the slick cobblestones. ‘I think I have sent a troop of lancers out to their deaths, Overseer. My mood is not conducive to lengthy conversation.’
‘Oblige me. If a war-party of Awl’dan warriors is at the very edge of this city, there must be an organized response one,’ he added, seeing her offended look, ‘involving the Tisle Edur as well as your units.’
After a moment, she nodded. ‘Redmask. The only name by which we know him. Even the Awl’dan have but legends of his origins-’
‘And they are?’
‘Letur Anict-’
Brohl Handar hissed in anger and glared across at Orbyn, who had moved within hearing range. ‘Why is it that every disaster begins with that man’s name?’
Bivatt resumed. ‘There was skirmishing, years ago now, between a rich Awl tribe and the Factor. Simply, Letur Anict coveted the tribe’s vast herds. He despatched agents who, one night, entered an Awl camp and succeeded in kidnapping a,young woman-one of the clan leader’s daughters. The Awl, you see, were in the habit of stealing Letherii children. In any case, that daughter had a brother.’
‘Redmask.’
She nodded. ‘A younger brother. Anyway, the Factor adopted the girl into his household, and before too long she waS Indebted to him-’
‘No doubt without even being aware of that. Yes, I Understand. And so, in order to purchase that debt, and her own freedom, Letur demanded her father’s herds.’
‘Yes, more or less. And the clan leader agreed. Alas, even as the Factor’s forces approached the Awl camp with their precious cargo, the girl plunged a knife into her own heart. Thereafter, things got rather confused. Letur Anict’s soldiers attacked the Awl camp, killing everyone-’
‘The Factor decided he would take the herds anyway.’
‘Yes. It turned out, however, that there was one survivor. A few years later, as the skirmishes grew fiercer, the Factor’s troops found themselves losing engagement after engagement. Ambushes were turned. And the name of Redmask was first heard-a new war chief. Now, what follows is even less precise than what I have described thus far. It seems there was a gathering of the clans, and Redmask spoke-argued, that is, with the Elders. He sought to unify the clans against the Letherii threat, but the Elders could not be convinced. In his rage, Redmask spoke unwise words. The Elders demanded he retract them. He refused, and so was exiled. It is said he travelled east, into the wildlands between here and Kolanse.’
‘What is the significance of the mask?’
Bivatt shook her head. ‘I don’t know. There is a legend that he killed a dragon, in the time immediately following the slaughter of his family. No more than a child-which makes the tale unlikely.’ She shrugged.
‘And so he has returned,’ Brohl Handar said, ‘or some’ other Awl warrior has adopted the mask and so seeks to drive fear into your hearts.’
‘No, it was him. He uses a bladed whip and a two-headedi axe. The weapons themselves are virtually mythical.’
The Overseer frowned at her. ‘Mythical?’
‘Awl legends hold that their people once fought a war, far to the east, when the Awl dwelt in the wildlands. The cadaran and rygtha were weapons designed to deal with that enemy. I have no more details than what I have just given you, except that it appears that whatever that enemy was, it wasn’t human.’
‘Every tribe has tales of past wars, an age of heroes-’
‘Overseer, the Awl’dan legends are not like that.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes. First of all, the Awl lost that war. That is why they fled west.’
‘I lave there been no Letherii expeditions into the wildlands?’
‘Not in decades, Overseer. After all, we are clashing with the various territories and kingdoms along that border. The last expedition was virtually wiped out, a single survivor driven mad by what she had seen. She spoke of something called the Hissing Night. The voice of death, apparently. In any case, her madness could not be 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, / 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’dlan 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 j 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 j 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 beer 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
