Reaper's Gate & Toll the Hounds - By Steven Erikson Page 0,371

begun their march inland – towards Letheras itself – were proving themselves both cunning and deadly. To clash with them was to reel back bloodied and battered, a retreat strewn with dead soldiers and dead Tiste Edur. Yes, they were coming for Rhulad. Could the Chancellor stop them?

'Yes, Emperor. We can. We shall. Hanradi has divided his Edur forces. One waits with our main army just west of the city. The other has travelled fast and light northward and is even now swinging westward, like a sweeping arm, to appear behind these Malazans – but not as has been attempted before. No, your Edur do not ride in column, do not travel the roads now. They fight as they once did, during the unification wars. War-parties, moving silent in the shadows, matching the Malazans and perhaps going one better in their stealth—'

'Yes! We adapt, not into something new, but into something old – the very heart of our prowess. Whose idea was this? Tell me!'

A bow from Triban Gnol. 'Sire, did you not place me in charge of this defence?'

'Then, you.'

Another bow. 'As I said, Emperor, the guiding hand was yours.'

To be so unctuous was to reveal contempt. Rhulad understood that much. The Ceda lacked such civilized nuances in his reply: 'The idea was mine and Hanradi's, Emperor. After all, I was the Warlock King and he was my deadliest rival. This can be remade into a war we Edur understand and know well. It is clear enough that attempting to fight these Malazans in the manner of the Letherii has failed—'

'But there will be a clash, a great battle.'

'It seems so.'

'Good.'

'Perhaps not. Hanradi believes . . .'

And there the dissembling had begun, the half-truths, the poorly veiled attacks upon the Chancellor and his new role as military commander.

To fashion knowledge to match the reality was difficult, to sift through the lies, to shake free the truths – Rhulad was exhausted by it, yet what else could he do? He was learning, damn them all. He was learning.

'Tell me, Ceda, of the Bolkando invasion.'

'Our border forts have been overrun. There have been two battles and in both the Letherii divisions were forced to withdraw, badly wounded. That alliance among the eastern kingdoms is now real, and it appears that they have hired mercenary armies . . .'

The Bolkando Conspiracy . . . now real. Meaning it had begun as a lie. He recalled Triban Gnol's shocked expression when Rhulad had repeated Hannan Mosag's words – as if they were his own. 'That alliance among the eastern kingdoms is now real, Chancellor . . .'

Triban Gnol's mask had cracked then – no illusion there, no game brought to a yet deeper level. The man had looked . . . guilty.

We must win these wars. To the west and to the east. We must, as well, refashion this empire. The days of the Indebted will be gone. The days of the coins ruling this body are over. I, Rhulad, Emperor, shall set my hands upon this clay, and make of it something new.

So, let the plague of suicides among the once-rich continue. Let the great merchant houses crash down into ruin. Let the poor rend the nobles limb from limb. Let estates burn. When the ashes have settled, have cooled, then shall Rhulad find fertile ground for his new empire.

Yes, that is what is different, this time. I sense a rebirth. Close. Imminent. I sense it, and maybe it will be enough, maybe it will give me reason again to cherish this life. My life.

Oh, Father Shadow, guide me now.

Mael had been careless. It had been that carelessness that the Errant had relied upon. The Elder God so fixed on saving his foolish mortal companion, blundering forward into such a simple trap. A relief to have the meddling bastard out of the way, serving as a kind of counter-balance to the lurid acquisitiveness of Feather Witch, whose disgusting company the Errant had just left.

And now he stood in the dark corridor. Alone.

'We will have our Mortal Sword,' she had announced from her perch on the altar that squatted like an island amidst black floodwater. 'The idiot remains blind and stupid.'

Which idiot would that be, Feather Witch? Our imminent Mortal Sword?

'I do not understand your sarcasm, Errant. Nothing has gone astray. Our cult grows day by day, among the Letherii slaves, and now the Indebted—'

The disaffected, you mean. And what is it you are promising them, Feather Witch? In my name?

'The golden age