Midnight Tides by Steven Erikson
The sergeant thumped onto his back.
Trull stood over him, studying the man’s dazed expression, the split skin of his forehead leaking tendrils of blood.
The other warriors were shouting, expressing disbelief with Trull’s speed, with the stunning, deceptive simplicity of the attack. He did not look up.
Ahlrada Ahn stepped close. ‘Finish him, Trull Sengar.’
All of Trull’s anger was gone. ‘I see no need for that—’
‘Then you are a fool. He will not forget—’
‘I trust not.’
‘Fear must be told of this. Canarth must be punished.’
‘No, Ahlrada Ahn. Not a word.’ He raised his gaze, looked northward. ‘Let us greet Binadas and my father. I would hear tales of bravery, of fighting.’
The dark-skinned warrior’s stare faltered, flickered away. ‘Sisters take me, Trull, so would I.’
****
There were no old women to walk this field, cutting rings from fingers, stripping lightly stained clothing from stiffening corpses. There were no vultures, crows and gulls to wheel down to the vast feast. There was nothing to read of the battle now past, no sprawl of figures cut down from behind – not here, in the centre of the basin – no last stands writ in blood-splashed heaps and encircling rings of bodies. No tilted standards, held up only by the press of cold flesh, with their sigils grinning down. Only bones and gleaming iron, white teeth and glittering coins.
The settling dust was a soft whisper, gently dulling the ground and its random carpet of human and Edur detritus.
The emperor and his chosen brothers were approaching the base of the slope as Udinaas reached them. Their crossing of the field had stirred up a trail of dust that hung white and hesitant in their wake. Rhulad held his sword in his left hand, the blade wavering in the dim light. The uneven armour of gold was dark-tracked with sweat, the bear fur on the emperor’s shoulders the muted silver of clouds.
Udinaas could see in Rhulad’s face that the madness was close upon him. Frustration created a rage capable of lashing out in any direction. Behind the emperor, who began climbing up the slope to where Hannan Mosag waited, scrambled Theradas and Midik Buhn, Choram Irard, Kholb Harat and Matra Brith. All but Theradas had been old followers of Rhulad, and Udinaas was not pleased to see them. Nor, from the dark looks cast in his direction, were they delighted with the slave’s arrival.
Udinaas almost laughed. Just like the palace in Letheras, the factions take shape.
As Udinaas moved to catch up to Rhulad – who’d yet to notice him – Theradas Buhn stepped into his path as if by accident, then straight-armed the slave in the chest. He stumbled back, lost his footing, and fell onto the slope, sliding back down to its base.
The Edur warriors laughed.
A mistake. The emperor spun round, eyes searching, recognizing Udinaas through the clouds of dust. It was not difficult to determine what had just happened. Rhulad glared at his brothers. ‘Who struck down my slave?’
No-one moved, then Theradas said, ‘We but crossed paths, sire. An accident.’
‘Udinaas?’
The slave was picking himself up, brushing the dust from his tunic. ‘It was as Theradas Buhn said, Emperor.’
Rhulad bared his teeth. ‘A warning to you all. We will not be tried this day.’ He wheeled round and resumed his climb.
Theradas glared at Udinaas, and said in a low voice, ‘Do not believe I now owe you, slave.’
‘You will discover,’ the slave said, moving past the warrior, ‘that the notion of debt is not so easily denied.’
Theradas reached for his cutlass, then let his hand drop with a silent snarl.
Rhulad reached the crest.
Those still below heard Hannan Mosag’s smooth voice, ‘The day is won, Emperor.’
‘We found no-one left to fight!’
‘The kingdom lies cowering at your feet, sire—’
‘Thousands of Edur are dead, Warlock King! Demons, wraiths! How many Edur mothers and wives and children will weep this night? What glory rises from our dead, Hannan? From this… dust?’
Udinaas reached the summit. And saw Rhulad advancing upon the Warlock King, the sword lifting into the air.
Sudden fear in Hannan Mosag’s red-rimmed eyes. ‘Emperor!’
Rhulad whirled, burning eyes fixing upon Udinaas. ‘We are challenged by our slave?’ The sword-blade hissed through the air, although ten paces spanned the distance between them.
‘No challenge,’ Udinaas said quietly as he approached. Until he stood directly in front of the emperor. ‘I but called out to inform you, sire, that your brothers are coming.’ The slave pointed eastward, where figures were crossing the edge of the basin. ‘Fear, Binadas and Trull, Emperor. And your father, Tomad.’
Rhulad squinted, blinking rapidly as he studied the distant warriors. ‘Dust has blinded us, Udinaas. It is them?’
‘Yes, Emperor.’
The Edur wiped at his eyes. ‘Yes, that is well. Good, we would have them with us, now.’
‘Sire,’ Udinaas continued, ‘a fragment of Letherii sorcery sought out the encampment of the women during the battle. Your mother and some others defeated the magic. Uruth is injured, but she will live. Three Hiroth women died.’
The emperor lowered the sword, the rage flickering in his frantic, bloodshot eyes, flickering, then fading. ‘We sought battle, Udinaas. We sought… death.’
‘I know, Emperor. Perhaps in Letheras…’
A shaky nod. ‘Yes. Perhaps. Yes, Udinaas.’ Rhulad’s eyes suddenly bored into the slave’s own. ‘Those towers of bone, did you see them? The slaughter, their flesh…’
The slave’s gaze shifted momentarily past the emperor, found Hannan Mosag. The Warlock King was staring at Rhulad’s back with dark hatred. ‘Sire,’ Udinaas said in a low voice, ‘your heart is true, to chastise Hannan Mosag. When your father and brothers arrive. Cold anger is stronger than hot rage.’
‘Yes. We know this, slave.’
‘The battle is over. All is done,’ Udinaas said, glancing back over the field. ‘Nothing can be… taken back. It seems the time has come to grieve.’
‘We know such feelings, Udinaas. Grief. Yes. Yet what of cold anger?
What of…’
The sword flinched, like a hackle rising, like lust awakened, and the slave saw nothing cold in Rhulad’s eyes.
‘He has felt its lash already, Emperor,’ Udinaas said. ‘All that remains is your disavowal… of what has just passed. Your brothers and your father will need to hear that, as you well know. From them, to all the Edur. To all the allies. To Uruth.’ He added, in a rough whisper, ‘They would complicate you, sire – those gathered and gathering even now about you and your power. But you see clear and true, for that is the terrible gift of pain.’
Rhulad was nodding, staring now at the approaching figures. ‘Yes. Such a terrible gift. Clear and true…’
‘Sire,’ Hannan Mosag called out.
A casual wave of the sword was Rhulad’s only response. ‘Not now,’ he said in a rasp, his gaze still fixed on his father and brothers.
Stung, face darkening with humiliation, the Warlock King said no more.
Udinaas turned and watched the warriors of the Sengar line begin the ascent. Do not, slave, deny your own thoughts on this. That bastard Hannan Mosag needs to be killed. And soon.
Theradas Buhn, standing nearby, then said, ‘A great victory, sire.’
‘We are pleased,’ Rhulad said, ‘that you would see it so, Theradas Buhn.’
Errant take me, the lad learns fast.
Reaching the crest, Binadas moved ahead and settled to one knee before Rhulad. ‘Emperor.’
‘Binadas, on this day were you ours, or were you Hannan Mosag’s?’
Clear and true.
A confused expression as Binadas looked up. ‘Sire, the army of Tomad Sengar has yet to find need for sorcery. Our conquests have been swift. The battle this morning was a fierce one, the decision uncertain for
‘Rise, Binadas,’ Rhulad said, sighing heavily beneath his gold armour.
Udinaas now saw that Hull Beddict was approaching in the wake of the Sengar warriors. He looked no better than before, walking like a man skull-cracked and half senseless. Udinaas felt some regret upon seeing his fellow Letherii, for he’d been hard on the man earlier.
Tomad spoke. ‘Emperor, we have word from Uruth. She has recovered—’
‘We are relieved,’ Rhulad cut in. ‘Her fallen sisters must be honoured.’
Tomad’s brows rose slightly, then he nodded.
The emperor strode to Fear and Trull. ‘Brothers, have the two Kenryll’ah returned?’
‘No, sire,’ Fear replied. ‘Nor has the Forkrul Assail appeared. We must, I think, assume the hunt continues.’
This was good, Udinaas decided. Rhulad choosing to speak of things few others present knew about – reinforcing once more all that bound him to Fear and Trull. A display for Tomad, their father. For Binadas, who must now be feeling as if he stood on the narrowest of paths, balanced between Rhulad and the Warlock King. And would soon have to choose.
Errant save us, what a mess awaits these Tiste Edur.
Rhulad set a hand on Trull’s shoulder, then stepped past. ‘Hull
Beddict, hear us.’
The Letherii straightened, blinking, searching until his gaze found the emperor. ‘Sire?’
‘We grieve this day, Hull Beddict. These… ignoble deaths. We would rather this had been a day of honourable triumph, of courage and glory revealed on both sides. We would rather, Hull Beddict, this day had been… clean.’
Cold anger indeed. A greater mercy, perhaps, would have been a public beating of Hannan Mosag. The future was falling out here and now, Udinaas realized. And was that my intention? Better, I think, had I let Rhulad cut the bastard down where he stood. Clean and simple – the only one fooled into believing those words is Rhulad himself. Here’s two better words: vicious and subtle.
‘We would retire, until the morrow,’ the emperor said. ‘When we march to claim Letheras, and the throne we have won. Udinaas, attend me shortly. Tomad, at midnight the barrow for the fallen shall be ready for sanctification. Be sure to see the burial done in all honour. And, Father,’ he added, ‘those Letherii soldiers you fought this day, join them to the same barrow.’
‘Sire—’
‘Father, the Letherii are now our subjects, are they not?’
****
Udinaas stood to one side, watching various Edur departing the hilltop. Binadas spoke with Hannan Mosag for a time, then strode to Hull Beddict for the formal greeting of the blood-bound. Then Binadas guided the Letherii away.
Fear and Tomad departed to arrange the burial details. Theradas Buhn and the other chosen brothers set off for the Hiroth encampments.
In a short time, there were only two left. Udinaas, and Trull Sengar.
The Edur was studying the slave from about fifteen paces away, with sufficient intent to make the slave begin to feel nervous. Finally, Udinaas casually turned away, and stared out towards the hills to the south.
A dozen heartbeats later, Trull Sengar came to stand beside him.
‘It seems,’ the Edur said after a time, ‘that you, for all that you are a slave, possess talents verging on genius.’
‘Master?’
‘Enough of this “master” shit, Udinaas. You are now a… what is the title? A chancellor of the realm? Principal Adviser, or some such thing?’
‘First Eunuch, I think.’
Trull glanced over. ‘I did not know you’d been—’
‘I haven’t. Consider it symbolic’
‘All right, I understand, I think. Tell me, are you so certain of yourself, Udinaas, that you would stand between Rhulad and Hannan Mosag? Between Rhulad and Theradas Buhn and those rabid pups who are the chosen brothers of the emperor? You would stand, indeed, between Rhulad and his own madness? Sister knows, I’d thought the Warlock King arrogant
‘It is not arrogance, Trull Sengar. If it was, I’d be entirely as sure of myself as you seem to think I am. But I am not. Do you believe I have somehow manipulated myself into this position? By choice? Willingly? Tell me, when have any of us last had any meaningful choices? Including your young brother?’
The Edur said nothing for a while. Then he nodded. ‘Very well. But, none the less, I must know your intentions.’
Udinaas shook his head. ‘Nothing complicated, Trull Sengar. I do not want to see anyone hurt more than they already have been.’
‘Including Hannan Mosag?’
‘The Warlock King has not been hurt. But we have seen, this day, what he would deliver upon others.’
‘Rhulad was… distressed?’
‘Furious.’ But not, alas, for admirable reasons – no, he just wanted to fight, and die. The other, more noble sentiments had been borrowed. From me.
‘That answer leaves me feeling… relief, Udinaas.’
Which is why I gave it.
‘Udinaas.’
‘Yes?’
‘I fear for what will come. In Letheras.’
‘Yes.’
‘I feel the world is about to unravel.’
Yes. ‘Then we shall have to do our best, Trull Sengar, to hold it all together.’
The Tiste Edur’s eyes held his, then Trull nodded. ‘Beware your enemies, Udinaas.’
The slave did not reply. Alone once more, he studied the distant hills, the thinning smoke from the fires somewhere in the belly of the fallen keep rising like mocking shadows from earlier this day.
All these wars…
Chapter Twenty-Four
Five wings will buy you a grovel,
There at the Errant’s grubby toes
The eternal domicile crouching low
In a swamp of old where rivers ran out
And royal blood runs in the clearest stream
Around the stumps of rotted trees
Where forests once stood in majesty
Five roads from the Empty Hold
Will lay you flat on your back
With altar knives and silver chased
The buried rivers gnawing the roots
All aswirl in eager caverns beneath
Where kingly bones rock and clatter
In the silts, and five are the paths
To and from this chambered soul
For all you lost hearts bleeding out
Into the wilderness.
Day of the Domicile
Fintrothas (the Obscure)
The fresh, warm water of the river became the demon’s blood, a vessel along which it climbed, the current pushing round it. Somewhere ahead, it now knew, lay a heart, a source of power at once strange and familiar. Its master knew nothing of it, else he would not have permitted the demon to draw ever closer, for that power, once possessed, would snap the binding chains.
Something waited. In the buried courses that ran ceaselessly beneath the great city on the banks of the river. The demon was tasked with carrying the fleet of ships – an irritating presence plying the surface above – to the city. This would be sufficient proximity, the demon knew, to make the sudden lunge, to grasp that dread heart in its many hands. To feed, then rise, free once again and possessing the strength of ten gods. To rise, like an elder, from the raw, chaotic world of long ago. Dominant, unassailable, and burning with fury.
Through the river’s dark silts, clambering like a vast crab, sifting centuries of secrets – the bed of an ancient river held so much, a multitude of tales written in layer upon layer of detritus. Muddy nets snagged upon older wreckage, sunken ships, the sprawl of ballast stones, ragged rows of sealed urns still holding their mundane riches. Bones rotting everywhere, gathered up in sinkholes where the currents swirled, and deeper still, in silts thick and hardening and swallowed in darkness, bones flattened by pressures and transformed into crystalline lattic
Even in death, the demon understood, nothing was still. Foolish mortals, short-lived and keen with frenzy, clearly believed otherwise, as they scrambled swift as thought above the patient dance of earth and stone. Water, of course, was capable of spanning the vast range of pace among all things. It could charge, out-running all else, and it could stand seemingly motionless. In this it displayed the sacred power of gods, yet it was, of itself, senseless.
The demon knew that such power could be harnessed. Gods had done so, making themselves lords of the seas. But it was the river that fed the seas. And springs from the layers of rock. The sea-gods were, in truth, subservient to those of the rivers and inland pools. The demon, the old spirit-god of the spring, intended to right the balance once more. With the power awaiting it beneath the city, even the gods of the sea would be made to kneel.
It savoured such thoughts, strange with clarity as they were – a clarity the demon had not possessed before. The taste of the river, perhaps, these bright currents, the rich seep from the shores. Intelligence burgeoning within it.
Such pleasure.
****
‘Nice stopper.’
She turned and stared, and Tehol smiled innocently.
‘If you are lying, Tehol Beddict…’
Brows lifted. ‘I would never do that, Shurq.’ Tehol rose from where he’d been sitting on the floor and began pacing in the small, cramped room. ‘Selush, you have a right to be proud. Why, the way you tucked in the skin around the gem, not a crease to be seen—’
‘Unless I frown,’ Shurq Elalle said.
‘Even then,’ he replied, ‘it would be a modest… pucker.’
‘Well,’ Shurq said, ‘you’d know.’
Selush hastened to pack her supplies back into the bag. ‘Oh, don’t I know what’s coming? A spat.’
‘Express your gratitude, Shurq,’ Tehol said.
Fingertips probing the gem in its silver setting in her forehead, Shurq Elalle hesitated, then sighed. ‘Thank you, Selush.’