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‘The enemies of our Founding Spirits. T’isten’ur, the Grey-Skinned. Demons in the oldest tales who collected heads, yet kept the victims living … heads that remained watchful, bodies that worked ceaselessly. T’isten’ur: demons who dwelt in shadows. The Founding Spirits fought them on the Blue Wastes …’
‘You are discovering the truth behind your oldest legends, Cafal. In my home of Elingarth, far to the south of here, there are stories of a distant continent in the direction you have indicated. A land, sir, of giant firs and redwoods and spruce – a forest unbroken, its feet hidden in shadows and peopled with deadly wraiths.
Tiste Andii, the Dwellers in Darkness. And, more rarely mentioned, and then in naught but fearful whispers, their shadow-kin, the Tiste Edur. Grey-skinned, believed extinct – and thankfully so, for it is a name sheathed in dread.
T’isten’ur, the first glottal stop implies past tense, yes? Tlan, now T’lan – your language is kin to that of the Imass. Close kin. Tell me, do you understand Moranth?’
The Moranth claim kinship with the Barghast – they call us their Fallen Kin. But it is they who have fallen, not us. They who have found a shadowed forest in which to live. They who have embraced the alchemies of the T’isten’ur. They who made peace with the demons long ago, exchanging secrets, before retreating into their mountain fastnesses and hiding for ever behind their insect masks. Ask no more of the Moranth, wolf. They are fallen and unrepentant. No more.’
‘Our lords of war will find themselves in its fierce midst. The Boar. The Tiger. An ascendant in peril, and a spirit about to awaken to true godhood. Do you not wonder, gentlemen, whose war this truly is? Who is it who would dare cross blades with our Lords? But there is something that is even more curious in all this – whose hidden face lies behind this fated ascension of Trake? What, indeed, would be the value of two gods of war? Two Lords of Summer?’
‘It’s that bhederin bull!’ Hedge shouted. ‘Hey, Detoran! Your date’s arrived – ow! Gods, what did you just hit me with, woman? A mace? A Hood-cursed – your fist? Liar! Antsy, this soldier almost broke my head! Can’t take a joke – ow! Ow!’
That was enough to make Detoran drop her fists and step back. Hedge reeled about drunkenly then sat with a heavy thump, blood streaming from his broken nose. ‘Can’t take a joke,’ he mumbled through puffed lips. A moment later he keeled over.
I’m having trouble drawing on my Denul warren.’ ‘Trouble? What kind of trouble?’ ‘Not sure. It’s gone … foul. Somehow. Infected … by something. Spindle’s got the same problem with his warren. Might be what’s delaying Quick Ben.’
‘If not sun scorching you, then what happened?’ ‘Whatever’s poisoned my warren can cross over. Or so I found.’
Somehow, the Chained One’s found a way to open the floodgates of the Warren of Chaos. A conduit, perhaps the Pannion Seer himself entirely unaware that he is being used, that he’s no more than a pawn thrown forward in an opening gambit. A gambit designed to test the will, the efficacy, of his foe … We need to take the pawn down. Fast. Decisively.
They’ve come to answer Trotts’s challenge. He is the last of his own clan, and tattooed on his scarred body is the history of his tribe, a tale five hundred generations long. He comes claiming kinship, blood-ties knotted at the very beginning … and more, though no-one’s explaining precisely what else is involved.
‘He makes claim to leadership, Captain. His tribe’s history sets his lineage as that of the First Founders. His blood is purer than the blood of these clans, and so he must make challenge to affirm his status.’
Withered and crushed by the necromantic grasp of a Rhivi spirit … that entire arm hangs dead. Slow, but inevitable, the lifelessness will continue its climb … to shoulder, then into his chest. In a year this man will be dead
Red-eyed and shivering in the chill, Paran drew his quilted cloak tighter
the thousand-strong camp of the Ahkrata. Distinguished by their characteristic nose-plugs, lone braids and multi-toned armour fashioned from Moranth victims – including Green, Black, Red and, here and there, Gold Clans – they were the smallest contingent, having travelled farthest, yet reputedly the meanest. Avowed enemies of the Ilgres Clan – who now fought for Brood – they could prove difficult in the fashioning of an alliance.
Barahn Clan had arrived in strength – over ten thousand weapon-bearers, painted in red ochre and wearing bronze brigandine armour, their hair spiked and bristling with porcupine quills. There was the risk that Maral might contest Humbrall’s position if
Perhaps the strangest group of warriors Paran had seen was the Gilk. Their hair was cut in stiff, narrow wedges and they wore armour assembled from the plates of some kind of tortoise. Distinctively short and stout for Barghast, they looked to the captain to be a match for any heavy infantry they might face.
Hands grasped him, tore at him – a new assault. His spirit struggled, tried to pull away. Screams engulfed him from all sides, as of countless souls being destroyed. Hands fell away from his limbs, were replaced by new ones. He was being dragged, his mind yielding to the savage determination of those grasping, clawing hands. Sudden calm. Mallet found himself kneeling in a fetid pool, shrouded in silence. Then a murmuring arose all around him. He looked up. Take from us, a thousand voices whispered in susurrating unison. Take our power. Return to your place, and use all that we give to you. But
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Mallet could feel his fingers once more, still pressed against the broken throat of his friend, yet within his mind he still walked. Step by step, inexorably pushed onward. This is the journey to my flesh. Who has done this for me? Why? The warren began to dim around him. He was almost home. Mallet looked down, to see what he knew he would see. He walked a carpet of corpses – his path through the poisoned horror of his warren. Costly – so costly …
‘You’re back,’ the healer whispered, ‘you shark-toothed bastard.’ ‘Who?’ Trotts croaked, the skin around his eyes tightening at the effort. ‘Who paid?’ Mallet shook his head. ‘I don’t know. Not me.’ The Barghast’s eyes flicked down to the split and bleeding flesh of the healer’s arms. Mallet shook his head again. ‘Not me, Trotts.’
‘Never admit your unwillingness to rule, Malazan. What you fear in yourself will cloud your judgement of all that your successor does. Your fear will blind you to his wisdom and stupidity both. Trotts has never been a commander – I saw that in his eyes when he first stepped forward from your ranks. You must watch him, now. With clear vision.’
Condors wheeled around it, twice the mass of Great Ravens, their collared necks crooked as they studied the humans seething around the base of the fortress amidst a grounded starscape of campfires.
When Anaster led the Tenescowri army north, to the river, then beyond, to Capustan, he would carry within him the power that was the Seer. And the enemy that had gathered to oppose them would be raped, devoured, obliterated from the earth.
Anaster was the eldest of the first generation. A pale, gangly youth with yellow-stained eyes and lank, black hair, leading the vast army from atop his draught horse. His face was a thing of inhuman beauty, as if no soul resided behind the perfect mask.
Something demonic lit her eyes from within. She had been the first to mount a dying man, screaming the Night Vows of a married couple’s first night, then wailing in the manner of a village widow when the man died beneath her.
There was a poison within the Pannion Seer and whatever god spoke through him. A poison that seemed born of familial memories. Memories powerful enough to dismember those most ancient of bonds. A child betrayed, perhaps. A child led by the hand … into terror and pain. This is how it feels – all that I see around me. Anaster’s mother, reshaped malign, rack-born to a nightmarish role. A mother not a mother, a wife not a wife, a woman not a woman.
The white of the First’s eyes was the colour of honey, his pupils a murky, slate grey. Torchlight illuminated his alabaster-hued face, made his full lips strangely red. He’d remounted and now sat bareback on the huge, weary horse, slumped as he studied his chosen officers. ‘News comes,’ he rasped.
As in legends of old, hers was a power that rolled in broad waves, stripping the life from all it swept over, devouring rank upon rank, street by street, leaving bodies piled in their hundreds. She was, he reminded himself with something like fierce pride, the daughter of Draconus – an Elder God.
Three pitched battles had occurred, in which legions of Pannion Betaklites, supported by the mounted Betakullid and by Scalandi skirmishers, as well as the Domin equivalent of Mage Cadres, had engaged their handful of enemies as they would an opposing army.
Stonesword would hold one flank, the Seguleh the opposite flank. Lady Envy stood at the centre, whilst Garath and Baaljagg flowed like ragged capes of darkness wheresoever they pleased.
Three engagements, three broken armies, thousands dead, the rest attempting to flee but always caught by Lady Envy’s relentless wrath.
Reaching down from the centre to hover a hand’s width above the floor was a skeletal circular staircase of bronze that swung in a slow, creaking circle.
Forty-two steps brought him to the next level.
‘Indeed, that is not a human’s eye. A wolf’s in truth. Extraordinary. It is said you do not speak. Will you do so now?’
am … disappointed, Toc the Younger. Did you think you could reach out to your wolf kin without my knowing it? So, the one within you readies for its rebirth.’ The one within me? ‘Alas,’ the Seer went on, ‘the Beast Throne is vacant – neither you nor that beast god can match my strength. Even so, had I remained ignorant, you might well have succeeded in assassinating me. You lied!’ This last accusation came as a shriek, and Toc saw, not an old man, but a child standing before him.
Tiste Andii had proved evidently unpalatable to the biting insects.
I have seen her, from a distance now and no closer – she is taller, she has filled out, her hips, her breasts, her face. This Tattersail was no gazelle. She devours me, this new woman, with her sleepy eyes, her full, broad mouth, her swaying, sultry walk—
I dare not accept your wisdom.
Eight mighty wizards, hands linked, voices rising in unison. Desperate for power. Seeking it from a distant, unknown realm. Unsuspecting, curious, the strange god in that strange place edged closer, then the trap was sprung. Down he came, torn to pieces yet remaining alive. Brought down, shattering a continent, obliterating warrens. Himself broken, damaged, crippled …
And one of you remains, pursuing me once more. Oh, I know it is you, K’rul. But, instead of me, you have found another enemy, and he is killing you. Slowly, deliciously. You have returned to this realm, only to die, as I said you would. And did you know? Your sister has succumbed to my ancient curse as well. So little left of her, will she ever recover? Not if I can help it.
Smoke from the candle swirled in the wake of the vanishing portal. Kallor drew a deep breath. Adding years and years of renewed vigour. He sat motionless … a hunter on the edge of ambush. Suitably explosive. Suitably deadly.
‘Why did we bury them? Hood’s breath! We honour our enemies – no matter who they might be. But the Tiste Andii most of all. They accepted prisoners. Treated those that were wounded. They even accepted withdrawal – not once were we pursued after hightailing it from an unwinnable scrap.’ ‘And did not the Bridgeburners return the favour, time and again, Commander? And indeed, before long, so did the rest of Dujek Onearm’s soldiers.’
‘Children arrive. Rarely, as much a product of boredom as anything else. Tiste Andii do not find companionship among their own kind. That died out long ago, Whiskeyjack. Yet even rarer is the occasion of a Tiste Andii emerging from the darkness, into the mortal world, seeking a reprieve from … from—’
A few coins fell out, then a small, bedraggled, multicoloured knot of cloth strips, followed by a lone dark, smooth pebble. ‘I’d thought,’ he said slowly, eyes on the objects in his hand, ‘that one day I might have the opportunity to return what was clearly of value to those fallen Tiste Andii. All that was found in that search … I realized – even then – that I could do naught but honour them.’
An undead dragon loomed above her, impossibly huge. Desiccated, dried flaps of skin trailing from its limbs, its almost translucent wings thundering, the creature was bearing her away.
‘We’re here. When you are ready to see us, you shall. Your daughter has a will to match yours, it seems. To have so commanded the greatest of the Bonecasters – true, she comes in answer to the child’s summons. The Gathering. Making the detour a minor one. None the less … we are impressed.’
‘She still stings from harsh words – we can feel that. Indeed, it is how we have come to dwell here. That small, round man hides obsidian edges beneath his surfeit of flesh. Who would have thought? “She has given to you all she has, Silverfox. The time has come for you to gift in answer, lass. Kruppe is not alone in refusing to abandon her to her fate.” Ah, he opened her eyes, then, swept away her obsessing with her selves, and she only a child at the time, but she heeded his words – though in truth he spoke only within her dreams at that time. Heeded. Yes indeed. ‘So,’ the voice continued,
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The last Boar-cloaked Destriant was Ipshank of Korelri, who vanished during the Last Flight of Manask on the Stratem Icefields. Another waited to claim that title, but was cast out from the temple before it came to him, and that man’s name has been stricken from all records. It is known, however, that he was from Unta; that he had begun his days as a cutpurse living on its foul streets, and that his casting out from the temple was marked by the singular punishment of Fener’s Reve …
Itkovian watched the prince stalk away, towards the compound’s exit, his gait too stiff to be regal. Yet noble in its own way. You have my regret, dear prince, though I would not presume to voice it. I am the will of the Mortal Sword. My own desires are irrelevant. He pushed away the surge of bitter anger that rose beneath these thoughts,
