The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

by Steven Erikson

  Trull settled down opposite him. ‘I greet you, Father. A Letherii fleet is harvesting the Calach beds. The herds have come early, and are now being slaughtered. I witnessed these things with my own eyes, and have not paused in my return.’

  Tomad nodded. ‘You have run for three days and two nights, then.’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘And the Letherii harvest, it was well along?’

  ‘Father, by dawn this morning, Daughter Menandore will have witnessed the ships’ holds filled to bursting, and the sails filling with wind, the wake of every ship a crimson river.’

  ‘And new ships arriving to take their places!’ Rhulad hissed.

  Tomad frowned at his youngest son’s impropriety, and made his disapproval clear with his next words. ‘Rhulad, take this news to Hannan Mosag.’

  Trull sensed his brother’s flinch, but Rhulad nodded. ‘As you command, Father.’ He pivoted and marched away.

  Tomad’s frown deepened. ‘You invited an unblooded warrior to this exchange?’

  ‘I did, Father.’

  ‘Why?’

  Trull said nothing, as was his choice. He was not about to voice his concern over Rhulad’s undue attentions towards Fear’s betrothed.

  After a moment, Tomad sighed. He seemed to be studying his large, scarred hands where they rested on his thighs. ‘We have grown complacent,’ he rumbled.

  ‘Father, is it complacency to assume the ones with whom we treat are honourable?’

  ‘Yes, given the precedents.’

  ‘Then why has the Warlock King agreed to a Great Meeting with the Letherii?’

  Tomad’s dark eyes flicked up to pin Trull’s own. Of all Tomad’s sons, only Fear possessed a perfect, unwavering match to his father’s eyes, in hue and indurative regard. Despite himself, Trull felt himself wilt slightly beneath that scornful gaze.

  ‘I withdraw my foolish question,’ Trull said, breaking contact to disguise his dismay. A measuring of enemies. This contravention, no matter its original intent, will become a double-pointed blade, given the inevitable response to it by the Edur. A blade both peoples shall grasp. ‘The unblooded warriors will be pleased.’

  ‘The unblooded warriors shall one day sit in the council, Trull.’

  ‘Is that not the reward of peace, Father?’

  Tomad made no reply to that. ‘Hannan Mosag shall call the council. You must needs be present to relate what you witnessed. Further, the Warlock King has made a request of me, that I give my sons to him for a singular task. I do not think that decision will be affected by the news you deliver.’

  Trull worked through his surprise, then said, ‘I passed Binadas on the way into the village—’

  ‘He has been informed, and will return within a moon’s time.’

  ‘Does Rhulad know of this?’

  ‘No, although he will accompany you. An unblooded is an unblooded.’

  ‘As you say, Father.’

  ‘Now, rest. You shall be awakened in time for the council.’

  A white crow hopped down from a salt-bleached root and began picking through the midden. At first Trull had thought it to be a gull, lingering on the strand in the fast-fading light, but then it cackled and, mussel shell in its pallid beak, sidled down from the midden towards the waterline.

  Sleep had proved an impossibility. The council had been called for midnight. Restless, nerves jangling along his exhausted limbs, Trull had walked down to the pebble beach north of the village and the river mouth.

  And now, as darkness rolled in with the sleepy waves, he had found himself sharing the strand with a white crow. It had carried its prize down to the very edge, and with each whispering approach, the bird dipped the mussel shell into the water. Six times.

  A fastidious creature, Trull observed, watching as the crow hopped onto a nearby rock and began picking at the shell.

  White was evil, of course. Common enough knowledge. The blush of bone, Menandore’s hateful light at dawn. The sails of the Letherii were white, as well, which was not surprising. And the clear waters of Calach Bay would reveal the glimmer of white cluttering the sea bottom, from the bones of thousands of slaughtered seals.

  This season would have marked a return to surplus for the six tribes, beginning the replenishment of depleted reserves to guard against famine. Thoughts that led him to another way of seeing this illegal harvesting. A perfectly timed gesture to weaken the confederacy, a ploy intended to undermine the Edur position at the Great Meeting. The argument of inevitability. The same argument first thrown into our faces with the settlements on the Reach. ‘The kingdom of Lether is expanding, its needs growing. Your camps on the Reach were seasonal, after all, and with the war they had been all but abandoned.’

  It was inevitable that more and more independent ships would come to ply the rich waters of the north coast. One could not police them all. The Edur need only look at other tribes that had once dwelt beyond the Letherii borderlands, the vast rewards that came with swearing fealty to King Ezgara Diskanar of Lether.

  But we are not as other tribes.

  The crow cackled from atop its stone throne, flinging the mussel shell away with a toss of its head, then, spreading its ghostly wings, rose up into the night. A final drawn out cawl from the darkness. Trull made a warding gesture.

  Stones turned underfoot behind him and he swung about to see his elder brother approaching.

  ‘I greet you, Trull,’ Fear said in a quiet voice. ‘The words you delivered have roused the warriors.’

  ‘And the Warlock King?’

  ‘Has said nothing.’

  Trull returned to his study of the dark waves hissing on the strand. ‘Their eyes are fixed upon those ships,’ he said.

  ‘Hannan Mosag knows to look away, brother.’

  ‘He has asked for the sons of Tomad Sengar. What do you know of that?’

  Fear was at his side now, and Trull sensed his shrug. ‘Visions have guided the Warlock King since he was a child,’ Fear said after a moment. ‘He carries blood memories all the way back to the Dark Times. Father Shadow stretches before him with every stride he takes.’

  The notion of visions made Trull uneasy. He did not doubt their power—in fact, the very opposite. The Dark Times had come with the rivening of Tiste Edur, the assault of sorceries and strange armies and the disappearance of Father Shadow himself. And, although the magic of Kurald Emurlahn was not denied to the tribes, the warren was lost to them: shattered, the fragments ruled by false kings and gods. Trull suspected that Hannan Mosag possessed an ambition far vaster than simply unifying the six tribes.

  ‘There is reluctance in you, Trull. You hide it well enough, but I can see where others cannot. You are a warrior who would rather not fight.’

  ‘That is not a crime,’ Trull muttered, then he added: ‘Of all the Sengar, only you and Father carry more trophies.’

  ‘I was not questioning your bravery, brother. But courage is the least of that which binds us. We are Edur. We were masters of the Hounds, once. We held the throne of Kurald Emurlahn. And would hold it still, if not for betrayal, first by the kin of Scabandari Bloodeye, then by the Tiste Andii who came with us to this world. We are a beset people, Trull. The Letherii are but one enemy among many. The Warlock King understands this.’

  Trull studied the glimmer of starlight on the placid surface of the bay. ‘I will not hesitate in fighting those who would be our enemies, Fear.’

  ‘That is good, brother. It is enough to keep Rhulad silent, then.’

  Trull stiffened. ‘He speaks against me? That unblooded…pup?’

  ‘Where he sees weakness…’

  ‘What he sees and what is true are different things,’ Trull said.

  ‘Then show him otherwise,’ Fear said in his low, calm voice.

  Trull was silent. He had been openly dismissive of Rhulad and his endless challenges and postures, as was his right given that Rhulad was unblooded. But more significantly, Trull’s reasons were raised like a protective wall around t
he maiden that Fear was to wed. Of course, to voice such things now would be unseemly, whispering as they would of spite and malice. After all, Mayen was Fear’s betrothed, not Trull’s, and her protection was Fear’s responsibility.

  Things would be simpler, he ruefully reflected, if he had a sense of Mayen herself. She did not invite Rhulad’s attention, but nor did she turn a shoulder to it. She walked the cliff-edge of propriety, as self-assured as any maiden would—and should—be when privileged to become the wife of the Hiroth’s Weapons Master. It was not, he told himself once again, any of his business. ‘I will not show Rhulad what he should already see,’ Trull growled. ‘He has done nothing to warrant the gift of my regard.’

  ‘Rhulad lacks the subtlety to see your reluctance as anything but weakness—’

  ‘His failing, not mine!’

  ‘Do you expect a blind elder to cross a stream’s stepping stones unaided, Trull? No, you guide him until in his mind’s eye he finally sees that which everyone else can see.’

  ‘If everyone else can see,’ Trull replied, ‘then Rhulad’s words against me are powerless, and so I am right to ignore them.’

  ‘Brother, Rhulad is not alone in lacking subtlety.’

  ‘Is it your wish, Fear, that there be enemies among the sons of Tomad Sengar?’

  ‘Rhulad is not an enemy, not of you not of any other Edur. He is young and eager for blood. You once walked his path, so I ask that you remember yourself back then. This is not the time to deliver wounds sure to scar. And, to an unblooded warrior, disdain delivers the deepest wound of all.’

  Trull grimaced. ‘I see the truth of that, Fear. I shall endeavour to curtail my indifference.’

  His brother did not react to the sarcasm. ‘The council is gathering in the citadel, brother. Will you enter the King’s Hall at my side?’

  Trull relented. ‘I am honoured, Fear.’

  They turned away from the black water, and so did not see the pale-winged shape gliding over the lazy waves a short distance offshore.

  Thirteen years ago Udinaas had been a young sailor in the third year of his family’s indenture to the merchant Intaros of Trate, the northernmost city of Lether. He was aboard the whaler Brunt and on the return run from Beneda waters. They had slipped in under cover of darkness, killing three sows, and were towing the carcasses into the neutral Troughs west of Calach Bay when five K’orthan ships of the Hiroth were sighted in hard pursuit.

  The captain’s greed had spelled their doom, as he would not abandon the kills.

  Udinaas well remembered the faces of the whaler’s officers, the captain included, as they were bound to one of the sows to be left to the sharks and dhenrabi, whilst the common sailors were taken off the ship, along with every piece of iron and every other item that caught the Edur’s fancy. Shadow wraiths were then loosed on the Brunt, to devour and tear apart the dead wood of the Letherii ship. Towing the other two sows, the five Blackwood K’orthan ships then departed, leaving the third whale to the slayers of the deep.

  Even back then, Udinaas had been indifferent to the grisly fate of the captain and his officers. He had been born into debt, as had his father and his father before him. Indenture and slavery were two words for the same thing. Nor was life as a slave among the Hiroth particularly harsh. Obedience was rewarded with protection, clothing and a dwelling sheltered from the rain and snow, and, until recently, plenty of food.

  Among Udinaas’s many tasks within the household of the Sengar was the repair of nets for the four Knarri fisherboats owned by the noble family. Because he had been a sailor, he was not permitted to leave land, and knotting the nets and affixing weight-stones down on the strand south of the river mouth was as close as he ever came to the open waters of the sea. Not that he had any desire to escape the Edur. There were plenty of slaves in the village—all Letherii, of course—so he did not miss the company of his own kind, miserable as it often was. Nor were the comforts of Lether sufficient lure to attempt what was virtually impossible anyway—he had memory of seeing such comforts, but never of partaking in them. And finally, Udinaas hated the sea with a passion, just as he had done when he was a sailor.

  In the failing light he had seen the two eldest sons of Tomad Sengar on the beach on the other side of the river mouth, and was not surprised to hear the faint, indistinguishable words they exchanged. Letherii ships had struck again—the news had raced among the slaves before young Rhulad had even reached the entrance of the citadel. A council had been called, which was to be expected, and Udinaas assumed that there would be slaughter before too long, that deadly, terrifying merging of iron-edged ferocity and sorcery that marked every clash with the Letherii of the south. And, truth be told, Udinaas wished them good hunting. Seals taken by the Letherii threatened famine among the Edur, and in famine it was the slaves who were the first to suffer.

  Udinaas well understood his own kind. To the Letherii, gold was all that mattered. Gold and its possession defined their entire world. Power, status, self-worth and respect—all were commodities that could be purchased by coin. Indeed, debt bound the entire kingdom, defining every relationship, the motivation casting the shadow of every act, every decision. This devious hunting of the seals was the opening move in a ploy the Letherii had used countless times, against every tribe beyond the borderlands. To the Letherii, the Edur were no different. But they are, you fools.

  Even so, the next move would come at the Great Meeting, and Udinaas suspected that the Warlock King and his advisers, clever as they were, would walk into that treaty like blind elders. What worried him was all that would follow.

  Like hatchlings borne on the tide, the peoples of two kingdoms were rushing headlong into deep, deadly waters. Three slaves from the Buhn household trotted past, bundles of bound seaweed on their shoulders. One called out to Udinaas, ‘Feather Witch will cast tonight, Udinaas! Even as the council gathers.’

  Udinaas began folding the net over the drying rack. ‘I will be there, Hulad.’

  The three left the strand, and Udinaas was alone once more. He glanced north and saw Fear and Trull walking up the slope towards the outer wall’s postern gate.

  Finished with the net, he placed his tools in the small basket and fastened the lid, then straightened.

  He heard the flap of wings behind him and turned, startled by the sound of a bird in flight so long after the sun had set. A pale shape skimmed the waterline, and was gone.

  Udinaas blinked, straining to see it again, telling himself that it was not what it had appeared to be. Not that. Anything but that. He moved to his left to a bare patch of sand. Crouching, he quickly sketched an invoking sigil into the sand with the small finger of his left hand, lifting his right hand to his face, first two fingers reaching to his eyes to pull the lids down for a brief moment, as he whispered a prayer, ‘Knuckles cast, Saviour look down upon me this night. Errant! Look down upon us all!’

  He lowered his right hand and dropped his gaze to the symbol he had drawn.

  ‘Crow, begone!’

  The sigh of wind, the murmur of waves. Then a distant cackle.

  Shivering, Udinaas bolted upright. Snatching up the basket, he ran for the gate.

  The King’s Meet was a vast, circular chamber, the Blackwood boles of the ceiling reaching up to a central peak lost in smoke. Unblooded warriors of noble birth stood at the very edge, the outermost ring of those attending to witness the council. Next, and seated on backed benches, were the matrons, the wedded and widowed women. Then came the unwedded and the betrothed, cross-legged on hides. A pace before them, the floor dropped an arm’s length to form a central pit of packed earth where sat the warriors. At the very centre was a raised dais, fifteen paces across, where stood the Warlock King, Hannan Mosag, with the five hostage princes seated around him, facing outward.

  As Trull and Fear descended to the pit to take their place among the blooded warriors, Trull stared up at his king. Of average height and build, Hannan Mosag seemed unprepossessing at first glance. His features
were even, a shade paler than most Edur, and there was a wide cast to his eyes that gave him a perpetually surprised look. The power, then, was not physical. It lay entirely in his voice. Rich and deep, it was a voice that demanded to be listened to without regard to volume.

  Standing in silence, as he did now, Hannan Mosag’s claim to kingship seemed a mere accident of placement, as if he had wandered into the centre of the huge chamber, and now looked about with a vaguely bemused expression. His clothing was no different from that of any other warriors, barring the absence of trophies—for his trophies, after all, were seated around him on the dais, the first sons of the five subjugated chiefs.

  A more concerted study of the Warlock King revealed another indication of his power. His shadow reared behind him. Huge, hulking. Long, indistinct but deadly swords gripped in both gauntleted hands. Helmed, the shoulders angular with plates of armour. Hannan Mosag’s shadow wraith bodyguard never slept. There was, Trull reflected, nothing bemused in its wide stance.

  Few warlocks were capable of conjuring such a creature when drawing from the life-force of their own shadows. Kurald Emurlahn flowed raw and brutal in that silent, ever-vigilant sentinel.

  Trull’s gaze fell to those of the hostages facing him. The K’risnan. More than representatives of their fathers, they were Hannan Mosag’s apprentices in sorcery. Their names had been stripped from them, the new ones chosen in secret by their master and bound with spells. One day, they would return to their tribes as chiefs. And their loyalty to their king would be absolute.

  The hostage from the Merude tribe was directly opposite Trull. Largest of the six tribes, the Merude had been the last to capitulate. They had always maintained that, with their numbers approaching one hundred thousand, forty thousand of which were blooded or soon-to-be-blooded warriors, they should by right have held pre-eminence among the Edur. More warriors, more ships, and ruled by a chief with more trophies at his belt than had been seen in generations. Domination belonged to the Merude.

  Or it should have, if not for Hannan Mosag’s extraordinary mastery of those fragments of Kurald Emurlahn from which power could be drawn. Chief Hanradi Khalag’s skill with the spear far outweighed his capacity as a warlock.