Reaper's Gale

The sun was low on the horizon behind him, dusk closing in, when he came upon the first burned Awl’dan j encampment. A year old, maybe more. White bones jutting from the grasses, blackened stumps from the hut frames, a dusty smell of desolation. No-one had come to retrieve the fallen, to lift the butchered bodies onto lashed platforms, freeing the souls to dance with the carrion birds. The scene raised grim memories.

He rode on. As the darkness gathered, the rhinazan j slowly drifted away, and Redmask could hear the double-thump, one set to either side, as his two companions, their bloody work done, moved up into flanking positions, barely visible in the gloom.

The rhinazan settled onto the horizontal, scaled backs, to lick splashed gore and pluck ticks, to lift their heads in snapping motions, inhaling sharply to draw in the biting insects that buzzed too close.

Redmask allowed his eyes to half close-he had beer awake for most of two days. With Sag’Churok, the hulking male, gliding over the ground to his right; and Gunth Mach, the young drone that was even now growing into a female, on his left, he could not be more secure.

Like the rhinazan, the two K’Chain Che’Malle seemed content, even in this strange land and so far away from their kin.

Content to follow Redmask, to protect him, to kill

Letherii.

And he had no idea why.

Silchas Ruin’s eyes were reptilian in the lantern light, no more appropriate a sight possible given the chamber they now found themselves in, as far as Seren Pedac was concerned. The stone walls, curving upward to a dome, were carved in overlapping scales. The unbroken pattern left her feeling disoriented, slightly nauseous. She settled onto the floor, blinked the grit from her eyes.

It must be near morning, she judged. They had been walking tunnels, ascending inclines and spiralling ramps for most of an entire night. The air was stale, despite the steady downward flow of currents, as if it was gathering ghosts with every chamber and down every corridor it traversed.

She glanced away from her regard of Silchas Ruin, irritated at her own fascination with the savage, unearthly warrior, the way he could hold himself so perfectly still, even the rise and fall of his chest barely discernible. Buried for millennia, yet he did indeed live. Blood flowed in his veins, thoughts rose grimed with the dust of disuse. When he spoke, she could hear the weight of barrowstones. It was unimaginable to her how a person could so suffer without going mad.

Then again, perhaps he was mad, something hidden deep within him, either constrained by exigencies, or simply awaiting release. As a killer-for that surely was what he was-he was both thorough and dispassionate. As if mortal lives could be reduced in meaning, reduced to surgical judgement: obstacle or ally. Nothing else mattered.

She understood the comfort of seeing the world in that manner. The ease of its simplicity was inviting. But for her, impossible. One could not will oneself blind to the complexities of the world. Yet, for Silchas Ruin, such seeming complexities were without relevance. He had found a kind of certainty, and it was unassailable.

Alas, Fear Sengar was not prepared to accept the hopelessness of his constant assaults upon Silchas Ruin. The Tiste Edur stood near the triangular portal they would soon pass through, as if impatient with this rest stop. ‘You think,’ he now said to Silchas Ruin, ‘that I know virtually nothini of that ancient war, the invasion of this realm.’

The albino Tiste Andii’s eyes shifted, fixed on Fear Sengar, but Silchas Ruin made no reply.

‘The women remembered,’ Fear said. ‘They passed thr tales to their daughters. Generation after generation. Yes, I know that Scabandari drove a knife into your back, there on that hill overlooking the field of battle. Yet, was this the first betrayal?’

If he was expecting a reaction, he was disappointed.

Udinaas loosed a low laugh from where he sat with hiis back to the scaled wall. ‘You two are so pointless,’ he said ‘Who betrayed whom. What does it matter? It’s not as if we’re relying on trust to keep us together. Tell me, Fear Sengar-once-master of mine-does your brother have any idea of who Ruin is? Where he came from? I would suggest not. Else he would have come after us personally, with ten thousand warriors at his back. Instead, they toy with us. Aren’t you even curious why?’

No-one spoke for a half-dozen heartbeats, then Kettle giggled, drawing all eyes to her. Her blink was owlish. ‘They want us to find what we’re looking for first, of course.’

‘Then why block our attempts to travel inland?’ Seren demanded.

‘Because they know it’s the wrong direction.’

‘How could they know that?’