Reaper's Gale

Udinaas slowed as the child whose hand he was holding began pulling back. Seren Pedac saw him look down and say something in a very low tone.

If Kettle replied it was in a whisper.

The ex-slave nodded then, and a moment later they carried on, Kettle keeping pace without any seeming reluctance.

What had made her shrink away?

What had he said to so easily draw her onward once more?

They came closer, and Seren Pedac heard a low sigh from Fear Sengar. ‘They look upon a body,’ he said.

Oh, Errant protect us.

‘Acquitor,’ continued the Tiste Edur, so low that only she could hear.

‘Yes?’

‘I must know… how you will choose.’

‘I don’t intend to,’ she snapped in sudden irritation. ‘Do we come all this way together only to kill each other now?’

He grunted in wry amusement. ‘Are we that evenly matched?’

‘Then, if it is truly hopeless, why attempt anything at all?’

‘Have I come this far only to step away, then? Acquitor, I must do what I must. Will you stand with me?’

They had halted, well back from the others, all of whom were now gathered around that corpse. Seren Pedac unstrapped her helm and pulled it off, then clawed at her greasy hair.

‘Acquitor,’ Fear persisted, ‘you have shown power-you are no longer the weakest among us. What you choose may prove the difference between our living and dying.’

‘Fear, what is it you seek with the soul of Scabandari?’

‘Redemption,’ he answered immediately. ‘For the Tiste Edur.’

‘And how do you imagine Scabandari’s broken, tattered soul will grant you such redemption?’

‘I will awaken it, Acquitor-and together we will purge Kurald Emurlahn. We will drive out the poison that afflicts us. And we will, perhaps, shatter my brother’s cursed sword.’

Too vague, you damned fool. Even if you awaken Scabandari, might he not in turn be enslaved by that poison, and its promise of power? And what of his own desires, hungers-what of the vengeance he himself will seek? ‘Fear,’ she said in sudden, near-crippling weariness, ‘your dream is hopeless.’

And saw him flinch back, saw the terrible retreat in his eyes.

She offered him a faint smile. ‘Yes, let this break your vow, Fear Sengar. I am not worth protecting, especially in the name of a dead brother. I trust you see that now.’

‘Yes,’ he whispered.

And in that word was such anguish that Seren Pedac almost cried out. Then railed at herself. It is what I

wanted! Damn it! What I wanted. Needed. It is what must be!

Oh, blessed Errant, how you have hurt him, Seren Pedac. Even this one. No different from all the others.

And she knew, then, that there would be no negotiation. No way through what was to come.

So be it. Do not count on me, Fear Sengar. 1 do not even know my power, nor my control of it. So, do not count on me.

But 1 shall do, for you, what I can.

A promise, yet one she would not voice out loud, for it was too late for that. She could see as much in his now cold eyes, his now hardened face.

Better that he expect nothing, yes. So that, should 1 fail… But she could not finish that thought, not with every word to follow so brightly painted in her mind-with cowardice.

Fear Sengar set out, leaving her behind. She saw, as she followed, that he no longer held on to his sword. Indeed, he suddenly seemed looser, more relaxed, than she had ever seen him before.

She did not, at that moment, understand the significance of such a transformation. In a warrior. In a warrior who knew how to kill.

Perhaps he had always known where this journey would end. Perhaps that seemingly accidental visit the first time had been anything but, and Udinaas had been shown where his every decision in the interval would take him, as inevitable as the tide. And now, at last, here he had washed up, detritus in the silt-laden water.

Will I soon be dining on ranag calf? 1 think not.

The body of the female Imass was a piteous thing. Desiccated, limbs drawn up as tendons contracted. The wild masses of her hair had grown like roots from a dead tree, the nails of her stubby fingers like flattened talons the hue of tortoiseshell. The smudged garnets that were her eyes had sunk deep within their sockets, yet still seemed to stare balefully at the sky.

Yes, the Bonecaster. The witch who gave her soul to staunch the wound. So noble, this failed, useless sacrifice. No, woman, for you 1 will not weep. You should have found another way. You should have stayed alive, among your tribe, guiding them out from their dark cave of blissful ignorance.

‘The world beyond dies,’ said Clip, sounding very nearly pleased by the prospect. Rings sang out on the ends of the chain. One silver, one gold, spinning in blurs.

Silchas Ruin eyed his fellow Tiste Andii. ‘Clip, you remain blind to… necessity.’

A faint, derisive smile. ‘Hardly, O White Crow. Hardly.’

The albino warrior then turned to fix his uncanny red-rimmed eyes upon Udinaas. ‘Is she still with us?’