K'Chain Che'Malle

A K'Chain Che'Malle K'ell Hunter battling a soldier by Steven Erikson

Interpretation of K'Chain Che'Malle K'ell Hunter by Yapattack

The K'Chain Che'Malle [K-chain cheh-mal] were non-human and one of the founding intelligent races in the Malazan Book of the Fallen. Although evidence of their strange mechanisms, architecture, and barrows could be found on nearly every continent, they were presumed extinct. The Imass Pran Chole said the K'Chain Che'Malle were "no more--the ice spoke to them with words of death."

Their power was said to have been so immense that they had kept the Elder Gods away from the Malazan world until their civilisation self-destructed. They were also said to have once ruled over the younger Jaghut race much as the Jaghut Tyrants had ruled over the Imass.

The Tiste Edur name for them was 'Kaschan'.

The Awl called them 'Kechra, the Firstborn of Dragons'.

Anatomy

Interpretation of a K'ell Hunter, by Toraneko

Interpretation of a K'ell Hunter, by Toraneko

The K'Chain Che'Malle were intelligent lizards standing taller than a man, moving bipedally by balancing the weight of their torsos with a tapering tail (much like velociraptors and other bipedal dinosaurs) and pale skin similar to the underbelly of a snake. They selectively bred their own kind to take advantage of specific traits, the most noticeable difference being the length of the tail. There were the original long-tails (K'Chain Che'Malle) and the engineered short-tails (K'Chain Nah'ruk).

See also

• Drone
• J'an Sentinel
• K'ell Hunter
• K'Chain Nah'ruk
• Matron
• Shi'Gal Assassin
• Ve'Gath Soldier

Culture

The K'Chain Che'Malle were the first race on the Malazan world to evolve intelligence, and they developed a culture of technological and magical sophistication hundreds of thousands of years before the evolution of hominids. Most knowledge of the K'Chain Che'Malle was retrospective, developed through inspection of their cultural ruins thousands of years after their extinction. As such, it was difficult to state anything definitive about them. It was known that they were eusocially ruled in the manner of ants, with a single female queen (the Matron) and thousands of male drones and soldiers. They were matriarchal and matrilineal.

The K'Chain Che'Malle appeared to lack a racial Warren to draw upon, instead employing gravity-based magic that mixed heavily with their technology. They inhabited gigantic structures known as Skykeeps, buildings so large they appeared to be floating mountains. Most Skykeeps were destroyed during the civil war that exterminated their race, though there were a few known Skykeeps remaining during the time of the Malazans. Examples included the one used by the Tiste Andii, Moon's Spawn, the one piloted by the remaining K'Chain Che'Malle on the continent of Lether, and a few others piloted by K'Chain Nah'ruk seen in the Imperial Warren (later destroyed).

K'ell Hunter - Sculpture by Corporal Nobbs

Towards the end of their civilisation, the race's Matrons gathered together to meld their powers towards some unknown purpose. One result was the engineered resurrection of the extinct K'Chain Nah'ruk breed (dubbed the Short-Tails by Kallorian scholars). The experiment that broke from the control of the long-tailed Matrons due to the Short-Tail's independent nature and resistance to surrendering their magical talent to their mothers. This resulted in a civil war. In addition to internal struggle, a massive Tiste invasion occurred and a large-scale war between the K'Chain Che'Malle and Forkrul Assail. These conflicts were supposed to have destroyed their race, though at least two Matrons and a number of others survived until the events that occured during the Malazan Book of the Fallen (see Anatomy for more details).

K'Chain Che'Malle architecture made use of vast plazas covering thousands of square leagues. These plazas were lined by exquisitely fitted grey flagstones that seemed to be immune to age and weathering. One such plaza was known to remain on Stratem while another likely lay beneath the ice of northwestern Lether. The stone used in K'Chain Che'Malle Construction was nearly unbreakable even after millenia. They built domed stone tombs above ground for their dead.

Magic

The Elder Warren of the K'Chain Che'Malle was Kaschan. It was born from sounds beyond human hearing that bent and stretched light. These sounds were bound into words that loosened the bindings holding matter together. With Kaschan, K'Chain Che'Malle sorcerers could fashion skykeeps of stone that floated in air and twist rock so that it grew like living wood. The magic of the warren still lingered past the seeming death of its children.

Interaction with the Malazan world

Most of the K'Chain Che'Malle appearing in the novels were undead or seen in visions of the past, though there were a couple of exceptions.

In Gardens of the Moon

The inner ring of Malazan military commanders were each said to be equipped with communication devices looted from a K'Chain Che'Malle tomb. Made of human bone and verdigrised copper wire, the devices allowed users to speak across great distances. Whiskeyjack used such a device in Darujhistan to communicate with Dujek Onearm in Pale.

In Memories of Ice

'Mok faces an undead K'Chain Che'Malle K'ell Hunter' Interpretation by Shadaan

Interpretation of the Seguleh fighting a K'ell Hunter by Artsed

The soul of a single living Matron was accidentally freed from imprisonment within the Rent on Genabackis by Kilava Onass. After hundreds of thousands of years, it managed to escape its warded tomb and raised hundreds of its children from their barrows as undead. But the Matron was driven insane in the process, and control of its children was co-opted by the Pannion Seer for the expansion of his empire. Undead K'ell Hunters were sent to assist the Pannion Siege of Capustan. The undead versions of the long-tailed K'Chain Che'Malle were slower and more resistant to normal, mortal pain.

The first direct interaction between the Malazan Empire and the K'Chain Che'Malle occurred at Coral during the Pannion War. The Battle of Black Coral pitted the T'lan Imass, Malazan forces, and the Barghast versus the undead K'ell Hunters and the forces of the Pannion Domin.

In House of Chains

After the discovery of Moon's Spawn, Osseric spent time in the fortress studying it. He observed that Moon's Spawn showed signs of damage, breaching, and slaughter. Nevertheless, a few of its original inhabitants survived long enough to send the fortress on its journey home over the northern icefields where it had become entrapped by a glacier. Osseric determined that Moon's Spawn had been one of the K'Chain Che'Malle's skykeeps and he withdrew from the world to continue his study of the alien mechanisms. From a Jaghut tower within a warren formed by Raraku's ancient memory, he observed a total of three skykeeps travel from the north to Seven Cities. None of their inhabitants survived contact with the continent's defenders, the Deragoth. The Hounds' presence likely explained why no K'Chain Che'Malle colony had ever been established on Seven Cities. Osserc also believed that the K'Chain Che'Malle were not of the Malazan world.

In Midnight Tides

K'Chain Che'Malle by Dernhelm888

At the time of the sundering of Kurald Emurlahn, several hundred thousand years before the events of the Malazan Book of the Fallen, the K'Chain Che'Malle had ruled the entire Letherii continent. Enormous cities stretching for leagues and flagstoned plazas could be found throughout northwest Lether. Then an allied force of four hundred thousand Tiste Andii led by Silchas Ruin and two hundred thousand Tiste Edur led by Scabandari invaded the Malazan world through a violent rent. They destroyed an army of over sixty thousand K'Chain Che'malle in Lether as well as four K'Chain Nah'ruk skykeeps.

Afterwards, Scabandari noted that the K'Chain Che'Malle were all but gone from the world and their cities dead. Only Morn remained and the Short-Tails there seemed on the verge of rebellion. At Mael's request, the Jaghut, Gothos, sealed the wreckage of the battlefield's destroyed hive cities and skykeeps under a layer of Omtose Phellack ice.

According to Edur oral tradition, the dying K'Chain Che'Malle race sought vengeance against the Tiste after their invasion. They sent their sorcery into the warren of Darkness like a plague, and their ritual turned Darkness in upon itself with an all-devouring hunger. The gates between Kurald Galain and every other realm were sealed, and Mother Dark herself was driven into the core of the Abyss. There, she would one day devour all that was around her, resulting in her own murder, the death of the Abyss, and the end of all things. On the brink of extinction, the K'Chain Che'Malle "locked all things into mortality, into the relentless plunge towards extinction...they forced all else to share their fate."

By the time of 1161 BS, they were all but unknown to the human residents of Lether. The Letherii occasionally found and sold their bones and teeth in the markets of Trate without understanding what they were.

To date the only time they had spoken with other races was with Silchas Ruin in a parley attempt, though it was unclear if the parley actually happened or if Ruin simply sought it.

In The Bonehunters

Tales among the Nameless Ones indicated that an invasion of skykeeps had arrived on the Malazan world long ago when Human society existed only as small bands. But some opposition by the Jaghut, the Forkrul Assail, or the Elder Gods had driven them away from Seven Cities.

While traveling through the Imperial Warren, Quick Ben, Kalam Mekhar, and Gesler's squad came upon at least a dozen K'Chain Che'Malle Skykeeps in the air above. Squad mage, Sands, announced the skykeeps had come from Chaos and Quick Ben immediately brought the group back to the Malazan world. The mage speculated that the Imperial Warren originally belonged to the K'Chain Che'Malle. Kalam, Quick Ben, and Stormy later returned and attempted to gain entrance to one of the floating fortresses. But Cotillion warned them off confirming that the skykeeps were indeed "filled with K'Chain Che'Malle."

Mappo and Icarium discovered a newly opened chasm within one of the Odhans of Seven Cities. At its bottom they discovered a K'Chain Nah'ruk Skykeep that had until recently been been encased in the ice of Omtose Phellack. Mappo and Icarium found Sorrit long dead inside, held to a Blackwood cruciform by an iron spike streaked with Otataral. Although neither knew who killed the dragon, Icarium recognised the ice ritual as that of the Jaghut, Ganath. Angered and distressed by the K'Chain Che'Malle's invasion and colonisation of the world, she had carelessly conducted the ritual without realising the Nah'ruk skykeep had been seeking refuge from the civil war with their Long-Tail kin.

Ganath was alerted to the destruction of her sorcery and returned to repair it. She noted that in addition to Sorrit's blood, Chaos magic had been unleashed to shatter her ice. She was also confused by the sense that time itself had been twisted within the fortress. But before she could repair the damage, she was ambushed and slain by K'Chain Nah'ruk.

In Reaper's Gale

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In Toll the Hounds

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In Dust of Dreams

Interpretation of a K'Chain Che'Malle K'ell Hunter by genesischant

Another K'Chain Che'Malle interaction with the Malazan Empire involved the appearance of a male and female on the continent of Lether, and the revelation that an entire hive still existed on that same continent. Gesler and Stormy aiding the only remaining hive, Acyl nest, and fought successfully against some remaining K'Chain Nah'ruk. It was revealed that Gunth'an Acyl, the reigning Matron, sacrificed herself to create an army of K'Chain Che'Malle. Where a normal Matron would only birth several hundred Che'Malle, she brought over twenty-thousand into the world in a short time. The exhaustive act of restoring her race broke her sanity and she perished before the battle, leaving her daughter Gunth Mach as the last living Matron of the Che'Malle.

The named K'Chain Che'Malle of Acyl Nest in the Lether Wastelands:

• Matron Gunth'an Acyl
• One Daughter Gunth Mach
• J'an Sentinel Bre'nigan
• Shi'Gal Assassin Gu'Rull
• K'ell Hunter Kor Thuran
• K'ell Hunter Rythok
• K'ell Hunter Sag'Churok
• Drone Sulkit

Click here to reveal section for
Dust of Dreams.

Gunth'an Acyl named Kalyth Destriant of the K'Chain Che'Malle. Gesler and Stormy were kidnapped from the middle of the Bonehunters camp and named as Mortal Sword and Shield Anvil respectively. With their aid, and that of Sinn and Grub, the Che'Malle defeated the 'Nah'ruk.

In The Crippled God

Interpretation of a K'Chain Che'Malle K'ell Hunter by Slaine69

Click here to reveal section for
The Crippled God.

The Che'Malle army accompanied the alliance of Bolkando, Letherii, Perish, Malazan, and Barghast east to fight in the Battle of the Spire. They were one of the primary forces attacking the Kolanse Spire alongside the other elder races: reborn T'lan Imass and living Jaghut against the Forkrul Assail.

In Kellanved's Reach

Click here to reveal section for
Kellanved's Reach.

In the early days of the formation of the Malazan Empire, a joint troop of Orjin Samarr's mercenaries; Prevost Jeral's ex-Nom Purge regulars; and locals known as hill-folk of the hill tribes were making their way to the western coast of Quon Tali when they encountered - in a cave eaten out by an underground river - what was most likely an undead Ve'Gath specimen. Orjin's troop mage, a Dal Hon elder and shaman, identified the withered, "great upright lizard", as an "undying" "K'Chain Che'Malle warrior" - which possessed "forearms" (and not swords) for upper limbs. The K'Chain warrior was successfully dispatched by dismemberment by individuals of the joint forces who had found it.

Notes and references

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