They had deposited the mercenaries on a stony beach of the eastern shore of a land called Jacuruku, the sky squalling with sleeting rain. The landing had not been without witnesses, alas, and the last she’d seen of Iron Bars and his soldiers, they were turning inland to face a dozen massively armoured figures descending the broken slope, great-helmed with visors lowered. Brutal-looking bunch, and Shurq hoped all that belligerence was mostly for show. The grey sheets of rain had soon obscured all details from the strand as they pulled away on the oars back to the Gratitude.
Skorgen had sworn he’d caught the sound of blades clashing – a faint echo – with his one good ear, but Shurq herself had heard nothing.
In any case, they’d scurried from those waters, as pirates were wont to do when there was the risk of organized resistance lurking nearby, and Shurq consoled her agitated conscience by reminding herself that Iron Bars had spoken of Jacuruku with some familiarity – at least in so far as knowing its name. And as for Corlos’s wide-eyed prayers to a few dozen divinities, well, he was prone to melodrama. A dozen knights wouldn’t have been enough to halt Iron Bars and his Crimson Guard, determined as they were to do whatever it was they had to do, which, in this instance, was cross Jacuruku from one coast to the other, then find themselves another ship.
A huge world indeed.
The sweeps lifted clear of the water and were quietly shipped as the Undying Gratitude sidled up alongside the Edur wreck. Shurq Elalle moved to the rail and studied the visible deck of the Blackwood ship.
‘Riding low,’ Skorgen muttered.
No bodies amidst the clutter. But there was clutter. ‘No orderly evacuation,’ Shurq Elalle said, as grappling hooks sailed out, the tines biting as the lines were drawn taut. ‘Six with us, weapons out,’ she commanded, unsheathing her own rapier, then stepping up onto the rail.
She leapt across, landed lightly on the mid deck two strides from the splintered stump of the mainmast. Moments later Skorgen joined her, arriving with a grunt then a curse as he jarred his bad leg.
‘This was a scrap,’ he said, looking about. He limped back to the rail and tugged loose a splintered arrow shaft, then scowled as he studied it. ‘Damned short and stubby – look at that head, that could punch through a bronze-sheeted shield. And this fletching – it’s leather, like fins.’
So where were the bodies? Frowning, Shurq Elalle made her way to the cabin’s hatchway. She paused at the hold, seeing that the hatch had been staved in. Nudging it aside with her boot, she crouched and looked down into the gloom of the hold.
The glimmer of water, and things floating. ‘Skorgen, there’s booty here. Come over and reach down for one of those amphorae.’
The second mate, Misery, called over from their ship, ‘Captain! That hulk’s lower in the water than it was when we arrived.’
She could now hear the soft groans of the hull.
Skorgen used his good arm to reach down and hook his hand through an ear of the amphora. Hissing with the weight, he lifted the hip-high object into view, rolling it onto the deck between himself and the captain.
The amphora itself was a gorgeous piece of work, Shurq observed. Foreign, the glaze cream in colour down to the inverted beehive base, where the coils were delineated in black geometric patterns on gleaming white. But it was the image painted on the shoulder and belly that captured her interest. Down low on one side there was a figure, nailed to an X-shaped cross. Whirling out from the figure’s upturned head, there were crows. Hundreds, each one profoundly intricate, every detail etched – crows, flooding outward – or perhaps inward – to mass on the amphora’s broad shoulders, encircling the entire object. Converging to feed on the hapless man? Fleeing him like his last, dying thoughts? Skorgen had drawn a knife and was cutting away at the seal, stripping away the thick wax binding the stopper. After a moment he succeeded in working it loose. He tugged the stopper free, then leapt back as thick blood poured forth, spreading on the deck.
It looked fresh, and from it rose a scent of flowers, pungent and oversweet.
‘Kagenza pollen,’ Skorgen said. ‘Keeps blood from thickening – the Edur use it when they paint temples in the forest – you know, on trees. The blood sanctifies. It’s not a real temple, of course. No walls, or ceiling, just a grove—’
‘I don’t like first mates who babble,’ Shurq Elalle said, straightening once more. ‘Get the others out. The vessels alone will make us rich for a month or two.’ She resumed her walk to the cabin.
The corridor was empty, the cabin door broken open and hanging from one leather hinge. As she made her way towards it, she glanced into the side alcoves and saw the layered bunks of the crew – but all were unoccupied, although dishevelled as if subject to searching.
In the cabin itself, more signs of looting, while on the floor was spreadeagled an Edur corpse. Hands and feet had been spiked into the floorboards, and someone had used a knife on him, methodically. The room stank of spilled wastes, and the expression frozen on the face was a twisted, agony-racked mask, the eyes staring out as if witness to a shattered faith, a terrible revelation at the moment of death.
She heard Skorgen come up behind her, heard his low curse upon seeing the body. ‘Tortured ‘im,’ he said. ‘Tortured the captain. This one was Merude, damn near an Elder. Errant save us, Captain, we’re gonna get blamed if anyone else comes on this afore it all sinks. Torture. I don’t get that—’
‘It’s simple,’ she said. ‘They wanted information.’
‘About what?’
Shurq Elalle looked round. ‘They took the log, the charts. Now, maybe pirates might do that, if they were strangers to Lether, but then they’d have no need to torture this poor bastard. Besides, they’d have taken the loot. No, whoever did this wanted more information – not what you could get from charts. And they didn’t give a damn about booty.’
‘Nasty bastards, whoever they were.’
She thought back to that amphora and its grisly contents. Then turned away. ‘Maybe they had a good reason. Hole the hull, Skorgen. We’ll wait around, though. Blackwood doesn’t like sinking. We may have to fire it.’
‘A pyre to bring ‘em all in, Captain.’
‘I am aware of the risks. Get on with it.’
Back on the deck, Shurq Elalle made her way to the forecastle, where she stood scanning the horizon while Skorgen and the crew began their demolition.
Strangers on the sea.
Who are no friends of the Tiste Edur. Even so, I think I’d rather not meet them. She turned to face the mid deck. ‘Skorgen! When we’re done here, we take to the sweeps. Back to the coast.’
His scarred brows rose. ‘Letheras?’
‘Why not? We can sell off and load up on crew.’
The battered man grinned.
Back to Letheras, aye. And fast.
CHAPTER FOUR
The mutiny came that fell dawn, when through the heavy mists that had plagued us for ten days we looked to the east, and there saw, rising vast and innumerable on the cloud-bound horizon, dragons. Too large to comprehend, their heads above the sun, their folded wings reaching down to cast a shadow that could swallow all of Drene. This was too much, too frightening even for the more seasoned soldiers in our troop, for their dark eyes were upon us, an alien regard that drained the blood from our hearts, the very iron from our swords and spears.
To walk into those shadows would quail a champion of the First Empire. We could not face such challenge, and though I voiced my fury, my dismay, it was naught but the bolster demanded of any expedition’s leader, and indeed, I had no intention of demanding of my party the courage that I myself lacked. Bolster is a dangerous thing, lest one succeeds where one would not. And so I ceased my umbrage, perhaps too easily yet none made account of that, relieved as they all were as we broke camp, packed our mules, and turned to the west.
Four Days Into the Wildlands
Thrydis Addanict
Banishment killed most victims, when the world beyond was harsh, when sur
vival could not be purchased without the coin of co-operation. No graver punishment was possible among the tribal peoples, whether Awl or D’rhasilhani or Keryn. Yet it was the clan structure itself that imposed deadly intransigence, and with it a corresponding devastation when one was cast out, alone, bereft of all that gave meaning to life. Victims crumpled into themselves, abandoning all skills that could serve to sustain them; they withered, then died.
The Letherii, and their vast cities, the tumult of countless faces, were – beyond the chains of Indebtedness – almost indifferent to banishing. True, such people were not immune to the notion of spiritual punishment – they existed in families, after all, a universal characteristic of humans – yet such scars as were delivered from estrangement were survivable. Another village, another city – the struggle of beginning again could be managed and indeed, for some, beginning anew became an addiction in its own right. A way of absolving responsibility.
Redmask, his life that of the Awl, unsullied for generations, had come to believe that the nature of the Letherii – his most hated enemy – had nevertheless stained his spirit. Banishment had not proved a death sentence. Banishment had proved a gift, for with it he discovered freedom. The very lure that drew so many young warriors into the Lether Empire, where anonymity proved both bane and emancipation.
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 northeasterly 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?’