Driven away, he had wandered far, with no thought of ever returning. He was not as he had once been, no longer the son of his father, yet what he had become was, even to himself, a mystery.
The sky overhead was unmarred by clouds, the new season finding its heat, and jackrabbits raced from one thicket of momentary cover to another ahead of him as he rode the Letherii horse on the herd trail on its north-easterly route. A small herd, he had noted, with few fly-swarmed birth-stains along the path’s outskirts, where rodara males would gather protectively until the newborn was able to find its legs. The clan guiding these beasts was probably small.
Redmask’s guardian K’Chain Che’Malle were nowhere to be seen, but that was not unusual. The huge reptiles had prodigious appetites. At this time of year, the wild bhederin that had wintered in pocket forests – a solitary, larger breed than those of the plains to the south – ventured out from cover in search of mates. Massing more than two Letherii oxen, the bulls were ferocious and belligerent and would charge anything that approached too close, barring a female of its own kind. Sag’Churok, the male K’ell Hunter, delighted in meeting that thundering charge – Redmask had seen its pleasure, revealed in the slow sinuous lashing of the tail – as it stood in the bull’s path, iron blades lifted high. As fast as the bhederin was, the K’Chain Che’Malle was faster. Each time after slaying the beast, Sag’Churok would yield the carcass to Gunth Mach, until she’d eaten her fill.
Redmask rode on through the day, his pace leisurely to ease the burden on the horse, and when the sun was descending towards the horizon, igniting distant storm clouds, he came within sight of the Awl encampment, situated on an ancient oxbow island between two dry eroded riverbeds. The herds were massed on the flanks of the valleys to either side and the sprawl of dome-shaped, sewn-hide huts huddled amidst the smoke of cookfires blanketing the valley.
No outriders. No pickets. And far too large a camp for the size of the herds.
Redmask reined in on the ridge line. He studied the scene below. Here and there, voices rose in ritual mourning. Few children were visible moving about between the huts.
After some time, as he sat motionless on the high Letherii saddle, someone saw him. Sudden cries, scurrying motion in the growing shadows, then a half-dozen warriors set out at a trot towards him.
Behind them, the camp had already begun a panicked breaking, sparks flying as hearths were kicked and stamped out. Hide walls rippled on the huts.
Herd and dray dogs appeared, racing to join the approaching warriors.
The Awl warriors were young, he saw as they drew closer. Only a year or two past their death nights. Not a single veteran among them. Where were the Elders? The shouldermen?
Halting fifteen paces downslope, the six warriors began conferring in hissed undertones, then one faced the encampment and loosed a piercing cry. All activity stopped below.
Faces stared up at Redmask. Not a single warrior among them seemed bold enough to venture closer.
The dogs were less cowed by the presence of a lone warrior. Growling, hackles raised, they crept in a half-circle towards him. Then, catching an unexpected scent, the beasts suddenly shrank back, tails dipping, thin whines coming from their throats.
Finally, one young warrior edged forward a step. ‘You cannot be him,’ he said.
Redmask sighed. ‘Where is your war leader?’ he demanded.
The youth filled his chest and straightened. ‘I am this clan’s war leader. Masarch, son of Nayrud.’
‘When was your death night?’
‘Those are the old ways,’ Masarch said, baring his teeth in a snarl. ‘We have abandoned such foolishness.’
Another spoke up behind the war leader. ‘The old ways have failed us! We have cast them out!’
Masarch said, ‘Remove that mask; it is not for you. You seek to deceive us. You ride a Letherii horse – you are one of the Factor’s spies.’
Redmask made no immediate reply. His gaze slid past the war leader and his followers, fixing once more on the camp below. A crowd was gathering at the near edge, watching. He was silent for another twenty heartbeats, then he said, ‘You have set out no pickets. A Letherii troop could line this ridge and plunge down into your midst, and you would not be prepared. Your women cry out their distress, a sound that can be heard for leagues on a still night like this. Your people are starving, war leader, yet they light an excess of fires, enough to make above you a cloud of smoke that will not move, and reflects the light from below. You have been culling the newborn rodara and myrid, instead of butchering the ageing males and females past bearing. You must have no shouldermen, for if you did, they would bury you in the earth and force upon you the death night, so that you might emerge, born anew and, hopefully, gifted with new wisdom – wisdom you clearly lack.’
Masarch said nothing to that. He had finally seen Redmask’s weapons. ‘You are him,’ he whispered. ‘You have returned to the Awl’dan.’
‘Which clan is this?’
‘Redmask,’ the war leader said, gesturing behind him. ‘This clan…it is yours…’
Receiving naught but silence from the mounted warrior, Masarch added, ‘We, we are all that remain. There are no shouldermen, Redmask. No witches.’ He waved out towards the flanking herds. ‘These beasts you see here, they are all that’s left.’ He hesitated, then straightened once more. ‘Redmask, you have returned…for nothing. You do not speak, and this tells me that you see the truth of things. Great Warrior, you are too late.’
Even to this, Redmask was silent. He slowly dismounted. The dogs, which had continued their trepid circling, tails ducked, either picked up a fresh scent or heard something from the gloom beyond, for they suddenly broke and pelted back down the slope, disappearing into the camp. That panic seemed to ripple through the warriors facing him, but none fled, despite the fear and confusion gripping their expressions.
Licking his lips, Masarch said, ‘Redmask, the Letherii are destroying us. Outrider camps have been ambushed, set upon and slaughtered, the herds stolen away. The Aendinar clan is no more. Sevond and Niritha remnants crawled to the Ganetok – only the Ganetok remains strong, for they are furthest east and, cowards that they are, they made pact with foreigners—’
‘Foreigners.’ Redmask’s eyes narrowed in their slits. ‘Mercenaries.’
Masarch nodded. ‘There was a great battle, four seasons past, and those foreigners were destroyed.’ He made a gesture. ‘The Grey Sorcery.’
‘Did not the victorious Letherii then march on the Ganetok camps?’
‘No, Redmask, too few remained – the foreigners fought well.’
‘Masarch,’ he said, ‘I do not understand. Did not the Ganetok fight alongside their mercenaries?’
The youth spat. ‘Their war leader gathered from the clans fifteen thousand warriors. When the Letherii arrived, he fled, and the warriors followed. They abandoned the foreigners! Left them to slaughter!’
‘Settle the camp below,’ Redmask said. He pointed to the warriors standing behind Masarch. ‘Stand first watch along this ridge line, here and to the west. I am now war leader to the Renfayar clan. Masarch, where hides the Ganetok?’
‘Seven days to the east. They now hold the last great herd of the Awl.’
‘Masarch, do you challenge my right to be war leader?’
The youth shook his head. ‘You are Redmask. The Elders among the Renfayar who were your enemies are all dead. Their sons are dead.’
‘How many warriors remain among the Renfayar?’
Masarch frowned, then gestured. ‘You have met us, War Leader.’
‘Six.’
A nod.
Redmask noted a lone dray dog sitting at the edge of the camp. It seemed to be watching him. He raised his left hand and the beast lunged into motion. The huge animal, a male, reached him moments later, dropping onto its chest and settling its wide, scarred head between Redmask’s feet. He reached down and touched its snout – a gesture that, for most, would have risked fingers.
The dog made no move.
Masarch was staring down at it with wide eyes. ‘A lone survivor,’ he said, ‘from an outrider camp. It would not let us approach.’
‘The foreigners,’ Redmask said quietly, ‘did they possess wardogs?’
‘No. But they were sworn followers of the Wolves of War, and indeed, War Leader, it seemed those treacherous, foul beasts tracked them – always at a distance, yet in vast numbers. Until the Ganetok Elders invoked magic and drove them all away.’ Masarch hesitated, then said, ‘Redmask, the war leader among the Ganetok—’
Unseen behind the mask, a slow smile formed. ‘Firstborn son of Capalah. Hadralt.’
‘How did you know?’
‘Tomorrow, Masarch, we drive the herds east – to the Ganetok. I would know more of those hapless foreigners who chose to fight for us. To die for the people of the Awl’dan.’
‘We are to crawl to the Ganetok as did the Sevond and the Niritha?’
‘You are starving. The herds are too weakened. I lead six youths none of whom has passed the death night. Shall the seven of us ride to war against the Letherii?’
Though young, it was clear that Masarch was no fool. ‘You shall challenge Hadralt? Redmask, your warriors – we, we will all die. We are not enough to meet the hundreds of challenges that will be flung at us, and once we are dead, you will have to face those challenges, long before you are deemed worthy to cross weapons with Hadralt himself.’
‘You will not die,’ Redmask said. ‘And none shall challenge any of you.’
‘Then you mean to carve through a thousand warriors to face Hadralt?’
‘What would be the point of that, Masarch? I need those warriors. Killing them would be a waste. No.’ He paused, then said, ‘I am not without guardians, Masarch. And I doubt that a single Ganetok warrior will dare challenge them. Hadralt shall have to face me, he and I, alone in the circle. Besides,’ he added, ‘we haven’t the time for all the rest.’
‘The Ganetok hold to the old ways, War Leader. There will be rituals. Days and days before the circle is made—’
‘Masarch, we must go to war against the Letherii. Every warrior of the Awl—’
‘War Leader! They will not follow you! Even Hadralt could only manage a third of them, and that with payment of rodara and myrid that halved his holdings!’ Masarch waved at the depleted herds on the hillsides. ‘We – we have nothing left! You could not purchase the spears of a hundred warriors!’
‘Who holds the largest herds, Masarch?’
‘The Ganetok themselves—’
‘No. I ask again, who holds the largest herds?’
The youth’s scowl deepened. ‘The Letherii.’
‘I will send three warriors to accompany the last of the Renfayar to the Ganetok. Choose two of your companions to accompany us.’ The dray dog rose and moved to one side. Redmask collected the reins of his horse and set out down towards the camp. The dray fell in to heel on his left. ‘We shall ride west, Masarch, and find us some herds.’
‘We ride against the Letherii? War Leader, did you not moments ago mock the notion of seven warriors waging war against them? Yet now you say—’
‘War is for later,’ Redmask said. ‘As you say, we need herds. To buy the services of the warriors.’ He paused and looked back at the trailing youth. ‘Where did the Letherii get their beasts?’
‘From the Awl! From us!’
‘Yes. They stole them. So we must steal them back.’
‘Four of us, War Leader?’
‘And one dray, and my guardians.’
‘What guardians?’
Redmask resumed his journey. ‘You lack respect, Masarch. Tonight, I think, you will have your death night.’
‘The old ways are useless! I will not!’
Redmask’s fist was a blur – it was questionable whether, in the gloom, Masarch even saw it – even as it connected solidly with the youth’s jaw, dropping him in his tracks. Redmask reached down and grabbed a handful of hide jerkin, then began dragging the unconscious Masarch back down to the camp.
When the young man awoke, he would find himself in a coffin, beneath an arm’s reach of earth and stones. None of the usual traditional, measured rituals prior to a death night, alas, the kind that served to prepare the chosen for internment. Of course, Masarch’s loose reins displayed an appalling absence of respect, sufficient to obviate the gift of mercy, which in truth was what all those rituals were about.
Hard lessons, then. But becoming an adult depended on such lessons.
He expected he would have to pound the others into submission as well, which made for a long night ahead.
For us all.
The camp’s old women would be pleased by the ruckus, he suspected. Preferable to wailing through the night, in any case.
The last tier of the buried city proved the most interesting, as far as Udinaas was concerned. He’d had his fill of the damned sniping that seemed to plague this fell party of fugitives, a testiness that seemed to be getting worse, especially from Fear Sengar. The ex-slave knew that the Tiste Edur wanted to murder him, and as for the details surrounding the abandonment of Rhulad – which made it clear that Udinaas himself had had no choice in the matter, that he had been as much a victim as Fear’s own brother – well, Fear wasn’t interested. Mitigating circumstances did not alter his intransigence, his harsh sense of right and wrong which did not, it appeared, extend to his own actions – after all, Fear had been the one to deliberately walk away from Rhulad.
Udinaas, upon regaining consciousness, should have returned to the Emperor.
To do what? Suffer a grisly death at Rhulad’s hands? Yes, we were almost friends, he and I – as much as might be possible between slave and master, and of that the master ever feels more generous and virtuous than the slave – but I did not ask to be there, at the madman’s side, struggling to guide him across that narrow bridge of sanity, when all Rhulad wanted to do was leap head-first over the side at every step. No, he had made do with what he had, and in showing that mere splinter of sympathy, he had done more for Rhulad than any of the Sengars – brothers, mother, father. More indeed than any Tiste Edur. Is it any wonder none of you know happiness, Fear Sengar? You are all twisted branches from the same sick tree.
There was no point in arguing this, of course. Seren Pedac alone might understand, might even agree with all that Udinaas had to say, but she wasn’t interested in actually being one of this party. She clung to the role of Acquitor, a finder of trails, the reader of all those jealously guarded maps in her head. She liked not having to choose; better still, she liked not having to care.
A strange woman, the Acquitor. Habitually remote. Without friends…yet she carries a Tiste Edur sword. Trull Sengar’s sword. Kettle says he set it into her hands. Did she understand the significance of that gesture? She must have. Trull Sengar had then returned to Rhulad. Perhaps the only brother who’d actually cared – where was he now? Probably dead.
Fresh, night-cooled air flowed down the broad ramp, moaned in the doorways situated every ten paces or so to either side. They were nearing the surface, somewhere in the saddleback pass – but on which side of the fort and its garrison? If the wrong side, then Silchas Ruin’s swords would keen loud and long. The dead piled up in the wake of that walking white-skinned, red-eyed nightmare, didn’t they just. The few times the hunters caught up with the hunted, they paid with their lives, yet they kept coming, and that made little sense.
Almost as ridiculous as this mosaic floor with its glowing armies. Images of lizard warriors locked in war, long-tails against short-tails, with the long-tails doing most of the dying, as far as he could tell. The bizarre slaughter beneath their feet spilled out into the adjoining rooms, each one, it seemed, devoted to the heroic death of some champion – Fouled K’ell, Naw’rhuk A’dat and Matrons, said Silchas Ruin as, enwreathed in sorcerous light, he explored each such side chamber, his interest desultory and cursory at best. In any case, Udinaas could read enough into the colour
ful scenes to recognize a campaign of mutual annihilation, with every scene of short-tail victory answered with a Matron’s sorcerous conflagration. The winners never won because the losers refused to lose. An insane war.
Seren Pedac was in the lead, twenty paces ahead, and Udinaas saw her halt and suddenly crouch, one hand lifting. The air sweeping in was rich with the scent of loam and wood dust. The mouth of the tunnel was small, overgrown and half blocked by angled fragments of basalt from what had once been an arched gate, and beyond was darkness.
Seren Pedac waved the rest forward. ‘I will scout out ahead,’ she whispered as they gathered about just inside the cave mouth. ‘Did anyone else notice that there were no bats in that last stretch? That floor was clean.’
‘There are sounds beyond human hearing,’ Silchas Ruin said. ‘The flow of air is channelled through vents and into tubes behind the walls, producing a sound that perturbs bats, insects, rodents and the like. The Short-Tails were skilled at such things.’
‘So, not magic, then?’ Seren Pedac asked. ‘No wards or curses here?’
‘No.’
Udinaas rubbed at his face. His beard was filthy, and there were things crawling in the snarls of hair. ‘Just find out if we’re on the right side of that damned fort, Acquitor.’
‘I was making sure I wouldn’t trip some kind of ancient ward stepping outside, Indebted, something that all these broken boulders suggests has happened before. Unless of course you want to rush out there yourself.’
‘Now why would I do that?’ Udinaas asked. ‘Ruin gave you your answer, Seren Pedac; what are you waiting for?’
‘Perhaps,’ Fear Sengar said, ‘she waits for you to be quiet. We shall all, I suppose, end up waiting for ever in that regard.’
‘Tormenting you, Fear, gives me my only pleasure.’
The Malazan Empire Page 586