A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 3

something no-one else could see.
    When Binadas returns ... the sons of Tomad will set forth. Into the ice wastes.
    A sickly groan from Udinaas.
    The Warlock King ignored it as he strode from the barn, his K'risnan flanking him, his shadow sentinel trailing a step behind. At the threshold, that monstrous wraith paused of its own accord, for a single glance back – though there was no way to tell upon whom it fixed its shapeless eyes.
    Udinaas groaned a second time, and Trull saw the slave's limbs trembling.
    At the threshold, the wraith was gone.

CHAPTER TWO
    Mistress to these footprints,
Lover to the wake of where
He has just passed,
for the path he wanders
is between us all.
    The sweet taste of loss
feeds every mountain stream,
Failing ice down to seas
warm as blood
threading thin our dreams.
    For where he leads her
has lost its bones,
And the trail he walks
is flesh without life
and the sea remembers nothing.
    Lay of the Ancient Holds
Fisher kel Tath
    A glance back. In the misty haze far below and to the west glimmered the innermost extent of Reach Inlet, the sky's pallid reflection thorough in disguising that black, depthless water. On all other sides, apart from the stony trail directly behind Seren Pedac, reared jagged mountains, the snow-clad peaks gilt by a sun she could not see from where she stood at the south end of the saddle pass.
    The wind rushing past her stank of ice, the winter's lingering breath of cold decay. She drew her furs tighter and swung round to gauge the progress of the train on the trail below.
    Three solid-wheeled wagons, pitching and clanking. The swarming, bare-backed figures of the Nerek tribesmen as they flowed in groups around each wagon, the ones at the head straining on ropes, the ones at the rear advancing the stop-blocks to keep the awkward conveyances from rolling backward.
    In those wagons, among other trade goods, were ninety ingots of iron, thirty to each wagon. Not the famed Letherii steel, of course, since sale of that beyond the borders was forbidden, but of the next highest quality grade, carbon-tempered and virtually free of impurities. Each ingot was as long as Seren's arm, and twice as thick.
    The air was bitter cold and thin. Yet those Nerek worked half naked, the sweat steaming from their slick skins. If a stop-block failed, the nearest tribesman would throw his own body beneath the wheel.
    And for this, Buruk the Pale paid them two docks a day.
    Seren Pedac was Buruk's Acquitor, granted passage into Edur lands, one of seven so sanctioned by the last treaty. No merchant could enter Edur territory unless guided by an Acquitor. The bidding for Seren Pedac and the six others had been high. And, for Seren, Buruk's had been highest of all, and now he owned her. Or, rather, he owned her services as guide and finder – a distinction of which he seemed increasingly unmindful.
    But this was the contract's sixth year. Only four remaining.
    Maybe.
    She turned once more, and studied the pass ahead. They were less than a hundred paces' worth of elevation from the treeline. Knee-high, centuries-old dwarf oaks and spruce flanked the uneven path. Mosses and lichens covered the enormous boulders that had been dragged down by the rivers of ice in ages past. Crusted patches of snow remained, clinging to shadowed places. Here the wind moved nothing, not the wiry spruce, not even the crooked, leafless branches of the oaks. Against such immovable stolidity, it could only howl.
    The first wagon clattered onto level ground behind her, Nerek tongues shouting as it was quickly rolled ahead, past Seren Pedac, and anchored in place. The tribesmen then rushed back to help their fellows still on the ascent.
    The squeal of a door, and Buruk the Pale clambered out from the lead wagon. He stood with his stance wide, as if struggling to regain the memory of balance, turning with a wince from the frigid wind, reaching up to keep his fur-lined cap on his head as he blinked over at Seren Pedac.
    'I shall etch this vision against the very bone of my skull, blessed Acquitor! There to join a host of others, of course. That umber cloak of fur, the stately, primeval grace as you stand there. The weathered majesty of your profile, so deftly etched by these wild heights.
    'You – Nerek! Find your foreman – we shall camp here. Meals must be prepared. Unload those bundles of wood in the third wagon. I want a fire, there, in the usual place. Be on with it!'
    Seren Pedac set her pack down and made her way