A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

the east. But Hadralt had then grown to covet all that
gold and silver, so much so that he betrayed that army – led
them to their deaths – rather than deliver the coin into
their possession.
    Such was the poison that was coin.
    Where had these foreigners come from?
    From the sea, it appeared, a landing on the north coast
of the wastelands, in transports under the flag of Lamatath,
a distant peninsular kingdom. Soldier priests and
priestesses, sworn to wolf deities.
    What had brought them to this continent?
    Prophecy.
    Redmask had started at that answer, which came from
Natarkas, the spokesman among the copper-faces, the same
warrior who had revealed Hadralt's murder of Capalah.
    A prophecy, War Leader , Natarkas had continued. A final war. They came seeking a place they called the Battlefield of the Gods. They called themselves the Grey Swords, the Reve of Togg and Fanderay. There were many women among them, including one of the commanders. The other is a man, one-eyed, who claims he has lost that eye three times —
    No, War Leader, this one still lives. A survivor of the battle. Hadralt imprisoned him. He lies in chains behind the women's blood-hut—
    Natarkas had fallen silent then, recoiling at the sudden
rage he clearly saw in Redmask's eyes.
    And now the masked war leader strode through the
Ganetok encampment, eastward to the far edge where
trenches had been carved into the slope, taking away the
wastes of the Awl; to the hut of blood that belonged to
the women, then behind it, where, chained to a stake, slept
a filthy creature, the lower half of his battered body in the
drainage trench, where women's blood and urine trickled
through mud, roots and stones on their way to the deep pits
beyond.
    Halting, then, to stand over the man, who awoke, turning
his head to peer with one glittering eye up at Redmask.
    'Do you understand me?' the war leader asked.
    A nod.
    'What is your name?'
    The lone eye blinked, and the man reached up to scratch
the blistered scar tissue around the empty socket where his
other eye had been. He then grunted, as if surprised, and
struggled into a sitting position. 'Anaster was my new
name,' he said; a strange twist of his mouth that might have
been a grin, then the man added, 'but I think my older
name better suits me, with a slight alteration, that is. I am
Toc.' The smile broadened. 'Toc the Unlucky.'
    'I am Redmask—'
    'I know who you are. I even know what you are.'
    'How?'
    'Can't help you there.'
    Redmask tried again. 'What hidden knowledge of me do
you think you possess?'
    The smile faded, and the man looked down, seeming to
study the turgid stream of thinned blood round his knees.
'It made little sense back then. Makes even less sense now.
You're not what we expected, Redmask.' He coughed, then
spat, careful to avoid the women's blood.
    'Tell me what you expected?'
    Another half-smile, yet Toc would not look up as he said,
'Why, when one seeks the First Sword of the K'Chain
Che'Malle, well, one assumes it would be . . .
K'Chain Che'Malle. Not human. An obvious assumption,
don't you think?'
    'First Sword? I do not know this title.'
    Toc shrugged. 'K'ell Champion. Consort to the Matron.
Hood take me, King . They're all the same in your case.' The
man finally glanced up once more, and something glistened
in his lone eye as he asked, 'So don't tell me the mask
fooled them. Please . . .'
    The gorge the lone figure emerged from was barely visible.
Less than three man-heights across, the crevasse nestled
between two steep mountainsides, half a league long and a
thousand paces deep. Travellers thirty paces away, traversing
the raw rock of the mountain to either side, would not
even know the gorge existed. Of course, the likelihood of
unwitting travellers anywhere within five leagues of the
valley was virtually non-existent. No obvious trails wended
through the Bluerose range this far north of the main
passes; there were no high pastures or plateaux to invite
settlement, and the weather was often fierce.
    Clambering over the edge of the gorge into noon sunlight,
the figure paused in a crouch and scanned the
vicinity. Seeing nothing untoward, he straightened. Tall,
thin, his midnight-black hair long, straight and unbound,
his face unlined, the features somewhat hooded, eyes like
firerock, the man reached into a fold in his faded black hide
shirt and withdrew a length of thin chain, both ends holding
a plain finger-ring – one gold, the other silver. A quick
flip of his right index