Tomad Sengar was a Tiste Edur and the patriarch of the noble Sengar bloodline.[1] His mate was Uruth who bore him four sons: Fear, Trull, Binadas, and Rhulad. He had once been a rival of Hannan Mosag's for the throne.[2]
Tomad had a strict sense of propriety and judged his sons harshly on their actions. His relationship with his youngest son, Rhulad, was especially fraught as the boy lacked the maturity of his elder brothers.[3][4]
He had dark eyes and large, scarred hands.[3]
In Midnight Tides[]
Trull Sengar rushed home to his father to report that the Letherii had violated the terms of their treaty with the Tiste Edur by illicitly harvesting Tusked seals in Edur waters. Tomad brought Trull to tell his story before the Warlock King and his council.[5]
Hannan Mosag led four longboats of Edur, including Trull and Fear, against the Letherii harvesting ships. But his warriors only stood by as the Warlock King summoned an immense Demon spirit-god from the water to slaughter the ships' crews. Both Trull and Fear were horrified, reporting the event back to their parents. Uruth was angered that Mosag relied on a summoning rather than an unveiling of Kurald Emurlahn. Despite Tomad's stern demands she drop the matter, she secretly directed Fear to take his brothers to the Stone Bowl to learn the truth of their faith and cast doubt on the Warlock King's motives.[6]
Tomad agreed to the Warlock King's request to send his sons onto the ice fields of Lether in search of a gift seen in one of Mosag's visions. The brothers successfully recovered a sword encased in the ice, but Rhulad was killed in the process. Tomad was proud that Rhulad had died as a blooded warrior, but both he and his wife refused to let the Warlock King cut off his son's hands to recover the blade that refused to leave his grasp.[7] When Rhulad returned to life and declared himself the emperor of the Tiste Edur, Tomad kneeled before him with all the others.[8]
During the Edur invasion of Lether, Tomad and Binadas led one of Rhulad's armies. They quickly captured Fort Shake[9] and The Manse[10][11] before marching south towards Five Points.[12] They eventually joined the armies of Rhulad and Fear at Brans Keep where they faced the majority of the Letherii Army. During the Battle of Brans Keep, Tomad's army held the Edur left flank. Unlike the rest of the army, they engaged in traditional hand-to-hand combat with their opponents. When the Letherii army saw their left and centre collapse in the face of overwhelming Edur sorcery they broke and ran and the Edur were victorious.[13] Rhulad assigned Tomad and Fear the task of preparing a barrow for all of the dead of both armies before marching on the capital.[14]
After the Edur captured Letheras, Tomad and Uruth stood together in the throne room of the Eternal Domicile as Rhulad was declared emperor of the Letherii Empire.[15]
In The Bonehunters[]
Tomad and Hanradi Khalag were promoted to Preda and each made commander of about half the Third Edur Imperial Fleet, which was sent across the world to Seven Cities by Emperor Rhulad.[16] Tomad and his Hiroth portion of the fleet were accompanied by Yan Tovis and her Letherii soldiers. They sailed back and forth along the subcontinent's northern coast for nearly half a year torturing and murdering those they found while seeking a champion to duel their emperor to the death.[17] The Edur spent their time aboard ship feasting, drinking wine, and slaking their lusts on their Letherii slave women. When the slaves were used up or became pregnant they were thrown overboard to feed the Dhenrabi.[18]
Visiting the island kingdom of Sepik Tomad's found an underclass of mixed race Tiste Edur slaves. His warriors sadistically tortured and murdered the entire Human population and "liberated" the slaves to serve new Edur masters. The nearby island of Monkan met the same fate. Ahlrada Ahn looked on in barely disguised horror as his Edur companions seemed to delight in the blood and cruelty.[19]
On the coast of the Sepik Sea, Tomad found his champion, the Jhag Icarium and his companion, Taralack Veed.[20] The Preda grew less convinced of Icarium's prowess as the Jhag spent his time aboard ship weeping and refusing to eat. Yan Tovis delivered a message from the Preda to Taralack Veed—unless Icarium proved his worth, he would be tossed overboard to the sharks.[21]
Tomad and Hanradi's fleets converged to ambush the Malazan Imperial Fleet as it transported Adjunct Tavore Paran's 14th Army through the Kokakal Sea. Nearly a hundred Tiste Edur warlocks attempted to destroy the Malazan fleet with a wall of Chaos magic, but High Mage Quick Ben (assisted by Bottle and the Eres'al) countered with their own magic, causing the wall to collapse and killing many of the warlocks. The Edur were forced with withdraw, but not before Tomad received word that the Silanda was spotted amongst the Malazan ships. Taralack Veed noted that the news appeared to strike the Preda like a physical blow. Yan Tovis explained that the ship had been given to one of Tomad's sons to command on a mission into the Nascent. The details of the mission were not meant for the Emperor's ears, but if the ship had been captured by the enemy, it meant two of Tomad's sons were now dead. A consuming hatred of the Malazans was born that day.[22]
Icarium found his test when the Preda sent him with a Tiste Edur war party to claim the Throne of Shadow on Drift Avalii. Of the two hundred Edur and sixty Letherii sent, only Icarium, Taralack Veed, and Varat Taun returned.[23][24]
In Reaper's Gale[]
A worn and aged Tomad returned with the fleet to Letheras sure that Binadas was dead. Hanradi Khalag's attempts to quest for Binadas' soul had proved fruitless and Tomad's dreams had shown him his son's naval battle in the Nascent and the Tarthenal demon that killed him. Further, he recognised the demon as Karsa Orlong, one of the champions the fleet was bringing back to face Rhulad. Tomad's attempts to gain audience with the Emperor were rejected because the paranoid Rhulad suspected his father meant to kill him.[25] Tomad angrily rebuffed Bruthen Trana's attempts to enlist him in Trana's effort to reach the Emperor, who was increasingly being isolated by Chancellor Triban Gnol.[26]
Tomad and Uruth took up rooms in one of the damp and decrepit areas of the failing Eternal Domicile, decorating one wall with fetishes of feathers, strips of seal skin, necklaces of shells, and shark teeth representing of their deceased children. This included Trull, which would have resulted in their execution if Rhulad were to learn of it. The two argued over Rhulad with Uruth naming her husband a coward for failing to exert his will over their remaining son. She said they must abandon the clearly insane Rhulad and work with the untrustworthy Hannan Mosag to ensure the survival of the Edur.[27] Tomad also brooded on the failure of his own conspiracy to send Binadas and his ship, the Silanda, to the Nascent to rescue Trull, who he thought the bravest among the Sengar. Now both sons were dead.[28]
But Chancellor Gnol gave them no time to act. He used Tomad and Uruth's ill-treatment and neglect of the mixed-blooded Edur they rescued from Sepik to drive a wedge between them and the Emperor. When he learned their kin had been left in the city's trench-pens amongst slaves and criminals, an enraged Rhulad condemned his parents to a two month imprisonment in the damp dungeon crypts of the palace's Fifth Wing.[29] They were taken there by Sirryn Kanar and other Letherii guards and chained apart in total darkness where there were no shadows for Uruth to work her magic.[30][31]
Some time later, one of the Chancellor's guards delivered the news that an error among the jailers had left Tomad and Uruth unattended for a week. During that time the water in their damp cells had risen and drowned them. Their chains had been too short to keep their heads above the chest-deep water.[32]
Notes and references[]
- ↑ Midnight Tides, Chapter 1, US SFBC p.38
- ↑ Midnight Tides, Chapter 9, US SFBC p.277
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Midnight Tides, Chapter 1, US SFBC p.39
- ↑ Midnight Tides, Chapter 5, US SFBC p.174-178
- ↑ Midnight Tides, Chapter 1, US SFBC p.38-40/45-49
- ↑ Midnight Tides, Chapter 3, US SFBC p.94-97/100-102
- ↑ Midnight Tides, Chapter 9, US SFBC p.277-279
- ↑ Midnight Tides, Chapter 11, US SFBC p.345
- ↑ Midnight Tides, Chapter 18, US SFBC p.555
- ↑ Midnight Tides, Chapter 21, US SFBC p.631
- ↑ Midnight Tides, Chapter 22, US SFBC p.648
- ↑ Midnight Tides, Chapter 20, US SFBC p.596-597
- ↑ Midnight Tides, Chapter 23, US SFBC p.676-679
- ↑ Midnight Tides, Chapter 23, US SFBC p.684-685
- ↑ Midnight Tides, Chapter 25, US SFBC p.759
- ↑ The Bonehunters, Chapter 17, US SFBC p.686
- ↑ The Bonehunters, Chapter 16, US SFBC p.664
- ↑ The Bonehunters, Chapter 17, US SFBC p.686
- ↑ The Bonehunters, Chapter 21, US SFBC p.812-813
- ↑ The Bonehunters, Chapter 12, US SFBC p.494
- ↑ The Bonehunters, Chapter 17, US SFBC p.687-690
- ↑ The Bonehunters, Chapter 18, US SFBC p.725-734
- ↑ The Bonehunters, Chapter 21, US SFBC p.817
- ↑ The Bonehunters, Epilogue, US SFBC p.980
- ↑ Reaper's Gale, Chapter 15, US HC p.174-176
- ↑ Reaper's Gale, Chapter 15, US HC p.178-179
- ↑ Reaper's Gale, Chapter 15, US HC p.412-415/438-439
- ↑ Reaper's Gale, Chapter 15, US HC p.415
- ↑ Reaper's Gale, Chapter 15, BCA edition p.468
- ↑ Reaper's Gale, Chapter 15, BCA edition p.471/472
- ↑ Reaper's Gale, Chapter 18, US HC p.437-438
- ↑ Reaper's Gale, Chapter 18, US HC p.555