Reaper's Gale

Redmask’s whip snaked out to wrap round the shepherd’s neck-the old Letherii had been standing, outlined well against the dark, staring mutely at the now-moving herd. A sharp tug from Redmask and the shepherd’s head rolled from the shoulders, the body-arms jerking momentarily out to the sides-falling to one side.

The last of them, Redmask knew, as he moved up. Barring one, who had been smart enough to flee, although that would not save him in the end. Well, invaders had to accept the risks-they were thieves as well, weren’t they? Luxuriating in their unearned wealth, squatting on land not their own, arrogant enough to demand that it change to suit their purposes. As good as pissing on the spirits in the earth-one paid for such temerity and blasphemy.

He pushed away that last thought as unworthy. The spirits could take care of themselves, and they would deliver their own vengeance, in time-for they were as patient as they were inexorable. It was not for Redmask to act on behalf of those spirits. No, that form of righteousness was both u

He had already begun his killing of the Letherii, back in Drene.

Drawing his knife as he crouched over the old man’s severed head, he cut off the Letherii’s face, rolled it up and stored it with the others in the salt-crusted bag at his hip.

Most of the herd dogs had submitted to the Awl dray’s challenge-they now followed the larger, nastier beast as it worked to waken the entire herd, then drive it en masse eastward.

Straightening, Redmask turned as the first screams erupted from the drover camp.

Abasard was still forty paces from the camp when he saw one of the tents collapse to one side, poles and guides snapping, as an enormous two-legged creature thumped over it, talons punching through to the struggling forms beneath, and screams tore through the air. Head swivelling to one side, the fiend continued on in its loping, stiff-tailed gait. There were huge swords in its hands.

Another one crossed its path, fast, low, heading for the foreman’s house. Abasard saw a figure dart from this second beast’s path-but not quickly enough, as its head snapped forward, twisting so that its jaws closed to either side of the man’s head. Whereupon the reptile threw the flailing form upward in a bone-breaking surge. The limp corpse sailed in the air, landing hard and rolling into the hearth fire in a spray of sparks.

Abasard stood, paralysed by the horror of the slaughter he saw before him. He had recognized that man. Another Indebted, a man who had been courting one of his aunts, a man who always seemed to be laughing.

Another figure caught his eye. His baby sister, ten years old, racing out from the camp-away from another tent whose inhabitants were dying beneath chopping swords-our tent. Father-

The reptile lifted its head, saw his sister’s fleeting form, and surged after her.

All at once, Abasard found himself ru

If it saw him converging, it was indifferent-until the very last moment, as Abasard raised his staff to swing overhand, hoping to strike the beast on its hind leg, imagining bones breaking-

The nearer sword lashed out, so fast, so-

Abasard found himself lying on sodden grasses, feeling heat pour from one side of his body, and as the heat poured out, he grew ever colder. He stared, seeing nothing yet, sensing how something was wrong-he was on his side, but his head was flattened down, his ear pressed to the ground. There should have been a shoulder below and beneath his head, and an arm, and it was where all the heat was pouring out.

And further down, the side of his chest, this too seemed to be gone.

He could feel his right leg, kicking at the ground. But no left leg. He did not understand.

Slowly, he settled onto his back, stared up at the night sky.

So much room up there, a ceiling beyond the reach of everyone, covering a place in which they could live. Uncrowded, room enough for all.

He was glad, he realized, that he had come here, to see, to witness, to understand. Glad, even as he died.

Redmask walked out of the dark to where Masarch waited with the Letherii horse. Behind him, the rodara herd was a mass of movement, the dominant males in the lead, their attention fixed on Redmask. Dogs barked and nipped from the far flanks. Distant shouts from the other two young warriors indicated they were where they should be.

Climbing into the saddle, Redmask nodded to Masarch then swung his mount round.

Pausing for a long moment, Masarch stared at the distant Letherii camp, where it seemed the unholy slaughter continued unabated. His guardians, he’d said.

He does not fear challenges to come. He will take the fur of the Ganetok war leader. He will lead us to war against the Letherii. He is Redmask, who forswore the Awl, only to now return.

I thought it Was too late.

I now think 1 am wrong.

He thought again of his death night, and memories returned like winged demons. He had gone mad, in that hollowed-out log, gone so far mad that hardly any of him had survived to return, when the morning light blinded him. Now, the insanity was loose, tingling at the very ends of his limbs, loose and wild but as yet undecided, not yet ready to act, to show its face. There was nothing to hold it back. No-one.

No-one but Redmask. My war leader.

Who unleashed his own madness years ago.

Chapter Five

Denigration afflicted our vaunted ideals long ago, but such inflictions are difficult to measure, to rise up and point a finger to this place, this moment, and say: here, my friends, this was where our honour, our integrity died.

The affliction was too insipid, too much a product of our surrendering mindful regard and diligence. The meanings of words lost their precision-and no-one bothered taking to task those who cynically abused those words to serve their own ambitions, their own evasion of personal responsibility. Lies went unchallenged, lawful pursuit became a sham, vulnerable to graft, and justice itself became a commodity, mutable in imbalance. Truth was lost, a chimera reshaped to match agenda, prejudices, thus consigning the entire political process to a mummer’s charade of false indignation, hypocritical posturing and a pervasive contempt for the commonry.

Once subsumed, ideals and the honour created by their avowal can never be regained, except, alas, by outright, unconstrained rejection, invariably instigated by the commonry, at the juncture of one particular moment, one single event, of such brazen injustice that revolution becomes the only reasonable response.

Consider this then a warning. Liars will lie, and continue to do so, even beyond being caught out. They will lie, and in time, such liars will convince themselves, will in all self-righteousness divest the liars of culpability. Until comes a time when one final lie is voiced, the one that can only be answered by rage, by cold murder, and on that day, blood shall rain down every wall of this vaunted, weaning society.

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