Reaper's Gale

  She closed her eyes for a long moment, and then nodded.

  They resumed their journey, and when they reached Fear Sengar, she let Trull settle down onto the ground, and he set the spear down, then reached out to touch his brother’s ashen, lifeless face.

  From nearby, Udinaas – his face streaked in tears – spoke in a harsh, grating voice. ‘I greet you, Trull Sengar. And I must tell you . . . your brother, Fear . . . he died as a hero would.’

  Trull lifted his head, stared across at the Letherii. ‘Udinaas. You are wrong. My brother sought . . . betrayal.’

  ‘No. He saw you, Trull, and he knew the mind of Silchas Ruin. Knew you could never stand against the White Crow. Do you understand me? He saw you.’

  ‘Is that helpful?’ Seren Pedac snapped.

  Udinaas bared bloodstained teeth. ‘With the only alternative betrayal, Acquitor, then yes. Trull, I am . . . sorry.

  And yet . . . Fear – I am proud of him. Proud to have known him.’

  And she saw her beloved nod, then manage a sorrow-filled smile at the ex-slave. ‘Thank you, Udinaas. Your journey – all of you – your journey, it must have been long. Difficult.’ He glanced to her, then back to Udinaas. ‘For remaining at my brother’s side, I thank you both.’

  Oh, Trull, may you never know the truth. Onrack the Broken opened his eyes to an ancient dream, and its conjuration twisted like a knife in his soul. Not oblivion, then. Such peace is denied me. Instead, my crimes return. To haunt.

  And yet . . . Ulshun Pral—

  An ancient dream, yes, and hovering just beyond, a far younger dream – one he had not even known to exist. The Ritual of Tellann had stolen from so many men of the Imass this reaching into the future, this creation of sons, daughters, this rooting of life into the soil that lived on.

  Yes, that had indeed been a dream—

  Kilava Onass suddenly frowned. ‘You stare, Onrack, with all the intelligence of a bhederin. Have you lost your wits?’

  Dreams did not berate, did they?

  ‘Ah,’ she then said, nodding, ‘now I see you of old – I see the panic that ever fills a man’s eyes, when all he longed for is suddenly within reach. But know this, I too have longed, and I too now feel . . . panic. To love in absence is to float on ever still waters. No sudden currents. No treacherous tides. No possibility of drowning. You and I, Onrack, have floated so for a very long time.’

  He stared up at her – yes, he was lying on hard stone. In the cavern of the gates.

  Then Kilava smiled, revealing those deadly canines. ‘But I fared better, I think. For you gave me a gift, from that one night. You gave me Ulshun Pral. And when I found this . . . this illusion, I found for our son a home, a haven.’

  ‘This realm . . . dies,’ Onrack said. ‘Are we all illusions now?’

  Kilava shook her head, the luxuriant black hair shimmering. ‘Gothos gave to our son the Finnest. As for the rest, well, your son has explained it to me. The white-skinned Tiste Andii, Silchas Ruin, delivered the seed of an Azath, a seed in the guise of a child. To accept the Finnest, to use its power to grow. Onrack, soon these gates will be sealed, each and all drawn into the House, into a squat, clumsy tower. And this realm – with an Azath House here, this realm no longer wanders, no longer fades. It is rooted, and so it will remain.’

  Behind her, Ulshun Pral said, ‘Gothos said Silchas Ruin would one day come for the Finnest. Gothos thought that was . . . funny. Jaghut,’ he then said, ‘are strange.’

  Kilava Onass added, ‘To win his freedom, Silchas Ruin bargained with an Azath, an Azath that was dying. And now he has done what was asked of him. And the Azath is reborn.’

  ‘Then . . . we need not have fought.’

  Kilava scowled. ‘Never trust a Tiste Andii.’ Her luminous eyes flickered away briefly. ‘It seems there were other . . . issues.’

  But Onrack was not ready to think of those. He continued staring up at Kilava Onass. ‘You, then, that night in darkness.’

  Her scowl deepened. ‘Were you always this thick? I cannot remember – by the spirits, my panic worsens. Of course it was me. You bound me to stone, with your eyes and hand. With, Onrack, your love. Yours was a forbidden desire and it wounded so many. But not me. I knew only that I must give answer. I must let my heart speak.’ She laid a hand on his chest. ‘As yours now does. You are flesh and blood, Onrack. The Ritual has relinquished your soul. Tell me, what do you seek?’

  He held his eyes on hers. ‘I have found it,’ he said.

  Every bone in his body ached as he forced himself to his feet. At once his gaze was drawn to where he had last seen Trull Sengar; and a growing dread was swept from his mind upon seeing his friend.

  Trull Sengar, you are as hard to kill as I am.

  A moment later, he saw the tears on his friend’s face, and it seemed there would be grief this day, after all.

  At the mouth of a fissure not far away, in a small clearing, Rud Elalle stood in the midst of carnage. Where one of his mother’s sisters had died. Where three Imass had died.

  And somewhere beyond, he knew in his heart, he would find the body of his mother.

  He stood on blood-soaked ground, and wondered what it was that had just died within his own soul.

  Some time later, much later, he would find the word to describe it.

  Innocence.

  Quick Ben still hobbled like an old man, amusing Hedge no end. ‘There you are,’ he said as they made their way towards the cave and its tunnel leading to the Gates of Starvald Demelain, ‘exactly how you’ll look twenty years from now. Creepy and gamey. Pushing wobbly teeth with a purple tongue and muttering rhymes under your breath—’

  ‘Keep talking, sapper, and you’ll know all about loose teeth. In fact, I’m surprised a few weren’t knocked right out when that bone hit you. Gods below, that is probably the funniest thing I have ever seen.’

  Hedge reached and gingerly touched the huge lump on his forehead. ‘So, we did our task today. How do you think the others fared?’

  ‘We’ll soon find out,’ the wizard replied. ‘One thing, though.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There is now an Azath House growing in this damned realm.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Oh, lots of things. First, this place is now real. And it will live on. These Imass will live on.’

  Hedge grunted. ‘Rud Elalle will be pleased. Onrack, too, I imagine.’

  ‘Aye. And here’s another thing, only I don’t think it’ll please anyone. In that Azath House there will be a tower, and in that tower, all the gates.’

  ‘So?’

  Quick Ben sighed. ‘You damned idiot. The Gates of Starvald Demelain.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Just this. Shadowthrone, and Cotillion. Who like using the Azath whenever it suits them. Now they’ve got a way in. Not just to this realm, either.’

  ‘Into Starvald Demelain? Gods below, Quick! Is that why we just did all that? Is that what brought you here? ‘

  ‘No need to scream, sapper. When it came to planting that House, we weren’t even witnesses. Were we? But you know, it’s what those two sneaky bastards know, or seem to know, that really worries me. See my point?’

  ‘Oh, Hood piss in your boots, Ben Adaephon Delat.’

  ‘Got all your gear there, Hedge? Good. Because once we get to the Gates, we’re going through one of them.’

  ‘We are?’

  ‘We are.’ And the wizard grinned across at the sapper.

  ‘Fid’s never been the same without you.’

  Silchas Ruin stood among ancient foundations – some Forkrul Assail remnant slumping its slow way down the mountainside – and lifted his face to the blue sky beyond the towering trees.

  He had fulfilled his vow to the Azath.

  And delivered unto the soul of Scabandari a reprieve Bloodeye did not deserve.

  Vengeance, he well knew, was a poisoned triumph.

  One task remained. A minor one, intended to serve little more than his own sen
se of redressing an egregious imbalance. He knew little of this Crippled God. But what little he knew, Silchas Ruin did not like.

  Accordingly, he now spread his arms. And veered into his dragon form.

  Surged skyward, branches torn away from the trees he shouldered aside. Into the crisp mountain air – far to the west, a pair of condors banked away in sudden terror. But the direction Silchas Ruin chose was not to the west.

  South.

  To a city called Letheras.

  And this time, in truth, there was blood on his mind.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  If these were our last days

  If all whose eyes can look inward

  Now passed from ken

  Who would remain to grieve?

  As we hang our heads

  Beset by the failure of ambition

  Eyes see and are indifferent

  Eyes witness and they are uncaring.

  The stone regard of the statues

  Guarding the perfected square

  Is carved as warm

  As history’s soft surrender,

  And the dancing creatures

  In and out of our gaping mouths

  Alone hear the wind moaning

  Its hollow, hallowed voice.

  So in these our last days

  The end of what we see is inside

  Where it all began and begins never again

  A moment’s reprieve, then darkness falls.

  The Unwitnessed Dance

  Fisher kel Tath

  Beak’s barrow began with a few bones tossed into the ash and charred, splintered skeleton that was all that remained of the young mage. Before long, other objects joined the heap. Buckles, clasps, fetishes, coins, broken weapons. By the time Fist Keneb was ready to give the command to march, the mound was nearly the height of a man. When Captain Faradan Sort asked Bottle for a blessing, the squad mage had shaken his head, explaining that the entire killing field that had been enclosed by Bottle’s sorcery was now magically dead. Probably permanently. At this news the captain had turned away, although Keneb thought he heard her say: ‘Not a candle left to light, then.’

  As the marines set out for the city of Letheras, they could hear the rumble of detonations from the south, where the Adjunct had landed with the rest of the Bonehunters and was now engaging the Letherii armies. That thunder, Keneb knew, did not belong to sorcery.

  He should be leading his troops to that battle, to hammer the Letherii rearguard, and then link up with Tavore and the main force. But Keneb agreed with the captain and with Fiddler and Gesler. He and his damned marines had earned this, had earned the right to be the first to assail this empire’s capital city.

  ‘Might be another army waiting on the walls,’ Sergeant Thom Tissy had said, making his face twist in his singular expression of disapproval, like a man who’d just swallowed a nacht turd.

  ‘It’s possible there is,’ the Fist had conceded. And that particular conversation went no further.

  Up onto the imperial road with its well-set cobbles and breadth sufficient to accommodate a column ten soldiers wide. Marching amidst discarded accoutrements and the rubbish left by the Letherii legions as the day drew to a close and the shadows lengthened.

  Dusk was not far off and the last sleep had been some time past, yet his soldiers, Keneb saw, carried themselves – and their gear – as if fresh from a week’s rest.

  A few hundred paces along, the column ran into the first refugees.

  Smudged, frightened faces. Sacks and baskets of meagre provisions, wide-eyed babies peering from bundles. Burdened mules and two-wheeled carts creaking and groaning beneath possessions. No command was given, yet the Letherii shuffled to the roadsides, pulling whatever gear they had with them, as the column continued on. Eyes downcast, children held tight. Saying nothing at all.

  Faradan Sort moved alongside Keneb. ‘This is odd,’ she said.

  The Fist nodded. ‘They have the look of people fleeing something that’s already happened. Find one, Captain, and get some answers.’

  ‘Aye, sir.’

  Studying the refugees he passed, Keneb wondered what was behind the glances a few of them furtively cast on these marching soldiers, these white-haired foreigners in their gleaming armour. Do they see saviours? Not a chance. Yet, where is the hostility? They are more frightened of what they’ve just left behind in Letheras than they are of us. What in Hood’s name is happening there?

  And where are the Tiste Edur?

  The crowds got thicker, more reluctant to move aside. Fiddler adjusted the pack on his shoulder and settled a hand on the grip of his shortsword. The column’s pace had slowed, and the sergeant could feel the growing impatience among his troops.

  They could see the end – Hood’s breath – it was behind that white wall to the northeast, now a league or less distant. The imperial road stretching down towards them from a main gate was, in the red glare of sunset, a seething serpent. Pouring out by the thousands.

  And why?

  Riots, apparently. An economy in ruins, people facing starvation.

  ‘Never knew we could cause such trouble, eh Fid?’

  ‘Can’t be us, Cuttle. Not just us, I mean. Haven’t you noticed? There are no Tiste Edur in this crowd. Now, either they’ve retreated behind their estate walls, or to the palace keep or whatever it is where the Emperor lives, or they were the first to run.’

  ‘Like those behind us, then. Heading back to their homelands in the north.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘So, if this damned empire is already finished, why are we bothering with the capital?’

  Fiddler shrugged. ‘Bottle might have hidden one of his rats in the Adjunct’s hair – why not ask him?’

  ‘Adjunct ain’t got enough hair for that,’ Cuttle muttered, though he did glance back at the squad mage. Bottle did not deign to reply. ‘See anybody on those walls, Fid? My eyes are bad in bad light.’

  ‘If there are, they’re not holding torches,’ Fiddler replied.

  There had been so little time to think. About anything, beyond just staying alive. Ever since the damned coast. But now, as he walked on this road, Fiddler found his thoughts wandering dusty paths. They had set out on this invasion in the name of vengeance. And, maybe, to eradicate a tyrannical Emperor who viewed anyone not his subject as meat for the butcher’s cleaver. All very well, as far as it goes. Besides, that hardly makes this Emperor unique.

  So why is this our battle? And where in Hood’s name do we go from here? He so wanted to believe the Adjunct knew what she was doing. And that, whatever came and however it ended, there would be some meaning to what they did.

  ‘We must be our own witness.’ To what, dammit?

  ‘Soldiers on the wall,’ Koryk called out. ‘Not many, but they see us clear enough.’

  Fiddler sighed. First to arrive, and maybe that’s as far as we’ll get. An army of eight hundred camped outside one gate. They must be pissing in their boots. He drew another deep breath, then shook himself. ‘Fair enough. We finally got an appreciative audience.’

  Smiles didn’t much like the look of these refugees. The pathetic faces, the shuffling gaits, they reminded her too much of . . . home. Oh, there’d been nothing in the way of hopeless flight back then, so it wasn’t that, exactly. Just the dumb animal look in these eyes. The uncomprehending children dragged along by one hand, or clinging to mother’s ratty tunic.

  The Bonehunters marched to Letheras – why weren’t these fools screaming and wailing in terror? They’re like slaves, pushed into freedom like sheep into the wilds, and all they expect ahead is more slavery. That, or dying in the tangles of empty forests. They’ve been beaten down. All their lives.

  That’s what’s so familiar. Isn’t it?

  She turned her head and spat onto the road. Hood take all empires. Hood take all the prod and pull. If I get to you, dear Emperor of Lether – if I get to you first, I’m going to slice you into slivers. Slow, with lots of pain. For every one of these
wretched citizens on this stinking road.

  Now, the sooner all these fools get out of our way, the sooner I can torture their Emperor.

  ‘We head for the palace,’ Koryk said to Tarr. ‘And let nothing get in our way.’

  ‘You’re smoke-dreaming, Koryk,’ the corporal replied. ‘We’d have to cut through a few thousand stubborn Letherii to do that. And maybe even more Edur. And if that’s not enough, what about that wall there? Plan on jumping it? We haven’t got enough munitions to—’

  ‘Rubbish—’

  ‘I mean, there’s no way Keneb’s going to allow the sappers to use up all their stuff, not when all we have to do is wait for the Adjunct, then do a siege all proper.’

  Koryk snorted. ‘Proper like Y’Ghatan? Oh, I can’t wait.’

  ‘There’s no Leoman of the Flails in Letheras,’ Tarr said, tugging at his chin strap. ‘Just some Edur on the throne. Probably drunk. Insane. Drooling and singing lullabies. So, why bother with the palace? Won’t be anything of interest there. I say we loot some estates, Koryk.’

  ‘Malazan soldiers don’t loot.’

  ‘But we’re not any more, are we? I mean, soldiers of the Malazan Empire.’

  Koryk sneered at his corporal. ‘So that means you just sink back down to some frothing barbarian, Tarr? Why am I not surprised? I never believed all those civilized airs you’re always putting on.’

  ‘What airs?’

  ‘Well, all right, maybe it’s just how everybody sees you. But now I’m seeing you different. A damned thug, Tarr, just waiting to get nasty on us.’

  ‘I was just thinking out loud,’ Tarr said. ‘It’s not like Fid’s gonna let us do whatever we want, is it?’

  ‘I’m not gonna let you do whatever you want, Tarr.’

  ‘Just making conversation, Koryk. That’s all it was.’

  Koryk grunted.

  ‘You being insolent with your corporal, Koryk?’

  ‘I’m thinking of pushing all your armour – and your shield – right up your bung hole, Corporal. Is that insolent?’

  ‘Once I’m used to telling the difference, I’ll let you know.’

  ‘Listen, Corabb,’ Bottle said, ‘you can stop looking out for me now, all right?’