Dassem Ultor

Dassem Ultor is the First Sword of the Malazan Empire, supreme commander of its military under the old Emperor, and a name invoked across the Malazan Book of the Fallen from its earliest books. The soldiers' accounts agree on the outline: a Dal Honese swordsman of unmatched skill who fought at the front of every battle he commanded, whose retinue of picked bodyguards was itself called the First Sword, and who is credited with forging the Malazan military into the most formidable army of its age. By the time Gardens of the Moon opens, his era has ended; the armies he drilled into being march under Empress Laseen, and veterans measure every commander they meet against his memory. In Deadhouse Gates, soldiers of the Seven Cities campaign still trade stories of him.