[Kallor]

©Steven Erikson 2006

Reaper's Gale
Prologue

The Elder Warren of Kurald Emurlahn
The Age of Sundering

In a landscape torn with grief, the carcasses of six dragons lay strewn in a ragged row reaching a thousand or more paces across the plain, flesh split apart, broken bones jutting, jaws gaping and eyes brittle-dry. Where their blood had spilled out onto the ground wraiths had gathered like flies to sap and were now ensnared, the ghosts writhing and voicing hollow cries of despair, as the blood darkened, fusing with the lifeless soil, and, when at last the substance grew indurate, hardening into glassy stone, those ghosts were doomed to an eternity trapped within that murky prison.
The naked creature that traversed the rough path formed by the fallen dragons was a match to their mass, yet bound to the earth, and it walked on two bowed legs, the thighs thick as thousand-year old trees. The width of its shoulders was equal to the length of a Tartheno Toblakai’s height; from a thick neck hidden beneath a mane of glossy black hair, the frontal portion of the head was thrust forward -- brow, cheek-bones and jaw, and its deep-set eyes revealed black pupils surrounded in opalescent white. The huge arms were disproportionately long, the enormous hands almost scraping the ground. Its breasts were large, pendulous and pale. As it strode past the battered, rotting carcasses, the motion of its gait was strangely fluid, not at all lumbering, and each limb was revealed to possess extra joints.
Skin the hue of sun-bleached bone, darkening to veined red at the ends of the creature’s arms, bruises surrounding the knuckles, a lattice-work of cracked flesh exposing the bone here and there. The hands had seen damage, the result of delivering devastating blows.
It paused to tilt its head, upward, and watched as three dragons sailed the air high amidst the roiling clouds, appearing then disappearing in the smoke of the dying realm.
The earth-bound creature’s hands twitched, and a low growl emerged from deep in its throat.
After a long moment, it resumed its journey.
Beyond the last of the dead dragons, to a place where rose a ridge of hills, the largest of these cleft through as if a giant claw had gouged out the heart of the rise, and in that crevasse raged a rent, a tear in space that bled power in necrous streams. The malice of that energy was evident in the manner in which it devoured the sides of the fissure, eating like acid into the rocks and boulders of the ancient berm.
The rent would soon close, and the one who had last passed through had sought to seal the gate behind him. But such healing could never be done in haste, and this wound bled anew.
Ignoring the virulence pouring from the rent, the creature strode closer. At the threshold it paused again and turned to look back the way it had come.
Draconean blood hardening into stone, horizontal sheets of the substance, already beginning to separate from the surrounding earth, to lift up on edge, forming strange, disarticulated walls. Some then began sinking, vanishing from this realm. Falling through world after world. To reappear, finally, solid and impermeable, in other realms, depending on the blood’s aspect, and these were laws that could not be challenged. Starvald Demelain, the blood of dragons and the death of blood.
In the distance behind the creature, Kurald Emurlahn, the Realm of Shadows, the first realm born of the conjoining of Dark and Light, convulsed in its death-throes. Far away, the civil wars still raged on, whilst in other areas the fragmenting had already begun, vast sections of this world’s fabric torn away, disconnected and lost and abandoned -- to either heal round themselves, or die. Yet interlopers still arrived here, like scavengers gathered round a fallen leviathan, eagerly tearing free their own private pieces of the realm. Destroying each other in fierce battles over the scraps.
It had not been imagined -- by anyone -- that an entire realm could die in such a manner. That the vicious acts of its inhabitants could destroy … everything. Worlds live on, had been the belief -- the assumption -- regardless of the activities of those who dwelt upon it. Torn flesh heals, the sky clears, and something new crawls from the briny muck.
But not this time.
Too many powers, too many betrayals, too vast and all-consuming the crimes.
The creature faced the gate once more.
Then Kilmandaros, the Elder goddess, strode through.

* * *

The ruined K’Chain Che’Malle demesne
after the fall of Silchas Ruin

Trees were exploding in the bitter cold that descended like a shroud, invisible yet palpable, upon this wracked, devastated forest.
Gothos had no difficulty following the path of the battle, the successive clashes of two Elder Gods warring with the Soletaken dragon, and as the Jaghut traversed its mangled length, he brought with him the brutal chill of Omtose Phellack, the Warren of Ice. Sealing the deal, as you asked of me, Mael. Locking the truth in place, to make it more than memory. Until the day that witnesses the shattering of Omtose Phellack itself. Gothos wondered, idly, if there had ever been a time when he believed that such a shattering would not come to pass. That the Jaghut, in all their perfected brilliance, were unique, triumphant in eternal domination. A civilisation immortal, when all others were doomed.
Well, it was possible. He had once believed that all of existence was under the benign control of a caring omnipotence, after all. And crickets exist to sing us to sleep, too. There was no telling what other foolishness might have crept into his young, naïve brain all those millennia ago.
No longer, of course. Things end. Species die out. Faith in anything else was a conceit, the product of unchained ego, the curse of supreme self-importance.
So what do I now believe?
He would not permit himself a melodramatic laugh in answer to that question. What was the point? There was no one nearby who might appreciate it. Including himself. Yes, I am cursed to live with my own company.
It’s a private curse.
The best kind.
He ascended a broken, fractured rise, some violent uplift of bedrock, where a vast fissure had opened, its vertical sides already glistening with frost when Gothos came to the edge and looked down. Somewhere in the darkness below, two voices were raised in argument.
Gothos smiled.
He opened his warren, made use of a sliver of power to fashion a slow, controlled descent towards the gloomy base of the crevasse.
As Gothos neared, the two voices ceased, leaving only a rasping, hissing sound, pulsating -- the drawing of breath on waves of pain, and the Jaghut heard the slithering of scales on stone, slightly off to one side.
He alighted atop broken shards of rock, a few paces from where stood Mael, and, ten paces beyond him, the huge form of Kilmandaros, her skin vaguely luminescent -- in a sickly sort of way -- standing with hands closed into fists, a belligerent cast to her brutal mein.
Scabandari, the Soletaken Dragon, had been driven into a hollow in the cliff-side and now crouched, splintered ribs no doubt making every breath an ordeal of agony. One wing was shattered, half-torn away. A hind limb was clearly broken, bones punched through flesh. Its flight was at an end.
The two Elders were now eyeing Gothos, who strode forward, then spoke. “I am always delighted,” he said, “when a betrayer is in turn betrayed. In this instance, betrayed by his own stupidity. Which is even more delightful.”
Mael, Elder God of the Seas, asked, “The Ritual … are you done, Gothos?”
“More or less.” The Jaghut fixed his gaze on Kilmandaros. “Elder Goddess. Your children in this realm have lost their way.”
The huge bestial woman shrugged, and said in a faint, melodic voice, “They’re always losing their way, Jaghut.”
“Well, why don’t you do something about it?”
“Why don’t you?”
One thin brow lifted, then Gothos bared his tusks in a smile. “Is that an invitation, Kilmandaros?”
She looked over at the dragon. “I have no time for this. I need to return to Kurald Emurlahn. I will kill him now --” and she stepped closer.
“You must not,” Mael said.
Kilmandaros faced him, huge hands opening then closing again into fists. “So you keep saying, you boiled crab.”
Shrugging, Mael turned to Gothos. “Explain it to her, please.”
“How many debts do you wish to owe me?” the Jaghut asked him.
“Oh now really, Gothos!”
“Very well. Kilmandaros. Within the Ritual that now descends upon this land, upon the battlefields and these ugly forests, death itself is denied. Should you kill the Tiste Edur here, his soul will be unleashed from his flesh, but it will remain, only marginally reduced in power.”
“I mean to kill him,” Kilmandaros said in her soft voice.
“Then,” Gothos’ smile broadened, “you will need me.”
Mael snorted.
“Why do I need you?” Kilmandaros asked the Jaghut.
He shrugged. “A Finnest must be prepared. To house, to imprison, this Soletaken’s soul.”
“Very well, then make one.”
“As a favour to you both? I think not, Elder Goddess. No, alas, as with Mael here, you must acknowledge a debt. To me.”
“I have a better idea,” Kilmandaros said. “I crush your skull between a finger and thumb, then I push your carcass down Scabandari’s throat, so that he suffocates on your pompous self. This seems a fitting demise for the both of you.”
“Goddess, you have grown bitter and crabby in your old age,” Gothos said.
“It is no surprise,” she replied. “I made the mistake of trying to save Kurald Emurlahn.”
“Why bother?” Mael asked her.
Kilmandaros bared jagged teeth. “The precedent is … unwelcome. You go bury your head in the sands again, Mael, but I warn you, the death of one realm is a promise to every other realm.”
“As you say,” the Elder God said after a moment. “And I do concede that possibility. In any case, Gothos demands recompense.”
The fists unclenched, then clenched again. “Very well. Now, Jaghut, fashion a Finnest.”
“This will do,” Gothos said, drawing an object into view from a tear in his ragged shirt.
The two Elders stared at it for a time, then Mael grunted. “Yes, I see, now. Rather curious choice, Gothos.”
“The only kind I make,” the Jaghut replied. “Go on, then, Kilmandaros, proceed with your subtle conclusion to the Soletaken’s pathetic existence.”
The dragon hissed, screamed in rage and fear as the Elder Goddess advanced.
When she drove a fist into Scabandari’s skull, centred on the ridge between and above the draconic eyes, the crack of the thick bone rang like a dirge down the length of the crevasse, and with the impact blood spurted from the Goddess’s knuckles.
The dragon’s broken head thumped heavily onto the broken bedrock, fluids spilling out from beneath the sagging body.
Kilmandaros wheeled to face Gothos.
He nodded. “I have the poor bastard.”
Mael stepped towards the Jaghut, holding out a hand. “I will take the Finnest then --”
“No.”
Both Elders now faced Gothos, who smiled once more. “Repayment of the debt. For each of you. I claim the Finnest, the soul of Scabandari, for myself. Nothing remains between us, now. Are you not pleased?”
“What do you intend to do with it?” Mael demanded.
“I have not yet decided, but I assure you, it will be most curiously unpleasant.”
Kilmandaros made fists again with her hands and half-raised them. “I am tempted, Jaghut, to send my children after you.”
“Too bad they’ve lost their way, then.”
Neither Elder said another word as Gothos departed from the fissure. It always pleased him, outwitting doddering old wrecks and all their hoary, brutal power. Well, a momentary pleasure, in any case.
The best kind.

* * *

Upon her return to the rent, Kilmandaros found another figure standing before it. Black-cloaked, white-haired. An expression of arched contemplation, fixed upon the torn fissure.
About to enter the gate, or waiting for her? The Elder Goddess scowled. “You are not welcome in Kurald Emurlahn,” she said.
Anomandaris Purake settled cool eyes upon the monstrous creature. “Do you imagine I contemplate claiming the throne for myself?”
“You would not be the first.”
He faced the rent again. “You are besieged, Kilmandaros. I offer you my help.”
“With you, Tiste Andii, my trust is not easily earned.”
“Unjustified,” he replied. “Unlike many others of my kind, I accept that the rewards of betrayal are never sufficient to overwhelm the cost. There are Soletaken now, in addition to feral dragons, warring in Kurald Emurlahn.”
“Where is Osserc?” the Elder Goddess asked. “Mael informed me that he --”
“Was planning to get in my way again? Osserc imagined I would take part in slaying Scabandari. Why should I? You and Mael were more than enough.” He then grunted. “I can picture Osserc, circling round and round. Looking for me. Idiot.”
“And Scabandari’s betrayal of your brother? You have no desire to avenge that?”
Anomandaris glanced at her, then gave her a faint smile. “The rewards of betrayal. The cost to Scabandari proved high, didn’t it? As for Silchas, well, even the Azath do not last forever. I almost envy him his newfound isolation from all that will afflict us in the millennia to come.”
“Indeed. Do you wish to join him in a similar barrow?”
“I think not.”
“Then I imagine that Silchas Ruin will not be inclined to forgive you your indifference, the day he is freed.”
“You might be surprised, Kilmandaros.”
“You and your kind are mysteries to me, Anomandaris Purake.”
“I know. So, Goddess, have we a pact?”
She cocked her head. “I mean to drive the pretenders from the realm -- if Kurald Emurlahn must die, then let it do so on its own.”
“In other words, you want to leave the Throne of Shadow unoccupied.”
“Yes.”
He thought for a time, then he nodded. “Agreed.”
“Do not wrong me, Soletaken.”
“I shall not. Are you ready, Kilmandaros?”
“They will forge alliances,” she said. “They will all war against us.”
Anomandaris shrugged. “I have nothing better to do today.”
The two Ascendants then walked through gate, and, together, they closed the rent behind them. There were other paths, after all, to this realm. Paths that were not wounds.
Arriving within Kurald Emurlahn, they looked upon a ravaged world.
Then set about cleansing what was left of it.

* * *

The Awl’dan
Two years before the Tiste Edur conquest of Lether

Preda Bivatt, a captain in the Drene garrison, was far from home. Twenty-one days by wagon, commanding an expedition of two hundred soldiers of the Tattered Banner Army, a troop of thirty Bluerose light cavalry, and four hundred support staff, including civilians, she had, after delivering orders for the setting of camp, slid down from the back of her horse to walk the fifty-odd paces to the edge of the bluff.
Upon reaching the rise the wind struck her a hammer blow to her chest, as if eager to fling her back, to scrape her from this battered lip of land. The ocean beyond the ridge was a vision from an artist’s nightmare, a seascape torn, churning, with heavy twisting clouds shredding apart overhead. The water was more white than blue-green, foam boiling, spume flying out from between rocks as the waves pounded the shore.
Yet, she saw with a chill rushing in to bludgeon her bones, this was the place.
A fisher boat, blown well of course, into the deadly maelstrom that was this stretch of ocean, a stretch that no trader ship, no matter how large, would willingly venture into. A stretch that had, eighty years ago, caught a Meckros City and had torn it to pieces, pulling into the depths twenty or more thousand dwellers of that floating settlement.
The fisher crew had survived, long enough to draw their beleagured craft safely aground in hip-deep water thirty or so paces from the bedrock strand. Catch lost, their boat punched into kindling by relentless waves, the four Letherii managed to reach dry land.
To find … this.
Tightening the strap of her helm, lest the wind tear it and her head from her shoulders, Preda Bivatt continued scanning the wreckage lining this shoreline. The promonotory she stood on was undercut, dropping away three man-heights to a bank of white sand heaped with elongated rows of dead kelp, uprooted trees, and remnants of eighty-year-old Meckros City. And something else. Something more unexpected.
War canoes. The seagoing kind, each as long as a coral-face whale, high-prowed, longer and broader of beam than Tiste Edur craft. Not flung ashore as wreckage -- no, not one she could see displayed anything like damage. They were drawn up in rows high along the beach, although it was clear that that had happened some time past -- months at least, perhaps years.
A presence at her side. The merchant from Drene who had been contracted to supply this expedition. Pale-skinned, his hair pallid blond, so fair as to be nearly white. The wind was blasting red the man’s round face, but she could see his light blue eyes fixed on the array of war canoes, tracking, first westward along the beach, then eastward. “I have some talent,” he said to her, loudly so as to be heard over the gale.
Bivatt said nothing. The merchant no doubt had skill with numbers -- his claim to talent. And she was an officer in the Letherii Army, and could well gauge the likely complement of each enormous craft without his help. A hundred, give or take twenty.
“Preda?”
“What?”
The merchant gestured helplessly. “These canoes.” He waved up the beach, then down. “There must be….” And then he was at a loss for words.
She well understood him.
Yes. Rows upon rows, all drawn up to this forbidding shore. Drene, the nearest city of the kingdom, was three weeks away, to the southwest. Direcly south of here was the land of the Awl’dan, and of the tribes’ seasonal rounds with their huge herds, virtually all was known. The Letherii were in the process of conquering them, after all. There had been no report of anything like this.
Thus. Two, three years ago, a fleet arrived upon this shore. Whereupon everyone had disembarked, taking all they had with them, and then, presumably, set off inland.
There should have been signs, rumours, a reverberation among the Awl at the very least. We should have heard about it.
But they hadn’t. The foreign invaders had simply … disappeared.
Not possible. How can it be? She scanned the rows once again, as if hoping that some fundamental detail would reveal itself, would ease the hammering of her heart and the leaden chill of her limbs.
“Preda….”
Yes. One hundred per craft. And here before us … stacked four, five deep -- what? Four, maybe five thousand?
The north shoreline was a mass of grey-wooded war canoes, for almost as far as she could see to the west and to the east. Drawn up. Abandoned. Filling the shore like a toppled forest.
“Upwards of a half million,” the merchant said. “That is my estimate. Preda, where in the Errant’s name did they all go?”
She scowled. “Kick that mage nest of yours, Letur Anict. Make them earn their exorbitant fees. The king needs to know. Every detail. Everything.”
“At once,” the man said.
While she would do the same with the Ceda’s squad of acolytes. The redundancy was necessary. Without the presence of Kuru Qan’s chosen students, she would never learn all that Letur Anict held back on his final report, would never be able to distill the truths from the half-truths, the outright lies. A perennial problem with hiring private contractors -- they had their own interests, after all, and loyalty to the crown was, for creatures like Letur Anict, the new Factor of Drene, always secondary.
She began looking for a way down onto the beach. Bivatt wanted a closer look at these canoes, especially since it seemed that sections of their prows had been dismantled. Which is an odd thing to do. Yet, a manageable mystery, one I can deal with and so not think about all the rest.
‘Upwards of a half million.’
Errant’s blessing, who is now among us?

* * *

The Awl’dan
Two years following the Edur conquest of Lether

The wolves had come, then gone, and where corpses had been dragged out from the solid press atop the hilltop -- where the unknown soldiers had made their last stand -- the signs of their feeding were evident, and this detail remained with the lone rider as he walked his horse amidst the motionless, sprawled bodies. Such pillaging of the dead was … unusual. The dun-furred wolves of this plain were as opportunistic as any other predator on the Awl’dan, of course. Even so, long experience with humans should have sent the beasts fleeing at the first sour scent, even if it was commingled with that of spilled blood. What, then, had drawn them to this silent battlefield?
The lone rider, face hidden behind a crimson scaled mask, drew rein near the base of the low hill. His horse was dying, wracked with shivers; before the day’s end the man would be walking. As he was breaking camp this dawn, a horn-nosed snake had nipped the horse as it fed on a tuft of sliver-stem grasses at the edge of a gully. The poison was slow but inevitable, and could not be neutralized by any of the herbs and medicines the man carried. The loss was regrettable but not disastrous, since he had not been traveling in haste.
Ravens circled overhead, yet none descended -- nor had his arrival stirred them from this feast; indeed, it had been the sight of them, wheeling above this hill, that had guided him to this place. Their cries were infrequent, strangely muted, almost plaintive.
The Drene legions had taken away their dead, leaving naught but their victims to feed the grasses of the plain. The morning’s frost still mapped glistening patterns on death-dark skin, but the melt had already begun, and it seemed to him that these dead soldiers now wept, from stilled faces, from open eyes, from mortal wounds.
Rising on his stirrups, he scanned the horizon -- as much of it as he could see, seeking sight of his two companions, but the dread creatures had yet to return from their hunt, and he wondered if they had found a new, more inviting trail somewhere to the west -- the Letherii soldiers of Drene, marching triumphant and glutted back to their city. If so, then there would be slaughter on this day. The notion of vengeance, however, was incidental. His companions were indifferent to such sentiments. They killed for pleasure, as far as he could tell. Thus, the annihilation of the Drene, and any vengeance that could be ascribed to the deed existed only in his own mind. The distinction was important.
Even so, a satisfying conceit.
Yet, these victims here were strangers, these soldiers in their grey and black uniforms. Stripped now of weapons and armour, standards taken as trophies, their presence here in the Awl’dan -- in the heart of the rider’s homeland -- was perturbing.
He knew the invading Letherii, after all. The numerous legions with their peculiar names and fierce rivalries; he knew as well the fearless cavalry of the Bluerose. And the still-free kingdoms and territories bordering the Awl’dan, the rival D’rhasilhani, the Keryn, the Bolkando Kingdom and the Saphinand State -- he had treated with or crossed blades with them all, years ago, and none were as these soldiers here.
Pale-skinned, hair the colour of straw or red as rust. Eyes of blue or grey. And … so many women.
His gaze settled upon one such soldier, a woman near the hill’s summit. Mangled by sorcery, her armour melded with the twisted flesh -- there were sigils visible on that armour….
Dismounting, he ascended the slope, picking his way round bodies, moccasins skidding on blood-soaked mud, until he crouched down at her side.
Paint on the blackened bronze hauberk. Wolf heads, a pair. One was white-furred and one-eyed, the other furred silver and black. A sigil he had not seen before.
Strangers indeed.
Foreigners. Here, in the land of his birth.
Behind the mask, he scowled. Gone. Too long. Am I now the stranger?
Heavy drumbeats reverberated through the ground beneath his feet. He straightened. His companions were returning.
So, no vengeance after all.
Well, there was time yet.
The mournful howl of wolves had awakened him this morning, their calls the first to draw him here, to this place, as if they sought a witness, as if indeed they had summoned him. While their cries had urged him on, he had not caught sight of the beasts, not once.
The wolves had fed, however, some time this morning. Dragging bodies from the press.
His steps slowed as he made his way down the slope, slowed, until he stood, his breath drawn in and held as he looked more closely at the dead soldiers on all sides.
The wolves have fed. But not as wolves do … not like … like this.
Chests torn open, ribs jutting … they had devoured hearts. Nothing else. Just the hearts.
The drumbeats were louder now, closer, the rake of talons hissing through grass. Overhead, the ravens, screaming, fled in all directions.

From the Bantam edition of Reaper's Gale, available in the commonwealth April, 2007

Special Thanks to Judith Walsh and Simon Taylor of Bantam/Transworld

[Sir Thursday]

Thank you Thank you Thank you!! *Salivates uncontrollably*

Three cheers for Kallor! Hip Hip! :clap::clap:

Sir Thursday

Now it's time to read it...

[philospher77]

Well, I had read most of the other posts, and hope that people repost them.

I'm just going to say that I found the bit about congealed dragon's blood interesting. It obviously explains the spirits in the rock that ... Seren, iirc, sees in MT. But could it also account for the Jade Statues?

[Illuyankas]

You could have started a new thread, Hetan *shakes finger*

And there seems to be too many Jade Statues for them to be made from dragon blood in a mold, unless there's as many dragons as rats where they come from. Mind you, otataral as an anti-coagulant...

[caladanbrood]

Kilmandaros rocks

[Cedeos]

And that civil war in Kurald Emurlahn. Something to do with Scabby killing the royal line of the Edur and seizing the throne?
I am eager to find out more!

[Aptorian]

Arh, too much information, so many new questions.

Am I the only one who see's a new timeline discrepancy?

The upwards of a half a million people that arrives in canoes? Are they of Togg and Fanderay new army? Is that what we're supposed to think when we hear of the dead, heartless peoples sigils with wolfheads?

If so where are they coming from? Is this back to the GotM'isms/wrong MTs dates? The Edur invasion happened something like 5-10+ years before MoI and Togg and Fanderays return. I would love for them to be Toc and his tenescowri buddies... but that's not possible, unless there are problems with the timeline again.

Oh and Kilmandaros is cooler than I thought her to be, I just expected a typical humanlooking eldergod... Child of Terror indeed

[drinksinbars]

excellent, cheers kallor!!!

@apt - the canoes sound like barghast and the grey and black soldiers sound like grey swords, though were they are i expect they are the grey helms, or some new sect in that faction like the grey shields, or grey belt buckles:)

[Hume]

I thought with those people that arrived at The Awl'dan the first group werent Togg and Fanderayish. As this happened two years before the Edur Invasion which was before Moi. Thus any large scale cult of that size me thinks couldnt be in existance yet as Toggy and Fandy weren't freed yet. Then the second group 4 years later could of course be them as they resemble extremely closely what Togg and Fanderays group is.
Assuming they are two different people that landed in the Awl'dan.
My first assumption of who would have landed there was the Barghast. As at around 3/4 the way through Moi Paran has a thought on how he thinks the Barghast will use their old war canoes again. And so far the only group in the series to have used war canoes are Barghast I think. However like the Wolf cult they dont fit either due to timeline discrepensies. Also thought Segulah, But I dont think that quite fits.

[Aptorian]

“Where is Osserc?” the Elder Goddess asked. “Mael informed me that he --”
“Was planning to get in my way again? Osserc imagined I would take part in slaying Scabandari. Why should I? You and Mael were more than enough.” He then grunted. “I can picture Osserc, circling round and round. Looking for me. Idiot.”

I'm getting more and more convinced that Osserc is in fact Father light ... allthough it still doesn't quite fit. Why else would he want to stop Anomander Rake from kicking Scabandaries ass? He wanted to protect his son... hmm, still doesn't make much sense.

[Aptorian]

HUME;109018 said:

My first assumption of who would have landed there was the Barghast. As at around 3/4 the way through Moi Paran has a thought on how he thinks the Barghast will use their old war canoes again. And so far the only group in the series to have used war canoes are Barghast I think. However like the Wolf cult they dont fit either due to timeline discrepensies. Also thought Segulah, But I dont think that quite fits.

Yes, like the Gray Helms/swords the Barghast don't fit in, also because they need to learn how to use those things first.

I like the Seguleh idea though. Half a million normal seguleh with a couple a hundred super warrior seguleh leading them would mean real trouble.

On another note - The Jheck aren't dead and gone, they were just defeated by the Errant. What kind of problems/possibilities would it cause when Togg and Fanderays groups meet the Jheck, the wolf people. I wonder if it was in fact the Jheck that were eating their hearts... Hmm maybe those TnF people WERE the Jheck. Them having lost their God finding new gods to lead them... ooh the possibilities

[tiam]

Half a million men near Drene? what race do you reckon. Seems likely its Barghast seen as they slightly took the prows ofthe boat apart. Maybe they remade those unbreakable swords of theirs.

Hume there are more barghast. In MOI Korbal Broach says that they can be found on every continent practising virtually the same rituals. Maybe another clan from another continent.


Also ne idea with the guy at the end?

[Aptorian]

tiam;109025 said:

Also any idea with the guy at the end?

I first thought that this guy might be Crimson Guard from this little quote alone

Quote

face hidden behind a crimson scaled mask

and the fact that he seems to be on the run and seeking revenge (not connected to the malazans though)

But it's implied that his people are indeginous to the area and he doesn't recognize the Wolf sigils. I think he's just a new character introduced to the story. Probably a member of an underground partisan movement or something like it.

[Dolorous Menhir]

I think the guy at the end is Emancipor Reese, and his two dread companions fit the descriptions of Bauchelain and Korbal Broach pretty well. Of course I haven't read their novellas, so I don't know if this man being from Awl'Dan is consistent with information in those about Reese.

I think the Edur invasion occured sometime between GotM-MoI, so "two years after" could easily be contemporary with the BH and RG. It seems clear that the dead troops are followers of Togg & Fanny, but I don't think they are the Perish or the Grey Swords - despite the emphasis on the number of women, a characteristic of both groups. I just don't see those armies losing so badly, even to the Edur-Letherii forces.

Unless the dying and subsequent heart-eating are part of a plan...just throwing this out there, but maybe it's a weird way of becoming Soletaken wolves.

It seemed to me that Kilmandaros is the Elder Goddess of the For'krul Assail. Which is mainly based on the many-jointed comment. Perhaps then her modern day absence is related to the vanishing of the FA.

I was confused though, the first paragraph ends:

"The creature faced the gate once more.
Then Kilmandaros, the Elder goddess, strode through."

When I read that it seemed like the creature, just described, was approaching the gate when Kilmandaros, someone else, walked through it. ie Kilmandaros was not the creature.

But then in the Scabby execution scene Kilmandaros meets the description of the above creature, so I guess the paragraph I quoted meant "the creature approached the gate, and then walked through, it was Kilmandaros" not "the creature approached the gate, just as Kilmandaros came through". It's not very clear though.

It seems strange that Rake had the surname "Purake", we've seen him named Anomandaris Irake and Dragnipurake before but never Purake. Some coincidence, this being long before he got Dragnipur.

I wonder if the feral dragons are intelligent.

Got no idea what Gothos' Scabby-Finnest is, the description was presumably withheld because we would have recognised it. Does he still have it when we see him in DG? I'm racking my brain for small objects like Raest's acorn that have appeared notably in the books.

Perhaps it is something that Icarium carries?

[Illuyankas]

Maybe his sword... If not, something else only revealed in the book.

You beat me to a summary of theories again, damn it!


I have to disagree with you about it being Reese, he seems too weedy for this man, and Bauchy and Broach too intelligent for his 'dread companions'. Besides, the man, while listing the tribes, says they are the ones he's had dealings with or crossed swords with.

The way the battlefield is described, I don't think it had half a million corpses, or that one garrison could destroy that number of soldiers, chaos mages aside - if it is concurrent with TBH, or at least HOC, then the mages amongst them should be somewhat effective against them, with T&F's assistance. Also, whoever was going on about guerilla armies is probably grinning right now. More later, I need to bask in it's glory for longer first

[Blind]

Dolorous Menhir;109048 said:

It seemed to me that Kilmandaros is the Elder Goddess of the For'krul Assail. Which is mainly based on the many-jointed comment.

It seems likely that the FA are her children mentioned here. But what does it mean that they had "lost their way" in this realm?

Reese was from Moll (is it in Korelri?), don't think it's him here

[Coldnight]

"Dolorous Menhir" said:

It seems strange that Rake had the surname "Purake", we've seen him named Anomandaris Irake and Dragnipurake before but never Purake. Some coincidence, this being long before he got Dragnipur.

"Purake" means something in draconean.

"Eleint Tiam purake setoram n?brael buras?" translates (according to Udinaas) ?Children of the Mother Tiam lost in all that they surrendered? .

So "purake" might be "lost"... or not. Any draconean language experts among us?

[pat5150]

This prologue really makes me want to get my hands on REAPER'S GALE ASAP!!!

SE has a way to suck you into his tale, doesn't he!?!

Patrick
www.fantasyhotlist.blogspot.com