The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen (456 page)

But Mayen had gestured to her companions and the party was already moving off.

Rhulad opened his mouth to say something to her, but Trull spoke first. ‘Brother, I invite you to join me. The news I must give our father is of grave import, and I would that you are present, so that your words are woven into the discussion that will follow.' An invitation that was normally made only to those warriors with years of battle on their belts, and Trull saw the sudden pride lighting his brother's eyes.

‘I am honoured, Trull,' he said, sheathing his sword.

Leaving Midik standing alone and tending to a sword-cut on his wrist, Rhulad joined Trull and they strode to the family longhouse.

Trophy shields cluttered the outside walls, many of them sun-faded by the centuries. Whale bones clung to the underside of the roof's overhang. Totems stolen from rival tribes formed a chaotic arch over the doorway, the strips of fur, beaded hide, shells, talons and teeth looking like an elongated bird's nest.

They passed within.

The air was cool, slightly acrid with woodsmoke. Oil lamps sat in niches along the walls, between tapestries and stretched furs. The traditional hearthstone in the centre of the chamber, where each family had once prepared its meals, remained stoked with tinder, although the slaves now worked in kitchens behind the longhouse proper, to reduce the risk of fires. Blackwood furniture marked out the various rooms, although no dividing walls were present. Hung from hooks on the crossbeams were scores of weapons, some from the earliest days, when the art of forging iron had been lost in the dark times immediately following Father Shadow's disappearance, the rough bronze of these weapons pitted and warped.

Just beyond the hearthstone rose the bole of a living Blackwood, from which the gleaming upper third of a longsword thrust upward and outward at just above head height: a true Emurlahn blade, the iron treated in some manner the smiths had yet to rediscover. The sword of the Sengar family, signifier of their noble bloodline; normally, these original weapons of the noble families, bound against the tree when it was but a sapling, were, after centuries, gone from sight, lying as they did along the heartwood. But some twist in this particular tree had pried the weapon away, thus revealing that black and silver blade. Uncommon, but not unique.

Both brothers reached out and touched the iron as they passed.

They saw their mother, Uruth, flanked by slaves as she worked on the bloodline's tapestry, finishing the final scenes of the Sengar participation in the War of Unification. Intent on her work, she did not look up as her sons strode past.

Tomad Sengar sat with three other noble-born patriarchs around a game board fashioned from a huge palmate antler, the playing pieces carved from ivory and jade.

Trull halted at the edge of the circle. He settled his right hand over the pommel of his sword, signifying that the words he brought were both urgent and potentially dangerous. Behind him, he heard Rhulad's quickly indrawn breath.

Although none of the elders looked up, Tomad's guests rose as one, while
Tomad himself began putting away the game pieces. The three elders departed in silence, and a moment later Tomad set the game board to one side and settled back on his haunches.

Trull settled down opposite him. ‘I greet you, Father. A Letherii fleet is harvesting the Calach beds. The herds have come early, and are now being slaughtered. I witnessed these things with my own eyes, and have not paused in my return.'

Tomad nodded. ‘You have run for three days and two nights, then.'

‘I have.'

‘And the Letherii harvest, it was well along?'

‘Father, by dawn this morning, Daughter Menandore will have witnessed the ships' holds filled to bursting, and the sails filling with wind, the wake of every ship a crimson river.'

‘And new ships arriving to take their places!' Rhulad hissed.

Tomad frowned at his youngest son's impropriety, and made his disapproval clear with his next words. ‘Rhulad, take this news to Hannan Mosag.'

Trull sensed his brother's flinch, but Rhulad nodded. ‘As you command, Father.' He pivoted and marched away.

Tomad's frown deepened. ‘You invited an unblooded warrior to this exchange?'

‘I did, Father.'

‘Why?'

Trull said nothing, as was his choice. He was not about to voice his concern over Rhulad's undue attentions towards Fear's betrothed.

After a moment, Tomad sighed. He seemed to be studying his large, scarred hands where they rested on his thighs. ‘We have grown complacent,' he rumbled.

‘Father, is it complacency to assume the ones with whom we treat are honourable?'

‘Yes, given the precedents.'

‘Then why has the Warlock King agreed to a Great Meeting with the Letherii?'

Tomad's dark eyes flicked up to pin Trull's own. Of all Tomad's sons, only Fear possessed a perfect, unwavering match to his father's eyes, in hue and indurative regard. Despite himself, Trull felt himself wilt slightly beneath that scornful gaze.

‘I withdraw my foolish question,' Trull said, breaking contact to disguise his dismay.
A measuring of enemies. This contravention, no matter its original intent, will become a double-pointed blade, given the inevitable response to it by the Edur. A blade both peoples shall grasp
. ‘The unblooded warriors will be pleased.'

‘The unblooded warriors shall one day sit in the council, Trull.'

‘Is that not the reward of peace, Father?'

Tomad made no reply to that. ‘Hannan Mosag shall call the council. You must needs be present to relate what you witnessed. Further, the Warlock King has made a request of me, that I give my sons to him for a singular task. I do not think that decision will be affected by the news you deliver.'

Trull worked through his surprise, then said, ‘I passed Binadas on the way into the village—'

‘He has been informed, and will return within a moon's time.'

‘Does Rhulad know of this?'

‘No, although he will accompany you. An unblooded is an unblooded.'

‘As you say, Father.'

‘Now, rest. You shall be awakened in time for the council.'

 

A white crow hopped down from a salt-bleached root and began picking through the midden. At first Trull had thought it to be a gull, lingering on the strand in the fast-fading light, but then it cackled and, mussel shell in its pallid beak, sidled down from the midden towards the waterline.

Sleep had proved an impossibility. The council had been called for midnight. Restless, nerves jangling along his exhausted limbs, Trull had walked down to the pebble beach north of the village and the river mouth.

And now, as darkness rolled in with the sleepy waves, he had found himself sharing the strand with a white crow. It had carried its prize down to the very edge, and with each whispering approach, the bird dipped the mussel shell into the water. Six times.

A fastidious creature, Trull observed, watching as the crow hopped onto a nearby rock and began picking at the shell.

White was evil, of course. Common enough knowledge. The blush of bone, Menandore's hateful light at dawn. The sails of the Letherii were white, as well, which was not surprising. And the clear waters of Calach Bay would reveal the glimmer of white cluttering the sea bottom, from the bones of thousands of slaughtered seals.

This season would have marked a return to surplus for the six tribes, beginning the replenishment of depleted reserves to guard against famine. Thoughts that led him to another way of seeing this illegal harvesting. A perfectly timed gesture to weaken the confederacy, a ploy intended to undermine the Edur position at the Great Meeting.
The argument of inevitability. The same argument first thrown into our faces with the settlements on the Reach. ‘The kingdom of Lether is expanding, its needs growing. Your camps on the Reach were seasonal, after all, and with the war they had been all but abandoned
.'

It was inevitable that more and more independent ships would come to ply the rich waters of the north coast. One could not police them all. The Edur need only look at other tribes that had once dwelt beyond the Letherii borderlands, the vast rewards that came with swearing fealty to King Ezgara Diskanar of Lether.

But we are not as other tribes
.

The crow cackled from atop its stone throne, flinging the mussel shell away with a toss of its head, then, spreading its ghostly wings, rose up into the night. A final drawn out cawl from the darkness. Trull made a warding gesture.

Stones turned underfoot behind him and he swung about to see his elder brother approaching.

‘I greet you, Trull,' Fear said in a quiet voice. ‘The words you delivered have roused the warriors.'

‘And the Warlock King?'

‘Has said nothing.'

Trull returned to his study of the dark waves hissing on the strand. ‘Their eyes are fixed upon those ships,' he said.

‘Hannan Mosag knows to look away, brother.'

‘He has asked for the sons of Tomad Sengar. What do you know of that?'

Fear was at his side now, and Trull sensed his shrug. ‘Visions have guided the Warlock King since he was a child,' Fear said after a moment. ‘He carries blood memories all the way back to the Dark Times. Father Shadow stretches before him with every stride he takes.'

The notion of visions made Trull uneasy. He did not doubt their power—in fact, the very opposite. The Dark Times had come with the rivening of Tiste Edur, the assault of sorceries and strange armies and the disappearance of Father Shadow himself. And, although the magic of Kurald Emurlahn was not denied to the tribes, the warren was lost to them: shattered, the fragments ruled by false kings and gods. Trull suspected that Hannan Mosag possessed an ambition far vaster than simply unifying the six tribes.

‘There is reluctance in you, Trull. You hide it well enough, but I can see where others cannot. You are a warrior who would rather not fight.'

‘That is not a crime,' Trull muttered, then he added: ‘Of all the Sengar, only you and Father carry more trophies.'

‘I was not questioning your bravery, brother. But courage is the least of that which binds us. We are Edur. We were masters of the Hounds, once. We held the throne of Kurald Emurlahn. And would hold it still, if not for betrayal, first by the kin of Scabandari Bloodeye, then by the Tiste Andii who came with us to this world. We are a beset people, Trull. The Letherii are but one enemy among many. The Warlock King understands this.'

Trull studied the glimmer of starlight on the placid surface of the bay. ‘I will not hesitate in fighting those who would be our enemies, Fear.'

‘That is good, brother. It is enough to keep Rhulad silent, then.'

Trull stiffened. ‘He speaks against me? That unblooded…
pup
?'

‘Where he sees weakness…'

‘What he sees and what is true are different things,' Trull said.

‘Then show him otherwise,' Fear said in his low, calm voice.

Trull was silent. He had been openly dismissive of Rhulad and his endless challenges and postures, as was his right given that Rhulad was unblooded. But more significantly, Trull's reasons were raised like a protective wall around the maiden that Fear was to wed. Of course, to voice such things now would be unseemly, whispering as they would of spite and malice. After all, Mayen was Fear's betrothed, not Trull's, and her protection was Fear's responsibility.

Things would be simpler, he ruefully reflected, if he had a sense of Mayen herself. She did not invite Rhulad's attention, but nor did she turn a shoulder to it. She walked the cliff-edge of propriety, as self-assured as any maiden would—and should—be when privileged to become the wife of the Hiroth's Weapons Master. It was not, he told himself once again, any of his business. ‘I will not show Rhu
lad what he should already see,' Trull growled. ‘He has done nothing to warrant the gift of my regard.'

‘Rhulad lacks the subtlety to see your reluctance as anything but weakness—'

‘His failing, not mine!'

‘Do you expect a blind elder to cross a stream's stepping stones unaided, Trull? No, you guide him until in his mind's eye he finally sees that which everyone else can see.'

‘If everyone else can see,' Trull replied, ‘then Rhulad's words against me are powerless, and so I am right to ignore them.'

‘Brother, Rhulad is not alone in lacking subtlety.'

‘Is it your wish, Fear, that there be enemies among the sons of Tomad Sengar?'

‘Rhulad is not an enemy, not of you not of any other Edur. He is young and eager for blood. You once walked his path, so I ask that you remember yourself back then. This is not the time to deliver wounds sure to scar. And, to an unblooded warrior, disdain delivers the deepest wound of all.'

Trull grimaced. ‘I see the truth of that, Fear. I shall endeavour to curtail my indifference.'

His brother did not react to the sarcasm. ‘The council is gathering in the citadel, brother. Will you enter the King's Hall at my side?'

Trull relented. ‘I am honoured, Fear.'

They turned away from the black water, and so did not see the pale-winged shape gliding over the lazy waves a short distance offshore.

 

Thirteen years ago Udinaas had been a young sailor in the third year of his family's indenture to the merchant Intaros of Trate, the northernmost city of Lether. He was aboard the whaler
Brunt
and on the return run from Beneda waters. They had slipped in under cover of darkness, killing three sows, and were towing the carcasses into the neutral Troughs west of Calach Bay when five K'orthan ships of the Hiroth were sighted in hard pursuit.

The captain's greed had spelled their doom, as he would not abandon the kills.

Udinaas well remembered the faces of the whaler's officers, the captain included, as they were bound to one of the sows to be left to the sharks and dhenrabi, whilst the common sailors were taken off the ship, along with every piece of iron and every other item that caught the Edur's fancy. Shadow wraiths were then loosed on the
Brunt
, to devour and tear apart the dead wood of the Letherii ship. Towing the other two sows, the five Blackwood K'orthan ships then departed, leaving the third whale to the slayers of the deep.