Reaper's Gale

Reaper's Gale
Series	Malazan Book of the Fallen
Publisher	Bantam (UK & Canada) Tor Books (USA)
Released	7 May 2007
Pages	1,280 pp (UK paperback edition)
ISBN	ISBN 0-593-04631-5 (UK hardcover edition)
Preceded by	The Bonehunters
Followed by	Toll the Hounds

Reaper's Gale is the seventh novel the Malazan Book of the Fallen epic fantasy series. It was published in the UK May 7, 2007, in Canada June 5, 2007, and in the US on March 4, 2008.

Publisher's Summary

All is not well in the Letherii Empire. Rhulad Sengar, the Emperor of a Thousand Deaths, spirals into madness, surrounded by sycophants and agents of his Machiavellian chancellor. Meanwhile, the Letherii secret police conduct a campaign of terror against their own people. The Errant, once a farseeing god, is suddenly blind to the future. Conspiracies seethe throughout the palace, as the empire - driven by the corrupt and self-interested - edges ever-closer to all-out war with the neighbouring kingdoms.

The great Edur fleet - its warriors selected from countless numbers of people - draws closer. Amongst the warriors are Karsa Orlong and Icarium Lifestealer - each destined to cross blades with the emperor himself. That yet more blood is to be spilled is inevitable... Against this backdrop, a band of fugitives seek a way out of the empire, but one of them, Fear Sengar, must find the soul of Scabandari Bloodeye. It is his hope that the soul might help halt the Tiste Edur, and so save his brother, the emperor. Yet, traveling with them is Scabandari's most ancient foe: Silchas Ruin, brother of Anomander Rake. And his motives are anything but certain - for the wounds he carries on his back, made by the blades of Scabandari, are still fresh.

Fate decrees that there is to be a reckoning, for such bloodshed cannot go unanswered--and it will be a reckoning on an unimaginable scale. This is a brutal, harrowing novel of war, intrigue and dark, uncontrollable magic; this is epic fantasy at its most imaginative, storytelling at its most thrilling.

Front matter

Dedication

To Glen Cook

Acknowledgements

Thank you to my advance readers: Rick, Chris, Mark, Bill, Hazel and Bowen. Thanks also to the folks at Black Stilt Cafe, Ambiente Cafe and Cafe Teatro in Victoria for the table, the coffees and AC access. And for all the other support that keeps me afloat, thanks to Clare, Simon at Transworld, Howard and Patrick, the scary mob at Malazanempire.com, David and Anne, Peter and Nicky Crowther.

Maps

The Empire of Lether and its neighbours

Editions

Show other languages

Publisher	Format/Edition	First published	Pages	ISBN-10	ISBN-13	Notes
United Kingdom — Reaper's Gale
Bantam	Hard cover	2007	910	n/a	978-0593046319	First edition
Bantam	Trade paperback	2007	910	n/a	978-0593046326
Bantam	Mass market paperback	xxx	xxx	xxx	xxx
United States — Reaper's Gale
Tor	Hard cover	March 2008	832	0765310074	978-0765310071	Cover by Todd Lockwood
Tor	Trade paperback	March 2008	832	0765316536	978-0765316530	Cover by Todd Lockwood
Tor	Hard cover, Science Fiction Book Club	xxx	xxx	xxx	xxx
Tor	Mass market paperback	2007	1280	0765348845	978-0765348845	Cover by Steve Stone, includes excerpt from Toll The Hounds
Subterranean Press	Hard cover	Aug 2017	982	xxx	xxx	Limited numbered/lettered editions Illustrated by Tommy Arnold List of illustrations Silchas Ruin Veers Quick Ben Opens a Gate The Malazan Fleet Burns (lettered only) Rhulad, Surrounded By His Madness In the Wake of Beak's Candles

Plot Summary

The following summaries contain spoilers
Please access individual chapter summaries via the Chapter infobox

Prologue

The prologue consists of 4 vignettes, introduced by place and time.

The Elder Warren of Kurald Emurlahn
The Age of Sundering

The Elder Goddess Kilmandaros is introduced, leaving the disintegrating Warren through a rent torn through to another realm. On her way through she passes the corpses of six slain dragons. Their blood pooled around them attracts and traps wraiths. As the pooled blood hardens it begins to 'sink' through the realm and it is revealed that the Warren of Starvald Demelain is channeled through draconic blood.

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

Gothos the Jaghut has nearly completed the Ritual sealing under ice the battlefield where the K'Chain Che'Malle were defeated by Tiste Edur and Tiste Andii. It is some time after this battle, and Gothos comes upon Scabandari Bloodeye (the Tiste Edur leader who was involved in the Sundering) who has been caught by the Elder Gods Mael and Kilmandaros and is near death. Gothos points out to Mael and Kilmandaros that if Scabandari is killed now, the Ritual around them will preserve Scabandari's soul and much of his power. Gothos instead offers to trap Scabandari's soul in a Finnest. After Kilmandaros shatters Scabandari's skull to kill him, Gothos claims the Finnest itself in payment for the service. He then departs, pleased that he has outwitted the Elder Gods.

Kilmandaros then returns to the rent to Kurald Emerlahn, to find Anomandaris Purake of the Tiste Andii. Rake offers to help Kilmandaros driving the 'pretenders' from the dying realm, and ensuring that the Throne of Shadow remains unoccupied. Kilmandaros agrees, they re-enter the realm, closing the rent behind them, and set about 'cleansing' it.

The Awl'dan, in the last days of King Diskanar

Preda Bivatt, a captain in the Drene Garrison, comes across hundreds of beached war canoes on the shores of the Bluerose Sea, northeast of Drene City. The number of boats indicate that half a million warriors had come ashore, and the captain wonders why there has been no sighting or rumors of such a large unknown force.

The Awl'dan, following the Edur conquest

A rider with a crimson-scaled mask (later revealed to be Redmask) comes across a fresh battlefield on the top of a hill on the Awl'dan plain south-east of Drene. The victors, the legions of Drene, have gone, The fallen army are not from any of the local tribes or peoples bounding the Awl'dan, and bear a device of two wolf-heads. Further, wolves have fed on the bodies, but have only taken the hearts.

Book One: The Emperor in Gold

Epigraph

The lie stands alone, the solitary deceit with its back turned no matter the direction of your reluctant approach, and with each step your goal is driven on, your stride carried astray, the path enfolding upon itself, round and round you walk and what stood alone before you, errant as mischance, an accidental utterance, now reveals its legion of children, this mass seething in threads and knots and surrounded, you cannot draw breath, cannot move. The world is of your making and one day, my friend, you will stand alone amidst a sea of dead, the purchasing of your words all about you and the wind will laugh you a new path into unending torment-- the solitary deceit is its solitude, the lie is the lie standing alone, the threads and knots of the multitude tighten in righteous judgement with which you once so freely strangled every truthsayer, every voice of dissent. So now ease your thirst on my sympathy and die parched in the wasteland. Fragment found on the day the poetess Tesora Veddict was arrested by the Patriotists (six days before her Drowning)

Book Two: Layers of the Dead

Epigraph

Who now strides on my trail devouring the distance between no matter how I flee, the wasted breath of my haste cast into the wind and these dogs will prevail dragging me down with howling glee for the beasts were born fated, trained in bold vengeance by my own switch and hand and no god will stand in my stead, nor provide me sanctuary, even should I plead for absolution-- the hounds of my deeds belong only to me, and they have long hunted and now the hunt ends. Songs of Guilt Bet'netrask

Chapter 12

The burning fleet of the 14th off the coast of Lether, Interpretation by Spindrift

Book Three: Knuckles of the Soul

Epigraph

We are eager to impugn the beast crouched in our souls but this creature is pure with shye eyes and it watches our frantic crimes cowering in the cage of our cruelty I will take for myself and your fate in these hands the grace of animal to ammend broken dreams-- freedom unchained and unbound long running-- the beast will kill when I murder In absolution a list of unremarked distinctions availed these hands freedom without excuse see how clean this blood compared to yours the death grin of your bestial snarl mars the scape Of your face this is what sets us apart in our souls my beast and I chained together as we must who leads and who is the led is never quite asked of the charmed and the innocent Dog in an Alley Confessions Tibal Feredict

Chapter 13

The Adjunct and the 14th Malazan army move into Lether and burn the fleet, apparently never to turn back.

Book Four: Reaper's Gale

Epigraph

I went in search of death In the cast down wreckage Of someone's temple nave I went in search among flowers Nodding to the wind's words Of woeful tales of war I went among the blood troughs Behind the women's tents All the children that never were And in the storm of ice and waves I went in search of the drowned Among bony shells and blunt worms Where the grains swirled Each and every one crying out its name its life its loss I went on the current roads That led me nowhere known And in the still mists afield Where light itself crept uncertain I went in search of wise spirits Moaning their truths in dark loam But the moss was silent, too damp to remember my search Finding at last where the reapers sow Cutting stalks to take the season I failed in my proud quest To a scything flint blade And lying asward lost to summer Bared as its warm carapace of youthful promise was sent away into autumn's reliquary sky Until the bones of night Were nails glittering in the cold oblivion, and down the darkness death came to find me Before Q'uson Tapi Toc Anaster

Trivia

• Reaper's Gale is the last volume in the Malazan Book of the Fallen series to contain a glossary of terms at the end of the novel.
• Steven Erikson provides the pronunciation for the majority of characters in this book's Dramatis Personae list in this DLC Bookclub Special - See 1:21:00.
• Erikson says Reaper's Gale is a continuation of the ideas he explored in Midnight Tides wherein a people like the Lakota Sioux were able to turn on their American invaders and militarily defeat and occupy them. Reaper's Gale shows the consequences, where "the system that was going to be so-called conquered was going to in turn conquer the conquerors...Would the cultural traits, and belief systems, and political structures, and all the rest of the Lakota actually replace that broader American system. And, I mean by that point, that American system was also a global system, because that's what it arose from. It emerged from the British Empire. So the thought experiment was basically that that system was simply too powerful and too pervasive, and it would eventually sort of takeover the political cap that was sitting on top of all things. So, I suppose, historically, you could look at the Normans when they conquered England...they imposed their presence, brought their laws and their social structures, and all the rest, but that did not ultimately result in the UK speaking French, for example...That sort of led to me to the idea that the only way to take that thing down was from the inside, and that's where the role of Tehol and Bugg came to the fore." He says this was his plan for the novel even while writing Midnight Tides, where he made sure to "setup all the ducks...in a row" as necessary for the follow-up story.

Cover gallery

US cover art

Bulgarian cover art

Cover of the Subterranean Press version by Tommy Arnold

Spanish cover art by Alejandro Colucci

French cover art by Marc Simonetti

French paperback cover art, Leha, 2025

German cover art - Part 1

German cover art - Part 2

External links

• Reaper's Gale Q&A at Tor.com
• Reaper's Gale - Conversation with Steven Erikson - Ten Very Big Books
• DLC Bookclub Special: Interview with Steven Erikson, Author of Reaper's Gale

Notes and references

List of abbreviations • Paginations • How to reference an article