Reaper's Gale

He gaped.

More guardsmen were arriving. A cutter hurried to the screaming man who had lost his hands.

‘Did you hear my question?’ Bivatt hissed.

He nodded, then said. ‘One. One man, Atri-Preda.’

One? Ridiculous. ‘Describe him!’

‘Scales-his face was scales. Red as blood!’

A rider from her troop returned from the road. ‘The first troop of lancers are all dead, Atri-Preda,’ he said, his tone high and pinched. ‘Further down the road. All the horse but one-sir, should we follow?’

‘Should you follow? You damned fool-of course you should follow! Stay on his trail!’

A voice spoke behind her. ‘That description, Atri-Preda

She twisted round in her saddle.

Orbyn Truthfinder, sheathed in sweat, stood amidst the carnage, his small eyes fixed on her.

Bivatt bared her teeth in a half-snarl. ‘Yes,’ she snappe Redmask. None other.

The commander of the Patriotists in Drene pursed his lips, glanced down to scan the corpses on all sides. ‘It seems,’ he said, ‘his exile from the tribes is at an end.’

Yes.

Errant save us.

Brohl Handar stepped down from the carriage and surveyed the scene of battle. He could not imagine what sort of weapons the attackers had used, to achieve the sort of damage he saw before him. The Atri-Preda had taken charge, as more soldiery appeared, while Orbyn Truthfinder stood in the shade of the gate blockhouse entrance, silent and watching.

The Overseer approached Bivatt. ‘Atri-Preda,’ he said, ‘I see none but your own dead here.’

She glared at him, yet it was a look containing mora than simple anger. He saw fear in her eyes. ‘The city was infiltrated,’ she said, ‘by an Awl warrior.’

‘This is the work of one man?’

‘It is the least of his talents.’

‘Ah, then you know who this man is.’

‘Overseer, I am rather busy-’

‘Tell me of him.’

Grimacing, she gestured him to one side of the gate. They both had to step carefully over corpses sprawled on 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 Ha

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 ru

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.