A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

comes on this afore it all sinks. Torture. I don't
get that—'
    'It's simple,' she said. 'They wanted information.'
    'About what?'
    Shurq Elalle looked round. 'They took the log, the
charts. Now, maybe pirates might do that, if they were
strangers to Lether, but then they'd have no need to torture
this poor bastard. Besides, they'd have taken the loot. No,
whoever did this wanted more information – not what you
could get from charts. And they didn't give a damn about
booty.'
    'Nasty bastards, whoever they were.'
    She thought back to that amphora and its grisly
contents. Then turned away. 'Maybe they had a good
reason. Hole the hull, Skorgen. We'll wait around, though.
Blackwood doesn't like sinking. We may have to fire it.'
    'A pyre to bring 'em all in, Captain.'
    'I am aware of the risks. Get on with it.'
    Back on the deck, Shurq Elalle made her way to the
forecastle, where she stood scanning the horizon while
Skorgen and the crew began their demolition.
    Strangers on the sea.
    Who are no friends of the Tiste Edur. Even so, I think I'd rather not meet them . She turned to face the mid deck.
'Skorgen! When we're done here, we take to the sweeps.
Back to the coast.'
    His scarred brows rose. 'Letheras?'
    'Why not? We can sell off and load up on crew.'
    The battered man grinned.
    Back to Letheras, aye. And fast.

CHAPTER FOUR
    The mutiny came that fell dawn, when through
the heavy mists that had plagued us for ten days
we looked to the east, and there saw, rising vast
and innumerable on the cloud-bound horizon,
dragons. Too large to comprehend, their heads
above the sun, their folded wings reaching
down to cast a shadow that could swallow
all of Drene. This was too much, too frightening
even for the more seasoned soldiers in our
troop, for their dark eyes were upon us, an alien
regard that drained the blood from our hearts,
the very iron from our swords and spears.
    To walk into those shadows would quail
a champion of the First Empire. We could not face
such challenge, and though I voiced my fury,
my dismay, it was naught but the bolster
demanded of any expedition's leader, and indeed,
I had no intention of demanding of my party
the courage that I myself lacked. Bolster is
a dangerous thing, lest one succeeds where
one would not. And so I ceased my umbrage,
perhaps too easily yet none made account of
that, relieved as they all were as we broke camp,
packed our mules, and turned to the west.
    Four Days Into the Wildlands
Thrydis Addanict
    Banishment killed most victims, when the world
beyond was harsh, when survival could not be purchased
without the coin of co-operation. No graver
punishment was possible among the tribal peoples, whether
Awl or D'rhasilhani or Keryn. Yet it was the clan structure
itself that imposed deadly intransigence, and with it a
corresponding devastation when one was cast out, alone,
bereft of all that gave meaning to life. Victims crumpled
into themselves, abandoning all skills that could serve to
sustain them; they withered, then died.
    The Letherii, and their vast cities, the tumult of countless
faces, were – beyond the chains of Indebtedness –
almost indifferent to banishing. True, such people were not
immune to the notion of spiritual punishment – they
existed in families, after all, a universal characteristic of
humans – yet such scars as were delivered from estrangement
were survivable. Another village, another city – the
struggle of beginning again could be managed and indeed,
for some, beginning anew became an addiction in its own
right. A way of absolving responsibility.
    Redmask, his life that of the Awl, unsullied for generations,
had come to believe that the nature of the Letherii
– his most hated enemy – had nevertheless stained his
spirit. Banishment had not proved a death sentence.
Banishment had proved a gift, for with it he discovered
freedom. The very lure that drew so many young warriors
into the Lether Empire, where anonymity proved both
bane and emancipation.
    Driven away, he had wandered far, with no thought of
ever returning. He was not as he had once been, no longer
the son of his father, yet what he had become was, even to
himself, a mystery.
    The sky overhead was unmarred by clouds, the new
season finding its heat, and jackrabbits raced from one
thicket of momentary cover to another ahead of him as he
rode the Letherii horse on the herd trail on its northeasterly
route. A small herd, he had noted, with few
fly-swarmed birth-stains along the path's