Reaper's Gale

  ‘And I will join you as well,’ Trull Sengar said. ‘We begin with spears, yes? I have fought enough wolves in my time. We will meet its charge with spears. Then, when it is wounded and crippled, we close with bladed weapons.’

  Onrack studied them for a moment, then he smiled. ‘I see that I will not dissuade you. Yet, for the fight itself, you must not interfere. I do not think I will fail, and you will see why before long.’

  Trull and the wizard followed the Imass up the slope of an outwash fan that filled most of a crevasse, up among the lichen-clad, tilted and folded bedrock. Beyond this blackstone ledge rose a sheer wall of grey shale pocked with caves where sediments had eroded away beneath an endless torrent of glacial melt. The stream in which Onrack had plunged his hands earlier poured out from this cliff, forming a pool in one cavern that extended out to fill a basin before continuing downslope. To the right of this was another cave, triangular in shape, with one entire side formed by a collapse in the shale overburden. The flat ground before it was scattered with splintered bones.

  As they skirted the pool Onrack suddenly halted, lifting a hand.

  A massive shape now filled the cave mouth.

  Three heartbeats later, the emlava emerged.

  ‘Hood’s breath,’ Quick Ben whispered.

  Trull had expected a hunting cat little different from a mountain lion – perhaps one of the black ones rumoured to live in the deeper forests of his homeland. The creature hulking into view, blinking sleep from its charcoal eyes, was the size of a plains brown bear. Its enormous upper canines projected down past its lower jaw, long as a huntsman’s knife and polished the hue of amber. The head was broad and flat, the ears small and set far back. Behind the short neck, the emlava’s shoulders were hunched, forming a kind of muscled hump. Its fur was striped, black barbs on deep grey, although its throat revealed a flash of white.

  ‘Not quite built for speed, is it?’

  Trull glanced over at Quick Ben, saw the wizard holding a dagger in one hand. ‘We should get you a spear,’ the Tiste Edur said.

  ‘I’ll take one of your spares – if you don’t mind.’

  Trull slipped the bound clutch from his shoulder and said, ‘Take your pick.’

  The emlava was studying them. Then it yawned and with that Onrack moved lightly forward in a half-crouch.

  As he did so, pebbles scattered nearby and Trull turned. ‘Well, it seems Onrack has allies in this after all.’

  The wolves – ay in the Imass language – had appeared and were now closing on Onrack’s position, heads lowered and eyes fixed on the huge cat.

  The sudden arrival of seven wolves clearly displeased the emlava, for it then lowered itself until its chest brushed the ground, gathering its legs beneath it. The mouth opened again, and a deep hiss filled the air.

  ‘We might as well get out of their way,’ Quick Ben said, taking a step back with obvious relief.

  ‘I wonder,’ Trull said as he watched the momentary stand-off, ‘if this is how domestication first began. Not banding together in a hunt for prey, but in an elimination of rival predators.’

  Onrack had readied his spear, not to meet a charge, but to throw the weapon using a stone-weighted antler atlatl. The wolves to his either side had fanned out, edging closer with fangs bared.

  ‘Not a growl to be heard,’ Quick Ben said. ‘Somehow that’s more chilling.’

  ‘Growls are to warn,’ Trull replied. ‘There is fear in growls, just as there is in that cat’s hissing.’

  The emlava’s single lungful of breath finally whistled down into silence. It refilled its lungs and began again.

  Onrack lunged forward, the spear darting from his hand.

  Flinching back, the emlava screamed as the weapon drove deep into its chest, just to one side of the neck and beneath the clavicle. At that moment the wolves rushed in.

  A mortal wound, however, was not enough to slow the cat as it lashed out with two staggered swings of its forepaws at one of the wolves. The first paw sank talons deep into the wolf’s shoulder, snatching the entire animal closer, within the reach of the second paw, which dragged the yelping wolf closer still. The massive head then snapped down on its neck, fangs burying themselves in flesh and bone.

  The emlava, lurching, then drove its full weight down on the dying wolf, probably breaking every bone in its body.

  As it did so, four other wolves lunged for its soft belly, two to each side, their canines tearing deep, then pulling away as, screaming, the emlava spun round to fend them off.

  Exposing its neck.

  Onrack’s sword flashed, point-first, into the cat’s throat. It recoiled, sending one wolf tumbling, then reared back on its hind legs – as if to wheel and flee back into its cave – but all strength left the emlava then. It toppled, thumped hard onto the ground, and was still.

  The six remaining wolves – one limping – padded away, keeping a distance between themselves and the three men, and moments later were gone from sight.

  Onrack walked up to the emlava and tugged free his gore-spattered spear. Then he knelt beside the cat’s head.

  ‘Asking forgiveness?’ Quick Ben queried, his tone only slightly ironic.

  The Imass looked over at them. ‘No, that would be dishonest, wizard.’

  ‘You’re right, it would. I am glad you’re not dumping any blessed spirit rubbish on us. It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it, that there were wars long before there were wars between people. You had your rival hunters to dispose of first.’

  ‘Yes, that is true. And we found allies. If you wish to find irony, Quick Ben, know that we then hunted until most of our prey was extinct. And our allies then starved – those that did not surrender to our stewardship.’

  ‘The Imass are hardly unique in that,’ Trull Sengar said.

  Quick Ben snorted. ‘That’s understating it, Trull. So tell us, Onrack, why are you kneeling beside that carcass?’

  ‘I have made a mistake,’ the Imass replied, climbing to his feet and staring into the cave.

  ‘Seemed pretty flawless to me.’

  ‘The killing, yes, Quick Ben. But this emlava, it is female.’

  The wizard grunted, then seemed to flinch. ‘You mean the male’s still around?’

  ‘I do not know. Sometimes they . . . wander.’ Onrack looked down at the bloodied spear in his hands. ‘My friends,’ he said. ‘I am now . . . hesitant, I admit. Perhaps, long ago, I would not have thought twice – as you said, wizard, we warred against our competitors. But this realm – it is a gift. All that was lost, because of our thoughtless acts, now lives again. Here. I wonder, can things be different?’

  In the silence following that question, they heard, coming from the cave, the first pitiful cry.

  ‘Did you ever wish, Udinaas, that you could sink inside stone? Shake loose its vast memories—’

  The ex-slave glanced at Wither – a deeper smear in the gloom – then sneered. ‘And see what they have seen? You damned wraith, stones can’t see.’

  ‘True enough. Yet they swallow sound and bind it trapped inside. They hold conversations with heat and cold. Their skins wear away to the words of the wind and the lick of water. Darkness and light live in their flesh – and they carry within them the echoes of wounding, of breaking, of being cruelly shaped—’

  ‘Oh, enough!’ Udinaas snapped, pushing a stick further into the fire. ‘Go melt away into these ruins, then.’

  ‘You are the last one awake, my friend. And yes, I have been in these ruins.’

  ‘Games like those are bound to drive you mad.’

  A long pause. ‘You know things you have no right to know.’

  ‘How about this, then? Sinking into stone is easy. It’s getting out again that’s hard. You can get lost, trapped in the maze. And on all sides, all those memories pressing in, pressing down.’

  ‘It is your dreams, isn’t it? Where you learn such things. Who speaks to you? Tell me the name of this fell mentor!’

  Udinaas laughed. ‘You
fool, Wither. My mentor? Why, none other than imagination.’

  ‘I do not believe you.’

  There seemed little point in responding to that declaration. Staring into the flames, Udinaas allowed its flickering dance to lull him. He was tired. He should be sleeping. The fever was gone, the nightmarish hallucinations, the strange nectars that fed the tumbling delusions all seeped away, like piss in moss. The strength I felt in those other worlds was a lie. The clarity, a deceit. All those offered ways forward, through what will come, every one a dead end. I should have known better.

  ‘K’Chain Nah’ruk, these ruins.’

  ‘You still here, Wither? Why?’

  ‘This was once a plateau on which the Short-Tails built a city. But now, as you can see, it is shattered. Now there is nothing but these dread slabs all pitched and angled – yet we have been working our way downward. Did you sense this? We will soon reach the centre, the heart of this crater, and we will see what destroyed this place.’

  ‘The ruins,’ said Udinaas, ‘remember cool shadow. Then concussion. Shadow, Wither, in a flood to announce the end of the world. The concussion, well, that belonged to the shadow, right?’

  ‘You know things—’

  ‘You damned fool, listen to me! We came to the edge of this place, this high plateau, expecting to see it stretch out nice and flat before us. Instead, it looks like a frozen puddle onto which someone dropped a heavy rock. Splat. All the sides caved inward. Wraith, I don’t need any secret knowledge to work this out. Something big came down from the sky – a meteorite, a sky keep, whatever. We trudged through its ash for days. Covering the ancient snow. Ash and dust, eating into that snow like acid. And the ruins, they’re all toppled, blasted outward, then tilted inward. Out first, in second. Heave out and down, then slide back. Wither, all it takes is for someone to just look. Really look. That’s it. So enough with all this mystical sealshit, all right?’

  His tirade had wakened the others. Too bad. Nearly dawn anyway. Udinaas listened to them moving around, heard a cough, then someone hawking spit. Which? Seren? Kettle? The ex-slave smiled to himself. ‘Your problem, Wither, is your damned expectations. You hounded me for months and months, and now you feel the need to have made it – me – worth all that attention. So here you are, pushing some kind of sage wisdom on this broken slave, but I told you then what I’ll tell you now. I’m nothing, no-one. Understand? Just a man with a brain that, every now and then, actually works. Yes, I work it, because I find no comfort in being stupid. Unlike, I think, most people. Us Letherii, anyway. Stupid and proud of it. Belongs on the Imperial Seal, that happy proclamation. No wonder I failed so miserably.’

  Seren Pedac moved into the firelight, crouching down to warm her hands. ‘Failed at what, Udinaas?’

  ‘Why, everything, Acquitor. No need for specifics here.’

  Fear Sengar spoke from behind him. ‘You were skilled, I recall, at mending nets.’

  Udinaas did not turn round, but he smiled. ‘Yes, I probably deserved that. My well-meaning tormentor speaks. Well-meaning? Oh, perhaps not. Indifferent? Possibly. Until, at least, I did something wrong. A badly mended net – aaii! Flay the fool’s skin from his back! I know, it was all for my own good. Someone’s, anyway.’

  ‘Another sleepless night, Udinaas?’

  He looked across the fire at Seren, but she was intent on the flames licking beneath her outstretched hands, as if the question had been rhetorical.

  ‘I can see my bones,’ she then said.

  ‘They’re not real bones,’ Kettle replied, settling down with her legs drawn up. ‘They look more like twigs.’

  ‘Thank you, dear.’

  ‘Bones are hard, like rock.’ She set her hands on her knees and rubbed them. ‘Cold rock.’

  ‘Udinaas,’ Seren said, ‘I see puddles of gold in the ashes.’

  ‘I found pieces of a picture frame.’ He shrugged. ‘Odd to think of K’Chain Nah’ruk hanging pictures, isn’t it?’

  Seren looked up, met his eyes. ‘K’Chain—’

  Silchas Ruin spoke as he stepped round a heap of cut stone. ‘Not pictures. The frame was used to stretch skin. K’Chain moult until they reach adulthood. The skins were employed as parchment, for writing. The Nah’ruk were obsessive recorders.’

  ‘You know a lot about creatures you killed on sight,’ Fear Sengar said.

  Clip’s soft laughter sounded from somewhere beyond the circle of light, followed by the snap of rings on a chain.

  Fear’s head lifted sharply. ‘That amuses you, pup?’

  The Tiste Andii’s voice drifted in, eerily disembodied. ‘Silchas Ruin’s dread secret. He parleyed with the Nah’ruk. There was this civil war going on, you see . . .’

  ‘It will be light soon,’ Silchas said, turning away.

  Before too long, the group separated as it usually did. Striding well ahead were Silchas Ruin and Clip. Next on the path was Seren Pedac herself, while twenty or more paces behind her straggled Udinaas – still using the Imass spear as a walking stick – and Kettle and Fear Sengar.

  Seren was not sure if she was deliberately inviting solitude upon herself. More likely some remnant of her old profession was exerting on her a disgruntled pressure to take the lead, deftly dismissing the presence ahead of the two Tiste warriors. As if they don’t count. As if they’re intrinsically unreliable as guides . . . to wherever it is we’re going. She thought back, often, on their interminable flight from Letheras, the sheer chaos of that trek, its contradictions of direction and purpose; the times when they were motionless – setting down tentative roots in some backwater hamlet or abandoned homestead – but their exhaustion did not ease then, for it was not of blood and flesh. Scabandari Bloodeye’s soul awaited them, like some enervating parasite, in a place long forgotten. Such was the stated purpose, but Seren had begun, at last, to wonder.

  Silchas had endeavoured to lead them west, ever west, and was turned aside each time – as if whatever threat the servants of Rhulad and Hannan Mosag presented was too vast to challenge. And that made no sense. The bastard can change into a damned dragon. And is Silchas a pacifist at heart? Hardly. He kills with all the compunction of a man swatting mosquitoes. Did he turn us away to spare our lives? Again, unlikely. A dragon doesn’t leave behind anything alive, does it? Driven north, again and again, away from the more populated areas.

  To the very edge of Bluerose, a region once ruled by Tiste Andii – hiding still under the noses of Letherii and Edur – no, I do not trust any of this. I cannot. Silchas Ruin sensed his kin. He must have.

  Suspecting Silchas Ruin of deceit was one thing, voicing the accusation quite another. She lacked the courage. As simple as that. Easier, isn’t it, to just go along, and to keep from thinking too hard. Because thinking too hard is what Udinaas has done, and look at the state he’s in. Yet, even then, he’s managing to keep his mouth shut. Most of the time. He may be an ex-slave, he may be ‘no-one’ – but he is not a fool.

  So she walked alone. Bound by friendship to none – none here, in any case – and disinclined to change that.

  The ruined city, little more than heaps of tumbled stone, rolled past on all sides, the slope ahead becoming ever steeper, and she thought, after a time, that she could hear the whisper of sand, crumbled mortar, fragments of rubble, as if their passage was yet further pitching this landscape, and as they walked they gathered to them streams of sliding refuse. As if our presence alone is enough shift the balance. The whispering could have been voices, uttered beneath the wind, and she felt – with a sudden realization that lifted beads of sweat to her skin – within moments of understanding the words. Of stone and broken mortar. I am sliding into madness indeed—

  ‘When the stone breaks, every cry escapes. Can you hear me now, Seren Pedac?’

  ‘Is that you, Wither? Leave me be.’

  ‘Are any warrens alive? Most would say no. Impossible. They are forces. Aspects. Proclivities manifest as the predictable – oh, the Great Thinkers who are long since dust
worried this in fevered need, as befits the obsessed. But they did not understand. One warren lies like a web over all the others, and its voice is the will necessary to shape magic. They did not see it. Not for what it was. They thought . . . chaos, a web where each strand was undifferentiated energy, not yet articulated, not yet given shape by an Elder God’s intent.’

  She listened, as yet uncomprehending, even as her heart thundered in her chest and her each breath came in a harsh rasp. This, she knew, was not Wither’s voice. Not the wraith’s language. Not its cadence.

  ‘But K’rul understood. Spilled blood is lost blood, powerless blood in the end. It dies when abandoned. Witness violent death for proof of that. For the warrens to thrive, coursing in their appointed rivers and streams, there must be a living body, a grander form that exists in itself. Not chaos. Not Dark, nor Light. Not heat, not cold. No, a conscious aversion to disorder. Negation to and of all else, when all else is dead. For the true face of Death is dissolution, and in dissolution there is chaos until the last mote of energy ceases its wilful glow, its persistent abnegation. Do you understand?’

  ‘No. Who are you?’

  ‘There is another way, then, of seeing this. K’rul realized he could not do this alone. The sacrifice, the opening of his veins and arteries, would mean nothing, would indeed fail. Without living flesh, without organized functionality.

  ‘Ah, the warrens, Seren Pedac, they are a dialogue. Do you see now?’

  ‘No!’

  Her frustrated cry echoed through the ruins. She saw Silchas and Clip halt and turn about.

  Behind her, Fear Sengar called out, ‘Acquitor? What is it you deny?’

  Knowing laughter from Udinaas.

  ‘Disregard the vicious crowd now, the torrent of sound overwhelming the warrens, the users, the guardians, the parasites and the hunters, the complicit gods elder and young. Shut them away, as Corlos taught you. To remember rape is to fold details into sensation, and so relive each time its terrible truth. He told you this could become habit, an addiction, until even despair became a welcome taste on your tongue. Understand, then – as only you can here – that to take one’s own life is the final expression of despair. You saw that. Buruk the Pale. You felt that, at the sea’s edge. Seren Pedac, K’rul could not act alone in this sacrifice, lest he fill every warren with despair.