Midnight Tides

  Then the mountains were black silhouettes once more.

  Beyond them, the wave, from horizon to horizon, was descending. Vanishing behind the range.

  In the corner of her vision, Seren saw Nekal Bara slump to her knees.

  Sudden light, across the rim of the world to the north, billowing like storm seas exploding against rock. The glow shot back into the night sky, this time in fiery arms and enormous, whipping tentacles.

  She saw a strange ripple of grey against black on the facing mountainside, swiftly plunging.

  Then comprehension struck her. ‘Lie flat! Everyone! Down!’

  The ripple struck the base of the slope. The few scraggly trees clinging to a nearby hillside toppled in unison, as if pushed over by a giant invisible hand.

  The sound struck.

  And broke around them, strangely muted.

  Dazed, Seren lifted her head. Watched the shale tiles of an outlying building’s roof dance away into the darkness. Watched as the north-facing wall tilted, then collapsed, taking the rest of the structure with it. She slowly climbed to her hands and knees.

  Nekal Bara stood nearby, her hair and clothes untouched by the wind that raged on all sides.

  Muddy rain sifted down through the strangely thick air. The stench of charred wood and the raw smell of cracked stone.

  Beyond, the wind had died, and the rain pummelled the ground. Darkness returned, and if fires still burned beyond the mountains, no sign was visible from this distance.

  Buruk the Pale staggered to her side, his face splashed with mud. ‘He did not block it, Acquitor!’ he gasped. ‘It is as I said: no time to prepare.’

  A soldier shouted, ‘Errant take us! Such power!’ There was good reason why Lether had never lost a war. Even the Onyx Wizards of Bluerose had been crushed by the cadres of the Ceda. Archpriests, shamans, witches and rogue sorcerors, none had ever managed to stand for long against such ferocity. Seren felt sick inside. Sick, and bereft.

  This is not war. This is… what? Errant save us, I have no answer, no way to describe the magnitude of this slaughter. It is mindless. Blasphemous. As if we have forgotten dignity. Theirs, our own. The word itself. No distinction between innocence and guilt, condemned by mere existence. People transformed against their will into nothing more than symbols, sketchy representations, repositories of all ills, of all frustrations.

  Is this what must be done? Take the enemy’s flesh and fill it with diseases, corrupting and deadly to the touch, breath of poison? And that which is sick must be exterminated, lest it spread its contamination.

  ‘I doubt,’ Buruk said in an empty voice, ‘there was time to suffer.’

  True. Leave that to us.

  There had been no defence. Hannan Mosag, Rhulad, the slave Udinaas, and Feather Witch. Hull Beddict. The names skittered away in her mind and she saw – with a sudden twisting of her insides that left her shocked – the face of Trull Sengar. No. It was Hull I was thinking of. No. Why him? ‘But they’re dead.’

  ‘They’re all dead,’ Buruk said beside her. ‘I need a drink.’

  His hand plucked at her arm.

  She did not move. ‘There’s nowhere to go.’

  ‘Acquitor. The tavern beneath the hostel’s built solid enough to withstand a siege. I’d imagine that’s where those soldiers just went, to toast their lost comrades. Poor fools. The dead ones, I mean. Come on, Seren. I’m in the mood to spend coin.’

  Blinking, she looked round. The mages were gone.

  ‘It’s raining, Acquitor. Let’s go.’

  His hand closed on her arm. She allowed him to drag her away.

  ****

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘You’re in shock, Acquitor. No surprise. Here, I’ve some tea for you, the captain’s own. Enjoy the sunshine – it’s been rare enough lately.’

  The river’s swift current pulled the barge along. Ahead, the sun was faintly copper, but the breeze sidling across the water’s spinning surface was warm.

  She took the cup from his hands.

  ‘We’ll be there by dusk,’ Buruk said. ‘Soon, we should be able to make out its skyline. Or at least the smoke.’

  ‘The smoke,’ she said. ‘Yes, there will be that.’

  ‘Think on it this way, Seren. You’ll soon be free of me.’

  ‘Not if there’s not to be a war.’

  ‘No. I intend to release you from your contract in any case.’

  She looked over at him, struggled to focus. There had been a night. After the sorcerous assault. In the tavern. Boisterous soldiers. Scouting parties were to head north the next day – today. She was starting to recall details, the gleam of some strange excitement as lurid as the tavern’s oil lamps. ‘Why would you do that?’

  ‘My need for you is ended, Acquitor.’

  ‘Presumably, the Edur will sue for peace. If anything, Buruk, you will find yourself far busier than ever.’ She sipped the tea.

  ‘He nodded, slowly, and she sensed from him a kind of resignation.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I’d forgotten. You must needs make yourself of no use.’

  ‘Indeed. My days as a spy are over, Acquitor.’

  ‘You will be the better for it, Buruk.’

  ‘Assuredly.’

  ‘Will you stay in Trate?’

  ‘Oh yes. It is my home, after all I intend never to leave Trate.’

  Seren drank her tea. Mint, and something else that thickened her tongue. Flowed turgid and cloying through her thoughts. ‘You have poisoned this tea, Buruk.’ The words slurred.

  ‘Had to, Seren Pedac. Since last night. I can’t have you thinking clearly. Not right now. You’ll sleep again. One of the dockhands will waken you tonight – I will make sure of that, and that you’re safe.’

  ‘Is this another… another betrayal?’ She felt herself sagging on the bench.

  ‘My last, dear. Remember this, if you can: I didn’t want your help.’

  ‘My… help.’

  ‘Although,’ he added from a great distance, ‘you have always held my heart.’

  ****

  Fierce pain behind her eyes. She blinked them open. It was night. A robe covered her, tucked up round her chin. The slow rise and fall beneath her and the faint creaks told her she was still aboard the barge, which was now tied up alongside a stone pier. Groaning, she sat up.

  Scuffling sounds beside her, then a tankard was hovering before her face. ‘Drink this, lass.’

  She did not recognize the voice, but pushed the tankard away.

  ‘No it’s all right,’ the man insisted. ‘Just ale. Clean, cool ale. To take the ache from your head. He said you”d be hurting, you see. And ale’s always done it for me, when I done and drunk too much.’

  ‘I wasn’t drunk—’

  ‘No matter, you weren’t sleeping a natural sleep. It ain’t no difference, you see? Come now, lass, I need to get you up and around. It’s my wife, you see, she’s poorly. We’re past the third bell an’ I don’t like leaving her too long alone. But he paid me good. Errant knows, more than an honest man makes in a year. Jus’ to sit with you, you see. See you’re safe an’ up and walking.’

  She struggled to her feet, clutching at and missing the cloak as it slipped down to her feet.

  The dockhand, a bent, wizened old man, set the tankard down and collected it. ‘Turn now, lass. I got the clasps. There’s a chill this night – you’re shivering. Turn now, yes, good, that’s it.’

  ‘Thank you.’ The weight of the cloak pulled at her neck muscles and shoulders, making the pain in her head throb.

  ‘I had a daughter, once. A noble took her. Debts, you see. Maybe she’s alive, maybe she isn’t. He went through lasses, that one. Back in Letheras. We couldn’t stay there, you see, not after that. Chance t’see her, or a body turning up, like they do. Anyway, she was tall like you, that’s all. Here, have some ale.’

  She accepted the tankard, drank down three quick mouthfuls.

  ‘There, better now.’

&
nbsp; ‘I have to go. So do you, to your wife.’

  ‘Well enough, lass. Can you walk?’

  ‘Where’s my pack?’

  ‘He took it with him, said you could collect it. In the shed behind his house. He was specific ’bout that. The shed. Don’t go in the house, he said. Very specific—’

  She swung to the ladder. ‘Help me.’

  Rough hands under her arms, moving down to her behind as she climbed, then her thighs. ‘Best I can do, lass,’ came a gasp below her as she moved beyond his reach. She clambered onto the pier.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ she said.

  The city was quiet, barring a pair of dogs scrapping somewhere behind a warehouse. Seren stumbled on occasion as she hurried down the streets. But, true to the dockhand’s word, the ale dulled the pain behind her eyes. Made her thoughts all too clear.

  She reached Buruk the Pale’s home, an old but well-maintained house halfway down a row on the street just in from the riverside warehouses.

  No lights showed behind the shuttered windows.

  Seren climbed the steps and drove her boot against the door.

  Four kicks and the locks broke. By this time, neighbours had awakened. There were shouts, calls for the guard. Somewhere down the row a bell began ringing.

  She followed the collapsing door into the cloakroom beyond. No servants, no sound from within. Into the dark hallway, ascending the stairs to the next level. Another hallway, step by step closing in on the door to Buruk’s bedroom. Through the doorway. Inside.

  Where he hung beneath a crossbeam, face bloated in the shadows. A toppled chair off to one side, up against the narrow bed.

  A scream, filled with rage, tore loose from Seren’s throat.

  Below, boots on the stairs.

  She screamed again, the sound falling away to a hoarse sob.

  You have always held my heart.

  ****

  Smoke rising in broad plumes, only to fall back and unfold like a grey cloak over the lands to the north. Obscuring all, hiding nothing.

  Hanradi Khalag’s weathered face was set, expressionless, as he stared at the distant devastation. Beside the chief of the Merude, Trull Sengar remained silent, wondering why Hanradi had joined him at this moment, when the mass of warriors were in the midst of breaking camp on the forested slopes all around them.

  ‘Hull Beddict spoke true,’ the chief said in his raspy voice. ‘They would strike pre-emptively. Beneda, Hiroth and Arapay villages.’

  A night of red fires filling the north. At least four villages, and among them Trull’s own. Destroyed.

  He swung round to study the slopes. Seething with warriors, Edur women and their slaves, elders and children. No going back, now. The Letherii sorcery has obliterated our homes… but those homes were empty, the villages left to the crows.

  And a handful of hapless Nerek.

  Nothing but ashes, now.

  ‘Trull Sengar,’ Hanradi Khalag said, ‘our allies arrived last night. Three thousand. You were seen. It seems they know you well, if only by reputation. The sons of Tomad Sengar, but you especially. The one who leads them is called the Dominant. A hulk of a man, even for one of his kind. More grey than black in his mane. He is named B’nagga—’

  ‘This does not interest me, Chief,’ Trull cut in. ‘They have been as sorely used as we have, and that use is far from over. I do not know this B’nagga.’

  ‘As I said, he knows you, and would speak with you.’

  Trull turned away.

  ‘You had best accept the truth of things, Trull Sengar—’

  ‘One day I will know your mind, Hanradi Khalag. The self you hide so well. Hannan Mosag bent you to his will. And now you kneel before my brother, the emperor. The usurper. Is this what the unification of the tribes was intended to mean? Is this the future you desired?’

  ‘Usurper. Words like that will see you killed or cast out.’

  Trull grunted. ‘Rhulad is with the western army—’

  ‘But the wraiths now serve him.’

  ‘Ah, and we are to have spies among us now? An emperor who fears his own. An emperor who would be immune to criticism. Someone must speak in the name of reason.’

  ‘Speak no more of this. Not to me. I reject all you say. You are being foolish, Trull Sengar. Foolish. Your anger is born of envy. No more.’ He turned and walked back down the narrow track, leaving Trull alone once again on the precipice rising above the valleys of the pass. It did not occur to him to see if Hanradi had indeed lost his shadow.

  A precipice. Where he could look down and watch the thousands swarm among the trees.

  Three land armies and four fleets held, divided among them, the entire population of the Tiste Edur. This camp before him was a league wide and two leagues deep. Trull had never seen so many Edur gathered in one place. Hiroth, Arapay, Sollanta, Beneda.

  He caught movement below, on the edge of Fear’s command area, squat, fur-clad figures, and felt himself grow cold. Our… allies.

  Jheck.

  Summoned by the Edur they had killed. Worshippers of the sword.

  The night just past, beginning at dusk, had vanished behind a nightmarish display of sorcery. Unimaginable powers unveiled by the Letherii mages, an expression of appalling brutality in its intent. This was clearly going to be a war where no quarter was given, where conquest and annihilation were, for the Letherii, synonymous. Trull wondered if Rhulad would answer in like manner.

  Except we have no homes to return to. We are committed to occupation of the south. Of Lether. We cannot raze the cities… can we? He drew a deep breath. He needed to talk to Fear again. But his brother had plunged into his role as commander of this army. His lead elements, half a day ahead, would come within sight of High Fort. The army would cross the Katter River at the Narrow Chute, which was spanned by a stone bridge centuries old, then swing down to join those lead elements.

  And there would be a battle.

  For Fear, the time for questions was past.

  But why can I not manage the same for myself? Certainty, even fatality, eluded Trull. His mind would not rest from its tortured thoughts, his worries of what awaited them.

  He made his way down the track. The Jheck were there, a contingent present in Fear’s command area. He was not required, he told himself, to speak to them.

  Edur warriors readying armour and weapons on all sides. Women chanting protective wards to weave a net of invisibility about the entire encampment. Wraiths darting among the trees, most of them streaming southward, through the pass and into the southlands. Here and there, demonic conjurations towered, hulking and motionless along the many newly worn trails leading to the summit. They were in full armour of bronze scales, green with verdigris, with heavy helms, the cheek guards battered plates that reached down past the jawlines, their faces hidden. Polearms, glaives, double-edged axes and maces, an array of melee weapons. Once, not so long ago, such summoned demons had been rare, the ritual – conducted by women – one of cajoling, false promises and final deception. The creatures were bound, now doomed to fight a war not of their making, where the only release was annihilation. They numbered in the high hundreds in this, Fear’s army. The truth of that sickened him.

  Helping with the striking of tents, children. Torn from their familiar world, subject to a new shaping. If this gambit failed…

  Fear was standing near the remnants of a hearth from which smoke rose in a low wreath about his legs. Flanked by the two K’risnan the emperor had attached to this force. Hanradi Khalag stood off to one side.

  A Jheck was approaching, probably the one the Merude chief had spoken of given the wild iron-streaked, tangled head of hair, the fattened seamed face displaying countless battle-scars. Various shells dangled from knotted strips hanging on his sleeveless sealskin shirt. Other small trophies depended from a narrow belt beneath the man’s round paunch – pieces of Edur armour, jewellery. A bold reminder of past enmity.

  What had Hanradi called him? The Dominant. B’nagga.


  The Jheck’s eyes were yellow, the whites dull grey and embryonic with blue vessels. They looked half mad.

  Filed teeth flashed in a fierce smile. ‘See who comes, Fear Sengar!’ The accent was awkward behind the Arapay intonations. ‘The one we could not defeat!’

  Trull scowled as his brother turned to watch him approach. To the Dominant he said, ‘You’ll find no fields of ice to the south, Jheck.’

  ‘Mange and moult, Slayer. No other enemy gives us such terror.’ His broadening smile underscored the irony of his words. ‘Fear Sengar, your brother is worthy of much pride. Again and again, my hunters sought to best this warrior in individual combat. Veered or sembled, it mattered not. He defeated them all. Never before have we witnessed such skill, such ferocity.’

  ‘Among all who I trained, B’nagga,’ Fear said, ‘Trull was and remains the finest.’

  Trull started, then his scowl deepened with disbelief. ‘Enough of this. Fear, has our emperor spoken to us through the wraiths? Does he voice his satisfaction at the failed attempt by the Letherii? Does he spit with rage?’

  One of the K’risnan spoke. ‘Not a single Edur was lost, Trull Sengar. For that we have Hull Beddict to thank.’

  ‘Ah yes the traitor. And what of the Nerek camped in our village?’

  The warlock shrugged. ‘We could not command them.’

  ‘Relinquish your anger, brother,’ Fear said. ‘The devastation was wrought by the Letherii, not us.’

  ‘True. And now it is our turn.’

  ‘Yes. The wraiths have reported an army ascending to the pass.’

  Ah no. So soon.

  B’nagga laughed. ‘Do we ambush them? Shall I send my wolves forward?’

  ‘They are not yet at the bridge,’ Fear replied. ‘I expect they will seek to contest that crossing should we fail to reach it before them. For the moment, however, they are in a slow-march, and, it seems, not expecting much opposition.’

  ‘That much is clear,’ Hanradi said. ‘What commander would seek an engagement against an enemy upslope? This is a probe. At first contact they will withdraw. Back to High Fort. Fear, we should bloody them all the way.’