And they were almost with him, here, yet again, for they had chosen him.
Victory this day! Victory!
Sag’Churok drew yet closer, matching the pace of Redmask’s horse, and he saw it swing its head to regard him. Those eyes, so cold, so appallingly empty—
The sword lashed out in a blur, taking the horse from the front, at the neck, just above its collarbones. A blow of such savagery and strength that it tore entirely through, cracking hard against the wooden rim of the high saddle. Knocking Redmask back, over the beast’s rump, even as the headless horse ran on another half-dozen strides before wavering to one side then collapsing.
He struck the muddy ground on one shoulder, skidded, then rolled to a halt – and onto his feet, straightening, even as Sag’Churok slashed its second blade, taking him above the knees. Blood fountained as he toppled onto his back, and found himself staring at his severed legs, still standing upright in the mud.
Gunth Mach loomed over him, the talons of a hind foot plunging down to close round his chest. The talons punched deep, ribs crushing in that embrace, and Redmask was lifted then thrown through the air – where he intersected the path of one of Sag’Churok’s swords. It chopped through his right shoulder, sending the arm spinning away – still gripping the crescent axe.
Redmask thumped onto the ground once more, already dead.
Three hundred paces to the east, Toc Anaster rose on his stirrups, ignoring Torrent’s shrieks of horror, and watched as the two K’Chain Che’Malle padded once more towards what was left of Redmask. The female one kicked at the body, lightly nudging it, then stepped back.
A moment later and the two creatures were thumping away, northeast, heads stretched out, tails horizontal and stiff as spears behind them.
‘He failed them,’ Toc whispered. What other reason could there be for such a thing? Perhaps, many reasons. Only Redmask could have answered all the mysteries surrounding the K’Chain Che’Malle. Their presence here, their alliance – an alliance now at an end. Because he failed.
The suddenness of the execution remained within him, reverberating, a shock.
Beyond, the last of the Awl – no more than a few hundred now – were surrounded, and were dying in their cemetery of mud.
A score of skirmishers had moved out and were drawing nearer – they had seen this last remnant. Toc Anaster on his horse. Torrent. Twenty-odd children deemed too young to die with a weapon in hand – so now they would die anyway.
Still ignoring Torrent’s screams of anguish, Toc turned in his saddle, in his mind the thought of killing these children with his own hands – quick thrusts, with his hand over the eyes – and instead he saw, to the southeast, an odd, seething line – bhederin?
No. That is an army.
Lone eye squinting, he watched that line drawing closer – yes, they were coming here. Not Letherii – I see no standards, nothing at all. No, not Letherii.
Toc glanced back at the skirmishers now jogging towards them. Still a hundred paces away.
One final look, down at the huddled, crying or mute children, and then he untied from his saddle the leather satchel containing his poems. ‘Torrent!’ he snapped, flinging the bag to the warrior – who caught it, his rash-mottled face streaked with mud and tears, his eyes wide and uncomprehending.
Toc pointed to the distant line. ‘See? An army – not Letherii. Was there not word of the Bolkando and allies? Torrent, listen to me, damn you! You’re the last – you and these children. Take them, Torrent – take them and if there’s a single guardian spirit left to your people, then this need not be the last day of the Awl. Do you understand?’
‘But—’
‘Torrent – just go, damn you!’ Toc Anaster, last of the Grey Swords of Elingarth, a Mezla, drew out his bow and nocked the first stone-tipped arrow on the gut string. ‘I can buy you some time – but you have to go now!’
And he looped the reins round the saddle horn, delivering pressure with his knees as he leaned forward, and he rode – for the Letherii skirmishers.
Mud flew out as the horse stretched out into a gallop. Hood’s breath, this won’t be easy.
Fifty paces away from the foot soldiers, he rose on his stirrups, and began loosing arrows.
The seabed that Torrent guided the children along was a gentle, drawn-out slope, rising to where that army was, the mass of dark figures edging ever closer. No standards, nothing to reveal who they were, but he saw that they did not march in ordered ranks. Simply a mass, as the Awl might march, or the Ak’ryn or D’rhasilhani plains tribes of the south.
If this army belonged to either of those two rival tribes, then Torrent was probably leading these children to their deaths. So be it, we are dead anyway.
Another ten slogging paces, then he slowed, the children drawing in round him. One hand settling on the head of one child, Torrent halted, and turned about.
Toc Anaster deserved that much. A witness. Torrent had not believed there was courage left in the strange man. He had been wrong.
The horse was unhappy. Toc was unhappy. He had been a soldier, once, but he was no longer. He had been young – had felt young – and that had fed the fires of his soul. Even a shard of burning stone stealing his handsome face, not to mention an eye, had not proved enough to tear away his sense of invulnerability.
Prisoner to the Domin had changed all of that. The repeated destruction delivered upon his bones and flesh, the twisted healing that followed each time, the caging of his soul until even his own screams sounded like music – this had taken his youthful beliefs, taken them so far away that even nostalgia triggered remembrances of nothing but agony.
Arising in the body of another man should have given him all that a new life promised. But inside, he had remained Toc the Younger. Who had once been a soldier, but was one no longer.
Life with the Grey Swords had not altered that. They had travelled to this land, drawn by the Wolves with gifts of faint visions, murky prophecies born in confused dreams: some vast conflagration awaited them – a battle where they would be needed, desperately needed.
Not, it had turned out, alongside the Awl.
A most fatal error in judgement. The wrong allies. The wrong war.
Toc had never trusted the gods anyway. Any god. In truth, his list of those whom he did trust was, after all he had been through, pathetically short.
Tattersail. Ganoes Paran. Gruntle.
Tool.
A sorceress, a mediocre captain, a caravan guard and a damned T’lan Imass.
Would that they were with him now, riding at his side.
His horse’s charge was slow, turgid, slewing. Perched over the press of his knees against the beast’s shoulders, Toc sent arrow after arrow towards the skirmishers – though he knew it was hopeless. He could barely see, so jostled was he atop the saddle, with mud flying up on all sides as the horse careered in a wild struggle to stay upright.
As he drew closer, he heard screams. With but two arrows left, he rose higher still on his stirrups, drawing on his bowstring—
His arrows, he saw with astonishment, had not missed. Not one. Eight skirmishers were down.
He sent another hissing outward, saw it take a man in the forehead, the stone point punching through bronze and then bone.
Last arrow.
Gods—
He was suddenly among the Letherii. Driving his last arrow at near point-blank range into a woman’s chest.
A spear tore into his left leg, cut through and then gouged along his horse’s flank. The beast screamed, launched itself forward—
Tossing the bow away, Toc unsheathed his scimitar – damn, should’ve brought a shield – and hacked from side to side, beating away the thrusting spears.
His horse pulled through into the clear. And would have rushed on, straight into the Letherii ranks two hundred paces ahead, but Toc grasped the reins and swerved the animal round.
Only to find a dozen or so skirmishers right behind him – pursuing on foot.
Two spears drove into his mount, one skidding off a shoulder blade, the other stabbing deep into the animal’s belly.
Squealing piteously, the horse foundered, then fell onto its side, hind legs already fouled with spilled out intestines, each frantic kick tearing more loose from the body cavity. Toc, with legs still drawn high, was able to throw himself from the beast, landing clear.
Skidding in the mud, struggling to regain his feet.
A spear drove into his right hip, lifting him from the muck before throwing him onto his back.
He hacked at the shaft. It splintered and the pressure pinning him down vanished.
Slashing blindly, Toc fought his way back onto his feet. There was blood pouring down both legs.
Another lunging attack. He parried the spear thrust, lurched close and chopped his scimitar into the side of the soldier’s neck.
A point slammed into his back, punched him forward.
And onto a shortsword that slid up under his ribs, cutting his heart in half.
Toc Anaster sank down onto his knees, and, releasing his last breath, would have fallen forward into the mud, but for a hand grasping him, yanking him back. The flash of a knife before his lone eye. Sudden heat along the line of his jaw—
Torrent watched as the Letherii skirmisher cut away Toc Anaster’s face. One more trophy. The task was quick, well-practised, and then the soldier pushed his victim away, and the red wound that had once been Toc’s face plunged down into the mud.
The children were crying, and yes, he realized – in watching, in waiting, he had perhaps condemned them all to the Letherii knives. Still, they could—
Torrent turned round—
And found strangers before him.
Not Ak’rynnai.
Not D’rhasilhanii.
No, he had never before seen such people.
The clans of the White Face Barghast approached the scene of the battle – a battle nearing its grisly end. Who won, who lost, was without meaning to them. They intended to kill everyone.
Two hundred paces ahead of the ragged lines was their vanguard, walking within a stream of the Tellann Warren, which was strong in this place, where beneath the silts of the ancient shoreline could be found stone tools, harpoons made of antler, bone and ivory, and the hulks of dugout canoes. And out here, on the old seabed, there were offerings buried deep now in the silts. Polished stones, pairs of antlers locked together, animal skulls daubed in red ochre – countless gifts to a dwindling sea.
There were other reasons for such a powerful emanation of Tellann, but these were known to but one of the three in the vanguard, and she had ever been close with her secrets.
Emerging from the warren, the three had stood not far from the Awl warrior and the Awl children. They had watched, in silence, the extraordinary bravery of that lone warrior and his horse. To charge more than a score of skirmishers – the horse’s skill at staying upright had been exceptional. The warrior’s ability to guide the beast with but his legs, whilst loosing arrow after arrow – none of which did not find a target – was simply breathtaking.
That warrior – and his horse – had given their lives to save these last Awl, and it was that fact alone which stayed – for the moment – the hand of Tool, chosen now among all the White Face Barghast – with Humbrall Taur’s tragic death at the landing – as war leader, even though he was not Barghast at all. But Imass. That he had taken as his mate Taur’s daughter, Hetan, had without doubt eased the ascension to rule; but more than that, it had been owing to Tool himself.
His wisdom. His will.
The joy of life that could burn in his eyes. The fire of vengeance that could blaze in its stead – that blazed even now – when at last he had judged the time aright, the time to answer for all that had been done.
To the Grey Swords.
An answer delivered unto the betrayers.
An answer delivered unto the slayers.
If not for that brave warrior and his brave horse, then Tool would have killed these Awl immediately. The youth with the mottled face. The muddy children huddled around him. He probably still planned to.
Hetan knew all of this, in her heart; she knew her husband. And, had he drawn his flint sword, she would not have tried to stop him.
The White Faces had been hiding for too long. Their scouting expeditions to the east had long since told them all they needed to know, of the path that awaited them, the journey they must soon undertake. It had been vengeance keeping them in place. That, and the vast, uncanny patience of Tool.
Within the Tellann Warrens, the Barghast had watched this latest war, the protracted engagement that had begun with the massing of the two armies far to the west.
They had not come in time to save the Grey Swords, but Hetan well recalled her and her husband coming upon the killing ground where the company had fallen. Indeed, they had witnessed the plains wolves engaged in their ghastly excision of human hearts – an act of honour? There was no way of knowing – each animal had fled with its prize as soon as it was able. The slaughter of those betrayed soldiers had been particularly brutal – faces had been cut away. It had been impossible to identify anyone among the fallen – and this had delivered upon Tool the deepest wound of all. He had lost a friend there.
The betrayal.
The slaying.
There would be, in Tool, no room for mercy. Not for the Awl. Not for the Letherii army so far from home.
And now they stood, well able to see the last of the Awl warriors fall, to see their wardogs dying in the mud, to hear the triumphant roars of the Letherii, even as the nearby skirmishers, having seen the Barghast forces, were hastily retreating back to their lines.
Hetan studied that vast, churned killing field, and said, ‘I cannot tell them apart.’
Torrent stared, not knowing what to think. Both women, flanking the lone man, were to his eyes terrifying. The one who had just spoken – in some infernal foreign tongue – was like an apparition from an adolescent boy’s nightmare. Danger and sensuality, a bloodthirstiness that simply took Torrent’s breath away – and with the loss of that breath, so too the loss of courage. Of manhood itself.
The other woman, dark, short yet lithe, wrapped in the furs of a panther. And the blue-black glint of that beast’s skin seemed to be reflected in the heart of her eyes beneath that robust brow. A shaman, a witch, oh yes. A most dreadful witch.
The man was her kin – the resemblances were unmistakable in their features, as well as their modest heights and the bowing of their legs. And for all that the women terrified Torrent, the stolidity of the warrior’s expression chilled the Awl’s soul.
The taller woman, with her face streaked in white paint, now settled her gaze upon Torrent and said, in halting trader’s tongue, ‘You still live. Because of the horse warrior’s sacrifice. But,’ she nodded towards the savage with the flint sword, ‘he remains undecided. Do you understand?’
Torrent nodded.
The man then said something, and the white-faced woman glanced away, eyes thinning. Then her gaze settled on the satchel Torrent still held, dangling from a strap, in his left hand. She pointed down at it. ‘What do you carry?’
The Awl blinked, then looked down at the leather bag. Shrugging, he tossed it aside. ‘Scribblings,’ he said. ‘He painted many words, like a woman. But he was not the coward I thought. He was not.’
‘Scribblings?’
Torrent found that there were tears on his cheeks. He wiped them away. ‘The horse-warrior,’ he said. ‘The Mezla.’
Hetan saw her husband’s head slowly turn at that word, saw his eyes fix on the Awl warrior, then watched as a cascade of realizations took hold of Tool’s expression, ending with a terrible scream as he brought his hands to his face, then fell to his knees.
And she was suddenly at his side, cradling his head against her belly as he loosed another piercing cry, clawing at his own face.
The Awl stared as if in shock.
Barghast warriors were rushing
out from the line behind them, the young ones with their ancient single-edged hook-swords drawn, Tool’s most beloved whom he saw as his own children. Faces filled with consternation, with fear, they converged towards Tool.
Hetan held out a hand, halted them all in their tracks.
Beside the two of them now, drawing her panther skin about her shoulders, Kilava Onass. Her husband’s sister, whose heart held more sorrow and loss than Hetan could comprehend, who would weep every night as if it was ritually demanded of her with the sun’s setting. Who would walk out beyond the camp and sing wordless songs to the night sky – songs that would send the ay howling with voices of mourning and grief.
She stood, now, on her brother’s right. But did not reach down a hand, did not even cast upon Tool a glance of sympathy. Instead, her dark eyes were scanning the Letherii army. ‘They prepare for us,’ she said. ‘The Tiste Edur join the ranks. The cavalry wait along the old shoreline. Onos Toolan, we are wasting time. You know I must leave soon. Very soon.’
Tool drew himself from Hetan’s embrace. Saying nothing, he straightened, then began walking.
To where his friend had fallen.
The Awl warrior took a half-step towards him. ‘No!’ he shouted, turning pleading eyes upon Hetan. ‘He must not! The Mezla – he was a friend, yes? Please, he must not!’
Tool walked on.
‘Please! They cut off his face!’
Hetan flinched. ‘He knows,’ she said.
And then Tool did halt, looking back, meeting Hetan’s eyes. ‘My love,’ he said in a ragged voice. ‘I do not understand.’
She could but shake her head.
‘They betrayed him,’ Tool continued. ‘Yet, see. This day. He rode to the enemy.’
‘To save the lives of these children,’ Hetan said. ‘Yes.’
‘I do not understand.’
‘You have told me many tales, husband, of your friend. Of Toc the Younger. Of the honour within him. I ask you this: how could he not?’
The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen Page 678