Cafal, his first son

Netok, his second son

DARUJISTAN ENVOYS

Coll, an ambassador

Estraysian D’Arle, a councilman

Barak, an alchemist

Kruppe, a citizen

Murillio, a citizen

THE C’LAN IMASS

Kron, ruler of the Kron T’lan Imass

Cannig Tol, clan chief

Bek Okhan, a Bonecaster

Pran Chole, a Bonecaster

Okral Lom, a Bonecaster

Bendal Home, a Bonecaster

Ay Estos, a Bonecaster

Olar Ethil, the First Bonecaster and First Soletaken

Tool, the Shorn, once First Sword

Kilava, a renegade Bonecaster

Lanas Tog, of Kerluhm T’lan Imass

THE PANNION DOMIN

The Seer, priest-king of the Domin

Ultentha, Septarch of Coral

Kulpath, Septarch of the besieging army

Inal, Septarch of Lest

Anaster, a Tenescowri Child of the Dead Seed

Seerdomin Kahlt

OTHERS

K’rul, an Elder God

Draconus, an Elder God

Sister of Cold Nights, an Elder Goddess

Lady Envy, a resident of Morn

Gethol, a Herald

Treach, a First Hero (the Tiger of Summer)

Toc the Younger, Aral Fayle, a Malazan scout

Garath, a large dog

Baaljagg, a larger wolf

Mok, a Seguleh

Thurule, a Seguleh

Senu, a Seguleh

The Chained One, an unknown ascendant (also known as the Crippled God)

The Witch of Tennes

Munug, a Daru artisan

Talamandas, a Barghast sticksnare

Ormulogun, artist in Onearm’s Host

Gumble, his critic

Haradas, a Trygalle Trade Guild caravan master

Azra Jael, a marine in Onearm’s Host

Straw, a Mott Irregular

Sty, a Mott Irregular

Stump, a Mott Irregular

Job Bole, a Mott Irregular

Prologue

The ancient wars of the T’lan Imass and the Jaghut saw the world torn asunder. Vast armies contended on the ravaged lands, the dead piled high, their bone the bones of hills, their spilled blood the blood of seas. Sorceries raged until the sky itself was fire ...

Ancient Histories, Vol. I

Kinicik Karbar’n

I

Maeth’ki Im (Pogrom of the Rotted Flower), the 33rd Jaghut War

298,665 years before Burn’s Sleep.

Swallows darted through the clouds of midges dancing over the mudflats. The sky above the marsh remained grey, but it had lost its mercurial wintry gleam, and the warm wind sighing through the air above the ravaged land held the scent of healing.

What had once been the inland freshwater sea the Imass called Jaghra Til – born from the shattering of the Jaghut ice-fields – was now in its own death-throes. The pallid overcast was reflected in dwindling pools and stretches of knee-deep water for as far south as the eye could scan, but none the less, newly birthed land dominated the vista.

The breaking of the sorcery that had raised the glacial age returned to the region the old, natural seasons, but the memories of mountain-high ice lingered. The exposed bedrock to the north was gouged and scraped, its basins filled with boulders. The heavy silts that had been the floor of the inland sea still bubbled with escaping gases, as the land, freed of the enormous weight with the glaciers’ passing eight years past, continued its slow ascent.

Jaghra Til’s life had been short, yet the silts that had settled on its bottom were thick. And treacherous.