Reaper's Gale Read online

  Reaper’s Gale

  A Tale of the Malazan Book of the Fallen

  Steven Erikson

  To Glen Cook

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you to my advance readers: Rick, Chris, Mark, Bill, Hazel and Bowen. Thanks also to the folks at Black Stilt Cafe, Ambiente Cafe and Cafe Teatro in Victoria for the table, the coffees and AC access. And for all the other support that keeps me afloat, thanks to Clare, Simon at Transworld, Howard and Patrick, the scary mob at Malazanempire.com, David and Anne, Peter and Nicky Crowther.

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  THE LETHERII

  Tehol Beddict, a destitute resident

  Bugg, Tehol’s manservant

  Shurq Elalle, an itinerant pirate

  Skorgen Kaban, Shurq’s First Mate

  Ublala Pung, an unemployed Tarthenal half-blood

  Ormly, a member of the Rat Catchers’ Guild

  Rucket, Chief Investigator of the Rat Catchers’ Guild

  Karos Invictad, Invigilator of the Patriotists

  Tanal Yathvanar, Karos’s personal assistant

  Rautos Hivanar, Master of the Liberty Consign of Merchants

  Venitt Sathad, Rautos’s principal field agent

  Triban Gnol, Chancellor of the New Empire

  Nisall, First Concubine of the old emperor

  Janall, deposed empress

  Turudal Brizad, ex-consort

  Janath Anar, a political prisoner

  Sirryn Kanar, a palace guard

  Brullyg (Shake), nominal Ruler of Second Maiden Fort

  Yedan Derryg (The Watch)

  Orbyn ‘Truthfinder’, Section Commander of the Patriotists

  Letur Anict, Factor in Drene

  Bivatt, Atri-Preda of the Eastern Army

  Feather Witch, Letherii slave to Uruth

  THE TISTE EDUR

  Rhulad, ruler of the New Empire

  Hannan Mosag, Imperial Ceda

  Uruth, Matriarch of the Emperor and wife to Tomad Sengar

  K’risnan, warlocks of the Emperor

  Bruthen Trana, Edur in palace

  Brohl Handar, Overseer of the East in Drene

  ARRIVING WITH THE EDUR FLEET

  Yan Tovis (Twilight), Atri-Preda of the Letherii Army

  Varat Taun, her lieutenant

  Taralack Veed, a Gral agent of the Nameless Ones

  Icarium, Taralack’s weapon

  Hanradi Khalag, a warlock of the Tiste Edur

  Tomad Sengar, Patriarch of the Emperor

  Samar Dev, a scholar and witch from Seven Cities

  Karsa Orlong, a Toblakai warrior

  Taxilian, an interpreter

  THE AWL’DAN

  Redmask, an exile who returned

  Masarch, a warrior of the Renfayar Clan

  Hadralt, War Leader of Ganetok Clan

  Sag’Churok, a bodyguard to Redmask

  Gunth Mach, a bodyguard to Redmask

  Torrent, a Copperface

  Natarkas, a Copperface

  THE HUNTED

  Seren Pedac, a Letherii Acquitor

  Fear Sengar, a Tiste Edur

  Kettle, a Letherii orphan

  Udinaas, a Letherii runaway slave

  Wither, a shadow wraith

  Silchas Ruin, a Tiste Andii Ascendant

  THE REFUGIUM

  Ulshun Pral, an Imass

  Rud Elalle, an adopted foundling

  Hostille Rator, a T’lan Imass

  Til’aras Benok, a T’lan Imass

  Gr’istanas Ish’ilm, a T’lan Imass

  THE MALAZANS

  Bonehunters

  Tavore Paran, Commander of the Bonehunters

  Lostara Yil, Second to Tavore

  Keneb, Fist in the Bonehunters

  Blistig, Fist in the Bonehunters

  Faradan Sort, Captain

  Madan’tul Rada, Faradan Sort’s lieutenant

  Grub, adopted son of Keneb

  Beak, mage seconded to Captain Faradan Sort

  8th Legion, 9th Company

  4th Squad

  Fiddler, sergeant

  Tarr, corporal

  Koryk, half-blood Seti, marine

  Smiles, Kanese, marine

  Cuttle, sapper

  Bottle, squad mage

  Corabb Bhilan Thenu’alas, soldier

  5th Squad

  Gesler, sergeant

  Stormy, corporal

  Sands, marine

  Shortnose, heavy infantry

  Flashwit, heavy infantry

  Uru Hela, heavy infantry

  Mayfly, heavy infantry

  7th Squad

  Cord, sergeant

  Shard, corporal

  Limp, marine

  Ebron, squad mage

  Crump (Jamber Bole), sapper

  Sinn, mage

  8th Squad

  Hellian, sergeant

  Touchy, corporal #1

  Brethless, corporal #2

  Balgrid, squad mage

  Tavos Pond, marine

  Maybe, sapper

  Lutes, squad healer

  9th Squad

  Balm, sergeant

  Deadsmell, corporal

  Throatslitter, marine

  Galt, marine

  Lobe, marine

  Widdershins, squad mage

  12th Squad

  Thom Tissy, sergeant

  Tulip, corporal

  Ramp, heavy infantry

  Jibb, medium infantry

  Gullstream, medium infantry

  Mudslinger, medium infantry

  Bellig Harn, heavy infantry

  13th Squad

  Urb, sergeant

  Reem, corporal

  Masan Gilani, marine

  Bowl, heavy infantry

  Hanno, heavy infantry

  Saltlick, heavy infantry

  Scant, heavy infantry

  8th Legion, 3rd Company

  4th Squad

  Pravalak Rim, corporal

  Honey, sapper

  Strap Mull, sapper

  Shoaly, heavy infantry

  Lookback, heavy infantry

  5th Squad

  Badan Gruk, sergeant

  Ruffle, marine

  Skim, marine

  Nep Furrow, mage

  Reliko, heavy infantry

  Vastly Blank, heavy infantry

  10th Squad

  Primly, sergeant

  Hunt, corporal

  Mulvan Dreader, mage

  Neller, sapper

  Skulldeath, marine

  Drawfirst, heavy infantry

  OTHERS

  Banaschar, the Last Priest of D’rek

  Withal, a Meckros Swordsmith

  Sandalath Drukorlat, a Tiste Andii, Withal’s wife

  Nimander Golit, a Tiste Andii, offspring of Anomander Rake

  Phaed, a Tiste Andii, offspring of Anomander Rake

  Curdle, a possessed skeletal reptile

  Telorast, a possessed skeletal reptile

  Onrack, a T’lan Imass, unbound

  Trull Sengar, a Tiste Edur renegade

  Ben Adaephon Delat, a wizard

  Menandore, a Soletaken (Sister of Dawn)

  Sheltatha Lore, a Soletaken (Sister of Dusk)

  Sukul Ankhadu, a Soletaken (Sister Dapple)

  Kilmandaros, an Elder Goddess

  Clip, a Tiste Andii

  Cotillion, The Rope, Patron God of Assassins

  Emroth, a broken T’lan Imass

  Hedge, a ghost

  Old Hunch Arbat, Tarthenal

  Pithy, an ex-con

  Brevity, an ex-con

  Pully, a Shake witch

  Skwish, a Shake witch

  PROLOGUE

  The Elder Warren of Kurald Emurlahn

  The Age of Sundering

  In a land
scape torn with grief, the carcasses of six dragons lay strewn in a ragged row reaching a thousand or more paces across the plain, flesh split apart, broken bones jutting, jaws gaping and eyes brittle-dry. Where their blood had spilled out onto the ground wraiths had gathered like flies to sap and were now ensnared, the ghosts writhing and voicing hollow cries of despair, as the blood darkened, fusing with the lifeless soil; and, when at last the substance grew indurate, hardening into glassy stone, those ghosts were doomed to an eternity trapped within that murky prison.

  The naked creature that traversed the rough path formed by the fallen dragons was a match to their mass, yet bound to the earth, and it walked on two bowed legs, the thighs thick as thousand-year-old trees. The width of its shoulders was equal to the length of a Tartheno Toblakai’s height; from a thick neck hidden beneath a mane of glossy black hair, the frontal portion of the head was thrust forward – brow, cheekbones and jaw, and its deep-set eyes revealing black pupils surrounded in opalescent white. The huge arms were disproportionately long, the enormous hands almost scraping the ground. Its breasts were large, pendulous and pale. As it strode past the battered, rotting carcasses, the motion of its gait was strangely fluid, not at all lumbering, and each limb was revealed to possess extra joints.

  Skin the hue of sun-bleached bone, darkening to veined red at the ends of the creature’s arms, bruises surrounding the knuckles, a latticework of cracked flesh exposing the bone here and there. The hands had seen damage, the result of delivering devastating blows.

  It paused to tilt its head, upward, and watched as three dragons sailed the air high amidst the roiling clouds, appearing then disappearing in the smoke of the dying realm.

  The earthbound creature’s hands twitched, and a low growl emerged from deep in its throat.

  After a long moment, it resumed its journey.

  Beyond the last of the dead dragons, to a place where rose a ridge of hills, the largest of these cleft through as if a giant claw had gouged out the heart of the rise, and in that crevasse raged a rent, a tear in space that bled power in nacreous streams. The malice of that energy was evident in the manner in which it devoured the sides of the fissure, eating like acid into the rocks and boulders of the ancient berm.

  The rent would soon close, and the one who had last passed through had sought to seal the gate behind him. But such healing could never be done in haste, and this wound bled anew.

  Ignoring the virulence pouring from the rent, the creature strode closer. At the threshold it paused again and turned to look back the way it had come.

  Draconean blood hardening into stone, horizontal sheets of the substance, already beginning to separate from the surrounding earth, to lift up on edge, forming strange, disarticulated walls. Some then began sinking, vanishing from this realm. Falling through world after world. To reappear, finally, solid and impermeable, in other realms, depending on the blood’s aspect, and these were laws that could not be challenged. Starvald Demelain, the blood of dragons and the death of blood.

  In the distance behind the creature, Kurald Emurlahn, the Realm of Shadows, the first realm born of the conjoining of Dark and Light, convulsed in its death-throes. Far away, the civil wars still raged on, whilst in other areas the fragmenting had already begun, vast sections of this world’s fabric torn away, disconnected and lost and abandoned – to either heal round themselves, or die. Yet interlopers still arrived here, like scavengers gathered round a fallen leviathan, eagerly tearing free their own private pieces of the realm. Destroying each other in fierce battles over the scraps.

  It had not been imagined – by anyone – that an entire realm could die in such a manner. That the vicious acts of its inhabitants could destroy . . . everything. Worlds live on, had been the belief – the assumption – regardless of the activities of those who dwelt upon them. Torn flesh heals, the sky clears, and something new crawls from the briny muck.

  But not this time.

  Too many powers, too many betrayals, too vast and all-consuming the crimes.

  The creature faced the gate once more.

  Then Kilmandaros, the Elder Goddess, strode through.

  The ruined K’Chain Che’Malle demesne

  after the fall of Silchas Ruin

  Trees were exploding in the bitter cold that descended like a shroud, invisible yet palpable, upon this racked, devastated forest.

  Gothos had no difficulty following the path of the battle, the successive clashes of two Elder Gods warring with the Soletaken dragon, and as the Jaghut traversed its mangled length he brought with him the brutal chill of Omtose Phellack, the Warren of Ice. Sealing the deal, as you asked of me, Mael. Locking the truth in place, to make it more than memory. Until the day that witnesses the shattering of Omtose Phellack itself. Gothos wondered, idly, if there had ever been a time when he believed that such a shattering would not come to pass. That the Jaghut, in all their perfected brilliance, were unique, triumphant in eternal domination. A civilization immortal, when all others were doomed.

  Well, it was possible. He had once believed that all of existence was under the benign control of a caring omnipotence, after all. And crickets exist to sing us to sleep, too. There was no telling what other foolishness might have crept into his young, naive brain all those millennia ago.

  No longer, of course. Things end. Species die out. Faith in anything else was a conceit, the product of unchained ego, the curse of supreme self-importance.

  So what do I now believe?

  He would not permit himself a melodramatic laugh in answer to that question. What was the point? There was no-one nearby who might appreciate it. Including himself. Yes, I am cursed to live with my own company.

  It’s a private curse.

  The best kind.

  He ascended a broken, fractured rise, some violent uplift of bedrock, where a vast fissure had opened, its vertical sides already glistening with frost when Gothos came to the edge and looked down. Somewhere in the darkness below, two voices were raised in argument.

  Gothos smiled.

  He opened his warren, made use of a sliver of power to fashion a slow, controlled descent towards the gloomy base of the crevasse.

  As Gothos neared, the two voices ceased, leaving only a rasping, hissing sound, pulsating – the drawing of breath on waves of pain – and the Jaghut heard the slithering of scales on stone, slightly off to one side.

  He alighted atop broken shards of rock, a few paces from where stood Mael, and, ten paces beyond him, the huge form of Kilmandaros, her skin vaguely luminescent – in a sickly sort of way – standing with hands closed into fists, a belligerent cast to her brutal mien.

  Scabandari, the Soletaken dragon, had been driven into a hollow in the cliff-side and now crouched, splintered ribs no doubt making every breath an ordeal of agony. One wing was shattered, half torn away. A hind limb was clearly broken, bones punched through flesh. Its flight was at an end.

  The two Elders were now eyeing Gothos, who strode forward, then spoke. ‘I am always delighted,’ he said, ‘when a betrayer is in turn betrayed. In this instance, betrayed by his own stupidity. Which is even more delightful.’

  Mael, Elder God of the Seas, asked, ‘The Ritual . . . are you done, Gothos?’

  ‘More or less.’ The Jaghut fixed his gaze on Kilmandaros. ‘Elder Goddess. Your children in this realm have lost their way.’

  The huge bestial woman shrugged, and said in a faint, melodic voice, ‘They’re always losing their way, Jaghut.’

  ‘Well, why don’t you do something about it?’

  ‘Why don’t you?’

  One thin brow lifted, then Gothos bared his tusks in a smile. ‘Is that an invitation, Kilmandaros?’

  She looked over at the dragon. ‘I have no time for this. I need to return to Kurald Emurlahn. I will kill him now—’ and she stepped closer.

  ‘You must not,’ Mael said.

  Kilmandaros faced him, huge hands opening then closing again into fists. ‘So you keep saying, you boiled crab.’ r />
  Shrugging, Mael turned to Gothos. ‘Explain it to her, please.’

  ‘How many debts do you wish to owe me?’ the Jaghut asked him.

  ‘Oh now really, Gothos!’

  ‘Very well. Kilmandaros. Within the Ritual that now descends upon this land, upon the battlefields and these ugly forests, death itself is denied. Should you kill the Tiste Edur here, his soul will be unleashed from his flesh, but it will remain, only marginally reduced in power.’

  ‘I mean to kill him,’ Kilmandaros said in her soft voice.

  ‘Then,’ Gothos’s smile broadened, ‘you will need me.’

  Mael snorted.

  ‘Why do I need you?’ Kilmandaros asked the Jaghut.

  He shrugged. ‘A Finnest must be prepared. To house, to imprison, this Soletaken’s soul.’

  ‘Very well, then make one.’

  ‘As a favour to you both? I think not, Elder Goddess. No, alas, as with Mael here, you must acknowledge a debt. To me.’

  ‘I have a better idea,’ Kilmandaros said. ‘I crush your skull between a finger and thumb, then I push your carcass down Scabandari’s throat, so that he suffocates on your pompous self. This seems a fitting demise for the both of you.’

  ‘Goddess, you have grown bitter and crabby in your old age,’ Gothos said.

  ‘It is no surprise,’ she replied. ‘I made the mistake of trying to save Kurald Emurlahn.’

  ‘Why bother?’ Mael asked her.

  Kilmandaros bared jagged teeth. ‘The precedent is . . . unwelcome. You go bury your head in the sands again, Mael, but I warn you, the death of one realm is a promise to every other realm.’

  ‘As you say,’ the Elder God said after a moment. ‘And I do concede that possibility. In any case, Gothos demands recompense.’

  The fists unclenched, then clenched again. ‘Very well. Now, Jaghut, fashion a Finnest.’

  ‘This will do,’ Gothos said, drawing an object into view from a tear in his ragged shirt.

  The two Elders stared at it for a time, then Mael grunted. ‘Yes, I see, now. Rather curious choice, Gothos.’

  ‘The only kind I make,’ the Jaghut replied. ‘Go on, then, Kilmandaros, proceed with your subtle conclusion to the Soletaken’s pathetic existence.’

  The dragon hissed, screamed in rage and fear as the Elder Goddess advanced.