The Bonehunters

by Steven Erikson

  That home was... not as it had once been. The sanctuary was under siege — true, by an unsuspecting enemy, who as yet knew nothing of the catacombs beneath their feet, but they now ruled, the chosen elites in their positions of supreme power, from which all manner of depravity and cruelty descended. From the Emperor, the foul blood flows down, and down... No Letherii reign had eved fallen as far as had Rhulad's and that of his Edur 'nobles'.. Pray that it ends. Pray that, one day, historians will write of this dark period in the history of Letheras as The Nightmare Age, a title of truth to warn the future.

  He did not believe it. Not a word of the prayer he had voiced in his head ten thousand times. We saw the path Rhulad would take. Saw it when the Emperor banished his own brother — Gods, I was there, in the Nascent. I was one of the 'brothers' of Rhulad, his new extended family of cowering fawners. May the Black Winged Lord preserve me, I watched as the one Edur I admired, the one Edur I respected, was broken down. No, I did more than watch. I added my voice to Rhulad's ritual shorning of Trull. And Trull's crime? Why, nothing more than yet one more desperate attempt to bring Rhulad home. Ah, by the Dark Mother herself... but Ahlrada Ahn had never dared, not once, not even in those early days when Trull struggled to turn the tide, no, he had himself turned away, rejecting every opportunity to unveil words that he knew Trull had needed, and would see and cherish as gifts. I was a coward. My soul fled the risk, and there is no going back.

  In the days following Rhulad's ascension to the Letherii crown, Ahlrada had led a company of Arapay warriors out of Letheras, seeking the trail of the new Emperor's betrayers — his brother Fear, and that slave Udinaas. They had failed to discover any sign of them, and in that Ahlrada had found some small measure of victory. Rhulad's rage had nearly resulted in mass executions, Ahlrada and his searchers foremost among them, but the wreckage that remained of Hannan Mosag had managed to impose some control on Rhulad — the Emperor had great need for Tiste Edur warriors, not just in the occupation and rule of the empire, but yet more in the vast expeditions that were even then being planned.

  Expeditions such as this one. Had he known what these journeys would entail, Ahlrada might well have elected for the execution Rhulad had been so eager to provide in those early days in Letheras.

  Since that time... all that we have done in his cursed name...

  We follow him — what has that made of us? Oh, Trull, you were right, and not one of us was brave enough to stand at your side when it mattered most.

  His memories of Trull Sengar haunted Ahlrada Ahn. No, his memories of everything haunted him, yet they had converged, found focus in one lone, honourable warrior of the Tiste Edur.

  He stood on the huge ship, eyes on the tumultuous seas, his face long since grown numb from the icy spray. Whilst in the waters to all sides more ships rolled in the heavy waves, one half of the Third Edur Imperial Fleet seeking a way round this enormous continent. Below decks and in the rigging, on each and every ship, laboured Letherii crews, even the lesser marines. While their overlords did nothing, beyond consuming wine and the endless courses of meals; or took to their sumptuous beds Letherii slave women, and those that they used up, left broken and raving with the poison of Edur seed, were simply flung over the rail for the ever-following huge grey sharks and the pods of yearling dhenrabi.

  One half of the fleet in these seas. Commanded by Tomad Sengar, the Emperor's father.

  And how well have we done thus far, dear Tomad? A bare handful of dubious champions, challengers to deliver home and ilnto the cast of your youngest son's manic gaze.

  And let us not forget the fallen kin we have found. Where have they come from? Even they don't know. Yet do we treat them as long-lost kin? Do our arms open wide for them? No, they are lesser creatures, blood befouled by failure, by destitution. Our gift is contempt, though we proclaim it liberation.

  But, I was thinking of champions... and Rhulad's insatiable hunger that sends out into this world fleet upon fleet. Tomad. How well have we done?

  He thought to their latest Guests, down below, and there was the sense, no more than a whisper in the murk of his rolled-up, rotted, moth-eaten soul, that perhaps, this time they had found someone truly formidable. Someone who just might make Rhulad choke on his own blood, even more than once... although, as always, there would come that terrible scream...

  We are made, and unmade, and so it goes on. For ever.

  And I will never see my home.

  ****

  With eyes the colour of weathered granite, the Letherii Marine Commander, Atri-Preda Yan Tovis, known to her soldiers as Twilight, looked down upon the sickly man. The gloomy hold of the ship was fetid and damp, the walkway above the keel smeared with puke and slimy mould. Creaks and thumps filled the air with the impact of every wave against the hull. The muted light of lanterns pitched about, making riotous the shadows. 'Here,' she said. 'Drink this.'

  The man looked up, red-rimmed eyes set in a face the hue of whale fat. 'Drink?' Even the word seemed nearly sufficient to double him over yet again, but she saw him struggle mightily against the impulse.

  'I speak your language not well,' she said. 'Drink. Two swallows. Wait, then more.'

  'I'll not keep it down,' the man said.

  'No matter. Two, you feel better. Then more. Sick goes.'

  With a trembling hand, he accepted the small patinated glass bottle.

  'Ceda make,' Twilight said. 'Made, generations ago. Sick goes.'

  He swallowed once, then twice, was motionless for a moment, then he lunged to one side. Spitting, coughing, gasping, then, 'Spirits take me, yes.'

  'Better?'

  A nod.

  'Drink rest. It will stay.'

  He did so, then settled back, eyes closed. 'Better. Better, yes.'

  'Good. Now, go to him.' She pointed towards the bow, twenty paces further along the walkway, where a figure leaned, huddled against the prow's uplift. 'Preda Tomad Sengar has doubts. Champion will not survive voyage. Will not eat, drink. Wastes away. Go to him. You claim much, his prowess. We see otherwise. We see only weakness.'

  The man lying on the walkway would not meet her eyes, but he slowly sat up, then climbed awkwardly, unevenly to his feet. Legs wide to maintain his balance, he straightened. Spat into the palms of his hands, rubbed his palms together for a moment, then swept both hands back through his hair.

  Taralack Veed met the woman's eyes. 'Now, you are the one looking ill,' he said, frowning. 'What is wrong?'

  Twilight simply shook her head. 'Go. The Preda must be convinced. Else we throw you both over side.'

  The Gral warrior turned about and made his way, crab­like, up the walkway. To either side of him, pressed together between crates and casks, were chained figures. Grey-skinned like their captors, almost as tall, with many bearing facial traits that revealed Edur blood. Yet, here they were, rotting in their own filth, their dull, owlish gazes following Taralack as he made his way forward.

  The Gral crouched before Icarium, reached out a hand to rest it on the warrior's shoulder. Icarium flinched at the contact.

  'My friend,' Taralack said in a low voice. 'I know this is not illness of the flesh that so afflicts you. It is illness of the spirit. You must struggle against it, Icarium.' The Jhag was drawn up, knees to his chest, arms wrapped tight, the position reminding the Gral of the burial style practised by the Ehrlii. For a long moment, there was no response to his words, then a shudder racked the figure curled up before him. 'I cannot do this,' Icarium said, lift­ing his head to fix despairing eyes upon Taralack. 'I do not wish... I do not wish to kill anyone!'

  Taralack rubbed at his face. Spirits below, that draught from Twilight had done wonders. I can do this. 'Icarium. Look down this walkway. Look upon these filthy creatures — who were told they were being liberated from their oppressors. Who came to believe that in these Edur was their salvation. But no. Their blood is not pure. It is muddied — they were slaves! Fallen so far, knowing nothing of their own history, the glory of their past — yes, I
know, what glory? But look upon them! What manner of demons are these Tiste Edur and their damned empire? To so treat their own kind? Now tell me, Icarium, what have I procured for you? Tell me!'

  The warrior's expression was ravaged, horror swimming in his eyes — and something else, a light of wildness. 'For what we witnessed,' the Jhag whispered. 'For what we saw them do...'

  'Vengeance,' Taralack Veed said, nodding.

  Icarium stared at him like a drowning man. 'Vengeance...'

  'But you will not be given that chance, Icarium. The Preda loses faith in you — in me — and we are in grave peril of being thrown to the sharks—'

  'They ask me to kill their emperor, Taralack Veed. It makes no sense—'

  'What they ask,' the Gral said, baring his teeth, 'and what you shall deliver, are two entirely different things.'

  'Vengeance,' Icarium said again, as if tasting the word, then he brought both hands to his face. 'No, no, it is not for me. Already too much blood — more can achieve nothing. I will be no different than them!' He reached out suddenly and grasped Taralack, dragging him close. 'Don't you see that? More innocent lives—'

  'Innocent? You fool, Icarium — can't you understand? Innocence is a lie! None of us is innocent! Not one! Show me one, please, I beg you — show me that I am wrong!' He twisted round in the Jhag's iron grip, jabbed a finger towards the huddled forms of the slaves. 'We both witnessed, did we not? Yesterday! Two of those pathetic fools, choking the life out of a third one — all three in chains, Icarium, all three starving, dying! Yet, some old quarrel, some old stupidity, unleashed one last time! Victims? Oh yes, no doubt of that. Innocent? Hah! And may the spirits above and below strike me down if my judgement is false!'

  Icarium stared at him, then, slowly, his long fingers relaxed their grip on the Gral's hide shirt.

  'My friend,' Taralack said, 'you must eat. You must keep your strength. This empire of the Tiste Edur, it is an abomination, ruled by a madman whose only talent is with a sword, and to that the weak and strong must bow, for such is the cast of the world. To defy the powerful is to invite subjugation and annihilation — you know this, Icarium. Yet you and you alone, friend, possess what is necessary to destroy that abomination. This is what you were born to do. You are the final weapon of justice — do not waver before this flood of inequity. Feed upon what you have witnessed — what we have witnessed — and all that we shall see on the voyage ahead. Feed on it, to fuel the justice within you — until it is blinding with power. Icarium, do not let these terrible Edur defeat you — as they are doing now.'

  A voice spoke behind him. Twilight. 'The Preda considers a test. For this warrior.'

  Taralack Veed turned, looked up at the woman. 'What do you mean? What sort of test?'

  'We fight many wars. We walk paths of Chaos and Shadow.'

  The Gral's eyes narrowed. 'We?'

  She grimaced. 'The Edur now rule Lether. Where they lead, Letherii must follow. Edur swords make river of blood, and from river of blood, there is river of gold. The loyal have grown rich, so very rich.'

  'And the disloyal?'

  'They tend the oars. Indebted. It is so.'

  'And you, Atri-Preda? Are you loyal?'

  She studied him, silent for a half-dozen heartbeats, then she said, 'Each champion believes. By their sword the Emperor shall die. What is believed and what is true is not same,' she said, strangely twisting Taralack's own words. 'To what is true, I am loyal. The Preda considers a test.'

  'Very well,' the Gral said, then held his breath, dreading a refusal from Icarium. But none came. Ah, that is good.

  The woman walked away, armour rustling like coins spilling onto gravel.

  Taralack Veed stared after her.

  'She hides herself,' Icarium said in a low, sad voice. 'Yet her soul dies from within.'

  'Do you believe, my friend,' the Gral said, turning back to the Jhag once more, 'that she alone suffers in silence? That she alone cowers, her honour besieged by what she must do?'

  Icarium shook his head.

  'Then think of her when your resolve falters, friend. Think of Twilight. And all the others like her.'

  A wan smile. 'Yet you say there is no innocence.'

  'An observation that does not obviate the demand for justice, Icarium.'

  The Jhag's gaze shifted, down and away, and seemed tow focus on the slime-laden planks of the hull to his right. 'No,' he whispered in a hollow tone, 'I suppose it doesn't.'

  ****

  Sweat glistened on the rock walls, as if the pressure of the world had grown unbearable. The man who had just appeared, as if from nowhere, stood motionless for a time, the dark grey of his cloak and hood making him indistinct in the gloom, but the only witnesses to this peculiarity were both indifferent and blind — the maggots writhing in torn, rotting flesh among the sprawl of bodies that stretched before him down the chasm's elongated, rough floor.

  The stench was overpowering, and Cotillion could feel himself engulfed in grief-laden familiarity, as if this was the true scent of existence. There had been times — he was almost certain — when he'd known unmitigated joy, but so faded were they to his recollection that he had begun to suspect the fictional conjuring of nostalgia. As with civilizations and their golden ages, so too with people: each individual ever longing for that golden past moment of true peace and wellness.

  So often it was rooted in childhood, in a time before the strictures of enlightenment had afflicted the soul, when what had seemed simple unfolded its complexity like the petals of a poison flower, to waft its miasma of decay.

  The bodies were of young men and women — too young in truth to be soldiers, although soldiers they had been. Their memories of solace would likely have been scoured from their minds back when, in a place and a world they had once called home, they hung nailed by iron spikes to wooden crosses, uncomprehending of their crimes. Of course there had been no such crimes. And the blood, which they had shed so profusely, had yielded no evidence of its taint, for neither the name of a people nor the hue of their skin, nor indeed the cast of their features, could make life's blood any less pure, or precious.

  Wilful fools with murder in their rotted hearts believed otherwise. They divided the dead into innocent victim and the rightfully punished, and knew with unassailable conviction upon which side they themselves stood. With such conviction, the plunging of knives proved so very easy.

  Here they had fought hard, he observed as he pushed himself into motion. A pitched battle, then an engaged withdrawal. Proof of superior training, discipline and a fierce unwillingness to yield without exacting a price. The enemy had taken their own fallen away, but for these young dead, the chasm itself was now their crypt. Saved from their crucifixions... for this.

  There had been so many... pressing tasks. Essential necessities. That we neglected this company, a company we ourselves ensconced here, to defend what we claimed our own. And then, it must have seemed, we abandoned them. And in that grim conclusion they would, he admitted sourly, not be far wrong. But we are assailed on all sides, now. We are in our most desperate moment. Right now... oh, my fallen friends, I am sorry for this...

  A conceit among the living, that their words could ease the dead. Worse, to voice words seeking forgiveness from those dead. The fallen had but one message to deliver to the living, and it had nothing to do with forgiveness. Remind yourself of that, Cotillion. Be ever mindful of what the dead tell you and everyone else, over and over again.

  He heard noises ahead. Muted, a rhythmic rasping sound, like iron edges licking leather, then the soft pad of moccasined feet.

  The natural corridor of the chasm narrowed, and blocking the choke-point was a T'lan Imass, sword-point resting on the rock before it, watching Cotillion's approach. Beyond the undead warrior there was the dull yellow glow of lanterns, a passing shadow, another, then a figure stepped into view.

  'Stand aside, Ibra Gholan,' Minala said, her eyes on Cotillion.

  Her armour was in tatters. A spear-poin
t had punctured chain and leather high on her chest, the left side, just beneath the shoulder. Old blood crusted the edges. One side of her helm's cheek-guard was gone and the area of her face made visible by its absence was swollen and mottled with bruises. Her extraordinary light grey eyes were fixed on Cotillion's own as she moved past the T'lan Imass. 'They arrive through a gate,' she said. 'A warren lit by silver fire.'

  'Chaos,' he said. 'Proof of the alliance we had feared would come to pass. Minala, how many attacks have you repulsed?'

  'Four.' She hesitated, then reached up and worked her helm loose, lifting it clear. Sweat-matted, filthy black hair snaked down. 'My children... the losses have been heavy.'

  Cotillion could not hold her gaze any longer. Not with that admission.

  She went on. 'If not for the T'lan Imass... and Apt, and the Tiste Edur renegade, this damned First Throne would now be in the possession of an army of blood-hungry bar­barians.'

  'Thus far, then,' Cotillion ventured, 'your attackers have been exclusively Tiste Edur?'

  'Yes.' She studied him for a long moment. 'That will not last, will it?'

  Cotillion's eyes focused once again on Ibra Gholan.

  Minala continued, 'The Edur are but skirmishers, aren't they? And even they have not fully committed themselves to this cause. Why?'

  'They are as thinly stretched as we are, Minala.'

  'Ah, then I cannot expect more Aptorians. What of the other demons of your realm, Cotillion? Azalan? Dinal? Can you give us nothing?'

  'We can,' he said. 'But not now.'

  'When?'

  He looked at her. 'When the need is greatest.'

  Minala stepped close. 'You bastard. I had thirteen hun­dred. Now I have four hundred still capable of fighting.' She jabbed a finger towards the area beyond the choke-point. 'Almost three hundred more lie dying of wounds — and there is nothing I can do for them!'