Reaper's Gale

How it opens

In Letheras, Karos Invictad, the Invigilator who commands the Patriotists, shows a row of chained prisoners to the Tiste Edur liaison Bruthen Trana. Later he agrees to Rautos Hivanar's request for a secret inquiry into a growing shortage of coin. Brohl Handar, the new Tiste Edur Overseer of the remote city of Drene, rides out to watch Atri-Preda Bivatt's lancers wipe out an Awl camp, whose herds go to the Factor, Letur Anict. Later a lone Awl warrior with a face of red scales kills his way out of Drene. On a river road below a mountain pass, Silchas Ruin cuts down the Merude Edur guarding a slave train to free Udinaas and the girl Kettle. The hunted party, Fear Sengar and Seren Pedac among them, then climbs into the ruins of a K'Chain Che'Malle city carved into the mountainside. And in Letheras, Tehol Beddict tells his manservant Bugg, whose construction business is sinking, to make ten more vaults under the river and to build him a box with no lid.

Who you meet early

• UdinaasUdinaas, once a slave in Fear Sengar's household, is on the run with Fear, Seren Pedac, Silchas Ruin and the girl Kettle, while Edur and Letherii hunters search for them. Freed from a slave train, he goes on with them through the tunnels of a mountain city that Silchas Ruin says the K'Chain Che'Malle built. He tells Seren that the dragon-spawn Wyval is gone for good.
• Brohl HandarBrohl Handar, an Arapay Tiste Edur, is newly appointed Overseer of Drene, though he sees that the real power there lies with the Factor, Letur Anict. He keeps back a long report to the Emperor on the Factor's war against the Awl, suspecting it would never reach him.
• Tanal YathvanarTanal Yathvanar is an officer of the Patriotists who stands at the side of the Invigilator, Karos Invictad. Told to release the academic Janath Anar, he has instead chained her in an old inquisition chamber on the lowest, long-unused level of the dungeons.
• Rautos HivanarRautos Hivanar heads the Hivanar family and is Master of the Liberty Consign, the league of the empire's richest families. He has come to believe that an unseen enemy is sabotaging the economy, yet his thoughts keep drifting to a strange construct of stones and rotted posts that floods have laid bare in his estate's lower terrace garden.
• RedmaskRedmask, an Awl warrior whose face is hidden behind red scales, has come back to his people's lands and found only abandoned and burned camps. After killing his way out of Drene he rides east, guarded by two K'Chain Che'Malle, Sag'Churok and Gunth Mach, for reasons he does not know.
• Bruthen TranaBruthen Trana, a Tiste Edur warrior of the Den-Ratha tribe, is the Edur liaison to the Patriotists. He sits through their weekly review of prisoners with open impatience, and Karos Invictad now wants him quietly investigated.
• BuggBugg, manservant to Tehol Beddict and in truth an Elder God, is watching his construction business sink for lack of buyers with hard coin. Tehol wants him to keep the firm going on debt, add ten more vaults twice the size, and make him a box without a lid.