyn asked.
Letur Anict’s smile was tight. He faced north. ‘They are hiding. And we both know where.’
Orbyn was not happy. ‘The extent of your knowledge surprises me, Factor.’
‘You have underestimated me.’
‘It seems I have at that.’
Truthfinder. I have with me twenty of my finest guard. You have forty soldiers and two mages. We have enough lanterns to cast out darkness and so steal the power of those decrepit warlocks. How many remain in that hidden fastness? If we strike quickly, we can rid ourselves of this damnable cult and that alone is worth the effort. Capturing Fear Sengar in the bargain would sweeten the repast. Consider the delight, the accolades, should we deliver to Karos and the Chancellor the terrible traitor, Fear Sengar, and that fool, Udinaas. Consider, if you will, the rewards.’
Orbyn Truthfinder sighed, then he said, ‘Very well.’
‘Then you know the secret path. I suspected as much.’
And you do not, and 1 knew as much. He withdrew a handkerchief and mopped the sweat from his face, then along the wattle beneath his chin. ‘The climb is strenuous.
We shall have to leave the carriages and horses here.’
‘Your three scouts can serve to guard the camp. They have earned a rest. When do we leave, Truthfinder?’ Orbyn grimaced. ‘Immediately.’
Two of the three scouts were sitting beside a fire on which sat a soot-stained pot of simmering tea, while the third one rose, arched to ease his back, then sauntered towards the modest train that had spent most of the day descending into the valley.
The usual greetings were exchanged, along with invitations to share this night and this camp. The leader of the train walked wearily over to join the scout.
‘Is that not the Drene Factor’s seal on that carriage?’ he asked.
The scout nodded. ‘So it is.’ His gaze strayed past the rather unimpressive man standing opposite him. ‘You are not traders, I see. Yet, plenty of guards.’
‘A wise investment, I should judge,’ the man replied, nodding. ‘The garrison fort gave proof enough of that. It stands abandoned still, half burnt down and strewn with the bones of slaughtered soldiers.’
The scout shrugged. ‘The west side of the range is notorious for bandits. I heard they was hunted down and killed.’
‘Is that so?’
‘So I heard. And there’s a new detachment on its way, along with carpenters, tree-fellers and a blacksmith. The fort should be rebuilt before season’s end.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s the risk of the road.’
Venitt Sathad nodded again. ‘We passed no-one on the trail. Is the Factor coming to join you here, then?’
‘He is.’
‘Is it not unusual, this journey? Drene, after all, is on the far side of the sea.’
‘Factor’s business is his own,’ the scout replied, a little tersely. ‘You never answered me, sir.’
‘I did not? What was your question again?’
‘I asked what you were carrying, that needs so few packs and so many guards.’
‘I am not at liberty to tell you, alas,’ Venitt Sathad said, as he began scanning the camp. ‘You had more soldiers here, not long ago.’
‘Went down the valley yesterday.’
‘To meet the Factor?’
‘Just so. And I’ve had a thought-if they come up this night, the campsite here won’t be big enough. Not for them and your group.’
‘I expect you are correct.’
‘Perhaps it’d be best, then, if you moved on. There’s another site two thousand paces down the valley. You’ve enough light, I should think.’
Venitt Sathad smiled. ‘We shall do as you have asked, then. Mayhap we will meet your Factor on the way.’
‘Mayhap you will, sir.’
In the man’s eyes, Venitt Sathad saw the lie. Still smiling, he walked back to his horse. ‘Mount up,’ he told his guards. ‘We ride on.’
A most displeasing command, but Venitt Sathad had chosen his escort well. Within a very short time, the troop was once more on its way.
He had no idea why the man he was sent to meet was on this trail, so far from Drene. Nor did Venitt know where Anict had gone, since on all sides but ahead there was naught but rugged, wild mountains populated by little more than rock-climbing horned sheep and a few cliff-nesting condors. Perhaps he would find out eventually. As it was, sooner or later Letur Anict would return to Drene, and he, Venitt Sathad, agent of Rautos Hivanar and the Letheras Liberty Consign, would be waiting for him.
With some questions from his master.
And some answers.
A shriek echoed in the distance, then faded. Closer to hand, amidst flickering lantern-light and wavering shadows, the last cries of the slaughtered had long since fallen away, as soldiers of Orbyn’s guard walked among the piled bodies-mostly the young, women and the aged in this chamber-ensuring that none still breathed.
None did. Orbyn Truthfinder had made certain of that himself. In a distracted way, torn as he was by distaste and the necessity that no carelessness be permitted. They had been four bells in this subterranean maze, at the most, to mark the first breach of wards at the entranceway in the crevasse and all that followed, from room to room, corridor to corridor, the assault of light and refulgent sorcery.
Whatever elaborate organization of power had held fast in this buried demesne had been obliterated with scarce the loss of a single Letherii life, and all that then remained was simple butchery. Hunting down the ones who hid, who fled to the farthest reaches, the smallest storage rooms, the children huddling in alcoves and, for one, in an amphora half filled with wine.
Less than four bells, then, to annihilate the Cult of the Black-Winged Lord. These degenerate versions of Tiste Edur. Hardly worth the effort, as far as Orbyn Truthfinder was concerned. Even more bitter to the tongue, there had been no sign of Fear Sengar or any of his companions. No sign, indeed, that they had ever been here.
His gaze resting upon the heaped corpses, he felt sullied. Letur Anict had used him in his obsessive pursuit of efficiency, of cruel simplification of his world. One less nagging irritant for the Factor of Drene. And now they would return, and Orbyn wondered if this journey to track down a few wagonloads of cheap weapons had, in fact, been nothing more than a ruse. One that fooled him as easily as it would a wide-eyed child.
He drew out a cloth to wipe the blood from his dagger, then slipped the long-bladed weapon back into its sheat below his right arm.
One of his mages approached. ‘Truthfinder.’
‘Are we done here?’
‘We are. We found the chamber of the altar. A half-dozen tottering priests and priestesses on their knees beseeching their god for deliverance.’ The mage made a sour face. ‘Alas, the Black-Winged Lord wasn’t home.’
‘What a surprise.’
‘Yes, but there was one, sir. A surprise, that is.’
‘Go on.’
‘That altar, sir, it was truly sanctified.’
Orbyn glanced at the mage with narrowed eyes. ‘Meaning?’
‘Touched by Darkness, by the Hold itself.’
‘I did not know such a Hold even existed. Darkness?’
‘The Tiles possess an aspect of Darkness, sir, although only the oldest texts make note of that. Of the Fulcra, sir. The White Crow.’
Orbyn’s breath suddenly caught. He stared hard at the mage standing before him, watched the shadows flit over the man’s lined face. ‘The White Crow. The strange Edur who accompanies Fear Sengar is so named.’
‘If that stranger is so named, then he is not Tiste Edur, sir.’
‘Then what?’
The mage gestured at the bodies lying on all sides. ‘Tiste Andii, they call themselves. Children of Darkness. Sir, I know little of this… White Crow, who travels with Fear Sengar. If indeed they walk together, then something has changed.’
‘What do you mean?’
The Edur and the Andii, sir, were most vicious enemies. If what we have gleaned from Edur legends and the like holds any truth, then they warred, and that war ended with betrayal. With the slaying of the White Crow.’ The mage shook his head. ‘That is why I do not believe in this White Crow who is with Fear Sengar-it is but a name, a name given in error, or perhaps mockery. But if I am wrong, sir, then an old feud has been buried in a deep grave, and this could prove… worrisome.’
Orbyn looked away. ‘We have slaughtered the last of these Andii, have we not?’
‘In this place, yes. Should we be confident that they are the last Andii left? Even in Bluerose? Did not the Edur find kin across the ocean? Perhaps other contacts were made, ones our spies in the fleets did not detect. I am made uneasy, sir, by all of this.’
You do not stand alone in that, mage. ‘Think more on it,’ he said.
‘1 shall.’
As the mage turned to leave Orbyn reached out a huge, plump hand to stay him. ‘Have you spoken with the Factor?’
A frown, as if the mage had taken offence at the question. ‘Of course not, sir.’
‘Good. Of the altar, and the sanctification, say nothing.’ He thought for a moment, then added, ‘Of your other thoughts, say nothing as well.’
‘I would not have done otherwise, sir.’
‘Excellent. Now, gather our soldiers. I would we leave here as soon as we can.’
‘Yes sir, with pleasure.’
heave Letur Anict to his world made simpler. What he would have it to be and what it is, are not the same. And that, dear Factor, is the path to ruin. You will walk it without me.
Clip stood facing south. His right hand was raised, the chain and its rings looped tight. He’d not spun it for more than a dozen heartbeats. His hair, left unbound, stirred in the wind. A few paces away, Silchas Ruin sat on a boulder, running a whetstone along the edge of one of his singing swords.
Snow drifted down from a pale blue sky, some high-altitude version of a sun-shower, perhaps, or winds had lifted the flakes from the young peaks that reared on all sides but directly ahead. The air was bitter, so dry that wool sparked and crackled. They had crossed the last of the broken plateau the day before, leaving behind the mass of shattered black stone that marked its cratered centre. The climb this morning had been treacherous, as so many slabs of stone under foot were sheathed in ice. Reaching the crest of the caldera in late afternoon light, they found themselves looking upon a vast descending slope, stretching north for half a league or more to a tundra plain. Beyond that the horizon reached in a flat, hazy white line. Ice fields, Fear Sengar had said, to which Udinaas had laughed.
Seren Pedac paced restlessly along the ridge. She had been walking with the others, well behind Clip and Silchas Ruin. There was light left to continue, yet the young Tiste Andii had perched himself on the crest to stare back the way they had come. Silent, expressionless.
She walked over to stand before Udinaas, who had taken to carrying the Imass spear again and was now seated on a rock poking the spear’s point into the mossy turf. ‘What is happening here?’ she asked him in a low voice. ‘Do you know?’
‘Familiar with the jarack bird, Acquitor? The grey-crested thief and murderer of the forest?’
She nodded.
‘And what happens when a jarack female finds a nest containing some other’s bird’s hatchlings? An unguarded nest?’
‘It kills and eats the chicks.’
He smiled. ‘True. Commonly known. But jaracks do something else on occasion, earlier in the season. They push out an egg and leave one of their own. The other birds seem blind to the exchange. And when the jarack hatches, of course it kills and eats its rivals.’
‘Then sounds its call,’ she said. ‘But it’s a call that seems no different from those of the other bird’s chicks. And those birds come with food in their beaks.’
‘Only to be ambushed by the two adult jaracks waiting nearby and killed in the nest. Another meal for their hatchling.’
‘Jaracks are in every way unpleasant birds. Why are we talking about jaracks, Udinaas?’
‘No reason, really. But sometimes it’s worth reminding ourselves that we humans are hardly unique in our cruelty.’
‘The Fent believed that jaracks are the souls of abandoned children who died alone in the forest. And so they yearn for a home and a family, yet are so driven to rage when they find them they destroy all that they desire.’
‘The Fent were in the habit of abandoning children?’
Seren Pedac grimaced. ‘Only in the last hundred or so years.’
‘Impediments to their self-destructive appetites, I should think.’
She said nothing to that comment, yet in her mind’s eye she saw Hull Beddict suddenly standing beside her, drawing to his full height, reaching down to take Udinaas by the throat and dragging the man upright.
Udinaas suddenly bolted forward, choking, one hand clawing up towards her.
Seren Pedac stepped back. No, dammit! She struggled to cast the vision away.
It would not leave.
Eyes bulging, face blackening, Udinaas closed his own hands about his neck, but there was nothing to pull away-
‘Seren!’ Kettle shrieked.
Errant fend! What, how… oh, I’m killing him! Hull Beddict stood, crushing the life from Udinaas. She wanted to reach out to him, drag his grip loose, but she knew she would not be strong enough. No, she realized, she needed someone else-
And conjured into the scene within her mind another figure, stepping close, lithe and half seen. A hand flashing up, striking Hull Beddict in his own throat. The Letherii staggered back, then fell to one knee, even as he released Udinaas. Hull then reached for his sword.
A spear shaft scythed into view, caught Hull flat on the forehead, snapping his head back. He toppled.
The Edur warrior now stood between Hull Beddict and Udinaas, spear held in a guard position.
Seeing him, seeing his face, sent Seren reeling back. Trull Sengar? Trull-
The vision faded, was gone.
Coughing, gasping, Udinaas rolled onto his side.
Kettle rushed to crouch beside the ex-slave.
A hand closed on Seren’s shoulder and swung her round. She found herself staring up into Fear’s face, and wondered at the warrior’s strange expression. He-he could not have seen. That would be-
‘Shorn,’ Fear whispered. ‘Older. A sadness-’ He broke off” then, unable to go on, and twisted away.
She stared after him. A sadness upon his eyes.
Upon his eyes.
‘Deadly games, Acquitor.’
She started, looked over to see that Silchas Ruin was now studying her from where he sat. Beyond him, Clip had not turned round, had not even moved. ‘I did not. I mean. I didn’t-’
‘Imagination,’ Udinaas grated from the ground to her right, ‘is ever quick to judge.’ He coughed again, then laughter broke from his ravaged throat. ‘Ask any jealous man. Or woman. Next time I say something that annoys you, Seren Pedac, just swear at me, all right?’
‘I’m sorry, Udinaas. I didn’t think-’
‘You thought all right, woman.’
Oh, Udinaas. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.
‘What sorcery have you found?’ Fear Sengar demanded, his eyes slightly wild as he glared at her. ‘I saw-’
‘What did you see?’ Silchas Ruin asked lightly, slipping one sword into its scabbard, then drawing the other.
Fear said nothing, and after a moment he pulled his gaze horn Seren Pedac. ‘What is Clip doing?’ he demanded.
‘Mourning, I expect.’
This answer brought Udinaas upright into a sitting position. Glancing at Seren, he nodded, mouthed Jarack.
‘Mourning what?’ Fear asked.
‘All who dwelt within the Andara,’ Silchas Ruin replied, ‘are dead. Slaughtered by Letherii soldiers and mages. Clip is the Mortal Sword of Darkness. Had he been there, they would now still be alive-his kin. And the bodies lying motionless in the darkness would be Letherii. He wonders if he has not made a terrible mistake.’
‘That thought,’ the young Tiste Andii said, ‘was fleeting. They were hunting for you, Fear Sengar. And you, Udinaas.’ He turned, his face appalling in its calm repose. The chains spun out, snapped in the cold air, then whirled back inward again. ‘My kin would have made certain there would remain no evidence that you were there. Nor were the Letherii mages powerful enough-nor clever enough-to desecrate the altar, although they tried.’ He smiled. ‘They brought their lanterns with them, you see.’
‘The gate didn’t stay there long enough anyway,’ Udinaas said in a cracking voice.
Clip’s hard eyes fixed on the ex-slave. ‘You know nothing.’
‘I know what’s spinning from your finger, Clip. You showed us once before, after all.’
Silchas Ruin, finished with the second sword, now sheathed it and rose. ‘Udinaas,’ he said to Clip, ‘is as much a mystery as the Acquitor here. Knowledge and power, the hand and the gauntlet. We should move on. Unless,’ he paused, facing Clip, ‘it is time.’
Time? Time for what?
‘It is,’ Udinaas said, using the Imass spear to get to his feet. ‘They knew they were going to die. Hiding in that deep pit took them nowhere. Fewer young, ever weaker blood. But that blood, well, spill enough of it…’
Clip advanced on the ex-slave.
‘No,’ Silchas Ruin said.
The Mortal Sword stopped, seemed to hesitate, then shrugged and turned away. Chain spinning.
‘Mother Dark,’ Udinaas resumed with a tight smile. ‘Open your damned gate, Clip, it’s been paid for.’
And the spinning chain snapped taut. Horizontally. At each end a ring, balanced as if on end. Within the band closest to them there was… darkness.
Seren Pedac stared, as that sphere of black began growing, spilling out from the ring.
‘She has this thing,’ Udinaas muttered, ‘about birth canals.’
Silchas Ruin walked into the Dark and vanished. A moment later there was a ghostly flit as Wither raced into the gate. Kettle took Udinaas’s hand and led him through.
Seren glanced over at Fear. We leave your world behind, Tiste Edur. And yet, 1 can see the realization awaken in your eyes. Beyond. Through that gate, Fear Sengar, waits the soul of Scabandari.
He settled a hand on his sword, then strode forward.
As Seren Pedac followed, she looked at Clip, met his eyes as he stood there, waiting, the one hand raised, the gate forming a spiralling tunnel out from the nearest ring. In some other world, she imagined, the gate emerged from the other ring. He’s carried it with him. Our way through to where we needed to go. All this time.
Clip winked.
Chilled by that gesture, the Acquitor stepped forward and plunged into darkness.
Third Maiden Isle was dead astern, rising into view on the swells then falling away again in the troughs. The ferry groaned like a floundering beast, twisting beneath its forest of masts and their makeshift sails, and the mass of Shake huddled sick and terrified on the deck. Witches and warlocks, on their knees, wailed their prayers to be heard above the gale’s swollen fury, but the shore was far away now and they were lost.
Yedan Derryg, drenched by the spume that periodically thrashed over the low gunnels with what seemed demonic glee, was making his way towards Yan Tovis, who stood beside the four men on the steering oar. She was holding on to a pair of thick ratlines, legs set wide to take the pitch and yawl, and as she studied her half-brother’s face as he drew nearer, she saw what she already knew to be truth.
We’re not going to make it.
Cleaving the lines once past the salt marsh, then up, rounding the peninsula and out along the north edge of the reefs, a journey of three days and two nights before they could tie up in one of the small coves on the lee side of Third Maiden Isle. The weather had held, and at dawn this day all had seemed possible.
‘The seams, Twilight,’ Yedan Derryg said upon reaching her. ‘These waves are hammering ‘em wide open. We’re going down-’ He barked a savage laugh. ‘Beyond the shore, be well as they say! More bones to the deep!’
He was pale-as pale as she no doubt was-yet in his eyes there was a dark fury. ‘Tour’s Spit lies two pegs off the line, and there’re shoals, but, sister, it’s the only dry land we might reach.’
‘Oh, and how many on the deck there know how to swim? Any?’ She shook her head, blinking salty spray from her eyes. ‘What would you have us do, crash this damned thing onto the strand? Pray to the shore that we can slip through the shoals untouched? Dear Watch, would you curl up in the lap of the gods?’
Bearded jaw bunched, cabled muscles growing so tight she waited to hear bone or teeth crack, then he looked away. ‘What would you have us do, then?’
‘Get the damned fools to bail, Yedan. We get any lower and the next wave’ll roll us right over.’
Yet she knew it was too late. Whatever grand schemes of survival for her people she had nurtured, deep in her heart, had come untethered. By this one storm. It had been madness, flinging this coast-creeping ferry out beyond the shore, even though the only truly dangerous stretch had been… this one, here, north from Third Maiden Isle to the lee of Spyrock Island. The only stretch truly open to the western ocean.
The gale lifted loose suddenly, slammed a fist into the port side of the craft. A mast splintered, the sail billowing round, sheets snapping, and like a huge wing the sail tore itself loose, carrying the mast with it. Rigging snatched up hapless figures from the deck and flung them skyward. A second mast toppled, this one heavy enough to tug its sail downward. Yet more tinny screams reaching through the howl.
The ferry seemed to slump, as if moments from plunging into the deep. Yan Tovis found herself gripping the lines as if they could pull her loose, into the sky-as if they could take her from all of this. The Queen commands. Her people die.
At least I will join-
A shout from Yedan Derryg, who had gone forward into the chaos of the deck, a shout that reached her.
And now she saw. Two enormous ships had come upon them from astern, one to each side, heaving like hunting behemoths, their sails alone dwarfing the ferry pitching in their midst. The one to port stole the gale’s fierce breath and all at once the ferry righted itself amidst choppy waves.
Yan Tovis stared across, saw figures scrambling about side-mounted ballistae, saw others moving to the rail beneath huge coils of rope.
Pirates? Now?
The crew of the ship to starboard, she saw with growing alarm, was doing much the same.
Yet it was the ships that most frightened her. For she recognized them.
Perish. What were they called? Yes, Thrones of War. She well remembered that battle, the lash of sorceries ripping the crests of waves, the detonations as Edur galleys disintegrated before her very eyes. The cries of drowning warriors-
Ballistae loosed their robust quarrels, yet the missiles arced high, clearing the deck by two or more man-heights. And from them snaked out ropes. The launching had been virtually simultaneous from both ships. She saw those quarrels rip through the flimsy sails, slice past rigging, then the heavy-headed missiles dipped down to the seas in between.
She saw as the ropes were hauled taut. She felt the crunching bite of the quarrels as they lifted back clear of the water and anchored barbs deep into the gunnels of the ferry.
And, as the wind pushed them all onward now, the Thrones of War drew closer.
Massive fends of bundled seaweed swung down to cushion the contact of the hulls.
Sailors from the Perish ships scrambled along the lines, many of them standing upright as they did so-impossibly balanced despite the pitching seas-and dropped down onto the ferry deck with ropes and an assortment of tools.
The ropes were cleated to stanchions and pills on the ferry.
An armoured Perish emerged from the mass of humanity on the main deck and climbed her way to where stood Yan Tovis.
In the language of the trader’s tongue, the woman said, ‘Your craft is sinking, Captain. We must evacuate your passengers.’
Numbed, Yan Tovis nodded.
‘We are sailing,’ said the Perish, ‘for Second Maiden Isle.’
‘As were we,’ Yan Tovis responded.
A sudden smile, as welcome to Yan Tovis’s eyes as dawn after a long night. ‘Then we are most well met.’
Well met, yes. And well answered. Second Maiden Fort. The silent Isle has been conquered. Not just the Malazans then. The Perish. Oh, look what we have awakened.
He’d had months to think things over, and in the end very little of what had happened back in the Malazan Empire surprised Banaschar, once Demidrek of the Worm of Autumn. Perhaps, if seen from the outside, from some borderland where real power was as ephemeral, as elusive, as a cloud on the face of the moon, there would be a sense of astonishment and, indeed, disbelief. That the mortal woman commanding the most powerful empire in the world could find herself so… helpless. So bound to the ambitions and lusts of the faceless players behind the tapestries. Folk blissfully unaware of the machinations of politics might well believe that someone like Empress Laseen was omnipotent, that she could do entirely as she pleased. And that a High Mage, such as Tayschrenn, was likewise free, unconstrained in his ambitions.
For people with such simplistic world views, Banaschar knew, catastrophes were disconnected things, isolated in and of themselves. There was no sense of cause and effect beyond the immediate, beyond the directly observable. A cliff collapses onto a village, killing hundreds. The effect: death. The cause: the cliff’s collapse. Of course, if one were to then speak of cutting down every tree within sight, including those above that cliff, as the true cause of the disaster-a cause that, in its essence, lay at the feet ofthe very victims, then fierce denial was the response; or, even more pathetic, blank confusion. And if one were to then elaborate on the economic pressures that demanded such rapacious deforestation, ranging from the need for firewood among the locals and the desire to clear land for pasture to increase herds all the way to the hunger for wood to meet the shipbuilding needs of a port city leagues distant, in order to go to war with a neighbouring kingdom over contested fishing areas-contested because the shoals were vanishing, leading to the threat of starvation in both kingdoms, which in turn might destabilize the ruling families, thus raising the spectre of civil war… well, then, the entire notion of cause and effect, suddenly revealing its true level of complexity, simply overwhelmed.
Rebellion in Seven Cities, followed by terrible plague, and suddenly the heart of the Malazan Empire-Quon Tali-was faced with a shortage of grain. But no, Banaschar knew, one could go yet further back. Why did the rebellion occur at all? Never mind the convenient prophecies of apocalypse. The crisis was born in the aftermath of Laseen’s coup, when virtually all of Kellanved’s commanders vanished-drowned, as the grisly joke went. She sat herself down on the throne, only to find her most able governors and military leaders gone. And into the vacuum of their departure came far less capable and far less reliable people. She should not have been surprised at their avarice and corruption-for the chapter she had begun in the history of the empire had been announced with betrayal and blood. Cast bitter seeds yield bitter fruit, as the saying went.
Corruption and incompetence. These were rebellion’s sparks. Born in the imperial palace in Unta, only to return with a vengeance.
Laseen had used the Claw to achieve her coup. In her arrogance she clearly imagined no-one could do the same; could infiltrate her deadly cadre of assassins. Yet, Banaschar now believed, that is what had happened. And so the most powerful mortal woman in the world had suddenly found herself emasculated, indeed trapped by a host of exigencies, unbearable pressures, inescapable demands. And her most deadly weapon of internal control had been irrevocably compromised.
There had been no civil war-the Adjunct had seen to that-yet the enfilade at Malaz City might well have driven the final spike into the labouring heart of Laseen’s rule. The Claw had been decimated, perhaps so much so that no-one could use it for years to come.
The Claw had declared war on the wrong people. And so, at long last, Cotillion-who had once been Dancer-had his revenge on the organization that had destroyed his own Talon and then lifted Laseen onto the throne. For, that night in Malaz City, there had been a Shadow Dance.
Causes and effects, they were like the gossamer strands spanning the towers of Kartool City, a deadly web, a skein tethered to a thousand places. And to imagine that things were simple was to be naive, often fatally so.
A crime that he himself had been guilty of, Banaschar now understood. D’rek’s rage against her worshippers had not been an isolated, internal event. It belonged to a vast war, and in war people died. Perhaps, unlike Banaschar, Tayschrenn had not been greatly affected by the tragedy. Perhaps, indeed, the Imperial High Mage had known all along.
Such unpleasant thoughts were in the habit of wandering into his mind when the sun had long fled the sky, when he should have been asleep-plummeted into the drunken stupor of oblivion here in the decrepit room he had rented opposite the Harridict Tavern on this damned island. Instead he stood by the window, wide awake, listening to the cold wind creak its way through the shutters. And even if it had been a warm night, he doubted he would have opened those shutters. Better to see nothing but those weathered slats; better to be reminded that there was no way out.
The Worm of Autumn stirred in his gut; an immortal parasite and he its mortal host. The goddess was within him once more, after all these years. Again, no surprise. After all, I’m the only one left. Yet D’rek remained as no more than a presence, a faint taste on his tongue. There had been no battle of wills; but he knew it would come. The goddess needed him and sooner or later she would reach out and close a cold fist about his soul.
This was no way to be called by one’s god.
He heard skittering noises behind him and slowly closed his eyes.
‘Smells. Smells, smells, smells.’
The words were a whining whisper in Banaschar’s head.
‘That’s the problem, Telorast. With this island. With this entire continent! Oh, why did we come here? We should have stolen the bodies of two gulls, never mind these rotting stick-things with empty bellies we can’t never fill! How many rats have we killed, Telorast? Answer me!’
‘So we couldn’t eat them,’ muttered Telorast. ‘Killing them was fun, wasn’t it? Cleanest ships in the world. Enough of your complaining, Curdle. Can’t you feel how close we are?’
‘She’s walked here!’ Now there was terror in Curdle’s voice. ‘What are we doing in this place?’
Banaschar turned. The two knee-high skeletal reptiles were pacing back and forth the length of the cot, clambering awkwardly amidst the dishevelled folds of bedding. ‘A good question,’ he said. ‘What are you doing here? In my room? And who is “she”?’
Curdle’s head bobbed, jaws clacking. ‘Not-Not-Apsalar drove us away. But we need to tell someone!’
‘Anyone!’ chimed Telorast. ‘Even you!’
‘Her name is Lostara Yil,’ Banaschar said. ‘Not Not-Not-Apsalar-gods, did I just say that?’
‘ “She”,’ Curdle said, tail whipping, ‘is the one who walked here. Long ago. More long ago than you could even think of, that long ago. Telorast is mad. She’s excited, but how can anyone be excited when we’re so close to her? Madness!’
‘just because she walked here,’ Telorast said, ‘doesn’t mean she’s still hanging around. Got no big skulls to push her fist through, not for a long time, right? And look at us, Curdle. We could dance in the palm of her hand. Either one. Or both, one for me and one for you-and she wouldn’t be able to tell anything about us, not anything.’ The creature swung to face Banaschar again. ‘So there’s no reason to panic, and that’s what you need to tell Curdle, Wormfood. So, go on, tell her.’
Banaschar slowly blinked, then said, ‘There’s nothing to worry about, Curdle. Now, will you two leave? I have more brooding to do and half the night’s gone.’
Telorast’s razor-beaked head swung to Curdle. ‘See?
Everything’s fine. We’re close because we have to be. Because it’s where Edgewalker wants-’
‘Quiet!’ Curdle hissed.
Telorast ducked. ‘Oh. We have to kill him now, don’t we?’
‘No, that would be messy. We just have to hope for a terrible accident. Quick, Telorast, think of a tenible accident!’
‘I’ve never heard of Edgewalker,’ Banaschar said. ‘Relax and go away and forget thinking about killing me. Unless you want to awaken D’rek, that is. The goddess might well know who this Edgewalker is, and from that might be able to glean something of your deadly secret mission, and from that she might decide it would be better if you two were crushed into dust.’
Curdle leapt down from the cot, crept closer to Banaschar, then began to grovel. ‘We didn’t mean anything by any of that. We never mean anything, do we, Telorast? We’re most useless and tiny besides.’
‘We can smell the Worm all right,’ Telorast said, head bobbing. ‘On you. In you. Just one more dread smell hereabouts. We don’t like it at all. Let’s go, Curdle. He’s not the one we should be talking to. Not as dangerous as Not-Apsalar, but just as scary. Open those shutters, Wormfood; we’ll go out that way.’
‘Easy for you,’ Banaschar muttered, turning back to pull the slatted barriers aside. The wind gusted in like Hood’s own breath, and the reborn priest shivered.
In a flash the two reptiles were perched on the sill.
‘Look, Telorast, pigeon poo.’
Then the two creatures leapt from sight. After a moment, Banaschar closed the shutters once more. Making right his vision of the world. His world, at least.
‘Shillydan the dark’eyed man Pokes his head up for a look round Hillyman the black-clawed man Came up the well for a look round
“Well and and/” says the twelve-toed man And round down the hill he bound Still-me-hand the dead’Smile man Went bounding bound down he did bound
Shitty dan the red’Water man Croaks and kisses die lass’s brow Hillyman the blue-Cocked man-’
‘For Hood’s sake, Crump, stop that damned singing!’
The gangly sapper straightened, stared with mouth agape, then ducked down once more and resumed digging the pit. Under his breath he began humming his mad, endless swamp song.
Corporal Shard watched the dirt flying out, caught by the whipping wind in wild swirls, for a moment longer. Twenty paces beyond the deep hole and Crump’s flashing shovel squatted the low-walled stone enclosure where the squad had stashed their gear, and where now crouched Sergeant Cord, Masan Gilani, Limp and Ebron, taking shelter from the blustery wind. In a short while, Cord would call everyone to their feet, and the patrol of this part of die coast would begin.
In the meantime, Crump was digging a pit. A deep pit, just like the sergeant ordered. Just like the sergeant had been ordering every day for nearly a week now.
Shard rubbed at his numbed face, sick with worry over his sister. The Sinn he knew was gone and no sign of her remained. She’d found her power, creating something avid, almost lurid, in her dark eyes. He was frightened of her and he was not alone in that. Limp’s bad knees knocked together whenever she came too close, and Ebron made what he thought were subtle, unseen gestures of warding behind her back. Masan Gilani seemed unaffected-that at least was something, maybe a woman thing at that, since Faradan Sort had been pretty much the same.
That simple? Terrifying to men but not women? But why would that be the case?
He had no answer for that.
Crump’s humming was getting louder, drawing Shard’s attention once again. Loud enough to very nearly overwhelm the distant groans of dying ice from the other side of the strait. Worth yelling at the fool again? Maybe not.
Dirt flying out, skirling skyward then racing out on the wave of the gelid wind.
There were holes dotted along half a league of this island’s north coast. Crump was proud of his achievement, and would go on being proud, probably for ever. Finest holes ever dug. Ten, fifty, a hundred, however many the sergeant wanted, yes sir.
Shard believed that Cord’s fervent hope that one such pit would collapse, burying the damned idiot once and for all, was little more than wishful thinking.
After all, Crump digs great holes.
He heard a piping shriek from some way behind him and turned. And there she was. Sinn, the girl he used to throw onto a shoulder like a sack of tubers-a giggling sack-and rush with through room after room as her laughter turned to squeals and her legs started kicking. Straggly black hair whipping about, a bone flute in her hands, its music flung out into the bitter tumult like inky strands, as she cavorted in the face of the weather as if spider-bitten.
Sinn, the child witch. The High Mage with a thirst for blood.
Child of the rebellion. Stolen from the life she should have lived, fashioned by horror into something new. Child of Seven Cities, of the Apocalyptic, oh yes. Dryjhna’s blessed spawn.
He wondered how many such creatures were out there, stumbling through the ruins like starved dogs. Uprising, grand failure, then plague: how many scars could a young soul carry? Before it twisted into something unrecognizable, something barely human?
Did Sinn find salvation in sorcery? Shard held no faith that such salvation was in truth benign. A weapon for her will, and how far could a mortal go with such a weapon in their hands? How vast the weight of their will, unbound and unleashed?
They were right to fear. So very right.
A gruff command from Sergeant Cord and it was time to begin the patrol. A league’s worth of blasted, wind-torn coastline. Crump climbed out of the pit and dusted his palms, his face shining as he looked down on his handiwork.
‘Isn’t she fine, Corporal? A hole dug by a High Marshal of Mott Wood, and we know how to dig ‘em, don’t we just. Why, I think it might be the best one yet! Especially with all the baby skulls on the bottom, like cobbles they are, though they break too easy-need to step light! Step light!’
Suddenly chilled in a place far deeper than any wind could reach, Shard walked to the edge of the pit and looked down. Moments later the rest of the squad joined him.
In the gloom almost a man’s height down, the glimmer of rounded shapes. Like cobbles they are.
And they were stirring.
A hiss from Ebron and he glared across at Sinn, whose music and dancing had reached a frenzied pitch. ‘Gods below! Sergeant-’
‘Grab that shovel again,’ Cord growled to Crump. ‘Fill it in, you fool! Fill it in! Fill them all in!’
Crump blinked, then collected up his shovel and began pushing the dry soil back into the hole. ‘Best hole-fillers t’be found anywhere! You’ll see, Sergeant! Why, you won’t never see holes filled so good as them’s done by a High Marshal of Mott Wood!’
‘Hurry up, you damned fool!’
‘Yes sir, hurry up. Crump can do that!’
After a moment, the sapper began singing.
‘Shillydan the red-water man Croaks and kisses the lass’s brow Hillyman the blue-cocked man Strokes and blessings t’thank ‘er now!’
Nimander Golit, wrapped in a heavy dark blue woollen cloak, stood at one end of the winding street. Decrepit harbour buildings leaned and sagged, a brick grimace curling down to the waterfront that glittered a hundred paces distant. Shreds of cloud scudded beneath a night sky of bleary stars, rushing southward like advance runners of snow and ice.
Tiste Andii, sentinel to the dark; he would have liked such grand notions wrapped about him as tightly as this cloak. A mythic stance, heavy with… with something. And the sword at his side, a weapon of heroic will, which he could draw forth when dread fate arrived with its banshee wail, and use with a skill that could astound-like the great ones of old, a consummate icon of power unveiled in Mother Dark’s name.
But it was all a dream. His skill with the sword was middling, a symbol of mediocrity as muddied as his own bloodline. He was no soldier of darkness, just a young man standing lost in a strange street, a man with nowhere to go-yet driven, driven on at this very moment-to go somewhere.
No, even that was untrue. He stood in the night because of a need to escape. Phaed’s malice had become rabid, and Nimander was the one in whom she had chosen to confide. Would she murder Sandalath Drukorlat here in this port city, as she had vowed? More to the point, was he, Nimander, going to permit it? Did he even have the courage to betray Phaed-knowing how swiftly she would turn, and how deadly her venom?
Anomander Rake would not hesitate. No, he would kick down the door to Phaed’s room and drag the squealing little stoat out by her neck. And he’d then shake the life from her. He’d have no choice, would he? One look into Phaed’s eyes and the secret would be revealed. The secret of the vast empty space within her, where her conscience should be. He would see it plain, and then into her eyes would come the horror of exposure-moments before her neck snapped.
Mother Dark would wait for Phaed’s soul, then, for its shrieking delivery, the malign birth of just execution, of choices that were not choices at all. Why? Because nothing else can be done. Not for one such as her.
And Rake would accept the blood on his hands. He would accept that terrible burden as but one more amidst countless others he carried across a hundred thousand years. Childslayer. A child of one’s own blood.
The courage of one with power. And that was Nimander’s very own yawning emptiness in the heart of his soul. We may be his children, his grandchildren, we may be of his blood, but we are each incomplete. Phaed and her wicked moral void. Nenanda and his unreasoning rage. Aranatha with her foolish hopes. Kedeviss who screams herself awake every morning. Skintick for whom all of existence is a joke. Desra who would spread her legs for any man if it could boost her up one more rung on the ladder towards whatever great glory she imagines she deserves. And Nimander, who imagines himself the leader of this fell family of would-be heroes, who will seek out the ends of the earth in his hunt for… for courage,, for con-viction, for a reason to do, to feel anything.
Oh, for Nimander, then, an empty street in the dead of night. With the denizens lost in their fitful, pathetic sleep-as if oblivion offered any escape, any escape at all. For Nimander, these interminable moments in which he could contemplate actually making a decision, actually stepping between an innocent elder Tiste Andii and Nimander’s own murderous little sister. To say No, Phaed. You will not have this. No more. You shall be a secret no longer. You shall be known.
If he could do that. If he could but do that.
He heard a sound. Spinning, the whisper of fine chain cutting a path through the air-close, so close that Nimander spun round-but there was no-one. He was alone. Spinning, twirling, a hiss-then a sudden snap, two distinct, soft clicks as of two tiny objects held out at each end of that fine chain-yes, this sound, the prophecy-Mother fend, is this the prophecy?
Silence now, yet the air felt febrile on all sides, and his breath was coming in harsh gasps. ‘He carries the gates, Nimander, so it is said. Is this not a worthy cause? For us? To search the realms, to find, not our grandsire, but the one who carries the gates?
‘Our way home. To Mother Dark, to her deepest embrace-oh, Nimander, my love, let us-’
‘Stop it,’ he croaked. ‘Please. Stop.’
She was dead. On the Floating Isle. Cut down by a Tiste Edur who’d thought nothing of it. Nothing. She was dead.
And she had been his courage. And now there was nothing left.
The prophecy? Not for one such as Nimander.
Dream naught of glory. She too is dead.
She was everything. And she is dead.
A cool wind sighed, plucking away that tension-a tension he now knew he but imagined. A moment of weakness. Something skittering on a nearby roof.
These things did not come to those who were incomplete. He should have known better.
Three soft chimes sounded in the night, announcing yet another shift of personnel out in the advance pickets. Mostly silent, soldiers rose, dark shapes edging out from their positions, quickly replaced by those who had come to guard in their stead. Weapons rustled, clasps and buckles clicked, leather armour making small animal sounds. Figures moved back and forth on the plain. Somewhere in the darkness beyond, on the other side of that rise, out in the sweeps of high grasses and in the distant ravines, the enemy hid.
The soldiers knew that Bivatt had believed the battle was imminent. Redmask and his Awl were fast approaching. Blood would be spilled in the late afternoon on the day now gone. Oh, as the Letherii soldiers along the advance pickets well knew, the savages had indeed arrived. And the Atri-Preda had arrayed her mages to greet them. Foul sorceries had crackled and spat, blackening whole swaths of grassland until ash thickened the air.
Yet the enemy would not close, the damned Awl would not even show their faces. Even as they moved, just beyond line of sight, to encircle the Letherii army. This sounded deadlier than it was-no Awl line of barbarians would be able to hold against a concerted break-out, and the hundreds of low-ranking tactical geniuses common to all armies had predicted again and again that Bivatt would do just that: drive a solid wedge into contact with the Awl, scattering them to the winds.
Those predictions began falling away as the afternoon waned, as dusk gathered, as night closed in round them with its impenetrable cloak.
Well, they then said, of course she ain’t bitten. It’s an obvious trap, so clumsy it almost beggars belief. Redmask wants us out of our positions, moving this way and that. Wants the confusion, d’you see? Bivatt’s too smart for that.
So now they sat the night, tired, nervous, and heard in every sound the stealthy approach of killers in the dark. Yes, friends, there was movement out there, no doubt of that. So what were the bastards doing?
They’re waiting. To draw swords with the dawn, like they did the last time. We’re sitting out here, wide awake, for nothing. And come the morrow we’ll be sand’eyed and stiff as corpses, at least until the fighting starts for real, then we’ll tear their hides off. Blade and magic, friends. To announce the day to come.
The Atri-Preda paced. Brohl Handar could see her well enough, although even if he couldn’t he would be able to track her by the mutter of her armour. And, despite the diminishment of details, the Tiste Edur knew she was overwrought; knew she held none of the necessary calm expected of a commander; and so it was well, he concluded, that the two of them were twenty or more paces away from the nearest bivouac of troops.
More than a little exposed, in fact. If the enemy had infiltrated the pickets, they might be hiding not ten paces distant, adjusting grips on their knives moments before the sudden rush straight for them. Slaying” the two leaders of this invading army. Of course, to have managed that, the savages would have had to deceive the magical wards woven by the mages, and that seemed unlikely. Bivatt was not unique when it came to fraught nerves, and he needed to be mindful of such flaws.
Redmask excelled in surprises. He had already proved that, and it had been foolish to expect a sudden change, a dramatic failure in his deviousness. Yet was this simply a matter of seeking battle with the sun’s rise? That seemed too easy.
The Atri-Preda walked over. ‘Overseer,’ she said in a low voice, ‘I would you send your Edur out. I need to know what he’s doing.’
Startled, Brohl said nothing for a moment.
She interpreted that, rightly, as disapproval. ‘Your kind are better able to see in the dark. Is that not correct? Certainly better than us Letherii; but more important, better than the Awl.’
And their dogs, Atri-Preda? They will smell us, hear us-they will raise their heads and awaken the night. Like your soldiers,’ he continued, ‘mine are in position, facing the high grasses and expecting to sight the enemy at any moment.’
She sighed. ‘Yes, of course.’
‘He plays with us,’ Brohl Handar said. ‘He wants us second-guessing him. He wants our minds numbed with exhaustion come the dawn, and so slowed in our capacity to react, to respond with alacrity. Redmask wants us confused, and he has succeeded.’
‘Do you imagine that I don’t know all that?’ she demanded in a hiss.
‘Atri-Preda, you do not even trust your mages just now-the wards they have set to guard us this night. Our soldiers should be sleeping.’
‘If I have reason to lack confidence in my mages,’ Bivatt said dryly, ‘I have good cause. Nor has your K’risnan impressed me thus far, Overseer. Although,’ she added, ‘his healing talents have proved more than adequate.’
‘You sound very nearly resentful of that,’ Brohl said.
She waved a dismissive hand and turned away to resume her pacing.
A troubled commander indeed.
Redmask would be delighted.
Toc leaned along the length of the horse’s neck. He was riding bareback, and he could feel the animal’s heat and its acrid yet gentle smell filled his nostrils as he let the beast take another step forward. From the height of the horse’s shoulder he could see just above the line of the ridge off to his left.
The modest defensive berms were like humped graves along the flat this side of the Letherii camp. There had been a change of guard-the chimes had been readily audible-meaning yet another ideal time for the attack had slipped past.
He was no military genius, but Toc believed that this night could not have been more perfect as far as the Awl were concerned. They had their enemy confused, weary and frayed. Instead, Redmask exhausted his own warriors by sending them one way and then the next, with the seemingly sole purpose of raising dust no-one could even see. No command to initiate contact had been issued. No concerted gathering to launch a sudden strike into the Letherii camp. Not even any harassing flights of arrows to speed down in the dark.
He thought he understood the reason for Redmask’s inconstancy. The Letherii mages. His scouts had witnessed that impatient, deadly sorcery, held ready to greet the Awl attack. They had brought back stories of blistered land, rocks snapping in the incandescent heat, and these tales had spread quickly, driving deep into the army a spike of fear. The problem was simple. Here, in this place, Redmask had no answer to that magic. And Toc now believed that Redmask would soon sound the retreat, no matter how galling-no spilling of blood, and the great advantage of advancing well beyond reach of the Letherii column and so avoiding detection had been surrendered, uselessly thrown away. No battle, yet a defeat nonetheless.
His horse, unguided by the human on its back, took another step, head dipping so that the animal could crop grass. Too much of that and the beast would find its bowels in knots.
Oh, we take you into slaughter without a moment’s thought. And yes, some of you come to enjoy it, to lust for that cacophony, that violence, the reek of blood. And so we share with you, dear horse, our peculiar madness. But who judges us for this crime against you and your kind? No-one.
Unless you horses have a god.
He wondered if there might be a poem somewhere in that. But poems that remind us of our ghastlier traits are never popular, are they? Best the bald lies of heroes and great deeds. The slick comfort of someone else’s courage and conviction. So we can bask in the righteous glow and so feel uplifted in kind.
Aye, I’ll stay with the lies. Why not? Everyone else does.
And those who don’t are told they think too much. Hah, now there’s a fearsome attack enough to quail any venturesome soul. See me tremble.
His horse heard a whinny from off to the right and in whatever language the beasts shared that sound was surely a summons, for it lifted its head, then walked slowly towards it. Toc waited a few moments longer, then, when he judged they were well clear of the ridge line behind them, he straightened and gathered the reins.
And saw before him a solid line of mounted warriors, lances upright.
In front of the row was the young Renfayar, Masarch.
Toc angled his horse on an approach.
‘What is this, Masarch? A cavalry charge in the dark?’
The young warrior shrugged. ‘We’ve readied three times this night, Mezla.’
Toc smiled to himself. He’d thrown that pejorative out in a fit of self-mockery a few days past, and now it had become an honorific. Which, he admitted, appealed to his sense of irony. He edged his horse closer and in a low tone asked: ‘Do you have any idea what Redmask is doing, Masarch?’
A hooded glance, then another shrug.
‘Well,’ Toc persisted, ‘is this the main concentration of forces? No? Then where?’
‘To the northwest, I think.’
‘Is yours to be a feint attack?’
‘Should the horn sound, Mezla, we ride to blood.’
Toe twisted on the horse and looked back at the ridge. The Letherii would feel the drumming of hoofs, and then see the silhouettes as the Awl crested the line. And those soldiers had dug pits-he could already hear the snapping of leg bones and the animal screaming. ‘Masarch,’ he said, ‘you can’t charge those pickets.’
‘We can see them well enough to ride around them-’
‘Until the animal beside you jostles yours into one.’
At first Toc thought he was hearing wolves howling, but the sudden cry levelled out-Redmask’s rodara horn.
Masarch raised his lance. ‘Do you ride with us, Mezla?’
Bareback? ‘No.’
‘Then ride fast to one side!’
Toc kicked his horse into motion, and as he rode down the line he saw the Awl warriors ready their weapons above suddenly restless mounts. Breaths gusted like smoke into the air. From somewhere on the far side of the Letherii encampment there was the sudden reverberation of clashing arms.
He judged that Masarch led six or seven hundred Awl riders. Urging his horse into a gallop, Toc drew clear just as the mass of warriors surged forward. ‘This is madness!’ He spun the mount round, tugging his bow loose from his shoulder even as he looped the reins over his left wrist. Jamming one end of the bow onto his moccasined foot-between the big toe and the rest-he leaned down his weight to string it. Weapon readied and in his right hand, he deftly adjusted his hold on the reins and knotted them to ensure that they did not fall and foul the horse’s front legs.
As the beast cantered into the dusty wake of the cavalry charge, Toe Anaster drew out from the quiver at his hip the first stone-tipped arrow. What in Hood’s name am 1 doing?
Getting ready to cover the retreat 1 know is coming? Aye, a one-eyed archer…
With the pressure of his thighs and a slight shifting of weight, he guided his horse in the direction of the rise-where the Awl warriors had arrived in a dark mass, only now voicing their war-cries. Somewhere in the distance rose the sound of dogs, joining that ever-growing cacophony of iron on iron and screaming voices.
Redmask had finally struck, and now there was chaos in the night.
The cavalry, reaching the rise, swept down the other side and moments later were lost from sight.
Toc urged his horse forward, nocking the arrow. He had no stirrups to stand in while shooting, making this whole exercise seem ridiculous, yet he quickly approached the crest. Moments before arriving, he heard the clash ahead-the shouts, the piercing shrieks of injured horses, and beneath it all the thunder of hoofs.
Although difficult to discern amidst the darkness and dust, Toc could see that most of the lancers had swept round the outlying pickets, continuing on to crash into the camp itself. He saw soldiers emerging from those entrench-
ments, many wounded, some simply dazed. Younger Awl warriors rode among them, slashing down with scimitars in a grotesque slaughter.
Coruscating light burgeoned off to the right-the foaming rise of sorcery-and Toc saw the Awl cavalry begin to withdraw, pulling away like fangs from flesh.
‘No!’ he shouted, riding hard now towards them. ‘Stay among the enemy! Go back! Attack, you damned fools! Attack!’
But, even could they hear him, they had seen the magic, the tumult building into a writhing wave of blistering power. And fear took their hearts. Fear took them and they fled-
Still Toc rode forward, now among the berms. Bodies sprawled, horses lying on their sides, kicking, ears flat and teeth bared; others broken heaps filling pits.
The first of the retreating Awl raced past, unseeing, their faces masks of terror.
A second wave of sorcery had appeared, this one from the left, and he watched it roll into the first of the horse-warriors on that side. Flesh burst, fluids sprayed. The magic climbed, slowed as it seemed to struggle against all the flesh it contacted. Screams, the sound reaching Toc on its own wave, chilling his very bones. Hundreds died before the magic spent itself, and into the dust now swirled white ash-all that was left of human and horse along the entire west flank.
Riders swarming past Toc, along with riderless horses surging ahead in the grip of panic. Dust biting his lone eye, dust seeking to claw down his throat, and all around him shadows writhing in their own war of light and dark as sorceries lifted, rolled then fell in gusting clouds of ash.
And then Toc Anaster was alone, arrow still nocked, in the wasteland just inside the berms. Watching another wave of sorcery sweep past his position, pursuing the fleeing Awl.
Before he could think either way, Toc found himself riding hard, in behind that dread wave, into the scalding, brittle air of the magic’s wake-and there, sixty paces away, within a mass of advancing soldiers, he saw the mage. The latter clenched his hands and power tumbled from him, forming yet another excoriating conjuration of raw destruction that rose up to greet Toc, then heaved for him.
One eye or not, he could see that damned wizard.
An impossible shot, jostled as he was on the horse’s back as the beast weaved between pits and suspect tufts of grass, as its head lifted in sudden recognition of terrible danger.
Silver-veined power surging towards him.
Galloping now, mad as any other fool this night, and he saw, off to his left, a deep, elongated trench-drainage for the camp’s latrines-and he forced his mount towards it, even as the sorcery raced for him on a convergent path from his right.
The horse saw the trench, gauged its width, then stretched out a moment before gathering to make the leap.
He felt the beast lift beneath him, sail through the air-and for that one moment all was still, all was smooth, and in that one moment Toc twisted at the hips, knees hard against the animal’s shoulders, drew the bow back, aimed-damning this flat, one-eyed world that was all he had left
– then loosed the stone-tipped arrow.
The horse landed, throwing Toc forward onto its neck. Bow in his right hand, legs stretching out now along the length of the beast’s back, and his left arm wrapping, desperately tight, about the animal’s muscle-sheathed neck
– behind them and to the right, the heat of that wave, reaching out, closer, closer-
The horse screamed, bolting forward. He held on.
And felt a gust of cool air behind him. Risked a glance.
The magic had died. Beyond it, at the front line of the advancing-now halted and milling-Letherii troops, a body settling onto its knees. A body without a head; a neck from which rose, not blood, but something like smoke-
A detonation? Had there been a detonation-a thumping crack, bludgeoning the air-yes, maybe he had heard-
He regained control of his horse, took the knotted reins in his left hand and guided the frightened creature round, back towards the crest.
The air reeked of cooked meat. Other flashes lit the night. Dogs snarled. Soldiers and warriors died. And among Masarch’s cavalry, Toc would later learn, half were not there to see the dawn.
High overhead, night and its audience of unblinking stars had seen enough, and the sky paled, as if washed of all blood, as if drained of the last life.
The sun was unkind in lighting the morning sky, revealing the thick, biting ash of incinerated humans, horses and dogs. Revealing, as well, the strewn carnage of the battle just done. Brohl Handar walked, half numbed, along the east edge of the now-dishevelled encampment, and approached the Atri-Preda and her retinue.
She had dismounted, and was now crouched beside a corpse just inside the berms-where, it seemed, the suicidal Awl had elected to charge. He wondered how many had died to Letherii sorcery here. Probably every damned one of them. Hundreds for certain, perhaps thousands-there was no way to tell in this kind of aftermath, was there? A handful of fine ash to mark an entire human. Two for a horse. Half for a dog. Just so. The wind took it all away, less than an orator’s echo, less than a mourner’s gut-deep grunt of despair.
He staggered to a halt opposite Bivatt, the corpse-headless, it turned out-between them.
She looked up, and perhaps it was the harsh sunlight, or the dust in a thin sheath-but her face was paler than he had ever seen before.
Brohl studied the headless body. One of the mages.
‘Do you know, Overseer,’ Bivatt asked in a rough voice, ‘what could have done this?’
He shook his head. ‘Perhaps his sorcery returned to him, uncontrolled-’
‘No,’ she cut in. ‘It was an arrow. From a lone archer with the audacity to outrun… to slip between-Overseer, an archer riding bareback, loosing his arrow whilst his horse leapt a trench…’
She stared up at him, disbelieving, as if challenging him to do other than shake his head. He was too tired for this. He had lost warriors last night. Dogs rushing from the high grasses. Dogs… and two Kechra-two, there were only two, weren’t there? The same two he had seen before. Only one with those strapped-on swords.
Swords that had chopped his K’risnan in half, one swinging in from one side, the other from the opposite side. Not that the blades actually met. The left one had been higher, from the top of the shoulder down to-just below the ribcage. The right blade had cut into ribs, down through the gut, tearing free below the hip and taking a lot of that hip out with it. So, to be accurate, not in half. In three.
The other Kechra had just used its talons and jaws, proving no less deadly-in fact, Brohl thought this one more savage than its larger companion, more clearly delighting in its violent mayhem. The other fought with perfunctory grace. The smaller, swordless Kechra revelled in the guts and limbs it flung in every direction.
But those beasts were not immortal. They could bleed. Take wounds. And enough spears and swords had managed to cut through their tough hides to drive both of them off.
Brohl Handar blinked down at the Atri-Preda. ‘A fine shot, then.’
Rage twisted her features. ‘He was bound with another of my mages, both drawing their powers together. They were exhausted… all the wards.’ She spat. ‘The other one, Overseer, his head burst apart too. Same as this one here. I’ve lost two mages, to one damned arrow.’ She clambered stiffly to her feet. ‘Who was that archer? Who?’
Brohl said nothing.
‘Get your K’risnan to-’
‘I cannot. He is dead.’
That silenced her. For a moment. ‘Overseer, we mauled them. Do you understand? Thousands died, to only a few hundred of our own.’
‘1 lost eighty-two Tiste Edur warriors.’
He was pleased at her flinch, at the faltering of her hard gaze. ‘An arrow. A lone rider. Not an Awl-the eyewitnesses swear to that. A mage-killer.’
The only thorn from, this wild ride through the night. I see, yes. But I cannot help you. Brohl Handar turned away. Ten, fifteen strides across cracked, crackling, ash-laden ground.
Sorcery had taken the grasses. Sorcery had taken the soil and its very life. The sun, its glory stolen before it could rise this day, looked down, one-eyed. Affronted by this rival.
Yes. Affronted.