A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 3

Wither, you must learn to be silent. Unless I speak to you. Silent, and watchful, and nothing more.'
    'First, slave, you must do something for me.'
    Udinaas sighed. Most of the noble-born Edur were at the interment ceremony for the murdered fisherman, along with a half-dozen kin from the Beneda, since the Edur's identity had finally been determined. Fewer than a dozen warriors remained in the compound behind him. Shadow wraiths seemed to grow bolder at such times, emerging to flit across the ground, between longhouses and along the palisade walls.
    He had often wondered at that. But now, if Wither was to be believed, he had his answer. Those wraiths are not ancestral kin to the mortal Edur. They are Tiste Andii, the bound souls of the slain. And, I was desperate for allies... 'Very well, what do you wish me to do, Wither?'
    'Before the seas rose in this place, slave, the Hasana Inlet was a lake. To the south and west, the land stretched out to join with the westernmost tip of the Reach. A vast plain, upon which the last of my people were slaughtered. Walk the shoreline before you, slave. South. There is something of mine – we must find it.'
    Udinaas rose and brushed the sand from his coarse woollen trousers. He looked about. Three slaves from the Warlock King's citadel were down by the river mouth, beating clothes against rocks. A lone fisherboat was out on the water, but distant. 'How far will I need to walk?'
    'It lies close.'
    'If I am perceived to be straying too far, I will be killed outright.'
    'Not far, slave —'
    'I am named Udinaas, and so you will address me.'
    'You claim the privilege of pride?'
    'I am more than a slave, Wither, as you well know.'
    'But you must behave as if you were not. I call you "slave" to remind you of that. Fail in your deception, and the pain they shall inflict upon you in the search for all you would hide from them shall be without measure —'
    'Enough.' He walked down to the waterline. The sun threw his shadow into his wake, pulled long and monstrous.
    The rollers had built a humped sweep of sand over the stones, on which lay tangled strands of seaweed and a scattering of detritus. A pace inland of this elongated rise was a depression filled with slick pebbles and rocks. 'Where should I be looking?'
    'Among the stones. A little further. Three, two paces. Yes. Here.'
    Udinaas stared down, scanning the area. 'I see nothing.'
    'Dig. No, to your left – those rocks, move those. That one. Now, deeper. There, pull it free.'
    A misshapen lump that sat heavy in his hand. Finger-length and tapered at one end, the metal object within swallowed by thick calcifications. 'What is it?'
    'An arrowhead, slave. Hundreds of millennia, crawling to this shore. The passage of ages is measured by chance. The deep roll of tides, the succession of wayward storms. This is how the world moves —'
    'Hundreds of millennia? There would be nothing left—'
    'A blade of simple iron without sorcerous investment would indeed have vanished. The arrowhead remains, slave, because it will not surrender. You must chip away at all that surrounds it. You must resurrect it.'
    'Why?'
    'I have my reasons, slave.'
    There was nothing pleasing in this, but Udinaas straightened and tucked the lump in his belt pouch. He returned to his nets. 'I shall not,' he muttered, 'be the hand of your vengeance.'
    Wither's laugh followed him in the crunch of stones.
    * * *
    There was smoke hanging above the lowlands, like clouds dragged low and now shredded by the dark treetops.
    'A funeral,' Binadas said.
    Seren Pedac nodded. There had been no storms, and besides, the forest was too wet to sustain a wildfire. The Edur practice of burial involved a tumulus construction, which was then covered to form a pyre. The intense heat baked the coin-sheathed corpse as if it was clay, and stained the barrow stones red. Shadow wraiths danced amidst the flames, twisted skyward with the smoke, and would linger long after the mourners were gone.
    Seren drew her knife and bent to scrape mud from her boots. This side of the mountains the weather daily crept in from the sea shedding rain and mist in pernicious waves. Her clothes were soaked through. Three times since morning the heavily burdened wagons had skidded off the trail, once crushing a Nerek to death beneath the solid, iron-rimmed wheels.
    Straightening, she cleaned her knife between two gloved fingers, then sheathed it at her side.
    Moods were foul. Buruk the Pale had not emerged from his