Reaper's Gale
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.