A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

healed and so she was
put to death.'
    Brohl Handar considered that for a time. An officer had
arrived and was waiting to speak with the Atri-Preda.
'Thank you,' he said to Bivatt, then turned away.
    'Overseer.'
    He faced her again. 'Yes?'
    'If Redmask succeeds this time . . . with the tribes, I
mean, well, we shall indeed have need of the Tiste Edur.'
    His brows rose. 'Of course, Atri-Preda.' And maybe this way, I can reach the ear of the Emperor and Hannan Mosag. Damn this Letur Anict. What has he brought down upon us now?
    He rode the Letherii horse hard, leaving the north road and
cutting east, across freshly tilled fields that had once been
Awl'dan grazing land. His passage drew the attention of
farmers, and from the last hamlet he skirted three stationed
soldiers had saddled horses and set off in pursuit.
    In a dip of the valley Redmask had just left, they met
their deaths in a chorus of animal and human screams,
piercing but short-lived.
    A bluster of rhinazan spun in a raucous cloud over the
Awl warrior's head, driven away from their favoured hosts
by the violence, their wings beating like tiny drums and
their long serrated tails hissing in the air as they tracked
Redmask. He had long since grown used to their ubiquitous
presence. Residents of the wildlands, the weasel-sized flying
reptiles were far from home, unless their hosts – in the
valley behind him and probably preparing another ambush
– could be called home.
    He slowed his horse, shifting in discomfort at the
awkward Letherii saddle. No-one would reach him now, he
knew, and there was no point in running this beast into the
ground. The enemy had been confident in their city
garrison, brazen with their trophies, and Redmask had
learned much in the night and the day he had spent watching
them. Bluerose lancers, properly stirruped and nimble
on their mounts. Far more formidable than the foot soldiers
of years before.
    And thus far, since his return, he had seen of his own
people only abandoned camps, drover tracks from smallish
herds and disused tipi rings. It was as if his home had been
decimated, and all the survivors had fled. And at the only
scene of battle he had come upon, there had been naught
but the corpses of foreigners.
    The sun was low on the horizon behind him, dusk closing
in, when he came upon the first burned Awl'dan
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
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 been
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.