"What is the significance of the mask?"
Bivatt shook her head. "I don't know. There is a legend that he killed a dragon, in the time immediately following the slaughter of his family. No more than a child – which makes the tale unlikely." She shrugged.
"And so he has returned," Brohl Handar said. "or some other Awl warrior has adopted the mask and so seeks to drive fear into your hearts."
"No, it was him. He uses a bladed whip and a two-headed axe. The weapons themselves are virtually mythical."
The Overseer frowned at her. "Mythical?"
"Awl legends hold that their people once fought a war, far to the east, when the Awl dwelt in the wildlands. The cadaran and rygtha were weapons designed to deal with that enemy. I have no more details than what I have just given you, except that it appears that whatever that enemy was, it wasn't human."
"Every tribe has tales of past wars, an age of heroes—"
"Overseer, the Awl'dan legends are not like that."
"Oh?"
"Yes. First of all, the Awl lost that war. That is why they fled west."
"Have there been no Letherii expeditions into the wildlands?"
"Not in decades, Overseer. After all, we are clashing with the various territories and kingdoms along that border. The last expedition was virtually wiped out, a single survivor driven mad by what she had seen. She spoke of something called the Hissing Night. The voice of death, apparently. In any case, her madness could not be healed and so she was put to death."
Reaper's Gale, by Steven Erikson (Malazan Book of the Fallen #7)