A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

wild look in his eyes – he had not done well on
his death night, but thus far he appeared more or less sane.
Both Theven and Kraysos had, Redmask suspected, made
use of bledden herb smuggled with them into their coffins,
which they chewed to make themselves insensate, beyond
such things as panic and convulsions. Perhaps that was just
as well. But Masarch had possessed no bledden herb.
And, as was common to people of open lands, confinement
was worse than death, worse than anything one could
imagine.
    Yet there was value in searing that transition into adulthood,
rebirth that began with facing oneself, one's own
demonic haunts that came clambering into view in grisly
succession, immune to every denial. With the scars born of
that transition, a warrior would come to understand the truth
of imagination: that it was a weapon the mind drew at
every turn, yet as deadly to its wielder as to its conjured
foes. Wisdom arrived as one's skill with that weapon grew – we fight every battle with our imaginations: the battles within, the battles in the world beyond. This is the truth of command, and a warrior must learn command, of oneself and of others . It
was possible that soldiers, such as the Letherii, experienced
something similar in attaining rank, but Redmask was not
sure of that.
    Glancing back, he saw that his followers had vanished
into the darkness. Probably, he judged, now at their horses.
Waiting with fast, shallow breaths drawn into suddenly
tight lungs. Starting at soft noises, gripping their reins and
weapons in sweat-layered hands.
    Redmask made a soft grunting sound and the dray, lying
on its belly, edged closer. He settled a hand on its thick-furred
neck, briefly, then drew it away. Together, the two set
out, side by side, both low to the ground, towards the
rodara herd.
    Abasard walked slowly along the edge of the sleeping herd
to keep himself alert. His two favoured dogs trotted in his
wake. Born and raised as an Indebted in Drene, the sixteen-year-old had not imagined a world such as this – the vast
sky, sprawling darkness and countless stars at night,
enormous and depthless at day; the way the land itself
reached out impossible distances, until at times he could
swear he saw a curvature to the world, as if it existed like
an island in the sea of the Abyss. And so much life, in the
grasses, in the sky. In the spring tiny flowers erupted from
every hillside, with berries ripening in the valleys. All his
life, until his family had accompanied the Factor's foreman,
he had lived with his father and mother, his brothers and
sisters, with his grandmother and two aunts – all crowded
into a house little more than a shack, facing onto a rubbish-filled
alley that stank of urine. The menagerie of his youth
was made up of rats, blue-eyed mice, meers, cockroaches,
scorpions and silverworms.
    But here, in this extraordinary place, he had discovered
a new life. Winds that did not stink with rot and waste.
And there was room, so much room. He had witnessed with
his own eyes a return to health among the members of his
family – his frail little sister now wiry and sun-darkened,
ever grinning; his grandmother, whose cough had virtually
vanished; his father, who stood taller now, no longer
hunched beneath low-ceilinged shacks and worksheds.
Only yesterday, Abasard had heard him laugh, for the very
first time.
    Perhaps, the youth dared believe, once the land was
broken and crops were planted, there would be the chance
to work their way free of debt. Suddenly, all things seemed
possible.
    His two dogs loped past him, vanished in the gloom
ahead. A not unusual occurrence. They liked to chase
jackrabbits, or low-flying rhinazan. He heard a brief
commotion in the grasses just beyond a slight rise. Abasard
adjusted his grip on the staff he carried, increased his pace
– if the dogs had trapped and killed a jackrabbit, there
would be extra meat in the stew tomorrow.
    Reaching the rise, he paused, searched the darkness
below for his dogs. They were nowhere to be seen. Abasard
frowned, then let out a low whistle, expecting at any
moment to hear them trot back to him. Yet only silence
answered his summons. Confused, he slowly dropped into a
crouch.
    Ahead and to his right, a few hundred rodara shifted –
awake and restless now.
    Something was wrong. Wolves? The Bluerose cavalry the
foreman kept under contract had hunted the local ones
down long ago. Even the coyotes had been driven away, as
had the bears.
    Abasard crept