Karien'el

"I've always been a betting man, Bakune, with an eye on the main chance and all my options."

―Karien'el

Karien'el was a lieutenant and later captain of the City Watch of Banith in Rool.

He was a heavy-set man with a black beard, bloodshot eyes, a pasty complexion, greying teeth, and a bulbous nose. He looked generally unhealthy.

In Stonewielder

In his early days with the Watch he accompanied newly installed Assessor Bakune to the site of a young woman's murder. The young lieutenant upbraided Gheven, the man who reported the body, for not being sufficiently deferent to the Blessed Lady. He continued to refer to the aged indigenous man as scum and filth, forcing Bakune to extract his promise that he would not harm the man.

Over the next twenty years, Karien'el was promoted to captain and used his position to become deeply involved in the city's illicit smuggling and night market operations. He also monitored his old co-worker the Assessor for the local authorities, surreptitiously searching and stealing incriminating files from his office and assigning Hyuke and Puller to escort him on his investigations.

After the invasion of Fist by Greymane's Malazan Expeditionary Force, the Watch was recruited into the militia to help the rogue Sixth Army defend the nation. Karien'el, however, chose to desert. Before he left, he made a drunken nighttime visit to Bakune's quarters where he chided the man for his naivety and warned him of the new religious order to come once the entire civilian garrison departed. Feeling some sense of loyalty to the "honest fool" he had worked with all those years, Karien'el informed the Assessor that his missing files had been hidden away and not destroyed. Calling himself a gambling man he wanted insurance for the possibility that the Malazans would win through.

By the time the Expeditionary Force entered Rool, Karien'el was a self-styled Baron who arranged for a parley with Fist Rillish Jal Keth and Adjunct Kyle. Baron Karien'el offered a truce with the region's pre-occupation aristocracy. They would remain neutral while the two Malazan armies fought each other, unashamedly hoping this would lead to the demise of both.

When Greymane passed through Banith leaving a garrison behind, Karien'el had given himself the rank of General. He controlled most of the south and most of the militia and insurgents had sworn loyalty to him. He recruited Bakune to serve as Rool's Chancellor and Lord High Assessor, certain the man had no ambitions to betray him.

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