Reaper's Gale

  ‘I do not ask for your advice, Elder,’ Redmask said. ‘He is owed respite. We must redeem our people in his eyes.’

  ‘Pointless,’ the old man snapped. ‘Kill him and we need redeem ourselves to no-one. Kill him and we are free.’

  ‘One cannot flee the past.’

  ‘Indeed? That belief must taste bitter for one such as you, Redmask. Best discard it.’

  Redmask slowly faced the man. ‘Of me, Elder, you know nothing.’

  A twisted smile. ‘Alas, I do. You do not recognize me, Redmask. You should.’

  ‘You are Renfayar – my tribe. You share blood with Masarch.’

  ‘Yes, but more than that. I am old. Do you understand? I am the oldest among our people, the last one left . . . who was there, who remembers. Everything.’ The smile broadened, revealing rotted teeth, a pointed red – almost purple – tongue. ‘I know your secret, Redmask. I know what she meant to you, and I know why.’ The eyes glittered, black and red-rimmed. ‘You had best fear me, Redmask. You had best heed my words – my advice. I shall ride your shoulder, yes? From this moment on, until the very day of battle. And I shall speak with the voice of the Awl, my voice the voice of their souls. And know this, Redmask: I shall not countenance their betrayal. Not by you, not by that one-eyed stranger and his bloodthirsty wolves.’

  Redmask studied the old man a moment longer, then fixed his gaze ahead once more.

  A soft, ragged laugh at his side, then, ‘You dare say nothing. You dare do nothing. I am a dagger hovering over your heart. Do not fear me – there is no need, unless you intend evil. I wish you great glory in this war. I wish the end of the Letherii, for all time. Perhaps such glory shall come by your hand – together, you and I, let us strive for that, yes?’

  A long moment of silence.

  ‘Speak, Redmask,’ the elder growled. ‘Lest I suspect defiance.’

  ‘An end to the Letherii, yes,’ Redmask finally said, in a grating voice. ‘Victory for the Awl.’

  ‘Good,’ grunted the old man. ‘Good.’

  The magic world had ended abruptly, an ending as sudden as the slamming of a trunk lid – a sound that had always shocked her, frozen her in place. Back in the city, that place of reeks and noise, there had been a house steward, a tyrant, who would hunt down slave children who had, in his words, disappointed him. A night spent in the musty confines of the bronze box would teach them a thing or two, wouldn’t it?

  Stayandi had spent one such night, enclosed in cramped darkness, two months or so before the slaves joined the colonists out on the plain. The solid clunk of the lid had truly seemed, then, the end of the world. Her shrieks had filled the close air of the trunk until something broke in her throat, until every scream was naught but a hiss of air.

  Since that time, she had been mute, yet this had proved a gift, for she had been selected to enter the Mistress’s domain as a handmaiden in training. No secrets would pass her lips, after all. And she would have been there still, if not for the homesteading.

  A magic world. So much space, so much air. The freedom of blue skies, unending wind and darkness lit by countless stars – she had not imagined such a world existed, all within reach.

  And then one night, it ended. A fierce nightmare made real in screams of slaughter.

  Abasard—

  She had fled into the darkness, stunned with the knowledge of his death – her brother, who had flung himself into the demon’s path, who had died in her place. Her bared feet, feather-light, carrying her away, the hiss of grasses soon the only sound to reach her ears. Stars glittering, the plain bathed silver, the wind cooling the sweat on her skin.

  In her mind, her feet carried her across an entire continent. Away from the realm of people, of slaves and masters, of herds and soldiers and demons. She was alone now, witness to a succession of dawns, smeared sunsets, alone on a plain that stretched out unbroken on all sides. She saw wild creatures, always at a distance. Darting hares, antelope watching from ridgelines, hawks wheeling in the sky. At night she heard the howl of wolves and coyotes and, once, the guttural bellow of a bear.

  She did not eat, and the pangs of hunger soon passed, so that she floated, and all that her eyes witnessed shone with a luminous clarity. Water she licked from dew-laden grasses, the cupped holes of deer and elk tracks in basins, and once she found a spring, almost hidden by thick brush in which flitted hundreds of tiny birds. It had been their chittering songs that had drawn her attention.

  An eternity of running later, she had fallen. And found no strength to rise once more, to resume the wondrous journey through this glowing land.

  Night then stole upon her, and not long after came the four-legged people. They wore furs smelling of wind and dust, and they gathered close, lying down, sharing the warmth of their thick, soft cloaks. There were children among them, tiny babes that crawled as did their parents, squirming and snuggling up against her.

  And when they fed on milk, so did Stayandi.

  The four-legged people were as mute as she was, until they began their mournful cries, when night was at its deepest; crying – she knew – to summon the sun.

  They stayed with her, guardians with their gifts of warmth and food. After the milk, there was meat. Crushed, mangled carcasses – mice, shrews, a headless snake – she ate all they gave her, tiny bones crunching in her mouth, damp fur and chewy skin.

  This too seemed timeless, a foreverness. The grown-ups came and went. The children grew burlier, and she now crawled with them when it was time to wander.

  When the bear appeared and rushed towards them, she was not afraid. It wanted the children, that much was obvious, but the grown-ups attacked and drove it off. Her people were strong, fearless. They ruled this world.

  Until one morning she awoke to find herself alone. Forcing herself to her hind legs, helpless whimpering coming from her throat in jolts of pain, she scanned the land in all directions—

  And saw the giant. Bare above the waist, the deep hue of sun-darkened skin almost entirely obscured beneath white paint – paint that transformed his chest, shoulders and face into bone. His eyes, as he walked closer, were black pits in the caked mask skull. He carried weapons: a long spear, a sword with a broad, curved blade. The fur of the four-legged people was wrapped about his hips, and the small but deadly knives strung in a necklace about the warrior’s neck, they too belonged to her people.

  Frightened, angry, she bared her teeth at the stranger, even as she cowered in the fold of a small hummock – nowhere to run, knowing he could catch her effortlessly. Knowing that yet another of her worlds had shattered. Fear was her bronze box, and she was trapped, unable to move.

  He studied her for a time, cocking his head as she snapped and snarled. Then slowly crouched down until his eyes were level with her own.

  And she fell silent.

  Remembering . . . things.

  They were not kind eyes, but they were – she knew – like her own. As was his hairless face beneath that deathly paint.

  She had run away, she now recalled, until it seemed her fleeing mind had outstripped her flesh and bone, had darted out into something unknown and unknowable.

  And this savage face, across from her, was slowly bringing her mind back. And she understood, now, who the four-legged people were, what they were. She remembered what it was to stand upright, to run with two legs instead of four. She remembered an encampment, the digging of cellar pits, the first of the sod-walled houses. She remembered her family – her brother – and the night the demons came to steal it all away.

  After a time of mutual silent regard, he straightened, settled the weapons and gear about himself once more, then set out.

  She hesitated, then rose.

  And, at a distance, she followed.

  He walked towards the rising sun.

  Scratching at the scarred, gaping hole where one eye had been, Toc watched the children running back and forth as the first cookfires were lit. Elders hobbled about with iron pots and wrapped foodstuffs ?
?? they were wiry, weathered folk, but days of marching had dulled the fire in their eyes, and more than a few snapped at the young ones who passed too close.

  He saw Redmask, trailed by Masarch and Natarkas and another bearing the red face-paint, appear near the area laid out for the war leader’s yurt. Seeing Toc, Redmask approached.

  ‘Tell me, Toc Anaster, you flanked our march on the north this day – did you see tracks?’

  ‘What sort do you mean?’

  Redmask turned to Natarkas’s companion. ‘Torrent rode to the south. He made out a trail that followed an antelope track – a dozen men on foot—’

  ‘Or more,’ the one named Torrent said. ‘They were skilled.’

  ‘Not Letherii, then,’ Toc guessed.

  ‘Moccasined,’ Redmask replied, his tone betraying slight irritation at Torrent’s interruption. ‘Tall, heavy.’

  ‘I noted nothing like that,’ said Toc. ‘Although I admit I was mostly scanning horizon lines.’

  ‘This place shall be our camp,’ Redmask said after a moment. ‘We will meet the Letherii three leagues from here, in the valley known as Bast Fulmar. Toc Anaster, will you stay with the elders and children or accompany us?’

  ‘I have had my fill of fields of battle, Redmask. I said I’d found myself a soldier again, but even an army’s train needs guards, and that is about all I am up to right now.’ He shrugged. ‘Maybe from now on.’

  The eyes in that scaled mask held on Toc for a half-dozen heartbeats, then slowly turned away. ‘Torrent, you too will stay here.’

  The warrior stiffened in surprise. ‘War Leader—’

  ‘You will begin training those children who are close to their death nights. Bows, knives.’

  Torrent bowed, stiffly. ‘As you command.’

  Redmask left them, trailed by Natarkas and Masarch.

  Torrent glanced over at Toc. ‘My courage is not broken,’ he said.

  ‘You’re young still,’ he replied.

  ‘You will oversee the younger children, Toc Anaster. That and nothing more. You will keep them and yourself out of my way.’

  Toc had had enough of this man. ‘Torrent, you rode at your old war leader’s side when you Awl abandoned us to the Letherii army. Be careful of your bold claims of courage. And when I came to you and pleaded for the lives of my soldiers, you turned away with the rest of them. I believe Redmask has just taken your measure, Torrent, and if I hear another threat from you I will give you reason to curse me – with what will be your last breath.’

  The warrior bared his teeth in a humourless smile. ‘All I see in that lone eye, Toc Anaster, tells me you are already cursed.’ He pivoted and walked away.

  Well, the bastard has a point. So maybe I’m not as good at this give and take as I imagined myself to be. For these Awl, it is a way of life, after all. Then again, the Malazan armies are pretty good at it, too – no wonder I never really fit.

  A half-dozen children hurried past, trailed by a mud-smeared toddler struggling to keep up. Seeing the chattering mob vanish round a tent, the toddler halted, then let out a wail.

  Toc grunted. Aye, you and me both. He made a rude sound and the toddler looked over, eyes wide. Then laughed.

  Eye socket fiercely itching once more, Toc scratched for a moment, then headed over, issuing yet another rude noise. Oh, look at that – innocent delight. Well, Toc, take your rewards where and when you can.

  Redmask stood at the very edge of the sprawling encampment, studying the horizon to the south. ‘Someone is out there,’ he said in a low voice.

  ‘So it seems,’ Natarkas said. ‘Strangers – who walk our land as if they owned it. War Leader, you have wounded Torrent—’

  ‘Torrent must learn the value of respect. And so he will, as weapon master to a score of restless adolescents. When next he joins us, he will be a wiser man. Do you challenge my decisions, Natarkas?’

  ‘Challenge? No, War Leader. But at times I will probe them, if I find the need to understand them better.’

  Redmask nodded, then said to the warrior standing a short distance away, ‘Heed those words, Masarch.’

  ‘So I shall,’ the young warrior replied.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ said Redmask, ‘I lead my warriors to war. Bast Fulmar.’

  Natarkas hissed, then said, ‘A cursed valley.’

  ‘We will honour the blood spilled there three hundred years ago, Natarkas. The past will die there, and from there on we shall look only to a new future. New in every way.’

  ‘This new way of fighting, War Leader, I see little honour in it.’

  ‘You speak true. There is none to be found. Such is necessity.’

  ‘Must necessity be surrender?’

  Redmask looked across at the warrior whose face was painted in the likeness of his own mask. ‘When the ways surrendered hold naught but the promise of failure, then yes. It must be done. They must be cast away.’

  ‘The elders will find that difficult to accept, War Leader.’

  ‘I know. You and I have played this game before. This is not their war. It is mine. And I mean to win it.’

  They were silent then, as the wind, a dirge through dead grasses, moaned ghostly across the land.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Sea without water

  spreads white bones

  crumbled flat and bleached

  like parchment

  where I walked.

  But this scrawl

  scratching my wake

  is without history

  bereft of raiment

  to clothe my fate.

  Sky has lost its clouds

  to some ragged wind

  that never runs aground

  these shoals revealed

  on paths untrod.

  Wind heaves waves

  unseen in the shell

  a cup of promise unfulfilled

  the rank lie of salt

  that bites my tongue.

  I dwelt by a sea, once

  etching histories

  along the endless strand

  in rolling scrolls

  of flotsam and weed.

  Rumours of the Sea

  Fisher kel Tath

  There had been rain in the afternoon, which was just as well since there wasn’t much value in burning the entire forest down and besides, he wasn’t popular at the best of times. They had mocked his antics, and they had said he stank, too, so much so that no-one ever came within reach of his huge, gnarled hands. Of course, had any of his neighbours done so, he might well have torn their limbs off to answer years of scorn and abuse.

  Old Hunch Arbat no longer pulled his cart from farm to farm, from shack to shack, collecting the excrement with which he buried the idols of the Tarthenal gods that had commanded a mostly forgotten glade deep in the woods. The need had passed, after all. The damned hoary nightmares were dead.

  His neighbours had not appreciated Arbat’s sudden retirement, since now the stink of their wastes had begun to foul their own homes. Lazy wastrels that they were, they weren’t of a mind to deepen their cesspits – didn’t Old Hunch empty them out on a regular basis? Well, not any more.

  That alone might have been reason enough to light out. And Arbat would have liked nothing better than to just vanish into the forest gloom, never to be seen again. Walk far, yes, until he came to a hamlet or village where none knew him, where none even knew of him. Rainwashed of all odour, just some kindly, harmless old mixed-blood Tarthenal who could, for a coin or two, mend broken things, including flesh and bone.

  Walk, then. Leaving behind the old Tarthenal territories, away from the weed-snagged statues in the overgrown glades. And maybe, even, away from the ancient blood of his heritage. Not all healers were shamans, were they? They’d not ask any awkward questions, so long as he treated them right, and he could do that, easy.

  Old bastards like him deserved their rest. A lifetime of service. Propitiations, the Masks of Dreaming, the leering faces of stone, the solitary rituals – all done, now. He
could walk his last walk, into the unknown. A hamlet, a village, a sun-warmed boulder beside a trickling stream, where he could settle back and ease his tortured frame and not move, until the final mask was pulled away . . .

  Instead, he had woken in darkness, in the moments before false dawn, shaking as if afflicted with ague, and before his eyes had hovered the slowly shredding fragments of a most unexpected Dream Mask. One he had never seen before, yet a visage of terrifying power. A mask crazed with cracks, a mask moments from shattering explosively—

  Lying on his cot, the wood frame creaking beneath him as he trembled from head to foot, he waited for revelation.

  The sun was high overhead when he finally emerged from his shack. Banks of clouds climbed the sky to the west – an almost-spent storm coming in from the sea – and he set about his preparations, ignoring the rain when it arrived.

  Now, with dusk fast approaching, Arbat collected a bundled cane of rushes and set one end aflame from the hearth. He fired his shack, then the woodshed, and finally the old barn wherein resided his two-wheeled cart. Then, satisfied that each building was truly alight, he shouldered the sack containing those possessions and supplies he would need, and set out onto the trail leading down to the road.

  A grunt of surprise a short time later, on the road, as he ran into a score of villagers hurrying in a mob towards him. In their lead, the Factor, who cried out in relief upon seeing Arbat.

  ‘Thank the Errant you’re alive, Hunch!’

  Scowling, Arbat studied the man’s horsey face for a moment, then scanned the pale smudges of the other faces, hovering behind the Factor. ‘What is all this?’ he demanded.

  ‘A troop of Edur are staying at the inn tonight, Arbat. When word of the fires reached them they insisted we head up to help – in case the wood goes up, you see—’

  ‘The wood, right. So where are the meddlers now, then?’

  ‘They remained behind, of course. But I was ordered—’ the Factor paused, then leaned closer to peer up at Arbat. ‘Was it Vrager, then? The fool likes his fires, and is no friend of yours.’

  ‘Vrager? Could be. He’s been in the habit of sneaking in at night and pissing on my door. Doesn’t accept me being retired and all. Says I got a duty to cart away his shit.’