Reaper's Gale

A Letherii officer stepped forward, hands raised. ‘There’s no-one in the throne room,’ he said. ‘The Emperor is dead-his body’s in the arena-’

‘Take us there, then,’ Quick Ben demanded, with a glare at Fiddler. ‘I want to see for myself.’

The officer nodded. ‘We just came from there, but very well’

Fiddler waved his squad forward, then scowled over at Smiles. ‘Do that later, soldier-’

She bared her teeth like a dog over a kill, then drew out a large knife and, with two savage chops, took the old man’s pretty hands.

Trull Sengar stepped out onto the sand of the arena, eyes fixed on the body lying near the far end. The gleam of coins, the head tilted back. He slowly walked forward.

There was chaos in the corridors and chambers of the Eternal Palace. He could search for his parents later, but he suspected he would not find them. They had gone with the rest of the Tiste Edur. Back north. Back to their homeland. And so, in the end, they too had abandoned Rhulad, their youngest son.

Why does he lie unmoving? Why has he not returned?

He came to Rhulad’s side and fell to his knees. Set down his spear. A missing arm, a missing sword.

He reached out and lifted his brother’s head. Heavy, the face so scarred, so twisted with pain that it was hardly recognizable. He settled it into his lap.

Twice now, 1 am made to do this. With a brother whose face, there below me, rests too still. Too emptied of life. They look so… wrong.

He would have tried, one last time, a final offering of reason to his young brother, an appeal to all that he had once been. Before all this. Before, in foolish but understandable zeal, he had grasped hold of a sword on a field of ice.

Rhulad would then, in another moment of weakness, pronounce Trull Shorn. Dead in the eyes of all Tiste Edur. And chain him to stone to await a slow, wasting death. Or the rise of water.

Trull had come, yes, to forgive him. It was the cry in his heart, a cry he had lived with for what seemed for ever. You were wounded, brother. So wounded. He had cut you down, laid you low but not dead. He had done what he needed to do, to end your nightmare. But you did not see it that way. You could not.

Instead, you saw your brothers abandon you.

So now, my brother, as I forgive you, will you now forgive me?

Of course, there would be no answer. Not from that ever still, ever empty face. Trull was too late. Too late to forgive and too late to be forgiven.

He wondered if Seren had known, had perhaps guessed what he would find here.

The thought of her made his breath catch in his throat. Oh, he had not known such love could exist. And now, even in the ashes surrounding him here, the future was unfolding like a flower, its scent sweet beyond belief.

This is what love means. 1 finally see-

The knife thrust went in under his left shoulder blade, tore through into his heart.

Eyes wide in sudden pain, sudden astonishment, Trull felt Rhulad’s head tilt to one side on his lap, then slide down from hands that had lost all strength.

Oh, Seren, my love.

Oh, forgive me.

Teeth bared, Sirryn Kanar stepped back, tugging his weapon free. One last Tiste Edur. Now dead, by his own hand. Pure justice still existed in this world. He had cleansed the Lether Empire with this knife, and look, see the thick blood dripping down, welling round the hilt.

A thrust to the heart, the conclusion of his silent stalk across the sands, his breath held overlong for the. last three steps. And his blessed shadow, directly beneath his feet-no risk of its advancing ahead to warn the bastard. There was that one moment when a shadow had flitted across the sand-a damned owl, of all things-but the fool had not noticed.

No indeed: the sun stood at its highest point.

And every shadow huddled, trembling beneath that fierce ruler in the sky.

He could taste iron in his mouth, a gift so bitter he exulted in its cold bite. Stepping back, as the body fell to one side, fell right over that pathetic savage’s spear.

The barbarian dies. As he must, for mine is the hand of civilization.

He heard a commotion at the far end and spun round.

The quarrel pounded into his left shoulder, flung him back, where he tripped over the two corpses then twisted in his fall, landing on his wounded side.

Pain flared, stunning him.

‘No,’ Hedge moaned, pushing past Koryk who turned with a chagrined expression on his face.

‘Damn you, Koryk,’ Fiddler started.

‘No,’ said Quick Ben, ‘You don’t understand, Fid.’

Koryk shrugged. ‘Sorry, Sergeant. Habit.’

Fiddler watched the wizard follow Hedge over to where the three bodies were lying on the sand. But the sapper was paying no attention to the skewered Letherii, instead landing hard on his knees beside one of the Tiste Edur.

‘See the coins on that one?’ Cuttle asked. ‘Burned right in-’

‘That was the Emperor,’ said the captain who had brought them here. ‘Rhulad Sengar. The other Edur… I don’t know. But,’ he then added, ‘your friends do.’