Midnight Tides

by Steven Erikson

  Consecrated ground. They had huddled on it whilst the sorcerous storms raged, destroying the village of the Hiroth, flattening the forests around them, and the fires that burned for days afterwards could not lash them with their heat. And now the cinders had cooled, no more sparks danced in the wind, and the bloated bodies of dead wild animals that had crowded the river mouth had broken loose some time in the night just past, drawn out to the sea and the waiting sharks.

  His knife-sharer came to his side and crouched down. ‘Their fear holds them back,’ he said, ‘and yet it is that very fear that will force them to accept. They have no choice.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘When you first spoke of your dreams, I believed you.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Our people have not dreamed since the Letherii conquered us. Our nights were empty, and we believed they would be so for all time, until the last Nerek died and we were no more a people. But I saw the truth in your eyes. We have shared the knife, you and I. I did not doubt.’

  ‘I know, brother.’

  The eldest of the Nerek called out behind them, a voice harsh with anger, ‘It is decided. The two of you will go. By the old paths, to make your travel swift.’

  Youth and knife-brother both rose and swung round.

  The eldest nodded. ‘Go. Find Hull Beddict.’

  The two Nerek stepped out into the gritty ash, and began the journey south. The birth of dreams had revealed once more the old paths, the ways through and between worlds. It would not take long.

  ****

  Fear Sengar led him into a secluded glade, the sounds of the readied army distant and muted. As soon as Trull took his first stride into the clearing, his brother spun round. Forearm hard against his throat, weight driving him back until he struck the bole of a tree, where Fear held him.

  ‘You will be silent! No more of your doubts, not to anyone else and not to me. You are my brother, and that alone is why I have not killed you outright. Are you hearing me, Trull?’

  He was having trouble breathing, yet he remained motionless, his eyes fixed on Fear’s.

  ‘Why do you not answer?’

  Still he said nothing.

  With a snarl Fear drew his arm away and stepped back.

  ‘Kill me, would you?’ Trull continued to lean against the tree. He smiled. ‘From behind, then? A knife, catching me unawares. Otherwise, brother, you would be hard-pressed.’

  Fear looked away. Then nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘A knife in the back.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Because, if I have my spear, it’s equally likely that you would be killed, not me.’

  Fear glared at him, then the anger slowly drained from his eyes. ‘It must stop, Trull. We are about to go into battle—’

  ‘And you doubt my ability?’

  ‘No, only your willingness.’

  ‘Well, yes, you are right to doubt that. But I will do as you command. I will kill Letherii for you.’

  ‘For the emperor. For our people—’

  ‘No. For you, Fear. Otherwise, you would be well advised to question my ability. Indeed, to remove me from command. From this entire, absurd war. Send me away, to the northernmost villages of the Den-Ratha where there are likely to be a few thousand Edur who chose to remain behind.’

  ‘There are none such.’

  ‘Of course there are.’

  ‘A handful.’

  ‘More than you think. And yes, I have been tempted to join them.’

  ‘Rhulad would not permit it. He would have to kill you.’

  ‘I know.’

  Fear began pacing. ‘The K’risnan. They said Rhulad was killed yesterday. In Trate. Then he returned. There can be no doubt, now, brother. Our emperor cannot be stopped. His power does naught but grow—’

  ‘You are seeing this wrong, Fear.’

  He paused, looked over. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘ “Our emperor cannot be stopped.” I do not see it that way.’

  ‘All right. How do you see it, Trull?’

  ‘Our brother is doomed to die countless deaths. Die, rise, and die again. Our brother, Fear, the youngest among us. That is how I see it. And now, I am to embrace the power that has done this to Rhulad? I am to serve it? Lend it my skills with the spear? I am to carve an empire for it? Are his deaths without pain? Without horror? Is he not scarred? How long, Fear, can his sanity hold on? There he stands, a young warrior bedecked in a gold nightmare, his flesh puckered and mangled, and weapons shall pierce him – he knows it, he knows he will be killed again and again.’

  ‘Stop, Trull.’ Like a child, Fear placed his hands over his ears and turned away. ‘Stop.’

  ‘Who is doing this to him?’

  ‘Stop!’

  Trull subsided. Tell me, brother, do you feel as helpless as I do?

  Fear faced him once more, his expression hardening anew. ‘Voice your doubts if you must, Trull, but only to me. In private.’

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘Now, a battle awaits us.’

  ‘It does.’

  ****

  A herd of deer had been startled from the forest fringe south of Katter River, darting and leaping as they fled across the killing field. On the earthen ramparts outside High Fort’s walls, Moroch Nevath stood beside his queen and his prince. Before them in a motionless row were arrayed the four sorcerors of Janall’s cadre, wrapped in cloaks against the morning chill, while to either side and along the length of the fortified berm waited the heavy infantry companies of the queen’s battalion. Flanking each company were massive wagons, and on each squatted a Dresh ballista, its magazine loaded with a thirty-six-quarrel rack. Spare racks waited nearby on the ramped loader, the heavily armoured crew gathered round, nervously scanning the line of woods to the north.

  ‘The Edur are moving down,’ Prince Quillas said. ‘We should see them soon.’

  The deer had settled on the killing field and were grazing.

  Moroch glanced to the lesser berm to the east. Two more companies were positioned there. The gap between the two ramparts was narrow and steep-sided, and led directly to a corner bastion on the city’s wall, where ballistae and mangonels commanded the approach.

  The prince’s own mage cadre, three lesser sorcerors, were positioned with a small guard on the rampart immediately south of the Dry Gully, tucked in the angular indentation of High Fort’s walls. The old drainage course wound a path down from the minor range of hills a thousand paces to the north. Three additional ramparts ran parallel to the Dry Gully, on which were positioned the forward elements of the Grass Jackets Brigade. The easternmost and largest of these ramparts also held a stone-walled fort, and it was there that the brigade commanders had placed their own mage cadre.

  Additional ramparts were situated in a circle around the rest of High rort, and on these waited reserve elements of the brigades and battalions, including elements of heavy cavalry. Lining the city’s walls and bastions was High Fort’s own garrison.

  To Moroch’s thinking, this imminent battle would be decisive. The treachery of the Edur that had been revealed at Trate would not be Repeated here, not with eleven sorcerors present among the Letherii forces.

  ‘Wraiths!’

  The shout came from one of the queen’s officers, and Moroch Nevath returned his attention to the distant treeline.

  The deer had lifted their heads, were staring fixedly at the forest edge. A moment later they bolted once more, this time in a southwest direction, reaching the loggers’ road, down which they bounded until lost in the mists.

  On the other side of the killing field – pasture in peaceful times – shadows were flowing out from between the boles, vaguely man-shaped, drawing up into a thick mass that then stretched out into a rough line, three hundred paces long and scores deep. Behind them came huge, lumbering demons, near twice the height of a man, perhaps a hundred in all, that assembled into a wedge behind the line of wraiths. Finally, to either side, appeared warriors, Tiste Edur to the
right of the wedge, and a horde of small, fur-clad savages on the far left.

  ‘Who are they?’ Prince Quillas asked. ‘Those on the far flank – they are not Edur.’

  The queen shrugged. ‘Some lost band of Nerek, perhaps. I would judge a thousand, no more than that, and poorly armed and armoured.’

  ‘Fodder,’ Moroch said. ‘The Edur have learned much from us, it seems.’

  A similar formation was assembling north of the lesser berm, although there both flanking forces were Tiste Edur.

  ‘The wraiths will charge first,’ Moroch predicted, ‘with the demons behind them seeking to break our lines. And there, signal flags from the Grass Jackets. They have no doubt sighted their own enemy ranks.’

  ‘Were you the Edur commander,’ Quillas said, ‘what would you do? The attack cannot be as straightforward as it now seems, can it?’

  ‘If the commander is a fool, it can,’ Janall said.

  ‘The sorcery will prove mutually negating, as it always does. Thus, the battle shall be blade against blade.’ Moroch thought for a moment, then said, ‘I would make use of the Dry Gully. And seek a sudden charge against your mage cadre, Prince.’

  ‘They would become visible – and vulnerable – for the last fifty or sixty paces of the charge, Finadd. The bastions will slaughter them, and if not them, then the westernmost company of the Grass Jackets can mount a downslope charge into their flank.’

  ‘Thus leaving their rampart under-defended. Use the Dry Gully as a feint, and a reserve force to then rush the rampart and seize it.’

  ‘That rampart crouches in the shadow of High Fort’s largest bastion tower, Finadd. The Edur would be slaughtered by the answering enfilade.’

  After a moment, Moroch nodded. ‘It is as you say, Prince. I admit, I see nothing advantageous to the Tiste Edur.’

  ‘I agree,’ Prince Quillas said.

  ‘Strangely quiet,’ Moroch mused after a time as the enemy forces assembled.

  ‘It’s the wraiths and demons, Finadd. No soldiers like thinking of those.’

  ‘The mages will annihilate them,’ Janall pronounced. She was dressed in elaborate armour, her helm filigreed in silver and gold. Her sword was the finest Letherii steel, but the grip was bound gold wire and the pommel a cluster of pearls set in silver. Beadwork covered her tabard. Beneath, Moroch knew, was steel scale. He did not think she would find need to draw her sword. Even so… The Finadd swung about and gestured to an aide, whom he then drew to one side. ‘Ready the queen’s horses, in the south lee of the west bastion.’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  Something was wrong. Moroch felt it as he watched the aide hurry off. He scanned the sky. Grey. Either the sun would burn through or there would be rain. He returned to his original position and studied the distant ranks. ‘They’re in position. Where are the chants? The exhortations? The ritual curses?’

  ‘They see the doom awaiting them,’ Quillas said, ‘and are silenced by terror.’

  A sudden stirring among the queen’s mages. Alertness. Janall noticed and said, ‘Prepare the lines. The Edur have begun sorcery.’

  ‘What kind?’ Moroch asked.

  The queen shook her head.

  ‘Betrayer’s balls,’ the Finadd muttered. It felt wrong. Terribly wrong.

  ****

  Ahlrada Ahn had drawn his cutlass and was grinning. ‘I never understood you spear-wielders. This will be close fighting, Trull Sengar. They will hack the shaft from your hands—’

  ‘They will try. Blackwood will not shatter, as you know. Nor shall my grip.’

  Standing behind the wedge of demons was a K’risnan. The warlock’s comrade was with the other force, also positioned behind a demon cohort. Hanradi Khalag commanded there, and the K’risnan in his charge was his son.

  B’nagga and a thousand of his Jheck were just visible in a basin to the west. Another thousand were moving down the gully, whilst the third thousand accompanied the easternmost force along with wraiths and demons.

  It occurred to Trull that he knew almost nothing of the huge, armoured demons bound to this war by the K’risnan. Not even the name by which they called themselves.

  Warriors of the Arapay and Hiroth were massed along the forest line, less than a third of their total numbers visible to the enemy. Outwardly, the dominant Edur army would appear to be the central one, Hanradi Khalag’s eighteen thousand Hiroth and Merude, but in truth Fear’s force here in the forest amounted to almost twenty-three thousand Edur warriors. And arrayed among them were wraiths in numbers beyond counting.

  Tendrils of grey mist swirled round the nearest K’risnan, forming a fluid web that began to thicken, then rise. Thread-thin strands snaked out, entwining the nearest ranks of Edur. Flowing out like roots, embracing all within sight barring the wraiths and the demons. In a billowing, grey wall, the sorcery burgeoned. Trull felt it playing over him, and its touch triggered a surge of nausea that he barely defeated. From the Letherii cadre, a wave of raging fire rose in answer, building with a roar directly in front of the rampart, then plunging swift and savage across the killing field.

  As suddenly as that, the battle was begun.

  Trull stared as the massive wall of flame rushed towards them. At the last moment the grey skein rushed out, colliding with the wave and lifting it straight up in explosive columns, pillars that spiralled with silver fire.

  And Trull saw, within the flames, the gleam of bones. Thousands, then hundreds of thousands, as if the fire’s very fuel had been transformed. Towering higher, fifty man-heights, then a hundred, two hundred, filling the sky.

  The conjoined wave then began toppling. Fiery pillars heaving over, towards the Letherii entrenchments.

  Even as they plunged earthward, the wraiths from the forest and those in the foremost line launched into a rushing attack. The wedge of demons promptly vanished.

  It was the signal Trull and the other officers had been waiting for. ‘Weapons ready!’ He had to bellow to make himself heard—

  The wave struck. First the killing field, and the ground seemed to explode, churning, as if a multitude of miner’s picks had struck the earth, deep, tearing loose huge chunks that were flung high into the air. Dust and flames, the clash of split bones ripping the flat expanse, a sound like hail on sheets of iron. Onward, onto the slopes of the ramparts. In its wake, a flowing sea of wraiths. ‘Forward!’

  And then the Edur were running across broken, steaming ground. Behind them, thousands pouring from the forest edge.

  Trull saw, all too clearly, as the wave of burning, hammering bones reached the entrenchments. A blush of crimson, then pieces of human flesh danced skyward, a wall, rising, severed limbs flailing in the air. Fragments of armour, the shattered wood of the bulwarks, skin and hair.

  The queen’s cadre was engulfed, bones rushing in to batter where they had been. A moment later the mass exploded outward in a hail of shards, and of the four sorcerors who had been standing there a moment earlier only two remained, sheathed in blood and reeling.

  A demon rose from the ravaged earth in front of them, mace swinging. The mage it struck seemed to fold bonelessly around it, and his body was tossed through the air. The last sorceror staggered back, narrowly avoiding the huge weapon’s deadly path. She gestured, even as a hail of heavy quarrels hammered into the demon.

  Trull heard its squeal of pain.

  Flickering magic swarmed the demon as it spun round and toppled, sliding down the blood-soaked slope, the mace tumbling away.

  Other demons had appeared among the remnants of the Letherii soldiery, flailing bodies flying from their relentless path.

  Another wave of sorcery, this time from somewhere to the southeast, a rolling column, crackling with lightning as it swept crossways on the killing field, plunging into the advancing ranks of wraiths. They melted in their hundreds as the magic tore through them.

  Then the sorcery struck Hanradi Khalag’s warriors, scything a path through the press.

  The Merude chief’s son counte
r-attacked, another surge of grey, tumbling bones. A rampart to the east vanished in a thunderous detonation, but hundreds of Edur lay dead or dying on the field.

  Deafened, half-blinded by dust and smoke, Trull and his warriors reached the slope, scrambled upward and came to the first trench.

  Before them stretched an elongated pit filled with unrecognizable flesh, split bones and spilled organs, strips of leather and pieces of armour. The air was thick with the stench of ruptured bowels and burnt meat. Gagging, Trull stumbled across, his moccasins plunging down into warm pockets, lifting clear sheathed in blood and bile.

  Ahead, a raging battle. Wraiths swarming over soldiers, demons with mauls and maces crushing the Letherii closing on them from all sides, others with double-bladed axes cleaving wide spaces round themselves. But ballista quarrels were finding them one by one. Trull watched a demon stagger, twice impaled, then soldiers rushed in, swords hacking.

  And then he and his company closed with the enemy.

  ****

  Moroch Nevath stumbled through the dust, the screaming soldiers and the fallen bodies, bellowing his prince’s name. But Quillas was nowhere to be seen. Nor was Janall. Only one mage remained from the cadre, launching attack after attack on some distant enemy. A company of heavy infantry had moved up to encircle her, but they were fast dying beneath an onslaught of Tiste Edur.

  The Finadd, blood draining from his ears after the concussion of the wave of bones, still held his sword, the Letherii steel obliterating the occasional wraith that ventured near. He saw one Edur warrior, the spear a blur in his hands, leading a dozen or so of his kin ever closer to the surviving mage.

  But Moroch was too far away, too many heaving bodies between them, and he could only watch as the warrior broke through the last of the defenders and lunged at the mage, driving his spear into her chest, then lifting her entire, the spear-shaft bowing as he flung her spasming body to one side. The iron point of the spear broke free in a stream of blood.

  Reeling away, Moroch Nevath began making his way to the south slope of the rampart. He needed a horse. He needed to bring the mounts closer. For the prince. The queen.

  Somewhere to the east, a roar of sound, and the ground shook beneath him. He staggered, then his left leg swept out, skidding on slime, and something snapped in the Finadd’s groin. Pain lanced through him. Swearing, he watched himself fall, the ruptured ground rising in front of him, and landed heavily. Burning agony in his left leg, his pelvis, up the length of his spine. Still swearing, he began dragging himself forward, his sword lost somewhere in his wake.