Such was the power of scepticism. A handful of words to dismantle certainty, like seeds flung at a stone wall—tender greens and tiny roots, yes, but in time they would take down that wall.
Contentment alone should have made Torrent suspicious, but it had reared up before him like a god of purity and willingly he had knelt, head bowed, to take comfort in its shadow. In any other age, Redmask could not have succeeded in commanding the Awl. Without the desperation, without the succession of defeats and mounting losses, without extinction itself looming before them like a cliff’s edge, the tribes would have driven him away—as they had done once before. Yes, they had been wiser, then.
Some forces could not be defeated, and so it was with the Letherii. Their hunger for land, their need to possess and rule over all that they possessed—these were terrible desires that spread like the plague, poisoning the souls of the enemy. Once the fever of seeing the world as they did erupted like fire in one’s brain, the war was over, the defeat absolute and irreversible.
Even these Barghast—his barbaric saviours—were doomed. Akrynnai traders set up camps up against the picket lines. D’rhasilhani horse sellers drove herd after herd in a mostly futile parade past the encampment, and every now and then a Barghast warrior would select one of the larger animals, examine it for a time, and then, with a dismissive bark of laughter, send it back to the herd. Before too long, Torrent believed, a breed of sufficient height and girth would arrive, and that would be that.
Invaders did not stay invaders for ever. Eventually, they became no different from every other tribe or people in a land. Languages muddied, blended, surrendered. Habits were exchanged like currency, and before too long everyone saw the world the same way as everyone else. And if that way was wrong, then misery was assured, for virtually everyone, for virtually ever.
The Awl should have bowed to the Letherii. They would be alive now, instead of lying in jumbled heaps of mouldering bones in the mud of a dead sea.
Redmask had sought to stop time itself. Of course he failed.
Sometimes, belief was suicide.
Torrent had cast away his faiths, his certainties, his precious beliefs. He did nothing to resist the young ones losing their language. He saw the ochre paint on their faces, the spiked hair, and was indifferent to it. Yes, he was the leader of the Awl, the last there would ever be, and it was his task to oversee the peaceful obliteration of his culture. Ways will pass. He vowed he would not miss them.
No, Torrent wore no copper mask. Not any more. And his face was clear as his eyes.
He slowed his horse’s canter as soon as he made out the corpses, the bodies scattered about. Crows and gold-beaked vultures moved here and there in the carrion dance, whilst rhinazan flapped about, disturbing capemoths into flight—sudden blossoms of white petals that settled almost as quickly as they appeared. A scene of the plains that Torrent knew well.
A troop of Barghast had been ambushed. Slaughtered.
He rode closer.
No obvious tracks, neither foot nor hoof, led away from the killing ground. He saw how the Barghast had been in close formation—and that was odd, contrary to what Torrent had seen of their patrols. Perhaps, he thought, they had contracted defensively, which suggested an enemy in overwhelming numbers. But then . . . there was no sign of that. And whoever had murdered these warriors must have taken their own dead with them—he walked his horse in a circuit round the bodies—saw no trailing smears of blood, no swaths through the grasses to mark dragged heels.
The bodies, he realized then, had not been looted. Their beautiful weapons were scattered about, the blades devoid of blood.
Torrent felt his nerves awaken, as if brushed by something unholy. He looked once more at the corpses—not a contraction, but a converging . . . upon a single foe. And the wounds—despite the efforts of the scavengers—displayed nothing of what one would expect. As if they closed upon a beast, and see how the blows struck downward upon them. A plains bear? No, there are none left. The last surviving skin of one of those beasts—among my people—was said to be seven generations old. He remembered the thing, vast, yes, but tattered. And the claws had been removed and since lost. Still . . .
Torrent glanced at the two dogs as they trotted up. The beasts looked preternaturally cowed, stubby tails ducked, the glances they sent him beseeching and frightened. If they had been Awl drays, they would now be moving on to the enemy’s trail, eager, hackles raised. He scowled down at the quivering beasts.
He swung his horse back round and set off for the Gadra camp. The dogs hurried after him.
A beast, yet one that left no trail whatsoever. A ghost creature.
Perhaps his solitary rides had come to an end. He would have to surrender to those eager women. They could take away his unease, he hoped.
Leave the hunt to the Barghast. Give their shamans something worthwhile to do, instead of getting drunk on D’ras beer every night. Report to the chief, and then be done with it.
He already regretted riding out to find the bodies. For all he knew the ghost creature was close, had in fact been watching him. Or something of its foul sorcery lingered upon the scene, and now he was marked, and it would find him no matter where he went. He could almost smell that sorcery, clinging to his clothes. Acrid, bitter as a snake’s belly.
Setoc, who had once been named Stayandi, and who in her dreams was witness to strange scenes of familiar faces speaking in strange tongues, of laughter and love and tenderness—an age in the time before her beasthood—stood facing the empty north.
She had seen the four dogs come into the camp, in itself an event unworthy of much attention, and if the patrol was late in returning, well, perhaps they had surprised a mule deer and made a kill, thus explaining the absence of two dogs from the pack, as the beasts would have been strapped to a travois to carry back the meat. Explanations such as these served for the moment, despite the obvious flaws in logic (these four would have remained with the patrol in such a case, feeding on the butchered carcass and its offal and whatnot); although the truth of it was Setoc spared few thoughts for what interpretations the nearby Barghast might kick up in small swirls of agitated dust, as they tracked with their eyes the sweat-lathered beasts, or for their growing alarm when the dogs then sank down on to their bellies.
So, she watched as a dozen or so warriors gathered weapons and slowly converged on the exhausted beasts, and then returned her attention to the north.
Yes, the animals stank of death.
And the wild wolves in the emptiness beyond, who had given her life, had howled with the dawn their tale of terror.
Yes, her first family ever remained close by, accorded a kind of holy protection in the legend that was the girl’s finding—no Barghast would hunt the animals, and now even the Akrynnai had been told the story of her birth among the pack, of the lone warrior’s discovery of her. Spirit-blessed, they now all said when looking upon her. The holder of a thousand hearts.
At first, that last title had confused Setoc, but her memories slowly awakened, with each day that she grew older, taller, sharper-eyed. Yes, she held within herself a thousand hearts, even more. Wolf gifts. Milk she had suckled, milk of blood, milk of a thousand slain brothers and sisters. And did she not recall a night of terror and slaughter? A night fleeing in the darkness?
They spoke of her legend, and even the shoulder-seers made her offerings and would come up and touch her to ease their troubled expressions.
And now the Great Warlock, the Finder of the Barghast Gods, the one named Cafal, had come to the Gadra, to speak with her, to search her soul if she so permitted it.
The wild wolves cried out to her, their minds a confused tumult of fear and worry. Anxious for their child, yes, and for a future time when storms gathered from every horizon. They understood that she would be at the very heart of that celestial conflagration. They begged to sacrifice their own lives so that she might live. And that, she would not permit.
If she was spirit-blessed, then the
wolves were the spirits that had so blessed her. If she was a thing to be worshipped here among the Barghast, then she was but a symbol of the wild and it was this wild that must be worshipped—if only they could see that.
She glanced back at the cowering dogs, and felt a rush of sorrowful regret at what such beasts could have been, if their wildness was not so chained, so bound and muzzled.
God, my children, does not await us in the wilderness. God, my children, is the wilderness.
Witness its laws and be humbled.
In humility, find peace.
But know this: peace is not always life. Sometimes, peace is death. In the face of this, how can one not be humble?
The wild laws are the only laws.
She would give these words to Cafal. She would see in his face their effect.
And then she would tell him that the Gadra clan was going to die, and that many other Barghast clans would follow. She would warn him to look to the skies, for from the skies death was coming. She would warn him against further journeys—he must return to his own clan. He must make peace with the spirit of his own kin. The peace of life, before the arrival of the peace of death.
Warriors had gathered round the dogs, readying weapons and such. Tension flowed out from them in ripples, spreading through the camp. In moments a warleader would be selected from among the score or so milling about. Setoc pitied them all, but especially that doomed leader.
A wind was blowing in from the east, scratching loose her long sun-bleached hair until it whispered across her face like withered grass. And still the stench of death filled her senses.
Cafal’s heavy features had broadened, grown more robust since his youth, and there were deeply etched lines of stress between his brows and framing his mouth. Years ago, in a pit beneath a temple floor, he had spoken with the One Who Blesses, with the Malazan captain, Ganoes Paran. And, seeking to impress the man—seeking to prove that, somehow, his wisdom belied his few years—he had uttered words he had heard his father use, claiming them as his own.
‘A man possessing power must act decisively . . . else it trickle away through his fingers.’
The observation, while undoubtedly true, now echoed sourly. The voice that made that pronouncement, back then, was all wrong. It had no right to the words. Cafal could not believe his own pretensions uttered by that younger self, that bold, clear-eyed fool.
A pointless, stupid accident had stolen away his father, Humbrall Taur. For all that the huge, wise warrior had wielded his power, neither wisdom nor that power availed him against blind chance. The lesson was plain, the message bleak and humbling. Power was proof against nothing, and that was the only wisdom worth recognizing.
He wondered what had happened to that miserable Malazan captain, chosen and cursed (and was there any real difference between the two?), and he wondered, too, why he now longed to speak with Ganoes Paran, to exchange a new set of words, these ones more honest, more measured, more knowing. Yes, the young were quick with judgement, quick to chastise their torpid elders. The young understood nothing about the value of sober contemplation.
Ganoes Paran had been indecisive, in Cafal’s eyes back then. Pitifully, frustratingly so. But to the Cafal of this day, here on this foreign plain under foreign skies, that Malazan of years ago had been rightly cautious, measured by a wisdom to which young Cafal had been woefully blind. And this is how we gauge a life, this is how we build the bridge from what we were to what we are. Ganoes Paran, do you ever look down? Do you ever stand frozen in place by that depthless chasm below?
Do you ever dream of jumping?
Onos Toolan had been given all the power Cafal’s own father had once commanded, and there was nothing undeserved in that. And now, slowly, inexorably, it was trickling away through the fingers of that ancient warrior. Cafal could do nothing to stop it—he was as helpless as Tool himself. Once again, blind chance had conspired against the Barghast.
When word reached him that wardogs had returned to the camp—beasts bereft of escort and therefore mutely announcing that something ill had befallen a scouting troop—and that a war-party was forming to set out on the back-trail, Cafal drew on his bhederin-hide cloak, grunting beneath its weight, and kicked at the ragged, tufted doll crumpled on the tent floor near the foot of his cot. ‘Wake up.’
The sticksnare spat and snarled as it scrambled upright. ‘Very funny. Respect your elders, O Great Warlock.’
The irony oozing like pine sap from the title made Cafal wince, and then he cursed himself when Talamandas snorted in amusement upon seeing the effect of his mockery. He paused at the entrance. ‘We should have burned you on a pyre long ago, sticksnare.’
‘Too many value me to let you do that. I travel the warrens. I deliver messages and treat with foreign gods. We speak of matters of vast importance. War, betrayals, alliances, betrayals—’
‘You’re repeating yourself.’
‘—and war.’
‘And are the Barghast gods pleased with your efforts, Talamandas? Or do they snarl with fury as you flit this way and that at the behest of human gods?’
‘They cannot live in isolation! We cannot! They are stubborn! They lack all sophistication! They embarrass me!’
Sighing, Cafal stepped outside.
The sticksnare scrambled after him, skittish as a stoat. ‘If we fight alone, we will all die. We need allies!’
Cafal paused and looked down, wondering if Talamandas was, perhaps, insane. How many times could they repeat this same conversation? ‘Allies against whom?’ he asked, as he had done countless times before.
‘Against what comes!’
And there, the same meaningless answer, the kind of answer neither Cafal nor Tool could use. Hissing under his breath, the Great Warlock set off once more, ignoring Talamandas who scrambled in his wake.
The war-party had left the camp. At a trot, the warriors were already reaching the north ridge. Once over the crest, they would vanish from sight.
Cafal saw the wolf-child, Setoc, standing at the camp’s edge, evidently watching the warriors, and something in her stance suggested she longed to lope after them, teeth bared and hackles raised, eager to join in the hunt.
He set out in that direction.
There was no doubt that she was Letherii, but that legacy existed only on the surface—her skin, her features, the traits of whatever parents had given her birth and then lost her. But that nascent impression of civilization had since faded, eroded away. She had been given back to the wild, a virgin sacrifice whose soul had been devoured whole. She belonged to the wolves, and, perhaps, to the Wolf God and Goddess, the Lord and Lady of the Beast Throne.
The Barghast had come to find the Grey Swords, to fight at their side—believing that Toc Anaster and his army knew the enemy awaiting them. The Barghast gods had been eager to serve Togg and Fanderay, to run with the bold pack in search of blood and glory. They had been, Cafal now understood, worse than children.
The Grey Swords were little more than rotting meat when the first scouts found them.
So much for glory.
Was Setoc the inheritor of the blessing once bestowed upon the Grey Swords? Was she now the child of Togg and Fanderay?
Even Talamandas did not know.
‘Not her!’ the sticksnare now snarled behind him. ‘Cast her out, Cafal! Banish her to the wastes where she belongs!’
But he continued on. When he was a dozen paces away, she briefly glanced back at him before returning her attention upon the empty lands to the north. Moments later, he reached her side.
‘They are going to die,’ she said.
‘What? Who?’
‘The warriors who just left. They will die as did the scout troop. You have found the enemy, Great Warlock . . . but it is the wrong enemy. Again.’
Cafal swung round. He saw Talamandas squatting in the grasses five paces back. ‘Chase them down,’ he told the sticksnare. ‘Bring them back.’
‘Believe nothing she says!’
&nbs
p; ‘This is not a request, Talamandas.’
With a mocking cackle the sticksnare darted past, bounding like a bee-stung hare on to the trail of the war-party.
‘There is no use in doing that,’ Setoc said. ‘This entire clan is doomed.’
‘Such pronouncements weary me,’ Cafal replied. ‘You are like a poison thorn in this clan’s heart, stealing its strength, its pride.’
‘Is that why you’ve come?’ she asked. ‘To . . . pluck out this thorn?’
‘If I must.’
‘Then why are you waiting?’
‘I would know the source of your pronouncements, Setoc. Are you plagued with visions? Do spirits visit your dreams? What have you seen? What do you know?’
‘The rhinazan whisper in my ear,’ she said.
Was she taunting him? ‘Winged lizards do not whisper anything, Setoc.’
‘No?’
‘No. Is nonsense all you can give me? Am I to be nothing but the object of your contempt?’
‘The Awl warrior, the one so aptly named Torrent, has found the war-party. He adds to your doll’s exhortations. But . . . the warleader is young. Fearless. Why do the fools choose one such as that?’
‘When older warriors see a pack of wardogs drag themselves into the camp,’ said Cafal, ‘they hold a meeting to discuss matters. The young ones clutch their weapons and leap to their feet, eyes blazing.’
‘It is a wonder,’ she observed, ‘that any warrior ever manages to get old.’
Yes. It is.
‘The Awl has convinced them.’
‘Not Talamandas?’
‘No. They say dead warlocks never have anything good to say. They say your sticksnare kneels at the foot of the Death Reaper. They call it a Malazan puppet.’
By the spirits, I cannot argue against any of that!