The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

by Steven Erikson

  No-one but Hannan Mosag and Hanradi Khalag knew the details of that final surrendering. Merude had been holding strong against the Hiroth and their contingents of Arapay, Sollanta, Den-Ratha and Beneda warriors, and the ritual constraints of the war were fast unravelling, in their place an alarming brutality born of desperation. The ancient laws had been on the verge of shattering.

  One night, Hannan Mosag had walked, somehow unseen by anyone, into the chief’s village, into the ruler’s own longhouse. And by the first light of Menandore’s cruel awakening, Hanradi Khalag had surrendered his people.

  Trull did not know what to make of the tales that persisted, that Hanradi no longer cast a shadow. He had never seen the Merude chief.

  That man’s first son now sat before him, head shaved to denote the sundering from his bloodline, a skein of deep-cut, wide scars ribboning his face with shadows, his eyes flat and watchful, as if anticipating an assassination attempt here in the Warlock King’s own hall.

  The oil lamps suspended from the high ceiling flickered as one, and everyone grew still, eyes fixing on Hannan Mosag.

  Though he did not raise his voice, its deep timbre reached across the vast space, leaving none with the necessity to strain to hear his words. ‘Rhulad, unblooded warrior and son of Tomad Sengar, has brought to me words from his brother, Trull Sengar. This warrior had travelled to the Calach shore seeking jade. He was witness to a dire event, and has run without pause for three days and two nights.’ Hannan Mosag’s eyes fixed on Trull. ‘Rise to stand at my side, Trull Sengar, and relate your tale.’

  He walked the path the other warriors made for him and leapt up onto the raised dais, fighting to disguise the exhaustion in his legs that made him come close to sagging with the effort. Straightening, he stepped between two K’risnan and positioned himself to the right of the Warlock King. He looked out onto the array of upturned faces, and saw that what he would say was already known to most of them. Expressions dark with anger and a hunger for vengeance. Here and there, frowns of concern and dismay.

  ‘I bring these words to the council. The tusked seals have come early to the breeding beds. Beyond the shallows I saw the sharks that leap in numbers beyond counting. And in their midst, nineteen Letherii ships—’

  ‘Nineteen!’

  A half-hundred voices uttered that cry in unison. An uncharacteristic breach of propriety, but understandable none the less. Trull waited a moment, then resumed. ‘Their holds were almost full, for they sat low in the water, and the waters around them were red with blood and offal. Their harvest boats were alongside the great ships. In the fifty heartbeats that I stood and watched, I was witness to hundreds of seal carcasses rising on hooks to swing into waiting hands. On the strand itself twenty boats waited in the shallows and seventy men were on the beach, among the seals—’

  ‘Did they see you?’ one warrior asked.

  It seemed Hannan Mosag was prepared to ignore the rules—for the time being at least.

  ‘They did, and checked their slaughter…for a moment. I saw their mouths move, though I could not hear their words above the roar of the seals, and I saw them laugh—’

  Rage erupted among the gathering. Warriors leapt upright.

  Hannan Mosag snapped out a hand.

  Sudden silence.

  ‘Trull Sengar is not yet finished his tale.’

  Clearing his throat, Trull nodded. ‘You see me before you now, warriors, and those of you who know me will also know my preferred weapon—the spear. When have you seen me without my iron-hafted slayer of foes? Alas, I have surrendered it…in the chest of the one who first laughed.’

  A roar answered his words.

  Hannan Mosag settled a hand on Trull’s shoulder, and the young warrior stepped aside. The Warlock King scanned the faces before him for a moment, then spoke. ‘Trull Sengar did as every warrior of the Edur would do. His deed has heartened me. Yet here he now stands, weaponless.’

  Trull stiffened beneath the weight of that hand.

  ‘And so, in measured thought, such as must be made by a king,’ Hannan Mosag went on, ‘I find I must push my pride to one side, and look beyond it. To what is signified. A thrown spear. A dead Letherii. A disarmed Edur. And now, I see upon the faces of my treasured warriors a thousand flung spears, a thousand dead Letherii. A thousand disarmed Edur.’

  No-one spoke. No-one countered with the obvious retort: We have many spears.

  ‘I see the hunger for vengeance. The Letherii raiders must be slain. Even as prelude to the Great Meeting, for their slaying was desired. Our reaction was anticipated, for these are the games the Letherii would play with our lives. Shall we do as they intended? Of course. There can be but one answer to their crime. And thus, by our predictability, we serve an unknown design, which shall no doubt be unveiled at the Great Meeting.’

  Deep-etched frowns. Undisguised confusion. Hannan Mosag had led them into the unfamiliar territory of complexity. He had brought them to the edge of an unknown path, and now would lead them forward, step by tentative step.

  ‘The raiders will die,’ the Warlock King resumed, ‘but not one of you shall spill their blood. We do as predicted, but in a manner they could not imagine. There will be a time for slaughter of the Letherii, but this is not that time. Thus, I promise you blood, my warriors. But not now. The raiders shall not know the honour of dying at your hands. Their fates shall be found within Kurald Emurlahn.’

  Despite himself, Trull Sengar shivered.

  Silence once more in the hall.

  ‘A full unveiling,’ Hannan Mosag continued in a rumble, ‘by my K’risnan. No weapon, no armour, shall avail the Letherii. Their mages will be blind and lost, incapable of countering that which arrives to take them. The raiders will die in pain and in terror. Soiled by fear, weeping like children—and that fate will be writ on their faces, there for those who find them.’

  Trull’s heart was pounding, his mouth bone-dry. A full unveiling. What long-lost power had Hannan Mosag stumbled upon? The last full unveiling of Kurald Emurlahn had been by Scabandari Bloodeye, Father Shadow himself. Before the warren had been sundered. And that sundering had not healed. It would, Trull suspected, never be healed. Even so, some fragments were vaster and more powerful than others. Had the Warlock King discovered a new one?

  Faded, battered and chipped, the ceramic tiles lay scattered before Feather Witch. The casting was done, even as Udinaas stumbled into the mote-filled barn to bring word of the omen—to warn the young slave woman away from a scanning of the Holds. Too late. Too late.

  A hundred slaves had gathered for the event, fewer than was usual, but not surprising, since many Edur warriors would have charged their own slaves with tasks of preparation for the anticipated skirmish. Heads turned as Udinaas entered the circle. His eyes remained fixed on Feather Witch.

  Her soul had already walked well back on the Path to the Holds. Her head drooped, chin between the prominent bones of her clavicles, thick yellow hair hanging down, and rhythmic trembling ran through her small, child-like body. Feather Witch had been born in the village eighteen years ago, a rare winter birth—rare in that she had survived—and her gifts had become known before her fourth year, when her dreams walked back and spoke in the voices of the ancestors. The old tiles of the Holds had been dug up from the grave of the last Letherii in the village who’d possessed the talent, and given to the child. There had been none to teach her the mysteries of those tiles, but, as it turned out, she’d needed no instruction from mortals—ghostly ancestors had provided that.

  She was a handmaid to Mayen, and, upon Mayen’s marriage to Fear Sengar, she would enter the Sengar household. And Udinaas was in love with her.

  Hopeless, of course. Feather Witch would be given a husband from among the better born of the Letherii slaves, a man whose bloodline held title and power back in Letheras. An Indebted, such as Udinaas, had no hope of such a pairing.

  As he stood staring at her, his friend Hulad reached up and took his wrist. Gentle pressure
drew Udinaas down to a cross-legged position amidst the other witnesses.

  Hulad leaned close. ‘What ails you, Udinaas?’

  ‘She has cast…’

  ‘Aye, and now we wait while she walks.’

  ‘I saw a white crow.’

  Hulad flinched back.

  ‘Down on the strand. I beseeched the Errant, to no avail. The crow but laughed at my words.’

  Their exchange had been overheard, and murmurs rippled out among the witnesses.

  Feather Witch’s sudden moan silenced the gathering. All eyes fixed upon her, as she slowly raised her head.

  Her eyes were empty, the whites clear as the ice on a mountain stream, iris and pupils vanished as if they had never been. And through the translucence swam twin spirals of faint light, smeared against the blackness of the Abyss.

  Terror twisted her once-beautiful features, the terror of Beginnings, the soul standing before oblivion. A place of such loneliness that despair seemed the only answer. Yet it was also the place where power was thought, and thought flickered through the Abyss bereft of Makers, born from flesh yet to exist—for only the mind could reach back into the past, only its thoughts could dwell there. She was in the time before the worlds, and now must stride forward.

  To witness the rise of the Holds.

  Udinaas, like all Letherii, knew the sequences and the forms. First would come the three Fulcra known as the Realm Forgers. Fire, the silent scream of light, the very swirl of the stars themselves. Then Dolmen, bleak and rootless, drifting aimless in the void. And into the path of these two forces, the Errant. Bearer of its own unknowable laws, it would draw Fire and Dolmen into fierce wars. Vast fields of destructions, instance upon instance of mutual annihilation. But occasionally, rarely, there would be peace made between the two contestants. And Fire would bathe but not burn, and Dolmen would surrender its wandering ways, and so find root.

  The Errant would then weave its mysterious skein, forging the Holds themselves. Ice. Eleint. Azath. Beast. And into their midst would emerge the remaining Fulcra. Axe, Knuckles, Blade, the Pack, Shapefinder and White Crow.

  Then, as the realms took shape, the spiralling light would grow sharper, and the final Hold would be revealed. The Hold that had existed, unseen, at the very beginning. The Empty Hold—heart of Letherii worship—that was at the very centre of the vast spiral of realms. Home to the Throne that knew no King, home to the Wanderer Knight, and to the Mistress who waited still, alone in her bed of dreams. To the Watcher, who witnessed all, and the Walker, who patrolled borders not even he could see. To the Saviour, whose outstretched hand was never grasped. And, finally, to the Betrayer, whose loving embrace destroyed all it touched.

  ‘Walk with me to the Holds.’

  The witnesses sighed as one, unable to resist that sultry, languid invitation.

  ‘We stand upon Dolmen. Broken rock, pitted by shattered kin, its surface seething with life so small it escapes our eyes. Life locked in eternal wars. Blade and Knuckles. We are among the Beasts. I can see the Bone Perch, slick with blood and layered with the ghost memories of countless usurpers. I see the Elder, still faceless, still blind. And Crone, who measures the cost in the scrawling passage of behemoths. Seer, who speaks to the indifferent. I see Shaman, seeking truths among the dead. And Hunter, who lives in the moment and thinks nothing of the consequences of slaughter. And Tracker, who sees the signs of the unknown, and walks the endless paths of tragedy. The Hold of the Beast, here in this valley that is but a scratch upon Dolmen’s hard skin.

  ‘There is no-one upon Bone Perch. Chaos hones every weapon, and the killing goes on and on. And from the maelstrom powerful creatures arise, and the slaying reaches beyond measure.

  ‘Such powers must be answered. The Errant returns, and casts the seed into blood-soaked earth. Thus rises the Hold of the Azath.

  ‘Deadly shelter for the tyrants, oh they are so easily lured. And so balance is achieved. But it remains a grisly balance, yes? No cessation to the wars, although they are much diminished, so that, finally, their cruel ways come into focus.’

  Her voice was like sorcery unbound. Its rough-edged song entranced, devoured, unveiled vistas into the minds of all those who heard it. Feather Witch had walked from the terror of the Beginnings, and there was no fear in her words.

  ‘But the tread of time is itself a prison. We are shackled with progression. And so the Errant comes once more, and the Ice Hold rises, with its attendant servants who journey through the realms to war against time. Walker, Huntress, Shaper, Bearer, Child and Seed. And upon the Throne of Ice sits Death, cowled and frostrimed, stealer of caring, to shatter the anxious shackles of mortal life. It is a gift, but a cold one.

  ‘Then, to achieve balance once more, is born the Eleint, and chaos is given flesh, and that flesh is draconic. Ruled by the Queen, who must be slain again and again by every child she bears. And her Consort, who loves none but himself. Then Liege, servant and guardian and doomed to eternal failure. Knight, the very sword of chaos itself—’ware his path! And Gate, that which is the Breath. Wyval, spawn of the dragons, and the Lady, the Sister, Blood-Drinker and Path-Shaper. The Fell Dragons.

  ‘One Hold remains…’

  Udinaas spoke with the others as they whispered, ‘The Empty Hold.’

  Feather Witch tilted her head suddenly, a frown marring her forehead. ‘Something circles above the Empty Throne. I cannot see it, yet it…circles. A pallid hand, severed and dancing…no, it is—’

  She stiffened, then red spurted from wounds on her shoulders, and she was lifted from the ground.

  Screams, the witnesses surging to their feet, rushing forward, arms outstretched.

  But too late, as invisible talons clenched tighter and invisible wings thundered the dusty air of the barn. Carrying Feather Witch into the shadows beneath the curved ceiling. She shrieked.

  Udinaas, heart hammering in his chest, pushed away, through the jostling bodies, to the wooden stairs reaching to the loft. Splinters stabbed his hands as he clawed his way up the steep, rough-hewn steps. Feather Witch’s shrieks filled the air now, as she thrashed in the grip of the unseen talons. But crows have no talons—

  He reached the loft, skidding as he raced across its uneven planks, eyes fixed on Feather Witch, then, one step from the edge, he leapt into the air. Arms outstretched, he sailed over the heads of the crowd below.

  His target was the swirling air above her, the place where the invisible creature hovered. And when he reached that place, he collided hard with a massive, scaled body. Leathery wings hammered wildly at him as he wrapped his arms tight about a clammy, muscle-clenched body. He heard a wild hiss, then a jaw snapped down over his left shoulder. Needle-like teeth punched through his skin, sank deep into his flesh.

  Udinaas grunted.

  A Wyval, spawn of Eleint—

  With his left hand, he scrabbled for the net-hook at his belt.

  The beast tore at his shoulder, and blood gushed out.

  He found the tool’s worn wooden grip, dragged the hooked blade free. Its inner edge was honed sharp, used to trim knots. Twisting round, teeth clenched in an effort to ignore the lizard jaws slashing his shoulder again and again until little more than shreds remained, Udinaas chopped downward to where he thought one of the Wyval’s legs must be. Solid contact. He ripped the inside edge of the blade into the tendons.

  The creature screamed.

  And released Feather Witch.

  She plummeted into the mass of upraised arms below.

  Talons hammered against Udinaas’s chest, punched through.

  He slashed, cutting deep. The leg spasmed back.

  Jaws drew away, then snapped home once again, this time round his neck.

  Net-hook fell from twitching hand. Blood filled his mouth and nose.

  Darkness writhed across his vision—and he heard the Wyval scream again, this time in terror and pain, the sound emanating from its nostrils in hot gusts down his back. The jaws ripped free.

  And Ud
inaas was falling.

  And knew nothing more.

  The others were filing out when Hannan Mosag touched Trull’s shoulder. ‘Stay,’ he murmured. ‘Your brothers as well.’

  Trull watched his fellow warriors leave in small groups. They were troubled, and more than one hardened face revealed a flash of dismay when casting a final parting glance back at the Warlock King and his K’risnan. Fear had moved up to stand close by, Rhulad following. Fear’s expression was closed—nothing surprising there—while Rhulad seemed unable to keep still, his head turning this way and that, one hand dancing on the pommel of the sword at his hip.

  A dozen heartbeats later and they were alone.

  Hannan Mosag spoke. ‘Look at me, Trull Sengar. I would you understand—I intended no criticism of your gesture. I too would have driven my spear into that Letherii in answer to his jest. I made sore use of you, and for that I apologize—’

  ‘There is no need, sire,’ Trull replied. ‘I am pleased that you found in my actions a fulcrum by which you could shift the sentiments of the council.’

  The Warlock King cocked his head. ‘Fulcrum.’ He smiled, but it was strained. ‘Then we shall speak no more of it, Trull Sengar.’ He fixed his attention next upon Rhulad, and his voice hardened slightly as he said, ‘Rhulad Sengar, unblooded, you attend me now because you are a son of Tomad…and my need for his sons includes you. I expect you to listen, not speak.’

  Rhulad nodded, suddenly pale.

  Hannan Mosag stepped between two of his K’risnan—who had yet to relinquish their vigilant positions—and led the three sons of Tomad down from the dais. ‘I understand that Binadas wanders once more. He knows no anchor, does he? Ah, well, there is no diminishment in that. You will have to apprise your brother upon his return of all that I tell you this night.’

  They entered the Warlock King’s private chamber. There was no wife attending, nor any slaves. Hannan Mosag lived simply, with only his shadow sentinel for company. The room was sparse, severe in its order.