House of Chains

CHAPTER ONE

THE DOG HAD SAVAGED A WOMAN, AN OLD MAN AND A CHILD BEFORE the warriors drove it into an abandoned kiln at the edge of the village. The beast had never before displayed an uncertain loyalty. It had guarded the Uryd lands with fierce zeal, one with its kin in its harsh, but just, duties. There were no wounds on its body that might have festered and so allowed the spirit of madness into its veins. Nor was the dog possessed by the foaming sickness. Its position in the village pack had not been challenged. Indeed, there was nothing, nothing at all, to give cause to the sudden turn.

The warriors pinned the animal to the rounded back wall of the clay kiln with spears, stabbing at the snapping, shrieking beast until it was dead. When they withdrew their spears they saw the shafts chewed and slick with spit and blood; they saw iron dented and scored.

Madness, they knew, could remain hidden, buried far beneath the surface, a subtle flavour turning blood into something bitter. The shamans examined the three victims; two had already died of their wounds, but the child still clung to life.

In solemn procession he was carried by his father to the Faces in the Rock, laid down in the glade before the Seven Gods of the Teblor, and left there.

He died a short while later. Alone in his pain before the hard visages carved into the cliff-face.

This was not an unexpected fate. The child, after all, had been too young to pray.

All of this, of course, happened centuries past. Long before the Seven Gods opened their eyes.

Urugal the Woven’s Year 1159 Burn’s Sleep

They were glorious tales. Farms in flames, children dragged behind horses for leagues. The trophies of that day, so long ago, cluttered the low walls of his grandfather’s longhouse. Scarred skull-pates, frail-looking mandibles. Odd fragments of clothing made of some unknown material, now smoke-blackened and tattered. Small ears nailed to every wooden post that reached up to the thatched roof.

Evidence that Silver Lake was real, that it existed in truth, beyond the forest-clad mountains, down through hidden passes, a week-perhaps two-distant from the lands of the Uryd clan. The way itself was fraught, passing through territories held by the Sunyd and Rathyd clans, a journey that was itself a tale of legendary proportions. Moving silent and unseen through enemy camps, shifting the hearthstones to deliver deepest insult, eluding the hunters and trackers day and night until the borderlands were reached, then crossed-the vista ahead unknown, its riches not even yet dreamed of.

Karsa Orlong lived and breathed his grandfather’s tales. They stood like a legion, defiant and fierce, before the pallid, empty legacy of Synyg-Pahlk’s son and Karsa’s father. Synyg, who had done nothing in his life, who tended his horses in his valley and had not once ventured into hostile lands. Synyg, who was both his father’s and his son’s greatest shame.

True, Synyg had more than once defended his herd of horses from raiders from other clans, and defended well, with honourable ferocity and admirable skill. But this was only to be expected from those of Uryd blood. Urugal the Woven was the clan’s Face in the Rock, and Urugal was counted among the fiercest of the seven gods. The other clans had reason to fear the Uryd.

Nor had Synyg proved less than masterful in training his only son in the Fighting Dances. Karsa’s skill with the bloodwood blade far surpassed his years. He was counted among the finest warriors of the clan. While the Uryd disdained use of the bow, they excelled with spear and atlatl, with the toothed-disc and the black-rope, and Synyg had taught his son an impressive efficiency with these weapons as well.

None the less, such training was to be expected from any father in the Uryd clan. Karsa could find no reason for pride in such things. The Fighting Dances were but preparation, after all. Glory was found in all that followed, in the contests, the raids, in the vicious perpetuation of feuds.

Karsa would not do as his father had done. He would not do… nothing. No, he would walk his grandfather’s path. More closely than anyone might imagine. Too much of the clan’s reputation lived only in the past. The Uryd had grown complacent in their position of preeminence among the Teblor. Pahlk had muttered that truth more than once, the nights when his bones ached from old wounds and the shame that was his son burned deepest.

A return to the old ways. And I, Karsa Orlong, shall lead. Delum Thord is with me. As is Bairoth Gild. All in our first year of scarring.

We have counted coup. We have slain enemies. Stolen horses. Shifted the hearthstones of the Kellyd and the Buryd.

And now, with the new moon and in the year of your naming, Urugal, we shall weave our way to Silver Lake. To slay the children who dwell there.

He remained on his knees in the glade, head bowed beneath the Faces in the Rock, knowing that Urugal’s visage, high on the cliff-face, mirrored his own savage desire; and that those of the other gods, all with their own clans barring Siballe, who was the Unfound, glared down upon Karsa with envy and hate. None of their children knelt before them, after all, to voice such bold vows.

Complacency plagued all the clans of the Teblor, Karsa suspected. The world beyond the mountains dared not encroach, had not attempted to do so in decades. No visitors ventured into Teblor lands. Nor had the Teblor themselves gazed out beyond the borderlands with dark hunger, as they had often done generations past. The last man to have led a raid into foreign territory had been his grandfather. To the shores of Silver Lake, where farms squatted like rotted mushrooms and children scurried like mice. Back then, there had been two farms, a half-dozen outbuildings. Now, Karsa believed, there would be more. Three, even four farms. Even Pahlk’s day of slaughter would pale to that delivered by Karsa, Delum and Bairoth.

So I vow, beloved Urugal. And I shall deliver unto you a feast of trophies such as never before blackened the soil of this glade. Enough, perhaps, to free you from the stone itself, so that once more you will stride in our midst, a deliverer of death upon all our enemies.

I, Karsa Orlong, grandson of Pahlk Orlong, so swear. And, should you doubt, Urugal, know that we leave this very night. The journey begins with the descent of this very sun. And, as each day’s sun births the sun of the next day, so shall it look down upon three warriors of the Uryd clan, leading their destriers through the passes, down into the unknown lands. And Silver Lake shall, after more than four centuries, once again tremble to the coming of the Teblor.

Karsa slowly lifted his head, eyes travelling up the battered cliff-face, to find the harsh, bestial face of Urugal, there, among its kin. The pitted gaze seemed fixed upon him and Karsa thought he saw avid pleasure in those dark pools. Indeed, he was certain of it, and would describe it as truth to Delum and Bairoth, and to Dayliss, so that she might voice her blessing, for he so wished her blessing, her cold words… I, Dayliss, yet to find a family’s name, bless you, Karsa Orlong, on your dire raid. May you slay a legion of children. May their cries feed your dreams. May their blood give you thirst for more. May flames haunt the path of your life. May you return to me, a thousand deaths upon your soul, and take me as your wife.

She might indeed so bless him. A first yet undeniable expression of her interest in him. Not Bairoth-she but toyed with Bairoth as any young unwedded woman might, for amusement. Her Knife of Night remained sheathed, of course, for Bairoth lacked cold ambition-a flaw he might deny, yet the truth was plain that he did not lead, only follow, and Dayliss would not settle for that.

No, she would be his, Karsa’s, upon his return, the culmination of his triumph that was the raid on Silver Lake. For him, and him alone, Dayliss would unsheathe her Knife of Night.

May you slay a legion of children. May flames haunt the path of your life.

Karsa straightened. No wind rustled the leaves of the birch trees encircling the glade. The air was heavy, a lowland air that had climbed its way into the mountains in the wake of the marching sun, and now, with light fading, it was trapped in the glade before the Faces in the Rock. Like a breath of the gods, soon to seep into the rotting soil.

There was no doubt in Karsa’s mind that Urugal was present, as close behind the stone skin of his face as he had ever been. Drawn by the power of Karsa’s vow, by the promise of a return to glory. So too hovered the other gods. Beroke Soft Voice, Kahlb the Silent Hunter, Thenik the Shattered, Halad Rack Bearer, Imroth the Cruel and Siballe the Unfound, all awakened once more and eager for blood.

And I have but just begun on this path. Newly arrived to my eightieth year of life, finally a warrior in truth. I have heard the oldest words, the whispers, of the One, who will unite the Teblor, who will bind the clans one and all and lead them into the lowlands and so begin the War of the People. These whispers, they are the voice of promise, and that voice is mine.

Hidden birds announced the coming of dusk. It was time to leave.

Delum and Bairoth awaited him in the village. And Dayliss, silent yet holding to the words she would speak to him.

Bairoth will be furious.

The pocket of warm air in the glade lingered long after Karsa Orlong’s departure. The soft, boggy soil was slow to yield the imprint of his knees, his moccasined feet, and the sun’s deepening glare continued to paint the harsh features of the gods even as shadows filled the glade itself.

Seven figures rose from the ground, skin wrinkled and stained dark brown over withered muscles and heavy bones, hair red as ochre and dripping stagnant, black water. Some were missing limbs, others stood on splintered, shattered or mangled legs. One lacked a lower jaw while another’s left cheekbone and brow were crushed flat, obliterating the eye-socket. Each of the seven, broken in some way. Imperfect.

Flawed.

Somewhere behind the wall of rock was a sealed cavern that had been their tomb for a span of centuries, a short-lived imprisonment as it turned out. None had expected their resurrection. Too shattered to remain with their kin, they had been left behind, as was the custom of their kind. Failure’s sentence was abandonment, an eternity of immobility. When failure was honourable, their sentient remnants would be placed open to the sky, to vistas, to the outside world, so that they might find peace in watching the passing of eons. But, for these seven, failure had not been honourable. Thus, the darkness of a tomb had been their sentence. They had felt no bitterness at that.

That dark gift came later, from outside their unlit prison, and with it, opportunity.

All that was required was the breaking of a vow, and the swearing of fealty to another. The reward: rebirth, and freedom.

Their kin had marked this place of internment, with carved faces each a likeness, mocking the vista with blank, blind eyes. They had spoken their names to close the ritual of binding, names that lingered in this place with a power sufficient to twist the minds of the shamans of the people who had found refuge in these mountains, and on the plateau with the ancient name of Laederon.

The seven were silent and motionless in the glade as the dusk deepened. Six were waiting for one to speak, yet that one was in no hurry. Freedom was raw exultation and, even limited as it was to this glade, the emotion persisted still. It would not be long, now, until that freedom would break free of its last chains-the truncated range of vision from the eye-sockets carved into the rock. Service to the new master promised travel, an entire world to rediscover and countless deaths to deliver.

Urual, whose name meant Mossy Bone and who was known to the Teblor as Urugal, finally spoke. ‘He will suffice.’

Sin’b’alle-Lichen For Moss-who was Siballe the Unfound, did not hide the scepticism in her voice. ‘You place too much faith in these fallen Teblor. Teblor. They know naught, even their true name.’

‘Be glad that they do not,’ said Ber’ok, his voice a rough rasp through a crushed throat. Neck twisted and head leaning to one side, he was forced to turn his entire body to stare at the rock-face. ‘In any case, you have your own children, Sin’b’alle, who are the bearers of the truth. For the others, lost history is best left lost, for our purposes. Their ignorance is our greatest weapon.’

‘Dead Ash Tree speaks the truth,’ Urual said. ‘We could not have so twisted their faith were they cognizant of their legacy.’

Sin’b’alle shrugged disdainfully. ‘The one named Pahlk also… sufficed. In your opinion, Urual. A worthy prospect to lead my children, it seemed. Yet he failed.’

‘Our fault, not his,’ Haran’alle growled. ‘We were impatient, too confident of our efficacy. Sundering the Vow stole much of our power-’

‘Yet what has our new master given of his, Antler From Summer?’ Thekist demanded. ‘Naught but a trickle.’

‘And what do you expect?’ Urual enquired in a quiet tone. ‘He recovers from his ordeals as we do from ours.’

Emroth spoke, her voice like silk. ‘So you believe, Mossy Bone, that this grandson of Pahlk will carve for us our path to freedom.’

‘I do.’

‘And if we are disappointed yet again?’

‘Then we begin anew. Bairoth’s child in Dayliss’s womb.’

Emroth hissed. ‘Another century of waiting! Damn these long-lived Teblor!’

‘A century is as nothing-’

‘As nothing, yet as everything, Mossy Bone! And you know precisely what I mean.’

Urual studied the woman, who was aptly named Fanged Skeleton, recalling her Soletaken proclivities, and its hunger that had so clearly led to their failure so long ago. ‘The year of my name has returned,’ he said. ‘Among us all, who has led a clan of the Teblor as far along our path as I have? You, Fanged Skeleton? Lichen For Moss? Spear Leg?’

No-one spoke.

Then finally Dead Ash Tree made a sound that might have been a soft laugh. ‘We are as Red Moss, silent. The way will be opened. So our new master has promised. He finds his power. Urual’s chosen warrior already possesses a score of souls in his slayer’s train. Teblor souls at that. Recall, also, that Pahlk journeyed alone. Yet Karsa shall have two formidable warriors flanking him. Should he die, there is always Bairoth, or Delum.’

‘Bairoth is too clever,’ Emroth snarled. ‘He takes after Pahlk’s son, his uncle. Worse, his ambition is only for himself. He feigns to follow Karsa, yet has his hand on Karsa’s back.’

‘And mine on his,’ Urual murmured. ‘Night is almost upon us. We must return to our tomb.’ The ancient warrior turned. ‘Fanged Skeleton, remain close to the child in Dayliss’s womb.’

‘She feeds from my breast even now,’ Emroth asserted.

‘A girl-child?’

‘In flesh only. What I make within is neither a girl, nor a child.’

‘Good.’

The seven figures returned to the earth as the first stars of night blinked awake in the sky overhead. Blinked awake, and looked down upon a glade where no gods dwelt. Where no gods had ever dwelt.

The village was situated on the stony bank of Laderu River, a mountain-fed, torrential flow of bitter-cold water that cut a valley through the conifer forest on its way down to some distant sea. The houses were built with boulder foundations and rough-hewn cedar walls, the roofs thick-matted, humped and overgrown with moss. Along the bank rose latticed frames thick with strips of drying fish. Beyond a fringe of woods, clearings had been cut to provide pasture for horses.

Mist-dimmed firelight flickered through the trees as Karsa reached his father’s house, passing the dozen horses standing silent and motionless in the glade. Their only threat came from raiders, for these beasts were bred killers and the mountain wolves had long since learned to avoid the huge animals. Occasionally a rust-collared bear would venture down from its mountain haunt, but this usually coincided with salmon runs and the creatures showed little interest in challenging the horses, the village’s dogs, or its fearless warriors.

Synyg was in the training kraal, grooming Havok, his prized destrier. Karsa could feel the animal’s heat as he approached, though it was little more than a black mass in the darkness. ‘Red Eye still wanders loose,’ Karsa growled. ‘You will do nothing for your son?’

His father continued grooming Havok. ‘Red Eye is too young for such a journey, as I have said before-’

‘Yet he is mine, and so I shall ride him.’

‘No. He lacks independence, and has not yet ridden with the mounts of Bairoth and Delum. You will lodge a thorn in his nerves.’

‘So I am to walk?’

‘I give you Havok, my son. He has been softly run this night and still wears the bridle. Go collect your gear, before he cools too much.’

Karsa said nothing. He was in truth astonished. He swung about and made his way to the house. His father had slung his pack from a ridgepole near the doorway to keep it dry. His bloodwood sword hung in its harness beside it, newly oiled, the Uryd warcrest freshly painted on the broad blade. Karsa drew the weapon down and strapped the harness in place, the sword’s leather-wrapped two-handed grip jutting over his left shoulder. The pack would ride Havok’s shoulders, affixed to the stirrup-rig, though Karsa’s knees would take most of the weight.

Teblor horse-trappings did not include a rider’s seat; a warrior rode against flesh, stirrups high, the bulk of his weight directly behind the mount’s shoulders. Lowlander trophies included saddles, which revealed, when positioned on the smaller lowlander horses, a clear shifting of weight to the back. But a true destrier needed its hindquarters free of extra weight, to ensure the swiftness of its kicks. More, a warrior must needs protect his mount’s neck and head, with sword and, if necessary, vambraced forearms.

Karsa returned to where his father and Havok waited.

‘Bairoth and Delum await you at the ford,’ Synyg said.

‘Dayliss?’

Karsa could see nothing of his father’s expression as he replied tonelessly, ‘Dayliss voiced her blessing to Bairoth after you’d set out for the Faces in the Rock.’

‘She blessed Bairoth?’

‘She did.’

‘It seems I misjudged her,’ Karsa said, struggling against an unfamiliar stricture that tightened his voice.

‘Easy to do, for she is a woman.’

‘And you, Father? Will you give me your blessing?’

Synyg handed Karsa the lone rein and turned away. ‘Pahlk has already done so. Be satisfied with that.’

‘Pahlk is not my father!’

Synyg paused in the darkness, seemed to consider, then said, ‘No, he is not.’

‘Then will you bless me?’

‘What would you have me bless, son? The Seven Gods who are a lie? The glory that is empty? Will I be pleased in your slaying of children? In the trophies you will tie to your belt? My father, Pahlk, would polish bright his own youth, for he is of that age. What were his words of blessing, Karsa? That you surpass his achievements? I imagine not. Consider his words carefully, and I expect you will find that they served him more than you.’

‘ “Pahlk, Finder of the Path that you shall follow, blesses your journey.” Such were his words.’

Synyg was silent for a moment, and when he spoke his son could hear the grim smile though he could not see it. ‘As I said.’

‘Mother would have blessed me,’ Karsa snapped.

‘As a mother must. But her heart would have been heavy. Go, then, son. Your companions await you.’

With a snarl, Karsa swung himself onto the destrier’s broad back. Havok swung his head about at the unfamiliar seating, then snorted.

Synyg spoke from the gloom. ‘He dislikes carrying anger. Calm yourself, son.’

‘A warhorse afraid of anger is next to useless. Havok shall have to learn who rides him now.’ At that, Karsa drew a leg back and with a flick of the single rein swung the destrier smartly round. A gesture with his rein hand sent the horse forward onto the trail.

Four blood-posts, each marking one of Karsa’s sacrificed siblings, lined the path leading to the village. Unlike others, Synyg had left the carved posts unadorned; he had only gone so far as to cut the glyphs naming his three sons and one daughter given to the Faces in the Rock, followed by a splash of kin blood which had not lasted much beyond the first rain. Instead of braids winding up the man-high posts to a feathered and gut-knotted headdress at the peak, only vines entwined the weathered wood, and the blunted top was smeared with bird droppings.

Karsa knew the memory of his siblings deserved more, and he resolved to carry their names close to his lips at the moment of attack, that he might slay with their cries sharp in the air. His voice would be their voice, when that time arrived. They had suffered their father’s neglect for far too long.

The trail widened, flanked by old stumps and low-spreading juniper. Ahead, the lurid glare of hearths amidst dark, squat, conical houses glimmered through the woodsmoke haze. Near one of those firepits waited two mounted figures. A third shape, on foot, stood wrapped in furs to one side. Dayliss. She blessed Bairoth Gild, and now comes to see him off.

Karsa rode up to them, holding Havok back to a lazy lope. He was the leader, and he would make the truth of that plain. Bairoth and Delum awaited him, after all, and which of the three had gone to the Faces in the Rock? Dayliss had blessed a follower. Had Karsa held himself too aloof? Yet such was the burden of those who commanded. She must have understood that. It made no sense.

He halted his horse before them, was silent.

Bairoth was a heavier man, though not as tall as Karsa or, indeed, Delum. He possessed a bear-like quality that he had long since recognized and had come to self-consciously affect. He rolled his shoulders now, as if loosening them for the journey, and grinned. ‘A bold beginning, brother,’ he rumbled, ‘the theft of your father’s horse.’

‘I did not steal him, Bairoth. Synyg gave me both Havok and his blessing.’

‘A night of miracles, it seems. And did Urugal stride out from the rock to kiss your brow as well, Karsa Orlong?’

Dayliss snorted at that.

If he had indeed stridden onto mortal ground, he would have found but one of us three standing before him. To Bairoth’s jibe Karsa said nothing. He slowly swung his gaze to Dayliss. ‘You have blessed Bairoth?’

Her shrug was dismissive.

‘I grieve,’ Karsa said, ‘your loss of courage.’

Her eyes snapped to his with sudden fury.

Smiling, Karsa turned back to Bairoth and Delum. ‘ “The stars wheel. Let us ride.” ’

But Bairoth ignored the words and instead of voicing the ritual reply he growled, ‘Ill chosen, to unleash your wounded pride on her. Dayliss is to be my wife upon our return. To strike at her is to strike at me.’

Karsa went motionless. ‘But Bairoth,’ he said, low and smooth, ‘I strike where I will. A failing of courage can spread like a disease-has her blessing settled upon you as a curse? I am warleader. I invite you to challenge me, now, before we quit our home.’

Bairoth hunched his shoulders, slowly leaned forward. ‘It is no failing of courage,’ he grated, ‘that stays my hand, Karsa Orlong-’

‘I am pleased to hear it. “The stars wheel. Let us ride.” ’

Scowling at the interruption, Bairoth made to say something more, then stopped. He smiled, relaxing once again. He glanced over at Dayliss and nodded, as if silently reaffirming a secret, then intoned, ‘ “The stars wheel. Lead us, Warleader, into glory.” ’

Delum, who had watched all in silence, his face empty of expression, now spoke in turn. ‘ “Lead us, Warleader, into glory.” ’

Karsa in front, the three warriors rode the length of the village. The tribe’s elders had spoken against the journey, so no-one came out to watch them depart. Yet Karsa knew that none could escape hearing them pass, and he knew that, one day, they would come to regret that they had been witness to nothing more than the heavy, muffled thump of hoofs. None the less, he wished dearly for a witness other than Dayliss. Not even Pahlk had appeared.

Yet I feel as if we are indeed being watched. By the Seven perhaps. Urugal, risen to the height of the stars, riding the current of the wheel, gazing down upon us now. Hear me, Urugal! I, Karsa Orlong, shall slay for you a thousand children! A thousand souls to lay at your feet!

Nearby, a dog moaned in restless sleep, but did not awaken.

On the north valley side overlooking the village, at the very edge of the tree line, stood twenty-three silent witnesses to the departure of Karsa Orlong, Bairoth Gild and Delum Thord. Ghostly in the darkness between the broadleafed trees, they waited, motionless, until long after the three warriors had passed out of sight down the eastern track.

Uryd born, Uryd sacrificed, they were blood-kin to Karsa, Bairoth and Delum. In their fourth month of life they had each been given to the Faces in the Rock, laid down by their mothers in the glade at sunset. Offered to the Seven’s embrace, vanishing before the sun’s rise. Given, one and all, to a new mother.

Siballe’s children, then and now. Siballe, the Unfound, the lone goddess among the Seven without a tribe of her own. And so, she had created one, a secret tribe drawn from the six others, had taught them of their individual blood ties-in order to link them with their un-sacrificed kin. Taught them, as well, of their own special purpose, the destiny that would belong to them and them alone.

She called them her Found, and this was the name by which they knew themselves, the name of their own hidden tribe. Dwelling unseen in the midst of their kin, their very existence unimagined by anyone in any of the six tribes. There were some, they knew, who might suspect, but suspicion was all they possessed. Men such as Synyg, Karsa’s father, who treated the memorial blood-posts with indifference, if not contempt. Such men usually posed no real threat, although on occasion more extreme measures proved necessary when true risk was perceived. Such as with Karsa’s mother.

The twenty-three Found who stood witness to the beginning of the warriors’ journey, hidden among the trees of the valley side, were by blood the brothers and sisters of Karsa, Bairoth and Delum, yet they were strangers as well, though at that moment that detail seemed to matter little.

‘One shall make it.’ This from Bairoth’s eldest brother.

Delum’s twin sister shrugged in reply and said, ‘We shall be here, then, upon that one’s return.’

‘So we shall.’

Another trait was shared by all of the Found. Siballe had marked her children with a savage scar, a stripping away of flesh and muscle on the left side-from temple down to jawline-of each face, and with that destruction the capacity for expression had been severely diminished. Features on the left were fixed in a downturned grimace, as if in permanent dismay. In some strange manner, the physical scarring had also stripped inflection from their voices-or perhaps Siballe’s own toneless voice had proved an overwhelming influence.

Thus bereft of intonation, words of hope had a way of ringing false to their own ears, sufficient to silence those who had spoken.

One would make it.

Perhaps.

Synyg continued stirring the stew at the cookfire when the door opened behind him. A soft wheeze, a dragged foot, the clatter of a walking stick against the doorframe. Then a harsh accusatory question.

‘Did you bless your son?’

‘I gave him Havok, Father.’

Somehow Pahlk filled a single word with contempt, disgust and suspicion all at once: ‘Why?’

Synyg still did not turn as he listened to his father make a tortured journey to the chair closest to the hearth. ‘Havok deserved a final battle, one I knew I would not give him. So.’

‘So, as I thought.’ Pahlk settled into the chair with a pained grunt. ‘For your horse, but not for your son.’

‘Are you hungry?’ Synyg asked.

‘I will not deny you the gesture.’

Synyg allowed himself a small, bitter smile, then reached over to collect a second bowl and set it down beside his own.

‘He would batter down a mountain,’ Pahlk growled, ‘to see you stir from your straw.’

‘What he does is not for me, Father, it is for you.’

‘He perceives only the fiercest glory possible will achieve what is necessary-the inundation of the shame that is you, Synyg. You are the straggly bush between two towering trees, child of one and sire to the other. This is why he reached out to me, reached out-do you fret and chafe there in the shadows between Karsa and me? Too bad, the choice was always yours.’

Synyg filled both bowls and straightened to hand one to his father. ‘The scar around an old wound feels nothing,’ he said.

‘To feel nothing is not a virtue.’

Smiling, Synyg sat in the other chair. ‘Tell me a tale, Father, as you once did. Those days following your triumph. Tell me again of the children you killed. Of the women you cut down. Tell me of the burning homesteads, the screams of the cattle and sheep trapped in the flames. I would see those fires once more, rekindled in your eyes. Stir the ashes, Father.’

‘When you speak these days, son, all I hear is that damned woman.’

‘Eat, Father, lest you insult me and my home.’

‘I shall.’

‘You were ever a mindful guest.’

‘True.’

No more words were exchanged until both men had finished their meals. Then Synyg set down his bowl. He rose and collected Pahlk’s bowl as well, then, turning, he threw it into the fire.

His father’s eyes widened.

Synyg stared down at him. ‘Neither of us shall live to see Karsa’s return. The bridge between you and me is now swept away. Come to my door again, Father, and I shall kill you.’ He reached down with both hands and pulled Pahlk upright, dragged the sputtering old man to the door and without ceremony threw him outside. The walking stick followed.

They travelled the old trail that paralleled the spine of the mountains. Old rockslides obscured the path here and there, dragging firs and cedars down towards the valley below, and in these places bushes and broadleafed trees had found a foothold, making passage difficult. Two days and three nights ahead lay Rathyd lands, and of all the other Teblor tribes it was the Rathyd with whom the Uryd feuded the most. Raids and vicious murders entangled the two tribes together in a skein of hatred that stretched back centuries.

Passing unseen through Rathyd territories was not what Karsa had in mind. He intended to carve a bloody path through real and imagined insults with a vengeful blade, gathering a score or more Teblor souls to his name in the process. The two warriors riding behind him, he well knew, believed that the journey ahead would be one of stealth and subterfuge. They were, after all, but three.

But Urugal is with us, in this, his season. And we shall announce ourselves in his name, and in blood. We shall shock awake the hornets in their nest, and the Rathyd shall come to know, and fear, the name of Karsa Orlong. As will the Sunyd, in their turn.

The warhorses moved cautiously across the loose scree of a recent slide. There had been a lot of snow the past winter, more than Karsa could recall in his lifetime. Long before the Faces in the Rock awoke to proclaim to the elders, within dreams and trances, that they had defeated the old Teblor spirits and now demanded obeisance; long before the taking of enemy souls had become foremost among Teblor aspirations, the spirits that had ruled the land and its people were the bones of rock, the flesh of earth, the hair and fur of forest and glen, and their breath was the wind of each season. Winter arrived and departed with violent storms high in the mountains, the savage exertions of the spirits in their eternal, mutual war. Summer and winter were as one: motionless and dry, but the former revealed exhaustion while the latter evinced an icy, fragile peace. Accordingly, the Teblor viewed summers with sympathy for the battle-weary spirits, while they detested winters for the weakness of the ascendant combatants, for there was no value in the illusion of peace.

Less than a score days remained in this, the season of spring. The high storms were diminishing, both in frequency and fury. Though the Faces in the Rock had long ago destroyed the old spirits and were, it seemed, indifferent to the passage of seasons, Karsa secretly envisioned himself and his two companion warriors as harbingers of one last storm. Their bloodwood swords would echo ancient rages among the unsuspecting Rathyd and Sunyd.

They cleared the recent slide. The path ahead wound down into a shallow valley with a highland meadow open to the bright afternoon sunlight.

Bairoth spoke behind Karsa. ‘We should camp on the other side of this valley, Warleader. The horses need rest.’

‘Perhaps your horse needs rest, Bairoth,’ Karsa replied. ‘You’ve too many feast nights on your bones. This journey shall make a warrior of you once again, I trust. Your back has known too much straw of late.’ With Dayliss riding you.

Bairoth laughed, but made no other reply.

Delum called, ‘My horse needs rest as well, Warleader. The glade ahead should make a good camp. There are rabbit runs here and I would set my snare.’

Karsa shrugged. ‘Two weighted chains about me, then. The warcries of your stomachs leave me deafened. So be it. We shall camp.’

There would be no fire, so they ate the rabbits Delum had caught raw. Once, such fare would have been risky, for rabbits often carried diseases that could only be killed by cooking, most of them fatal to the Teblor. But since the coming of the Faces in the Rock, illnesses had vanished among the tribes. Madness, it was true, still plagued them, but this had nothing to do with what was eaten or drunk. At times, the elders had explained, the burdens laid upon a man by the Seven proved too powerful. A mind must be strong, and strength was found in faith. For the weak man, for the man who knew doubt, rules and rites could become a cage, and imprisonment led to madness.

They sat around a small pit Delum had dug for the rabbit bones, saying little through the course of the meal. Overhead, the sky slowly lost its colour, and the stars had begun their wheel. In the gathering gloom Karsa listened to Bairoth sucking at a rabbit skull. He was ever last to finish, for he left nothing and would even gnaw, on the next day, the thin layer of fat from the underside of the skin. Finally, Bairoth tossed the empty skull into the pit and sat back, licking his fingers.

‘I have given,’ Delum said, ‘some thought as to the journey ahead. Through Rathyd and Sunyd lands. We should not take trails that set us against skyline or even bare rock. Therefore, we must take lower paths. Yet these are ones that will lead us closest to camps. We must, I think, shift our travelling to night.’

‘Better, then,’ Bairoth nodded, ‘to count coup. To turn the hearthstones and steal feathers. Perhaps a few lone sleeping warriors can give us their souls.’

Karsa spoke. ‘Hiding by day, we see little smoke to tell us where the camps are. At night, the wind swirls, so it will not help us find the hearths. The Rathyd and Sunyd are not fools. They will not build fires beneath overhangs or against rock-faces-we shall find no welcoming wash of light on stone. Also, our horses see better during the day, and are more sure-footed. We shall ride by day,’ he finished.

Neither Bairoth nor Delum said anything for a moment.

Then Bairoth cleared his throat. ‘We shall find ourselves in a war, Karsa.’

‘We shall be as an arrow of the Lanyd in its flight through a forest, changing direction with each twig, branch and bole. We shall gather souls, Bairoth, in a roaring storm. War? Yes. Do you fear war, Bairoth Gild?’

Delum said, ‘We are three, Warleader.’

‘Aye, we are Karsa Orlong, Bairoth Gild and Delum Thord. I have faced twenty-four warriors and have slain them all. I dance without equal-would you deny it? Even the elders have spoken in awe. And you, Delum, I see eighteen tongues looped on the thong at your hip. You can read a ghost’s trail, and hear a pebble roll over from twenty paces. And Bairoth, in the days when all he carried was muscle-you, Bairoth, did you not break a Buryd’s spine with your bare hands? Did you not drag a warhorse down? That ferocity but sleeps within you and this journey shall awaken it once more. Any other three… aye, glide the dark winding ways and turn hearthstones and pluck feathers and crush a few windpipes among sleeping foes. A worthy enough glory for any other three warriors. For us? No. Your warleader has spoken.’

Bairoth grinned over at Delum. ‘Let us gaze upward and witness the wheel, Delum Thord, for scant few such sights remain to us.’

Karsa slowly rose. ‘You follow your warleader, Bairoth Gild. You do not question him. Your faltering courage threatens to poison us all. Believe in victory, warrior, or turn back now.’

Bairoth shrugged and leaned back, stretching out his hide-wrapped legs. ‘You are a great warleader, Karsa Orlong, but sadly blind to humour. I have faith that you shall indeed find the glory you seek, and that Delum and I shall shine as lesser moons, yet shine none the less. For us, it is enough. You may cease questioning that, Warleader. We are here, with you-’

‘Challenging my wisdom!’

‘Wisdom is not a subject we have as yet discussed,’ Bairoth replied. ‘We are warriors as you said, Karsa. And we are young. Wisdom belongs to old men.’

‘Yes, the elders,’ Karsa snapped. ‘Who would not bless our journey!’

Bairoth laughed. ‘That is our truth and we must carry it with us, unchanged and bitter in our hearts. But upon our return, Warleader, we shall find that that truth has changed in our absence. The blessing will have been given after all. Wait and see.’

Karsa’s eyes widened. ‘The elders will lie!’

‘Of course they will lie. And they will expect us to accept their new truths, and we shall-no, we must, Karsa Orlong. The glory of our success must serve to bind the people together-to hold it close is not only selfish, it is potentially deadly. Think on this, Warleader. We will be returning to the village with our own claims. Aye, no doubt a few trophies with us to add proof to our tale, but if we do not share out that glory then the elders will see to it that our claims shall know the poison of disbelief.’

‘Disbelief?’

‘Aye. They will believe but only if they can partake of our glory. They will believe us, but only if we in turn believe them-their reshaping of the past, the blessing that was not given, now given, all the villagers lining our ride out. They were all there, or so they will tell you, and, eventually, they will themselves come to believe it, and will have the scenes carved into their minds. Does this still confuse you, Karsa? If so, then we’d best not speak of wisdom.’

‘The Teblor do not play games of deceit,’ Karsa growled.

Bairoth studied him for a moment, then he nodded. ‘True, they do not.’

Delum pushed soil and stones into the pit. ‘It is time to sleep,’ he said, rising to check one last time on the hobbled horses.

Karsa eyed Bairoth. His mind is as a Lanyd arrow in the forest, but will that aid him when our bloodwood blades are out and battlecries sound on all sides? This is what comes when muscle turns to fat and straw clings to your back. Duelling with words will win you nothing, Bairoth Gild, except perhaps that your tongue will not dry out as quickly on a Rathyd warrior’s belt.

[missing text?]

‘At least eight,’ Delum murmured. ‘With perhaps one youth. There are indeed two hearths. They have hunted the grey bear that dwells in caves, and carry a trophy with them.’

‘Meaning they are full of themselves.’ Bairoth nodded. ‘That’s good.’

Karsa frowned at Bairoth. ‘Why?’

‘The cast of the enemy’s mind, Warleader. They will be feeling invincible, and this will make them careless. Do they have horses, Delum?’

‘No. Grey bears know the sound of hoofs too well. If they brought dogs on the hunt, none survived for the return journey.’

‘Better still.’

They had dismounted, and now crouched near the edge of the tree line. Delum had slipped ahead to scout the Rathyd encampment. His passage through the tall grasses, knee-high stumps and brush of the slope beyond the trees had not stirred a single blade or leaf.

The sun was high overhead, the air dry, hot and motionless.

‘Eight,’ Bairoth said. He grinned at Karsa. ‘And a youth. He should be taken first.’

To make the survivors know shame. He expects us to lose. ‘Leave him to me,’ Karsa said. ‘My charge will be fierce, and will take me to the other side of the camp. The warriors still standing will turn to face me one and all. That is when you two will charge.’

Delum blinked. ‘You would have us strike from behind?’

‘To even the numbers, yes. Then we shall each settle to our duels.’

‘Will you dodge and duck in your pass?’ Bairoth asked, his eyes glittering.

‘No, I will strike.’

‘They will bind you, then, Warleader, and you shall fail in reaching the far side.’

‘I will not be bound, Bairoth Gild.’

‘There are nine of them.’

‘Then watch me dance.’

Delum asked, ‘Why do we not use our horses, Warleader?’

‘I am tired of talking. Follow, but at a slower pace.’

Bairoth and Delum shared an unreadable look, then Bairoth shrugged. ‘We will be your witnesses, then.’

Karsa unslung his bloodwood sword, closing both hands around the leather-wrapped grip. The blade’s wood was deep red, almost black, the glassy polish making the painted warcrest seem to float a finger’s width above the surface. The weapon’s edge was almost translucent, where the blood-oil rubbed into the grain had hardened, coming to replace the wood. There were no nicks or notches along the edge, only a slight rippling of the line where damage had repaired itself, for blood-oil clung to its memory and would little tolerate denting or scarring. Karsa held the weapon out before him, then slipped forward through the high grasses, quickening into the dance as he went.

Reaching the boar trail leading into the forest that Delum had pointed out, he hunched lower and slipped onto its hard-packed, flattened track without breaking stride. The broad, tapered sword-point seemed to lead him forward as if cutting its own silent, unerring path through the shadows and shafts of light. He picked up greater speed.

In the centre of the Rathyd camp, three of the eight adult warriors were crouched around a slab of bear meat that they had just unwrapped from a fold of deer hide. Two others sat nearby with their weapons across their thighs, rubbing the thick blood-oil into the blades. The remaining three stood speaking to one another less than three paces from the mouth of the boar trail. The youth was at the far end.

Karsa’s sprint was at its peak when he reached the glade. At distances of seventy paces or less, a Teblor could run alongside a galloping warhorse. His arrival was explosive. One moment, eight warriors and one youth at rest in a clearing, the next, the tops of the heads of two of the standing warriors were cut off in a single horizontal blow. Scalp and bone flew, blood and brain sprayed and spat across the face of the third Rathyd. This man reeled back, and pivoted to his left to see the return swing of Karsa’s sword, as it swept under his chin, then was gone from sight. Eyes, still held wide, watched the scene tilt wildly before darkness burgeoned.

Still moving, Karsa leapt high to avoid the warrior’s head as it thudded and rolled across the ground.

The Rathyd who had been oiling their swords had already straightened and readied their weapons. They split away from each other and darted forward to take Karsa from either side.

He laughed, twisting around to plunge among the three warriors whose bloodied hands held but butchering knives. Snapping his sword into a close-quarter guard, he ducked low. Three small blades each found their mark, slicing through leathers, skin and into muscle. Momentum propelled Karsa through the press, and he took those knives with him, spinning to rip his sword through a pair of arms, then up into an armpit, tearing the shoulder away, the scapula coming with it-a curved plate of purple bone latticed in veins attached by a skein of ligaments to a twitching arm that swung in its flight to reach skyward.

A body dived with a snarl to wrap burly arms around Karsa’s legs. Still laughing, the Uryd warleader punched down with his sword, the pommel crunching through the top of the warrior’s skull. The arms spasmed and fell away.

A sword hissed towards his neck from the right. Still in close-quarter guard, Karsa spun to take the blade with his own, the impact ringing both weapons with a pealing, sonorous sound.

He heard the closing step of the Rathyd behind him, felt the air cleave to the blade swinging in towards his left shoulder, and he pitched instantly down and to his right. Wheeling his own sword around, arms extending as he fell. The edge swept above and past the warrior’s savage downstroke, cut through a pair of thick wrists, then tore through abdomen, from belly-button and across, between ribcage and point of hip, then bursting clear.

Still spinning as he toppled, he renewed the swing that had been staggered by bone and flesh, twisting his shoulders to follow the blade as it passed beneath him, then around to the other side. The slash cleared the ground at a level that took the last Rathyd’s left leg at the ankle. Then the ground hammered into Karsa’s right shoulder. Rolling away, his sword trailing crossways across his own body, deflecting but not quite defeating a downward blow-fire tearing into his right hip-then he was beyond the warrior’s reach-and the man was shrieking and stumbling an awkward retreat.

Karsa’s roll brought him upright once more, into a crouch that spurted blood down his right leg, that sent stinging stabs into his left side, his back beneath his right shoulder blade, and his left thigh where the knives were still buried.

He found himself facing the youth.

No more than forty, not yet at his full height, lean of limb as the Unready often were. Eyes filled with horror.

Karsa winked, then wheeled around to close on the one-footed warrior.

His shrieks had grown frenzied, and Karsa saw that Bairoth and Delum had reached him and had joined in the game, their blades taking the other foot and both hands. The Rathyd was on the ground between them, limbs jerking and spurting blood across the trampled grass.

Karsa glanced back to see the youth fleeing towards the woods. The warleader smiled.

Bairoth and Delum began chasing the floundering Rathyd warrior about, chopping pieces from his flailing limbs.

They were angry, Karsa knew. He had left them nothing. Ignoring his two companions and their brutal torture, he plucked the butchering knife from his thigh. Blood welled but did not spurt, telling him that no major artery or vein had been touched. The knife in his left side had skittered along ribs and lay embedded flat beneath skin and a few layers of muscle. He drew the weapon out and tossed it aside. The last knife, sunk deep into his back, was harder to reach and it took a few attempts before he managed to find a sure clasp of its smeared handle and then pull it out. A longer blade would have reached his heart. As it was, it would probably be the most irritating of the three minor wounds. The sword-cut into his hip and through part of a buttock was slightly more serious. It would have to be carefully sewn, and would make both riding and walking painful for a while.

Loss of blood or a fatal blow had silenced the dismembered Rathyd, and Karsa heard Bairoth’s heavy steps approach. Another scream announced Delum’s examination of the other fallen. ‘Warleader.’ Anger made the voice taut. Karsa slowly turned. ‘Bairoth Gild.’

The heavy warrior’s face was dark. ‘You let the youth escape. We must hunt him, now, and it will not be easy for these are his lands, not ours.’

‘He is meant to escape,’ Karsa replied. Bairoth scowled.

‘You’re the clever one,’ Karsa pointed out, ‘why should this baffle you so?’

‘He reaches his village.’

‘Aye.’

‘And tells of the attack. Three Uryd warriors. There is rage and frenzied preparations.’ Bairoth allowed himself a small nod as he continued. ‘A hunt sets out, seeking three Uryd warriors. Who are on foot. The youth is certain on this. Had the Uryd had horses, they would have used them, of course. Three against eight, to do otherwise is madness. So the hunt confines itself, in what it seeks, in its frame of thought, in all things. Three Uryd warriors, on foot.’

Delum had joined them, and now eyed Karsa without expression.

Karsa said, ‘Delum Thord would speak.’

‘I would, Warleader. The youth, you have placed an image in his mind. It will harden there, its colours will not fade, but sharpen. The echo of screams will become louder in his skull. Familiar faces, frozen eternal in expressions of pain. This youth, Karsa Orlong, will become an adult. And he will not be content to follow, he will lead. He must lead; and none shall challenge his fierceness, the gleaming wood of his will, the oil of his desire. Karsa Orlong, you have made an enemy for the Uryd, an enemy to pale all we have known in the past.’

‘One day,’ Karsa said, ‘that Rathyd warleader shall kneel before me. This, I vow, here, on the blood of his kin, I so vow.’

The air was suddenly chill. Silence hung in the glade except for the muted buzz of flies.

Delum’s eyes were wide, his expression one of fear.

Bairoth turned away. ‘That vow shall destroy you, Karsa Orlong. No Rathyd kneels before an Uryd. Unless you prop his lifeless corpse against a tree stump. You now seek the impossible, and that is a path to madness.’

‘One vow among many I have made,’ Karsa said. ‘And each shall be kept. Witness, if you dare.’

Bairoth paused from studying the grey bear’s fur and defleshed skull-the Rathyd trophies-and glanced back at Karsa. ‘Do we have a choice?’

‘If you still breathe, then the answer is no, Bairoth Gild.’

‘Remind me to tell you one day, Karsa Orlong.’

‘Tell me of what?’

‘What life is like, for those of us in your shadow.’

Delum stepped close to Karsa. ‘You have wounds that need mending, Warleader.’

‘Aye, but for now, only the sword-cut. We must return to our horses and ride.’

‘Like a Lanyd arrow.’

‘Aye, just so, Delum Thord.’

Bairoth called out, ‘Karsa Orlong, I shall collect for you your trophies.’

‘Thank you, Bairoth Gild. We shall take that fur and skull, as well. You and Delum may keep those.’

Delum turned to face Bairoth. ‘Take them, brother. The grey bear better suits you than me.’

Bairoth nodded his thanks, then waved towards the dismembered warrior. ‘His ears and tongue are yours, Delum Thord.’

‘It is so, then.’

Among the Teblor, the Rathyd bred the fewest horses; despite this, there were plenty of wide runs from glade to glade down which Karsa and his companions could ride. In one of the clearings they had come upon an adult and two youths tending to six destriers. They had ridden them down, blades flashing, pausing only to collect trophies and gather up the horses, each taking two on a lead. An hour before darkness fell, they came to a forking of the trail, rode down the lower of the two for thirty paces, then released the leads and drove the Rathyd horses on. The three Uryd warriors then slipped a single, short rope around the necks of their own mounts, just above the collar bones, and with gentle, alternating tugs walked them backwards until they reached the fork, whereupon they proceeded onto the higher trail. Fifty paces ahead, Delum dismounted and backtracked to obscure their trail.

With the wheel taking shape overhead, they cut away from the rocky path and found a small clearing in which they made camp. Bairoth cut slices from the bear meat and they ate. Delum then rose to attend to the horses, using wet moss to wipe them down. The beasts were tired and left unhobbled to allow them to walk the clearing and stretch their necks.

Examining his wounds, Karsa noted that they had already begun to knit. So it was among the Teblor. Satisfied, he found his flask of blood-oil and set to repairing his weapon. Delum rejoined them and he and Bairoth followed suit.

‘Tomorrow,’ Karsa said, ‘we leave this trail.’

‘Down to the wider, easier ones in the valley?’ Bairoth asked.

‘If we are quick,’ Delum said, ‘we can pass through Rathyd land in a single day.’

‘No, we lead our horses higher, onto the goat and sheep trails,’ Karsa replied. ‘And we reverse our path for the length of the morning. Then we ride down into the valley once more. Bairoth Gild, with the hunt out, who will remain in the village?’

The heavy man drew out his new bear cloak and wrapped it about himself before answering. ‘Youths. Women. The old and the crippled.’

‘Dogs?’

‘No, the hunt will have taken those. So, Warleader, we attack the village.’

‘Yes. Then we find the hunt’s trail.’

Delum drew a deep breath and was slow in its release. ‘Karsa Orlong, the village of our victims thus far is not the only village. In the first valley alone there are at least three more. Word will go out. Every warrior will ready his sword. Every dog will be unleashed and sent out into the forest. The warriors may not find us, but the dogs will.’

‘And then,’ Bairoth growled, ‘there are three more valleys to cross.’

‘Small ones,’ Karsa pointed out. ‘And we cross them at the south ends, a day or more hard riding from the north mouths and the heart of the Rathyd lands.’

Delum said, ‘There will be such a foment of anger pursuing us, Warleader, that they will follow us into the valleys of the Sunyd.’

Karsa flipped the blade on his thighs to begin work on the other side. ‘So I hope, Delum Thord. Answer me this, when last have the Sunyd seen an Uryd?’

‘Your grandfather,’ Bairoth said.

Karsa nodded. ‘And we well know the Rathyd warcry, do we not?’

‘You would start a war between the Rathyd and Sunyd?’

‘Aye, Bairoth.’

The warrior slowly shook his head. ‘We are not yet done with the Rathyd, Karsa Orlong. You plan too far in advance, Warleader.’

‘Witness what comes, Bairoth Gild.’

Bairoth picked up the bear skull. The lower jaw still hung from it by a single strip of gristle. He snapped it off and tossed it to one side. Then he drew out a spare bundle of leather straps. He began tightly wrapping the cheek bones, leaving long lengths dangling beneath.

Karsa watched these efforts curiously. The skull was too heavy even for Bairoth to wear as a helm. Moreover, he would need to break the bone away on the underside, where it was thickest around the hole that the spinal cord made.

Delum rose. ‘I shall sleep now,’ he announced, moving off.

‘Karsa Orlong,’ Bairoth said, ‘do you have spare straps?’

‘You are welcome to them,’ Karsa replied, also rising. ‘Be sure to sleep this night, Bairoth Gild.’

‘I will.’

For the first hour of light they heard dogs in the forested valley floor below. These faded as they backtracked along a high cliffside path. When the sun was directly overhead, Delum found a downward wending trail and they began the descent.

Midway through the afternoon, they came upon stump-crowded clearings and could smell the smoke of the village. Delum dismounted and slipped ahead.

He returned a short while later. ‘As you surmised, Warleader. I saw eleven elders, thrice as many women, and thirteen youths-all very young, I imagine the older ones are with the hunt. No horses. No dogs.’ He climbed back onto his horse.

The three Uryd warriors readied their swords. They then each drew out their flasks of blood-oil and sprinkled a few drops around the nostrils of their destriers. Heads snapped back, muscles tensed.

‘I have the right flank,’ Bairoth said.

‘And I the centre,’ Karsa announced.

‘And so I the left,’ Delum said, then frowned. ‘They will scatter from you, Warleader.’

‘I am feeling generous today, Delum Thord. This village shall be to the glory of you and Bairoth. Be sure that no-one escapes on the other side.’

‘None shall.’

‘And if any woman seeks to fire a house to turn the hunt, slay her.’

‘They would not be so foolish,’ Bairoth said. ‘If they do not resist they shall have our seed, but they shall live.’

The three removed the reins from their horses and looped them around their waists. They edged further onto their mounts’ shoulders and drew their knees up.

Karsa slipped his wrist through the sword’s thong and whirled the weapon once through the air to tighten it. The others did the same. Beneath him, Havok trembled.

‘Lead us, Warleader,’ Delum said.

A slight pressure launched Havok forward, three strides into a canter, slow and almost loping as they crossed the stump-filled glade. A slight shifting to the left led them towards the main path. Reaching it, Karsa lifted his sword into the destrier’s range of vision. The beast surged into a gallop.

Seven lengthening strides brought them to the village. Karsa’s companions had already split away to either side to come up behind the houses, leaving him the main artery. He saw figures there, directly ahead, heads turning. A scream rang through the air. Children scattered.

Sword lashed out, chopped down easily through young bone. Karsa glanced to his right and Havok shifted direction, hoofs kicking out to gather in and trample an elder. They plunged onward, pursuing, butchering. On the far sides of the houses, beyond the refuse trenches, more screams sounded.

Karsa reached the far end. He saw a single youth racing for the trees and drove after him. The lad carried a practice sword. Hearing the heavy thump of Havok’s charge closing fast-and with the safety of the forest still too far in front of him-he wheeled.

Karsa’s swing cut through practice sword then neck. A head thrust from Havok sent the youth’s decapitated body sprawling.

I lost a cousin in such a manner. Ridden down by a Rathyd. Ears and tongue taken. Body strung by one foot from a branch. The head propped beneath, smeared in excrement. The deed is answered. Answered.

Havok slowed, then wheeled.

Karsa looked back upon the village. Bairoth and Delum had done their slaughter and were now herding the women into the clearing surrounding the village hearth.

At a trot, Havok carried him back into the village.

‘The chief’s own belong to me,’ Karsa announced.

Bairoth and Delum nodded, and he could see their heightened spirits, from the ease with which they surrendered the privilege. Bairoth faced the women and gestured with his sword. A middle-aged, handsome woman stepped forward, followed by a younger version-a lass perhaps the same age as Dayliss. Both studied Karsa as carefully as he did them.

‘Bairoth Gild and Delum Thord, take your first among the others. I will guard.’

The two warriors grinned, dismounted and plunged among the women to select one each. They vanished into separate houses, leading their prizes by the hand.

Karsa watched with raised brows.

The chief’s wife snorted. ‘Your warriors were not blind to the eagerness of those two,’ she said.

‘Their warriors, be they father or mate, will not be pleased with such eagerness,’ Karsa commented. Uryd women would not-

‘They will never know, Warleader,’ the chief’s wife replied, ‘unless you tell them, and what is the likelihood of that? They will spare you no time for taunts before killing you. Ah, but I see now,’ she added, stepping closer to stare up at his face. ‘You thought to believe that Uryd women are different, and now you realize the lie of that. All men are fools, but now you are perhaps a little less so, as truth steals into your heart. What is your name, Warleader?’

‘You talk too much,’ Karsa growled, then he drew himself straight. ‘I am Karsa Orlong, grandson of Pahlk-’

‘Pahlk?’

‘Aye.’ Karsa grinned. ‘I see you recall him.’

‘I was a child, but yes, he is well known among us.’

‘He lives still, and sleeps calm despite the curses you have laid upon his name.’

She laughed. ‘Curses? There are none. Pahlk bowed his head to beg passage through our lands-’

‘You lie!’

She studied him, then shrugged. ‘As you say.’

One of the women cried out from one of the houses, a cry more pleasure than pain.

The chief’s wife turned her head. ‘How many of us will take your seed, Warleader?’

Karsa settled back. ‘All of you. Eleven each.’

‘And how many days will that take? You want us to cook for you as well?’

‘Days? You think as an old woman. We are young. And, if need be, we have blood-oil.’

The woman’s eyes widened. The others behind her began murmuring and whispering. The chief’s wife spun and silenced them with a look, then she faced Karsa once more. ‘You have never used blood-oil in this fashion before, have you? It is true, you will know fire in your loins. You will know stiffness for days to come. But, Warleader, you do not know what it will do to each of us women. I do, for I too was young and foolish once. Even my husband’s strength could not keep my teeth from his throat, and he carries the scars still. There is more. What for you will last less than a week, haunts us for months.’

‘And so,’ Karsa replied, ‘if we do not kill your husbands, you will upon their return. I am pleased.’

‘You three will not survive the night.’

‘It will be interesting, do you not think,’ Karsa smiled, ‘who among Bairoth, Delum and me will find need for it first.’ He addressed all the women. ‘I suggest to each of you to be eager, so you are not the first to fail us.’

Bairoth appeared, nodded at Karsa.

The chief’s wife sighed and waved her daughter forward.

‘No,’ Karsa said.

The woman stopped, suddenly confused. ‘But… will you not want a child from this? Your first will carry the most seed-’

‘Aye, it will. Are you past bearing age?’

After a long moment, she shook her head. ‘Karsa Orlong,’ she whispered, ‘you invite my husband to set upon you a curse-he will burn blood on the stone lips of Imroth herself.’

‘Yes, that is likely.’ Karsa dismounted and approached her. ‘Now, lead me to your house.’

She drew back. ‘The house of my husband? Warleader-no, please, let us choose another one-’

‘Your husband’s house,’ Karsa growled. ‘I am done talking and so are you.’

An hour before dusk, and Karsa led the last of his prizes towards the house-the chief’s daughter. He and Bairoth and Delum had not needed the blood-oil, a testament, Bairoth claimed, to Uryd prowess, though Karsa suspected the true honour belonged to the zeal and desperate creativity of the women of the Rathyd, and even then, the last few for each of the warriors had been peremptory.

As he drew the young woman into the gloomy house with its dying hearth, Karsa swung shut the door and dropped the latch. She turned to face him, a curious tilt to her chin.

‘Mother said you were surprisingly gentle.’

He eyed her. She is as Dayliss, yet not. There is no dark streak within this one. That is… a difference. ‘Remove your clothes.’

She quickly climbed out of the one-piece hide tunic. ‘Had I been first, Karsa Orlong, I would have made home for your seed. Such is this day in my wheel of time.’

‘You would have been proud?’

She paused to give him a startled look, then shook her head. ‘You have slain all the children, all the elders. It will be centuries before our village recovers, and indeed it may not, for the anger of the warriors may turn them on each other, and on us women-should you escape.’

‘Escape? Lie down, there, where your mother did. Karsa Orlong is not interested in escape.’ He moved forward to stand over her. ‘Your warriors will not be returning. The life of this village is ended, and within many of you there shall be the seed of the Uryd. Go there, all of you, to live among my people. And you and your mother, go to the village where I was born. Await me. Raise your children, my children, as Uryd.’

‘You make bold claims, Karsa Orlong.’

He began removing his leathers.

‘More than claims, I see,’ she observed. ‘No need, then, for blood-oil.’

‘We will save the blood-oil, you and I, for my return.’

Her eyes widened and she leaned back as he moved down over her. In a small voice, she asked, ‘Do you not wish to know my name?’

‘No,’ he growled. ‘I will call you Dayliss.’

And he saw nothing of the shame that filled her young, beautiful face. Nor did he sense the darkness his words clawed into her soul.

Within her, as within her mother, Karsa Orlong’s seed found a home.

A late storm had descended from the mountains, devouring the stars. Treetops thrashed to a wind that made no effort to reach lower, creating a roar of sound overhead and a strange calm among the boles. Lightning flickered, but the thunder’s voice was long in coming.

They rode through an hour of darkness, then found an old campsite near the trail the hunt had left. The Rathyd warriors had been careless in their fury, leaving far too many signs of their passage. Delum judged that there were twelve adults and four youths on horseback in this particular party, perhaps a third of the village’s entire strength. The dogs had already been set loose to range in packs on their own, and none accompanied the group the Uryd now pursued.

Karsa was well pleased. The hornets were out of the nest, yet flying blind.

They ate once more of the ageing bear meat, then Bairoth once again unwrapped the bear skull and resumed winding straps, this time around the snout, pulling them taut between the teeth. The ends left dangling were long, an arm and a half in length. Karsa now understood what Bairoth was fashioning. Often, two or three wolf skulls were employed for this particular weapon-only a man of Bairoth’s strength and weight could manage the same with the skull of a grey bear. ‘Bairoth Gild, what you create shall make a bright thread in the legend we are weaving.’

The man grunted. ‘I care nothing for legends, Warleader. But soon, we shall be facing Rathyd on destriers.’

Karsa smiled in the darkness, said nothing.

A soft wind flowed down from upslope.

Delum lifted his head suddenly and rose in silence. ‘I smell wet fur,’ he said.

There had been no rain as yet.

Karsa removed his sword harness and laid the weapon down. ‘Bairoth,’ he whispered, ‘remain here. Delum, take with you your brace of knives-leave your sword.’ He rose and gestured. ‘Lead.’

‘Warleader,’ Delum murmured. ‘It is a pack, driven down from the high ground by the storm. They have no scent of us, yet their ears are sharp.’

‘Do you not think,’ Karsa asked, ‘that they would have set to howling if they had heard us?’

Bairoth snorted. ‘Delum, beneath this roar they have heard nothing.’

But Delum shook his head. ‘There are high sounds and there are low sounds, Bairoth Gild, and they each travel their own stream.’ He swung to Karsa. ‘To your question, Warleader, this answer: possibly not, if they are unsure whether we are Uryd or Rathyd.’

Karsa grinned. ‘Even better. Take me to them, Delum Thord. I have thought long on this matter of Rathyd dogs, the loosed packs. Take me to them, and keep your throwing knives close to hand.’

Havok and the other two destriers had quietly flanked the warriors during the conversation, and now all faced upslope, ears pricked forward.

After a moment’s hesitation, Delum shrugged and, crouching, set off into the woods. Karsa followed.

The slope grew steeper after a score of paces. There was no path, and fallen tree trunks made traverse difficult and slow, though thick swaths of damp moss made the passage of the two Teblor warriors virtually noiseless. They reached a flatter shelf perhaps fifteen paces wide and ten deep, a high crack-riven cliff opposite. A few trees leaned against the rock, grey with death. Delum scanned the cliff side, then made to move towards a narrow, dirt-filled crevasse near the left end of the cliff that served as a game trail, but Karsa restrained him with a hand.

He leaned close. ‘How far ahead?’

‘Fifty heartbeats. We’ve still time to make this climb-’

‘No. We position ourselves here. Take that ledge to the right and have your knives ready.’

With baffled expression, Delum did as he was told. The ledge was halfway up the cliffside. Within moments he was in place.

Karsa moved towards the game trail. A dead pine had fallen from above, taking the same path in its descent, coming to rest half a pace to the trail’s left. Karsa reached it and gave the trunk a nudge. The wood was still sound. He quickly climbed it, then, feet resting on branches, he twisted round until he faced the flat expanse of shelf, the game trail now almost within arm’s reach to his left, the bole and cliff at his back.

Then he waited. He could not see Delum from his position unless he leaned forward, which might well pull the tree away from the cliffside, taking him with it in a loud, probably damaging fall. He would have to trust, therefore, that Delum would grasp what he intended, and act accordingly when the time came.

A skitter of stones down the trail.

The dogs had begun the descent.

Karsa drew a slow, deep breath and held it.

The pack’s leader would not be the first. Most likely the second, a safe beat or two behind the scout.

The first dog scrambled past Karsa’s position in a scatter of stones, twigs and dirt, its momentum taking it a half-dozen paces out onto the flat shelf, where it paused, nose lifting to test the air. Hackles rising, it moved cautiously towards the shelf’s edge.

Another dog came down the trail, a larger beast, this one kicking up more detritus than the first. As its scarred head and shoulders came into view, Karsa knew that he had found the pack’s leader.

The animal reached the flat.

Just as the scout began swinging his head around, Karsa leapt.

His hands shot out to take the leader on the neck, driving the beast down, spinning it onto its back, his left hand closing on the throat, his right gripping both flailing, kicking front legs just above the paws.

The dog flew into a frenzy beneath him, but Karsa held firm.

More dogs tumbled in a rush down the trail, then fanned out in sudden alarm and confusion.

The leader’s snarls had turned to yelps.

Savage teeth had ripped into Karsa’s wrist, until he managed to push his chokehold higher under the dog’s jaw. The animal writhed, but it had already lost and they both knew it.

As did the rest of the pack.

Karsa finally glanced up to study the dogs surrounding him. At his lifting of head they all backed away-all but one. A young, burly male, who ducked low as it crept forward.

Two of Delum’s knives thudded into the animal, one in the throat and the other behind its right shoulder. The dog pitched to the ground with a strangled grunt, then lay still. The others of the pack retreated still further.

The leader had gone motionless beneath Karsa. Baring his teeth, the warrior slowly lowered himself until his cheek lay alongside the dog’s jawline. Then he whispered into the animal’s ear. ‘You heard the deathcry, friend? That was your challenger. This should please you, yes? Now, you and your pack belong to me.’ As he spoke, his tone soft and reassuring he slowly loosened his grip on the dog’s throat. A moment later, he leaned back, shifted his weight to one side, withdrawing his arm’entirely, then releasing the dog’s forelimbs.

The beast scrambled to its feet.

Karsa straightened, stepped close to the dog, smiling to see its tail droop.

Delum climbed down from the ledge. ‘Warleader,’ he said as he approached, ‘I am witness to this.’ He retrieved his knives.

‘Delum Thord, you are both witness and participant, for I saw your knives and they were well timed.’

‘The leader’s rival saw his moment.’

‘And you understood that.’

‘We now have a pack that will fight for us.’

‘Aye, Delum Thord.’

‘I will go ahead of you back to Bairoth, then. The horses will need calming.’

‘We shall give you a few moments.’

At the shelf’s edge, Delum paused and glanced back at Karsa. ‘I no longer fear the Rathyd, Karsa Orlong. Nor the Sunyd. I now believe that Urugal indeed walks with you on this journey.’

‘Then know this, Delum Thord. I am not content to be champion among the Uryd. One day, all the Teblor shall kneel to me. This, our journey to the outlands, is but a scouting of the enemy we shall one day face. Our people have slept for far too long.’

‘Karsa Orlong, I do not doubt you.’

Karsa’s answering grin was cold. ‘Yet you once did.’ To that, Delum simply shrugged, then he swung about and set off down the slope.

Karsa examined his chewed wrist, then looked down at the dog and laughed. ‘You’ve the taste of my blood in your mouth, beast. Urugal now races to clasp your heart, and so, you and I, we are joined. Come, walk at my side. I name you Gnaw.’

There were eleven adult dogs in the pack and three not quite full-grown. They fell in step behind Karsa and Gnaw, leaving their lone fallen kin unchallenged ruler of the shelf beneath the cliff. Until the flies came.

Towards midday, the three Uryd warriors and their pack descended into the middle of the three small valleys on their southeasterly course across Rathyd lands. The hunt they tracked had clearly been driven to desperation, to have travelled so far in their search. It was also evident that the warriors ahead had avoided contact with other villages in the area. Their lengthening failure had become a shame that haunted them.

Karsa was mildly disappointed in that, but he consoled himself that the tale of their deeds would travel none the less, sufficient to make their return journey across Rathyd territory a deadlier and more interesting task.

Delum judged that the hunt was barely a third of a day ahead. They had slowed their pace, sending outriders to either side in search of a trail that did not yet exist. Karsa would not permit himself a gloat concerning that, however; there were, after all, two other parties from the Rathyd village, these ones probably on foot and moving cautiously, leaving few signs of their stealthy passage. At any time, they might cross the Uryd trail.

The pack of dogs remained close on the upwind side, loping effortlessly alongside the trotting horses. Bairoth had simply shaken his head at hearing Delum’s recount of Karsa’s exploits, though of Karsa’s ambitions, Delum curiously said nothing.

They reached the valley floor, a place of tumbled stone amidst birch, black spruce, aspen and alder. The remnants of a river seeped through the moss and rotting stumps, forming black pools that hinted nothing of their depth. Many of these sinkholes were hidden among boulders and treefalls. Their pace slowed as they cautiously worked their way deeper into the forest.

A short while later they came to the first of the mud-packed, wooden walkways the Rathyd of this valley had built long ago and still maintained, if only indifferently. Lush grasses filling the joins attested to this particular one’s disuse, but its direction suited the Uryd warriors, and so they dismounted and led their horses up onto the raised track.

It creaked and swayed beneath the combined weight of horses, Teblor and dogs.

‘We’d best spread out and stay on foot,’ Bairoth said.

Karsa crouched and studied the roughly dressed logs. ‘The wood is still sound,’ he observed.

‘But the stilts are seated in mud, Warleader.’

‘Not mud, Bairoth Gild. Peat.’

‘Karsa Orlong is right,’ Delum said, swinging himself back onto his destrier. ‘The way may pitch but the cross-struts underneath will keep it from twisting. We ride down the centre, in single file.’

‘There is little point,’ Karsa said to Bairoth, ‘in taking this path if we then creep along it like snails.’

‘The risk, Warleader, is that we become far more visible.’

‘Best we move along it quickly, then.’

Bairoth grimaced. ‘As you say, Karsa Orlong.’

Delum in the lead, they rode at a slow canter down the centre of the walkway. The pack followed. To either side, the only trees that reached to the eye level of the mounted warriors were dead birch, their leafless, black branches wrapped, in the web of caterpillar nests. The living trees-aspen and alder and elm-reached no higher than chest height with their fluttering canopy of dusty-green leaves. Taller black spruce was visible in the distance. Most of these looked to be dead or dying.

‘The old river is returning,’ Delum commented. ‘This forest slowly drowns.’

Karsa grunted, then said, ‘This valley runs into others that all lead northward, all the way to the Buryd Fissure. Pahlk was among the Teblor elders who gathered there sixty years ago. The river of ice filling the Fissure had died, suddenly, and had begun to melt.’

Behind Karsa, Bairoth spoke. ‘We never learned what the elders of all the tribes discovered up there, nor if they had found whatever it was they were seeking.’

‘I did not know they were seeking anything in particular,’ Delum muttered. ‘The death of the ice river was heard in a hundred valleys, including our own. Did they not travel to the Fissure simply to discover what had happened?’

Karsa shrugged. ‘Pahlk told me of countless beasts that had been frozen within the ice for numberless centuries, becoming visible amidst the shattered blocks. Fur and flesh thawing, the ground and sky alive with crows and mountain vultures. There was ivory, but most of it was too badly crushed to be of any worth. The river had a black heart, or so its death revealed, but whatever lay within that heart was either gone or destroyed. Even so, there were signs of an ancient battle in that place. The bones of children. Weapons of stone, all broken.’

‘This is more than I have ever-’ Bairoth began, then stopped. The walkway, which had been reverberating to their passage, had suddenly acquired a deeper, syncopating thunder. The walkway ahead made a bend, forty paces distant, to the left, disappearing behind trees. The pack of dogs began snapping their jaws in voiceless warning. Karsa twisted round, and saw, two hundred paces behind them on the walkway, a dozen Rathyd warriors on foot. Weapons were lifted in silent promise.

Yet the sound of hoofs-Karsa swung forward again, to see six riders pitch around the bend. Warcries rang in the air.

‘Clear a space!’ Bairoth bellowed, driving his horse past Karsa, and then Delum. The bear skull sprang into the air, snapping as it reached the length of the straps, and Bairoth began whirling the massive, bound skull over his and his horse’s head, using both hands, his knees high on his destrier’s shoulders. The whirling skull made a deep, droning sound. His horse loped forward.

The Rathyd riders were at full charge. They rode two abreast, the edge of the walkway less than half an arm’s length away on either side.

They had closed to within twenty paces of Bairoth when he released the bear skull.

When two or three wolf skulls were used in this fashion, it was to bind or break legs. But Bairoth’s target was higher. The skull struck the destrier on the left with a force that shattered the horse’s chest. Blood sprayed from the animal’s nose and mouth. Crashing down, it fouled the beast beside it-no more than the crack of a single hoof against its shoulder, but sufficient to make it veer wildly, and plunge down off the walkway. Legs snapped. The Rathyd warrior flew over his horse’s head.

The rider of the first horse landed with bone-breaking impact on the walkway, at the very hoofs of Bairoth’s destrier. Those hoofs punched down on the man’s head in quick succession, leaving a shattered mess.

The charge floundered. Another horse went down, stumbling with a scream over the wildly kicking beast that now blocked the walkway.

Loosing the Uryd warcry, Bairoth drove his mount forward. A surging leap carried them over the first downed destrier. The Rathyd warrior from the other fallen horse was just clambering clear and had time to look up to see Bairoth’s sword-blade reach the bridge of his nose.

Delum was suddenly behind his comrade. Two knives darted through the air, passing Bairoth on his right. There was a sharp report as a Rathyd’s heavy sword-blade slashed across to block one of the knives, then a wet gasp as the second knife found the man’s throat.

Two of the enemy remained, one each for Delum and Bairoth, and so the duels could begin.

Karsa, after watching the effect of Bairoth’s initial attack, had wheeled his mount round. Sword in his hands, blade flashing into Havok’s vision, and they were charging back down the walkway towards the pursuing band.

The dog pack split to either side to avoid the thundering hoofs, then raced after rider and horse.

Ahead, eight adults and four youths.

A barked order sent the youths to either side of the walkway, then down. The adults wanted room, and, seeing their obvious confidence as they formed an inverted V spanning the walkway, weapons ready, Karsa laughed.

They wanted him to ride down into the centre of that inverted V-a tactic that, while it maintained Havok’s fierce speed, also exposed horse and rider to flanking attacks. Speed counted for much in the engagement to come. The Rathyd’s expectations fit neatly into the attacker’s intent-had that attacker been someone other than Karsa Orlong. ‘Urugal!’ he bellowed, lifting himself high on Havok’s shoulders. ‘Witness!’ He held his sword, point forward, over his destrier’s head, and fixed his gaze on the Rathyd warrior on the V’s extreme left.

Havok sensed the shift in attention and angled his charge just moments before contact, hoofs pounding along the very edge of the walkway.

The Rathyd directly before them managed a single backward step, swinging a two-handed overhead chop at Havok’s snout as he went.

Karsa took that blade on his own, even as he twisted and threw his right leg forward, his left back. Havok turned beneath him, surged in towards the centre of the walkway.

The V had collapsed, and every Rathyd warrior was on Karsa’s left.

Havok carried him diagonally across the walkway. Keening his delight, Karsa slashed and chopped repeatedly, his blade finding flesh and bone as often as weapon. Havok pitched around before reaching the opposite edge, and lashed out his hind legs. At least one connected, flinging a shattered body from the bridge.

The pack then arrived. Snarling bodies hurling onto the Rathyd warriors-most of whom had turned when engaging Karsa, and so presented exposed backs to the frenzied dogs. Shrieks filled the air.

Karsa spun Havok round. They plunged back into the savage press. Two Rathyd had managed to fight clear of the dogs, blood spraying from their blades as they backed up the walkway.

Bellowing a challenge, Karsa drove towards them.

And was shocked to see them both leap from the walkway.

‘Bloodless cowards! I witness! Your youths witness! These damned dogs witness!’

He saw them reappear, weapons gone, scrambling and stumbling across the bog.

Delum and Bairoth arrived, dismounting to add their swords to the maniacal frenzy of the surviving dogs as they tore unceasing at fallen Rathyd.

Karsa drew Havok to one side, eyes still on the fleeing warriors, who had been joined now by the four youths. ‘I witness! Urugal witnesses!’

Gnaw, black and grey hide barely visible beneath splashes of gore, panted up to stand beside Havok, his muscles twitching but no wounds showing. Karsa glanced back and saw that four more dogs remained, whilst a fifth had lost a foreleg and limped a red circle off to one side.

‘Delum, bind that one’s leg-we will sear it anon.’

‘What use a three-legged hunting dog, Warleader?’ Bairoth asked, breathing heavy.

‘Even a three-legged dog has ears and a nose, Bairoth Gild. One day, she will lie grey-nosed and fat before my hearth, this I swear. Now, is either of you wounded?’

‘Scratches.’ Bairoth shrugged, turning away.

‘I have lost a finger,’ Delum said as he drew out a leather strap and approached the wounded dog, ‘but not an important one.’

Karsa looked once more at the retreating Rathyd. They had almost reached a stand of black spruce. The warleader sent them a final sneer, then laid a hand on Havok’s brow. ‘My father spoke true, Havok. I have never ridden such a horse as you.’

An ear had cocked at his words. Karsa leaned forward and set his lips to the beast’s brow. ‘We become, you and I,’ he whispered, ‘legend. Legend, Havok.’ Straightening, he studied the sprawl of corpses on the walkway, and smiled. ‘It is time for trophies, my brothers. Bairoth, did your bear skull survive?’

‘I believe so, Warleader.’

‘Your deed was our victory, Bairoth Gild.’

The heavy man turned, studied Karsa through slitted eyes. ‘You ever surprise me, Karsa Orlong.’

‘As your strength does me, Bairoth Gild.’

The man hesitated, then nodded. ‘I am content to follow you, Warleader.’

You ever were, Bairoth Gild, and that is the difference between us.

CHAPTER TWO

‘I BELIEVE,’ DELUM SAID AS THEY LED THEIR HORSES DOWN FROM THE walkway, ‘that the last group of the hunt has turned back.’

‘The plague of cowardice ever spreads,’ Karsa growled. ‘They surmised at the very first,’ Bairoth rumbled, ‘that we were crossing their lands. That our first attack was not simply a raid. So, they will await our return, and will likely call upon the warriors of other villages.’

‘That does not concern me, Bairoth Gild.’

‘I know that, Karsa Orlong, for what part of this journey have you not already anticipated? Even so, two more Rathyd valleys lie before us. I would know. There will be villages-do we ride around them or do we collect still more trophies?’

‘We shall be burdened with too many trophies when we reach the lands of the lowlanders at Silver Lake,’ Delum commented.

Karsa laughed, then considered. ‘Bairoth Gild, we shall slip through these valleys like snakes in the night, until the very last village. I would still draw hunters after us, into the lands of the Sunyd.’ Delum had found a trail leading up the valley side. Karsa checked on the dog limping in their wake. Gnaw walked alongside it, and it occurred to Karsa that the three-legged beast might well keep its mate. He was pleased with his decision to not slay the wounded creature.

There was a chill in the air that confirmed their gradual climb to higher elevations. The Sunyd territory was higher still, leading to the eastern edge of the escarpment. Pahlk had told Karsa that but a single nass cut through the escarpment, marked by a torrential waterfall that fed into Silver Lake. The climb down was treacherous. Pahlk had named it Bone Pass.

The trail began to wind sinuously among winter-cracked boulders and treefalls. They could now see the summit, six hundred steep paces upward.

The warriors dismounted. Karsa strode back and lifted the three-legged dog into his arms. He set it down across Havok’s broad back and strapped it in place. The animal voiced no protest. Gnaw moved up to flank the destrier.

They resumed their journey.

The sun was bathing the slope in brilliant gold light by the time they had closed to within a hundred paces of the summit, reaching a broad ledge that seemed-through a sparse forest of straggly, wind-twisted oaks-to run the length of the valley side. Scanning the terrace’s sweep to his right, Delum voiced a grunt, then said, ‘I see a cave. There,’ he pointed, ‘behind those fallen trees, where the shelf bulges.’

Bairoth nodded and said, ‘It looks big enough to hold our horses. Karsa Orlong, if we are to begin riding at night…’

‘Agreed,’ Karsa said.

Delum led the way along the terrace. Gnaw scrambled past him, slowing upon nearing the cave mouth, then crouching down and edging forward.

The Uryd warriors paused, waiting to see if the dog’s hackles rose, thus signalling the presence of a grey bear or some other denizen. After a long moment, with Gnaw motionless and lying almost flat before the cave entrance, the beast finally rose and glanced back at the party, then trotted into the cave.

The fallen trees had provided a natural screen, hiding the cave from the valley below. There had been an overhang, but it had collapsed, perhaps beneath the weight of the trees, leaving a rough pile of rubble partially blocking the entrance.

Bairoth began clearing a path to lead the horses through. Delum and Karsa took Gnaw’s route into the cave.

Beyond the mound of tumbled stones and sand, the floor levelled out beneath a scatter of dried leaves. The setting sun’s light painted the back wall in patches of yellow, revealing an almost solid mass of carved glyphs. A small cairn of piled stones sat in the domed chamber’s centre. Gnaw was nowhere to be seen, but the dog’s tracks crossed the floor and vanished into an area of gloom near the back.

Delum stepped forward, his eyes on a single, oversized glyph directly opposite the entrance. ‘That Bloodsign is neither Rathyd nor Sunyd,’ he said.

‘But the words beneath it are Teblor,’ Karsa asserted. ‘The style is very…’ Delum frowned, ‘ornate.’ Karsa began reading aloud, ‘ “I led the families that survived. Down from the high lands. Through the broken veins that bled beneath the sun…” Broken veins?’

‘Ice,’ Delum said.

‘Bleeding beneath the sun, aye. “We were so few. Our blood was cloudy and would grow cloudier still. I saw the need to shatter what remained. For the T’lan Imass were still close and much agitated and inclined to continue their indiscriminate slaughter.’ ” Karsa scowled. ‘T’lan Imass? I do not know those two words.’

‘Nor I,’ Delum replied. ‘A rival tribe, perhaps. Read on, Karsa Orlong. Your eye is quicker than mine.’

‘ “And so I sundered husband from wife. Child from parent. Brother from sister. I fashioned new families and then sent them away. Each to a different place. I proclaimed the Laws of Isolation, as given us by Icarium whom we had once sheltered and whose heart grew vast with grief upon seeing what had become of us. The Laws of Isolation would be our salvation, clearing the blood and strengthening our children. To all who follow and to all who shall read these words, this is my justification-” ’

‘These words trouble me, Karsa Orlong.’

Karsa glanced back at Delum. ‘Why? They signify nothing of us. They are an elder’s ravings. Too many words-to have carved all these letters would have taken years, and only a madman would do such a thing. A madman, who was buried here, alone, driven out by his people-’

Delum’s gaze sharpened on Karsa. ‘Driven out? Yes, I believe you are correct, Warleader. Read more-let us hear his justification, and so judge for ourselves.’

Shrugging, Karsa returned his attention to the stone wall. ‘ “To survive, we must forget. So Icarium told us. Those things that we had come to, those things that softened us. We must abandon them. We must dismantle our…” I know not that word, “and shatter each and every stone, leaving no evidence of what we had been. We must burn our…” another word I do not know, “and leave naught but ash. We must forget our history and seek only our most ancient of legends. Legends that told of a time when we lived simply. In the forests. Hunting, culling fish from the rivers, raising horses. When our laws were those of the raider, the slayer, when all was measured by the sweep of a sword. Legends that spoke of feuds, of murders and rapes. We must return to those terrible times. To isolate our streams of blood, to weave new, smaller nets of kinship. New threads must be born of rape, for only with violence would they remain rare occurrences, and random. To cleanse our blood, we must forget all that we were, yet find what we had once been-” ’

‘Down here,’ Delum said, squatting. ‘Lower down. I recognize words. Read here, Karsa Orlong.’

‘It’s dark, Delum Thord, but I shall try. Ah, yes. These are… names. “I have given these new tribes names, the names given by my father for his sons.” And then a list. “Baryd, Sanyd, Phalyd, Urad, Gelad, Manyd, Rathyd and Lanyd. These, then, shall be the new tribes…” It grows too dark to read on, Delum Thord, nor,’ he added, fighting a sudden chill, ‘do I desire to. These thoughts are spider-bitten. Fever-twisted into lies.’

‘Phalyd and Lanyd are-’

Karsa straightened. ‘No more, Delum Thord.’

‘The name of Icarium has lived on in our-’

‘Enough!’ Karsa growled. ‘There is nothing of meaning here in these words!’

‘As you say, Karsa Orlong.’

Gnaw emerged from the gloom, where a darker fissure was now evident to the two Teblor warriors.

Delum nodded towards it. ‘The carver’s body lies within.’

‘Where he no doubt crawled to die,’ Karsa sneered. ‘Let us return to Bairoth. The horses can be sheltered here. We shall sleep outside.’

Both warriors turned and strode back to the cave mouth. Behind them, Gnaw stood beside the cairn a moment longer. The sun had left the wall, filling the cave with shadows. In the darkness, the dog’s eyes flickered.

Two nights later, they sat on their horses and looked down into the valley of the Sunyd. The plan to draw Rathyd pursuers after them had failed, for the last two villages they had come across had been long abandoned. The surrounding trails had been overgrown and rains had taken the charcoal from the firepits, leaving only red-rimmed black stains in the earth.

And now, across the entire breadth and length of the Sunyd valley, they could see no fires.

‘They have fled,’ Bairoth muttered.

‘But not from us,’ Delum replied, ‘if the Sunyd villages prove to be the same as those Rathyd ones. This is a flight long past.’ Bairoth grunted. ‘Where, then, have they gone?’ Shrugging, Karsa said, ‘There are Sunyd valleys north of this one. A dozen or more. And some to the south as well. Perhaps there has been a schism. It matters little to us, except that we shall gather no more trophies until we reach Silver Lake.’

Bairoth rolled his shoulders. ‘Warleader, when we reach Silver Lake, will our raid be beneath the wheel or the sun? With the valley before us empty, we could camp at night. These trails are unfamiliar, forcing us to go slowly in the dark.’

‘You speak the truth, Bairoth Gild. Our raid will be in daylight. Let us make our way down to the valley floor, then, and find us a place to camp.’

The wheel of stars had travelled a fourth of its journey by the time the Uryd warriors reached level ground and found a suitable campsite. Delum had, with the aid of the dogs, killed a half-dozen rock hares during the descent, which he now skinned and spit while Bairoth built a small fire.

Karsa saw to the horses, then joined his two companions at the hearth. They sat, waiting in silence for the meat to cook, the sweet smell and sizzle strangely unfamiliar after so many meals of raw food. Karsa felt a lassitude settle into his muscles, and only now realized how weary he had become.

The hares were ready. The three warriors ate in silence. ‘Delum has spoken,’ Bairoth said when they were done, ‘of the words written in the cave.’

Karsa shot Delum a glare. ‘Delum Thord spoke when he should not have. Within the cave, a madman’s ravings, nothing more.’

‘I have considered them,’ Bairoth persisted, ‘and I believe there is truth hidden within those ravings, Karsa Orlong.’

‘Pointless belief, Bairoth Gild.’

‘I think not, Warleader. The names of the tribes-I agree with Delum when he says there are, among them, the names of our tribes. “Urad” is far too close to Uryd to be accidental, especially when three of the other names are unchanged. Granted, one of those tribes has since vanished, but even our own legends whisper of a time when there were more tribes than there are now. And those two words that you did not know, Karsa Orlong. “Great villages” and “yellow bark”-’

‘Those were not the words!’

‘True enough, but that is the closest Delum could come to. Karsa Orlong, the hand that inscribed those words was from a place and time of sophistication, a place and a time where the Teblor language was, if anything, more complex than it is now.’

Karsa spat into the fire. ‘Bairoth Gild, if these be truths as you and Delum say, I still must ask: what value do they hold for us now? Are we a fallen people? That is not a revelation. Our legends all speak of an age of glory, long past, when a hundred heroes strode among the Teblor, heroes that would make even my own grandfather, Pahlk, seem but a child among men-’

Delum’s face in the firelight was deeply frowning as he cut in, ‘And this is what troubles me, Karsa Orlong. Those legends and their tales of glory-they describe an age little different from our own. Aye, more heroes, greater deeds, but essentially the same, in the manner of how we lived. Indeed, it often seems that the very point of those tales is one of instruction, a code of behaviour, the proper way of being a Teblor.’

Bairoth nodded. ‘And there, in those carved words in the cave, we are offered the explanation.’

‘A description of how we would be,’ Delum added. ‘No, of how we are.’

‘None of it matters,’ Karsa growled.

‘We were a defeated people,’ Delum continued, as if he hadn’t heard. ‘Reduced to a broken handful.’ He looked up, met Karsa’s eyes across the fire. ‘How many of our brothers and sisters who are given to the Faces in the Rock-how many of them were born flawed in some way? Too many fingers and toes, mouths with no palates, faces with no eyes. We’ve seen the same among our dogs and horses, Warleader. Defects come of inbreeding. That is a truth. The elder in the cave, he knew what threatened our people, so he fashioned a means of separating us, of slowly clearing our cloudy blood-and he was cast out as a betrayer of the Teblor. We were witness, in that cave, to an ancient crime-’

‘We are fallen,’ Bairoth said, then laughed.

Delum’s gaze snapped to him. ‘And what is it that you find so funny, Bairoth Gild?’

‘If I must needs explain, Delum Thord, then there is no point.’

Bairoth’s laughter had chilled Karsa. ‘You have both failed to grasp the true meaning of all this-’

Bairoth grunted, ‘The meaning you said did not exist, Karsa Orlong?’

‘The fallen know but one challenge,’ Karsa resumed. ‘And that is to rise once more. The Teblor were once few, once defeated. So be it. We are no longer few. Nor have we known defeat since that time. Who from the lowlands dares venture into our territories? The time has come, I now say, to face that challenge. The Teblor must rise once more.’

Bairoth sneered, ‘And who will lead us? Who will unite the tribes? I wonder.’

‘Hold,’ Delum rumbled, eyes glittering. ‘Bairoth Gild, from you I now hear unseemly envy. With what we three have done, with what our warleader has already achieved-tell me, Bairoth Gild, do the shadows of the ancient heroes still devour us whole? I say they do not. Karsa Orlong now walks among those heroes, and we walk with him.’

Bairoth slowly leaned back, stretching his legs out beside the hearth. ‘As you say, Delum Thord.’ The flickering light revealed a broad smile that seemed directed into the flames. ‘ “Who from the lowlands dares venture into our territories?” Karsa Orlong, we travel an empty valley. Empty of Teblor, aye. But what has driven them away? It may be that defeat stalks the formidable Teblor once more.’

There was a long moment when none of the three spoke, then Delum added another stick to the fire. ‘It may be,’ he said in a low voice, ‘that there are no heroes among the Sunyd.’

Bairoth laughed. ‘True. Among all the Teblor, there are but three heroes. Will that be enough, do you think?’

‘Three is better than two,’ Karsa snapped, ‘but if need be, two will suffice.’

‘I pray to the Seven, Karsa Orlong, that your mind ever remain free of doubt.’

Karsa realized that his hands had closed on the grip of his sword. ‘Ah, that’s your thought, then. The son of the father. Am I being accused of Synyg’s weakness?’

Bairoth studied Karsa, then slowly shook his head. ‘Your father is not weak, Karsa Orlong. If there are doubts to speak of here and now, they concern Pahlk and his heroic raid to Silver Lake.’

Karsa was on his feet, the bloodwood sword in his hands.

Bairoth made no move. ‘You do not see what I see,’ he said quietly. ‘There is the potential within you, Karsa Orlong, to be your father’s son. I lied earlier when I said I prayed that you would remain free of doubt. I pray for the very opposite, Warleader. I pray that doubt comes to you, that it tempers you with its wisdom. Those heroes in our legends, Karsa Orlong, they were terrible, they were monsters, for they were strangers to uncertainty.’

‘Stand before me, Bairoth Gild, for I will not kill you whilst your sword remains at your side.’

‘I will not, Karsa Orlong. The straw is on my back, and you are not my enemy.’

Delum moved forward with his hands full of earth, which he dropped onto the fire between the two other men. ‘It is late,’ he muttered, ‘and it may be as Bairoth suggests, that we are not as alone in this valley as we believe ourselves to be. At the very least, there may be watchers on the other side. Warleader, there have been only words this night. Let us leave the spilling of blood for our true enemies.’

Karsa remained standing, glaring down at Bairoth Gild. ‘Words,’ he growled. ‘Yes, and for the words he has spoken, Bairoth Gild must apologize.’

‘I, Bairoth Gild, beg forgiveness for my words. Now, Karsa Orlong, will you put away your sword?’

‘You are warned,’ Karsa said, ‘I will not be so easily appeased next time.’

‘I am warned.’

Grasses and saplings had reclaimed the Sunyd village. The trails leading to and from it had almost vanished beneath brambles, but here and there, among the stone foundations of the circular houses, the signs of fire and violence could be seen.

Delum dismounted and began poking about the ruins. It was only a few moments before he found the first bones.

Bairoth grunted. ‘A raiding party. One that left no survivors.’

Delum straightened with a splintered arrow shaft in his hands. ‘Lowlanders. The Sunyd keep few dogs, else they would not have been so unprepared.’

‘We now take upon ourselves,’ Karsa said, ‘not a raid, but a war. We journey to Silver Lake not as Uryd, but as Teblor. And we shall deliver vengeance.’ He dismounted and removed from the saddle pack four hard leather sheaths, which he began strapping onto Havok’s legs to protect the horse from the brambles. The other two warriors followed suit.

‘Lead us, Warleader,’ Delum said when he was done, swinging himself onto his destrier’s back.

Karsa collected the three-legged dog and laid it down once more behind Havok’s withers. He regained his seat and looked to Bairoth.

The burly warrior also remounted. His eyes were hooded as he met Karsa’s gaze. ‘Lead us, Warleader.’

‘We shall ride as fast as the land allows,’ Karsa said, drawing the three-legged dog onto his thighs. ‘Once beyond this valley, we head northward, then east once more. By tomorrow night we shall be close to Bone Pass, the southward wend that will take us to Silver Lake.’

‘And if we come across lowlanders on the way?’

‘Then, Bairoth Gild, we shall begin gathering trophies. But none must be allowed to escape, for our attack on the farm must come as a complete surprise, lest the children flee.’

They skirted the village until they came to a trail that led them into the forest. Beneath the trees there was less undergrowth, allowing them to ride at a slow canter. Before long, the trail began climbing the valley side. By dusk, they reached the summit. Horses steaming beneath them, the three warriors reined in.

They had come to the edge of the escarpment. To the north and east and still bathed in golden sunlight, the horizon was a jagged line of mountains, their peaks capped in snow with rivers of white stretching down their flanks. Directly before them, after a sheer drop of three hundred or more paces, lay a vast, forested basin.

‘I see no fires,’ Delum said, scanning the shadow-draped valley.

‘We must now skirt this edge, northward,’ Karsa said. ‘There are no trails breaking the cliffside here.’

‘The horses need rest,’ Delum said. ‘But we are highly visible here, Warleader.’

‘We shall walk them on, then,’ Karsa said, dismounting. When he set the three-legged dog onto the ground, Gnaw moved up alongside her. Karsa collected Havok’s single rein. A game trail followed the ridgeline along the top for another thirty paces before dropping slightly, sufficient to remove the silhouette they made against the sky.

They continued on until the wheel of stars had completed a fifth of its passage, whereupon they found a high-walled cul de sac just off the trail in which to make camp. Delum began preparing the meal while Bairoth rubbed down the horses.

Taking Gnaw and his mate with him, Karsa scouted the path ahead. Thus far, the only tracks they had seen were those from mountain goats and wild sheep. The ridge had begun a slow, broken descent, and he knew that, somewhere ahead, there would be a river carrying the run-off from the north range of mountains, and a waterfall cutting a notch into the escarpment’s cliffside.

Both dogs shied suddenly in the gloom, bumping into Karsa’s legs as they backed away from another dead-end to the left. Laying a hand down to calm Gnaw, he found the beast trembling. Karsa drew his sword. He sniffed the air, but could smell nothing awry, nor was there any sound from the dark-shrouded dead-end and Karsa was close enough to hear breathing had there been anyone hiding in it.

He edged forward.

A massive flat slab dominated the stone floor, leaving only a forearm’s space on the three sides where rose the rock walls. The surface of the slab was unadorned, but a faint grey light seemed to emanate from the stone itself. Karsa moved closer, then slowly crouched down before the lone, motionless hand jutting from the slab’s nearmost edge. It was gaunt, yet whole, the skin a milky blue-green, the nails chipped and ragged, the fingers patched in white dust.

Every space within reach of that hand was etched in grooves, cut deep into the stone floor-as deep as the fingers could reach-in a chaotic, cross-hatched pattern.

The hand, Karsa could see, was neither Teblor nor lowlander, but in size somewhere in between, the bones prominent, the fingers narrow and overlong and seeming to bear far too many joints.

Something of Karsa’s presence-his breath perhaps as he leaned close in his study-was sensed, for the hand spasmed suddenly, jerking down to lie flat, fingers spread, on the rock. And Karsa now saw the unmistakable signs that animals had attacked that hand in the past-mountain wolves and creatures yet fiercer. It had been chewed, clawed and gnawed at, though, it seemed, never broken. Motionless once more, it lay pressed against the ground.

Hearing footsteps behind him, Karsa rose and turned. Delum and Bairoth, weapons out, made their way up the trail. Karsa strode to meet them.

Bairoth rumbled, ‘Your two dogs came skulking back to us.’

‘What have you found, Warleader?’ Delum asked in a whisper.

‘A demon,’ he replied. ‘Pinned for eternity beneath that stone. It lives, still.’

‘The Forkassal.’

‘Even so. There is much truth in our legends, it seems.’

Bairoth moved past and approached the slab. He crouched down before the hand and studied it long in the gloom, then he straightened and strode back. ‘The Forkassal. The demon of the mountains, the One Who Sought Peace.’

‘In the time of the Spirit Wars, when our old gods were young,’ Delum said. ‘What, Karsa Orlong, do you recall of that tale? It was so brief, nothing more than torn pieces. The elders themselves admitted that most of it had been lost long ago, before the Seven awoke.’

‘Pieces,’ Karsa agreed. ‘The Spirit Wars were two, perhaps three invasions, and had little to do with the Teblor. Foreign gods and demons. Their battles shook the mountains, and then but one force remained-’

‘In those tales,’ Delum interjected, ‘are the only mention of Icarium. Karsa Orlong, it may be that the T’lan Imass-spoken of in that elder’s cave-belonged to the Spirit Wars, and that they were the victors, who then left never to return. It may be that it was the Spirit Wars that shattered our people.’

Bairoth’s gaze remained on the slab. Now he spoke. ‘The demon must be freed.’

Both Karsa and Delum turned to him, struck silent by the pronouncement.

‘Say nothing,’ Bairoth continued, ‘until I have finished. The Forkassal was said to have come to the place of the Spirit Wars, seeking to make peace between the contestants. That is one of the torn pieces of the tale. For the demon’s effort it was destroyed. That is another piece. Icarium too sought to end the war, but he arrived too late, and the victors knew they could not defeat him so they did not even try. A third piece. Delum Thord, the words in the cave also spoke of Icarium, yes?’

‘They did, Bairoth Gild. Icarium gave the Teblor the Laws that ensured our survival.’

‘Yet, were they able, the T’lan Imass would have laid a stone on him as well.’ After these words, Bairoth fell silent.

Karsa swung about and walked to the slab. Its luminescence was fitful in places, hinting of the sorcery’s antiquity, a slow dissolution of the power invested in it. Teblor elders worked magic, but only rarely. Since the awakening of the Faces in the Rock, sorcery arrived as a visitation, locked within the confines of sleep or trance. The old legends spoke of vicious displays of overt magic, of dread weapons tempered with curses, but Karsa suspected these were but elaborate inventions to weave bold colours into the tales. He scowled. ‘I have no understanding of this magic,’ he said.

Bairoth and Delum joined him.

The hand still lay flat, motionless.

‘I wonder if the demon can hear our words,’ Delum said.

Bairoth grunted. ‘Even if it could, why would it understand them? The lowlanders speak a different tongue. Demons must also have their own.’

‘Yet he came to make peace-’

‘He cannot hear us,’ Karsa asserted. ‘He can do no more than sense the presence of someone… of something.’

Shrugging, Bairoth crouched down beside the slab. He reached out, hesitated, then settled his palm against the stone. ‘It is neither hot nor cold. Its magic is not for us.’

‘It is not meant to ward, then, only hold,’ Delum suggested.

‘The three of us should be able to lift it.’

Karsa studied Bairoth. ‘What do you wish to awaken here, Bairoth Gild?’

The huge warrior looked up, eyes narrowing. Then his brows rose and he smiled. ‘A bringer of peace?’

‘There is no value in peace.’

‘There must be peace among the Teblor, or they shall never be united.’

Karsa cocked his head, considering Bairoth’s words.

‘This demon may have gone mad,’ Delum muttered. ‘How long, trapped beneath this rock?’

‘There are three of us,’ Bairoth said.

‘Yet this demon is from a time when we had been defeated, and if it was these T’lan Imass who imprisoned this demon, they did so because they could not kill him. Bairoth Gild, we three would be as nothing to this creature.’

‘We will have earned its gratitude.’

‘The fever of madness knows no friends.’

Both warriors looked to Karsa. ‘We cannot know the mind of a demon,’ he said. ‘But we can see one thing, and that is how it still seeks to protect itself. This lone hand has fended off all sorts of beasts. In that, I see a holding on to purpose.’

‘The patience of an immortal.’ Bairoth nodded. ‘I see the same as you, Karsa Orlong.’

Karsa faced Delum. ‘Delum Thord, do you still possess doubts?’

‘I do, Warleader, yet I will give your effort my strength, for I see the decision in your eyes. So be it.’

Without another word the three Uryd positioned themselves along one side of the stone slab. They squatted, hands reaching down to grip the edge.

‘With the fourth breath,’ Karsa instructed.

The stone lifted with a grinding, grating sound, a sifting of dust. A concerted heave sent it over, to crack against the rock wall.

The figure had been pinned on its side. The immense weight of the slab must have dislocated bones and crushed muscle, but it had not been enough to defeat the demon, for it had, over millennia, gouged out a rough, uneven pit for half the length of its narrow, strangely elongated body. The hand trapped beneath that body had clawed out a space for itself first, then had slowly worked grooves for hip and shoulder. Both feet, which were bare, had managed something similar. Spider webs and the dust of ground stone covered the figure like a dull grey shroud, and the stale air that rose from the space visibly swirled in its languid escape, heavy with a peculiar, insect-like stench.

The three warriors stood looking down on the demon.

It had yet to move, but they could see its strangeness even so. Elongated limbs, extra-jointed, the skin stretched taut and pallid as moonlight. A mass of blue-black hair spread out from the face-down head, like fine roots, forming a latticework across the stone floor. The demon was naked, and female.

The limbs spasmed.

Bairoth edged closer and spoke in a low, soothing tone. ‘You are freed, Demon. We are Teblor, of the Uryd tribe. If you will, we would help you. Tell us what you require.’

The limbs had ceased their spasming, and now but trembled. Slowly, the demon lifted her head. The hand that had known an eternity of darkness slipped free from under her body, probed out over the flat stone floor. The fingertips cut across strands of hair and those strands fell to dust. The hand settled in a way that matched its opposite. Muscles tautened along the arms, neck and shoulders, and the demon rose, in jagged, shaking increments. She shed hair in black sheets of dust until her pate was revealed, smooth and white.

Bairoth moved to take her weight but Karsa snapped a hand out to restrain him. ‘No, Bairoth Gild, she has known enough pressure that was not her own. I do not think she would be touched, not for a long time, perhaps never again.’

Bairoth’s hooded gaze fixed on Karsa for a long moment, then he sighed and said, ‘Karsa Orlong, I hear wisdom in your words. Again and again, you surprise me-no, I did not mean to insult. I am dragged towards admiration-leave me my edged words.’

Karsa shrugged, eyes returning once more to the demon. ‘We can only wait, now. Does a demon know thirst? Hunger? Hers is a throat that has not known water for generations, a stomach that has forgotten its purpose, lungs that have not drawn a full breath since the slab first settled. Fortunate it is night, too, for the sun might be as fire to her eyes-’ He stopped then, for the demon, on hands and knees, had raised her head and they could see her face for the first time.

Skin like polished marble, devoid of flaws, a broad brow over enormous midnight eyes that seemed dry and flat, like onyx beneath a layer of dust. High, flaring cheekbones, a wide mouth withered and crusted with fine crystals.

‘There is no water within her,’ Delum said. ‘None.’ He backed away, then set off for their camp.

The woman slowly sat back onto her haunches, then struggled to stand.

It was difficult to just watch, but both warriors held back, tensed to catch her should she fall.

It seemed she noticed that, and one side of her mouth curled upward a fraction.

That one twitch transformed her face, and, in response, Karsa felt a hammerblow in his chest. She mocks her own sorry condition. This, her first emotion upon being freed. Embarrassment, yet finding the humour within it. Hear me, Urugal the Woven, I will make the ones who imprisoned her regret their deed, should they or their descendants still live. These T’lan Imass-they have made of me an enemy. I, Karsa Orlong, so vow.

Delum returned with a waterskin, his steps slowing upon seeing her standing upright.

She was gaunt, her body a collection of planes and angles. Her breasts were high and far apart, her sternum prominent between them. She seemed to possess far too many ribs. In height, she was as a Teblor child.

She saw the waterskin in Delum’s hands, but made no gesture towards it. Instead, she turned to settle her gaze on the place where she had lain.

Karsa could see the rise and fall of her breath, but she was otherwise motionless.

Bairoth spoke. ‘Are you the Forkassal?’

She looked over at him and half-smiled once more.

‘We are Teblor,’ Bairoth continued, at which her smile broadened slightly in what was to Karsa clear recognition, though strangely flavoured with amusement.

‘She understands you,’ Karsa observed.

Delum approached with the waterskin. She glanced at him and shook her head. He stopped.

Karsa now saw that some of the dustiness was gone from her eyes, and that her lips were now slightly fuller. ‘She recovers,’ he said.

‘Freedom was all she needed,’ Bairoth said.

‘In the manner that sun-hardened lichen softens in the night,’ Karsa said. ‘Her thirst is quenched by the air itself-’

She faced him suddenly, her body stiffening. ‘If I have given cause for offence-’

Before Karsa drew another breath she was upon him. Five concussive blows to his body and he found himself lying on his back, the hard stone floor stinging as if he was lying on a nest of fire-ants. There was no air in his lungs. Agony thundered through him. He could not move. He heard Delum’s warcry-cut off with a strangled grunt-then the sound of another body striking the ground.

Bairoth cried out from one side, ‘Forkassal! Hold! Leave him-’ Karsa blinked up through tear-filled eyes as her face hovered above his. It moved closer, the eyes gleaming now like black pools, the lips full and almost purple in the starlight.

In a rasping voice she whispered to him in the language of the Teblor, ‘They will not leave you, will they? These once enemies of mine. It seems shattering their bones was not enough.’ Something in her eyes softened slightly. ‘Your kind deserve better.’ The face slowly withdrew. ‘I believe I must needs wait. Wait and see what comes of you, before I decide whether I shall deliver unto you, Warrior, my eternal peace.’ Bairoth’s voice from a dozen paces away: ‘Forkassal!’ She straightened and turned with extraordinary fluidity. ‘You have fallen far, to so twist the name of my kind, not to mention your own. I am Forkrul Assail, young warrior-not a demon. I am named Calm, a Bringer of Peace, and I warn you, the desire to deliver it is very strong in me at the moment, so remove your hand from that weapon.’

‘But we have freed you!’ Bairoth cried. ‘Yet you have struck Karsa and Delum down!’

She laughed. ‘And Icarium and those damned T’lan Imass will not be pleased that you undid their work. Then again, it is likely Icarium has no memory of having done so, and the T’lan Imass are far away. Well, I shall not give them a second chance. But I do know gratitude, Warrior, and so I give you this. The one named Karsa has been chosen. If I was to tell you even the little that I sense of his ultimate purpose, you would seek to kill him. But I tell you there would be no value in that, for the ones using him will simply select another. No. Watch this friend of yours. Guard him. There will come a time when he stands poised to change the world. And when that time comes, I shall be there. For I bring peace. When that moment arrives, cease guarding him. Step back, as you have done now.’

Karsa dragged a sobbing breath into his racked lungs. At a wave of nausea he twisted onto his side and vomited onto the gritty stone floor. Between his gasping and coughing, he heard the Forkrul Assail-the woman named Calm-stride away.

A moment later Bairoth knelt beside Karsa. ‘Delum is badly hurt, Warleader,’ he said. ‘There is liquid leaking from a crack in his head. Karsa Orlong, I regret freeing this… this creature. Delum had doubts. Yet he-’

Karsa coughed and spat, then, fighting waves of pain from his battered chest, he climbed to his feet. ‘You could not know, Bairoth Gild,’ he muttered, wiping the tears from his eyes.

‘Warleader, I did not draw my weapon. I did not seek to protect you as did Delum Thord-’

‘Which leaves one of us healthy,’ Karsa growled, staggering over to where Delum lay across the trail. He had been thrown some distance, by what looked to be a single blow. Slanting crossways across his forehead were four deep impressions, the skin split, yellowy liquid oozing from the punched-through bone underneath. Her fingertips. Delum’s eyes were wide, yet cloudy with confusion. Whole sections of his face had gone slack, as if no underlying thought could hold them to an expression.

Bairoth joined him. ‘See, the fluid is clear. It is thought-blood. Delum Thord will not come all the way back with such an injury.’

‘No,’ Karsa murmured, ‘he will not. None who lose thought-blood ever do.’

‘It is my fault.’

‘No, Delum made a mistake, Bairoth Gild. Am I killed? The Forkassal chose not to slay me. Delum should have done as you did-nothing.’

Bairoth winced. ‘She spoke to you, Karsa Orlong. I heard her whispering. What did she say?’

‘Little I could understand, except that the peace she brings is death.’

‘Our legends have twisted with time.’

‘They have, Bairoth Gild. Come, we must wrap Delum’s wounds. The thought-blood will gather in the bandages and dry, and so clot the holes. Perhaps it will not leak so much then and he will come some of the way back to us.’

The two warriors set off for their camp. When they arrived they found the dogs huddled together, racked with shivering. Through the centre of the clearing ran the tracks of Calm’s feet. Heading south.

A crisp, chill wind howled along the edge of the escarpment. Karsa Orlong sat with his back against the rock wall, watching Delum Thord move about on his hands and knees among the dogs. Reaching out and gathering the beasts close, to stroke and nuzzle. Soft, crooning sounds issued from Delum Thord, the smile never leaving the half of his face that still worked.

The dogs were hunters. They suffered the manhandling with miserable expressions that occasionally became fierce, low growls punctuated with warning snaps of their jaws-to which Delum Thord seemed indifferent.

Gnaw, lying at Karsa’s feet, tracked with sleepy eyes Delum’s random crawling about through the pack.

It had taken most of a day for Delum Thord to return to them, a journey that had left much of the warrior behind. Another day had passed whilst Karsa and Bairoth waited to see if more would come, enough to send light into his eyes, enough to gift Delum Thord with the ability to once more look upon his companions. But there had been no change. He did not see them at all. Only the dogs.

Bairoth had left earlier to hunt, but Karsa sensed, as the day stretched on, that Bairoth Gild had chosen to avoid the camp for other reasons. Freeing the demon had taken Delum from them, and it had been Bairoth’s words that had yielded a most bitter reward. Karsa had little understanding of such feelings, this need to self-inflict some sort of punishment. The error had belonged to Delum, drawing his blade against the demon. Karsa’s sore ribs attested to the Forkrul Assail’s martial prowess-she had attacked with impressive speed, faster than anything Karsa had seen before, much less faced. The three Teblor were as children before her. Delum should have seen that, instantly, should have stayed his hand as Bairoth had done.

Instead, the warrior had been foolish, and now he crawled among the dogs. The Faces in the Rock held no pity for foolish warriors, so why should Karsa Orlong? Bairoth Gild was indulging himself, making regret and pity and castigation into sweet nectars, leaving him to wander like a tortured drunk.

Karsa was fast running out of patience. The journey must be resumed. If anything could return Delum Thord to himself, then it would be battle, the blood’s fierce rage searing the soul awake.

Footsteps from uptrail. Gnaw’s head turned, but the distraction was only momentary.

Bairoth Gild strode into view, the carcass of a wild goat draped over one shoulder. He paused to study Delum Thord, then let the goat drop in a crunch and clatter of hoofs. He drew his butchering knife and knelt down beside it.

‘We have lost another day,’ Karsa said.

‘Game is scarce,’ Bairoth replied, slicing open the goat’s belly. The dogs moved into an expectant half-circle, Delum following to take his place among them. Bairoth cut through connecting tissues and began flinging blood-soaked organs to the beasts. None made a move.

Karsa tapped Gnaw on the flank and the beast rose and moved forward, trailed by its three-legged mate. Gnaw sniffed at the offerings, each in turn, and settled on the goat’s liver, while its mate chose the heart. They each trotted away with their prizes. The remaining dogs then closed in on what remained, snapping and bickering. Delum pounced forward to wrest a lung from the jaws of one of the dogs, baring his own teeth in challenge. He scrambled off to one side, hunching down over his prize.

Karsa watched as Gnaw rose and trotted towards Delum Thord, watched as Delum, whimpering, dropped the lung then crouched flat, head down, while Gnaw licked the pooling blood around the organ for a few moments, then padded back to its own meal.

Grunting, Karsa said, ‘Gnaw’s pack has grown by one.’ There was no reply and he glanced over to see Bairoth staring at Delum in horror. ‘See his smile, Bairoth Gild? Delum Thord has found happiness, and this tells us that he will come back no further, for why would he?’

Bairoth stared down at his bloodied hands, at the butchering knife gleaming red in the dying light. ‘Know you no grief, Warleader?’ he asked in a whisper.

‘No. He is not dead.’

‘Better he were!’ Bairoth snapped.

‘Then kill him.’

Raw hatred flared in Bairoth’s eyes. ‘Karsa Orlong, what did she say to you?’

Karsa frowned at the unexpected question, then shrugged. ‘She damned me for my ignorance. Words that could not wound me, for I was indifferent to all that she uttered.’

Bairoth’s eyes narrowed. ‘You make of what has happened a jest? Warleader, you no longer lead me. I shall not guard your flank in this cursed war of yours. We have lost too much-’

‘There is weakness in you, Bairoth Gild. I have known that all along. For years, I have known that. You are no different from what Delum has become, and it is this truth that now haunts you so. Did you truly believe we would all return from this journey without scars? Did you think us immune to our enemies?’

‘So you think-’

Karsa’s laugh was harsh. ‘You are a fool, Bairoth Gild. How did we come this far? Through Rathyd and Sunyd lands? Through the battles we have fought? Our victory was no gift of the Seven. Success was carved by our skill with swords, and by my leadership. Yet all you saw in me was bravado, as would come from a youth fresh to the ways of the warrior. You deluded yourself, and it gave you comfort. You are not my superior, Bairoth Gild, not in anything.’

Bairoth Gild stared, his eyes wide, his crimson hands trembling.

‘And now,’ Karsa growled, ‘if you would survive. Survive this journey. Survive me, then I suggest you teach yourself anew the value of following. Your life is in your leader’s hands. Follow me to victory, Bairoth Gild, or fall to the wayside. Either way, I will tell the tale with true words. Thus, how would you have it?’

Emotions flitted like wildfire across Bairoth’s broad, suddenly pale face. He drew a half-dozen tortured breaths.

‘I lead this pack,’ Karsa said quietly, ‘and none other. Do you challenge me?’

Bairoth slowly settled back on his haunches, shifting the grip on the butchering knife, his gaze settling, level now on Karsa’s own. ‘We have been lovers a long time, Dayliss and I. You knew nothing, even as we laughed at your clumsy efforts to court her. Every day you would strut between us, filled with bold words, always challenging me, always seeking to belittle me in her eyes. But we laughed inside, Dayliss and I, and spent the nights in each other’s arms. Karsa Orlong, it may be that you are the only one who will return to our village-indeed, I believe that you will make certain of it, so my life is as good as ended already, but I do not fear that. And when you return to the village, Warleader, you will make Dayliss your wife. But one truth shall remain with you until the end of your days, and that is: with Dayliss, it was not I who followed, but you. And there is nothing you can do to change that.’

Karsa slowly bared his teeth. ‘Dayliss? My wife? I think not. No, instead I shall denounce her to the tribe. To have lain with a man not her husband. She shall be shorn, and then I shall claim her-as my slave-’

Bairoth launched himself at Karsa, knife flashing through the gloom. His back to the stone wall, Karsa could only manage a sideways roll that gave him no time to find his feet before Bairoth was upon him, one arm wrapping about his neck, arching him back, the hard knife-blade scoring up his chest, point driving for his throat.

Then the dogs were upon them both, thundering, bone-jarring impacts, snarls, the clash of canines, teeth punching through leather.

Bairoth screamed, pulled away, arm releasing Karsa.

Rolling onto his back, Karsa saw the other warrior stumbling, dogs hanging by their jaws from both arms, Gnaw with his teeth sunk into Bairoth’s hip, other beasts flinging themselves forward, seeking yet more holds. Stumbling, then crashing to the ground.

‘Away!’ Karsa bellowed.

The dogs flinched, tore themselves free and backed off, still snarling. Off to one side, Karsa saw as he scrambled upright, crouched Delum, his face twisted into a wild smile, his eyes glittering, hands hanging low to the ground and spasmodically snatching at nothing. Then, his gaze travelling past Delum, Karsa stiffened. He hissed and the dogs fell perfectly silent.

Bairoth rolled onto his hands and knees, head lifting.

Karsa gestured, then pointed.

There was the flicker of torchlight on the trail ahead. Still a hundred or more paces distant, slowly nearing. With the way sound was trapped within the dead-end, it was unlikely the fighting had been heard.

Ignoring Bairoth, Karsa drew his sword and set off towards it. If Sunyd, then the ones who approached were displaying a carelessness that he intended to make fatal. More likely, they were lowlanders. He could see now, as he edged from shadow to shadow on the trail, that there were at least a half-dozen torches-a sizeable party, then. He could now hear voices, the foul tongue of the lowlanders.

Bairoth moved up alongside him. He had drawn his own sword. Blood dripped from puncture wounds on his arms, streamed down his hip. Karsa scowled at him, waved him back.

Grimacing, Bairoth withdrew.

The lowlanders had come to the cul de sac where the demon had been imprisoned. The play of torchlight danced on the high stone walls. The voices rose louder, edged with alarm.

Karsa slipped forward in silence until he was just beyond the pool of light. He saw nine lowlanders, gathered to examine the now-empty pit in the centre of the clearing. Two were well armoured and helmed, cradling heavy crossbows, longswords belted at their hips, positioned at the entrance to the cul de sac and watching the trail. Off to one side were four males dressed in earth-toned robes, their hair braided, pulled forward and knotted over their breastbones; none of these carried weapons.

The remaining three had the look of scouts, wearing tight-fitting leathers, armed with short bows and hunting knives. Clan tattoos spanned their brows. It was one of these who seemed to be in charge, for he spoke in hard tones, as if giving commands. The other two scouts were crouched down beside the pit, eyes studying the stone floor.

Both guards stood within the torchlight, leaving them effectively blind to the darkness beyond. Neither appeared particularly vigilant.

Karsa adjusted his grip on the bloodsword, his gaze fixed on the guard nearest him.

Then he charged.

Head flew from shoulders, blood fountaining. Karsa’s headlong rush carried him to where the other guard had been standing, to find the lowlander no longer there. Cursing, the Teblor pivoted, closed on the three scouts.

Who had already scattered, black-iron blades hissing from their sheaths.

Karsa laughed. There was little room beyond his reach in the high-walled cul de sac, and the only chance of escape would have to be through him.

One of the scouts shouted something then darted forward.

Karsa’s wooden sword chopped down, splitting tendon, then bone. The lowlander shrieked. Stepping past the crumpling figure, Karsa dragged his weapon free.

The remaining two scouts had moved away from each other and now attacked from the sides. Ignoring one-and feeling the broad-bladed hunting knife rip through his leather armour to score along his ribs-Karsa batted aside the other’s attack and, still laughing, crushed the lowlander’s skull with his sword. A back slash connected with the other scout, sent him flying to strike the stone wall.

The four robed figures awaited Karsa, evincing little fear, joined in a low chant.

The air sparkled strangely before them, then coruscating fire suddenly unfolded, swept forward to engulf Karsa.

It raged against him, a thousand clawed hands, tearing, raking, battering his body, his face and his eyes.

Karsa, shoulders hunching, walked through it.

The fire burst apart, flames fleeing into the night air. Shrugging the effects off with a soft growl, Karsa approached the four lowlanders.

Their expressions, calm and serene and confident a moment ago, now revealed disbelief that swiftly shifted to horror as Karsa’s sword ripped into them.

They died as easily as had the others, and moments later the Teblor stood amidst twitching bodies, blood gleaming dark on his sword’s blade. Torches lay on the stone floor here and there, fitfully throwing smoky light to dance against the cul de sac’s walls.

Bairoth Gild strode into view. ‘The second guard escaped up the trail, Warleader,’ he said. ‘The dogs now hunt.’

Karsa grunted.

‘Karsa Orlong, you have slain the first group of children. The trophies are yours.’

Reaching down, Karsa closed the fingers of one hand in the robes of one of the bodies at his feet. He straightened, lifting the corpse into the air, and studied its puny limbs, its small head with its peculiar braids. A face lined, as would be a Teblor’s after centuries upon centuries of life, yet the visage he stared down upon was scaled to that of a Teblor newborn.

‘They squealed like babes,’ Bairoth Gild said. ‘The tales are true, then. These lowlanders are like children indeed.’

‘Yet not,’ Karsa said, studying the aged face now slack in death.

‘They died easily.’

‘Aye, they did.’ Karsa flung the body away. ‘Bairoth Gild, these are our enemies. Do you follow your warleader?’

‘For this war, I shall,’ Bairoth replied. ‘Karsa Orlong, we shall speak no more of our… village. What lies between us must await our eventual return.’

‘Agreed.’

Two of the pack’s dogs did not return, and there was nothing of strutting victory in the gaits of Gnaw and the others as they padded back into the camp at dawn. Surprisingly, the lone guard had somehow escaped. Delum Thord, his arms wrapped about Gnaw’s mate-as they had been throughout the night-whimpered upon the pack’s return.

Bairoth shifted the supplies from his and Karsa’s destriers to Delum’s warhorse, for it was clear that Delum had lost all knowledge of riding. He would run with the dogs.

As they readied to depart, Bairoth said, ‘It may be that the guard came from Silver Lake. That he will bring to them warning words of our approach.’

‘We shall find him,’ Karsa growled from where he crouched, threading the last of his trophies onto the leather cord. ‘He could only have eluded the dogs by climbing, so there will be no swiftness to his flight. We shall seek sign of him. If he has continued on through the night, he will be tired. If not, he will be close.’ Straightening, Karsa held the string of severed ears and tongues out before him, studied the small, mangled objects for a moment longer, then looped his collection of trophies round his neck.

He swung himself onto Havok’s back, collected the lone rein.

Gnaw’s pack moved ahead to scout the trail, Delum among them, the three-legged dog cradled in his arms.

They set off.

Shortly before midday, they came upon signs of the last lowlander, thirty paces beyond the corpses of the two missing dogs-a crossbow quarrel buried in each one. A scattering of iron armour, straps and fittings. The guard had shed weight.

‘This child is a clever one,’ Bairoth Gild observed. ‘He will hear us before we see him, and will prepare an ambush.’ The warrior’s hooded gaze flicked to Delum. ‘More dogs will be slain.’

Karsa shook his head at Bairoth’s words. ‘He will not ambush us, for that will see him killed, and he knows it. Should we catch up with him, he will seek to hide. Evasion is his only hope, up the cliffside, and then we will have passed him, and so he will not succeed in reaching Silver Lake before us.’

‘We do not hunt him down?’ Bairoth asked in surprise.

‘No. We ride for Bone Pass.’

‘Then he shall trail us. Warleader, an enemy loose at our backs-’

‘A child. Those quarrels might well kill a dog, but they are as twigs to us Teblor. Our armour alone will take much of those small barbs-’

‘He has a sharp eye, Karsa Orlong, to slay two dogs in the dark. He will aim for where our armour does not cover us.’

Karsa shrugged. ‘Then we must outpace him beyond the pass.’

They continued on. The trail widened as it climbed, the entire escarpment pushing upward in its northward reach. Riding at a fast trot, they covered league after league until, by late afternoon, they found themselves entering clouds of mist, a deep roaring sound directly ahead.

The path dropped away suddenly.

Reining in amidst the milling dogs, Karsa dismounted.

The edge was sheer. Beyond it and on his left, a river had cut a notch a thousand paces or more deep into the cliffside, down to what must have been a ledge of some sort, over which it then plunged another thousand paces to a mist-shrouded valley floor. A dozen or more thread-thin waterfalls drifted out from both sides of the notch, issuing from fissures in the bedrock. The scene, Karsa realized after a moment, was all wrong. They had reached the highest part of the escarpment’s ridge. A river, cutting a natural route through to the lowlands, did not belong in this place. Stranger still, the flanking waterfalls poured out from riven cracks, not one level with another, as if the mountains on both sides were filled with water.

‘Karsa Orlong,’ Bairoth had to shout to be heard over the roar rising from far below, ‘someone-an ancient god, perhaps-has broken a mountain in half. That notch, it was not carved by water. No, it has the look of having been cut by a giant axe. And the wound… bleeds.’

Not replying to Bairoth’s words, Karsa turned about. Directly on his right, a winding, rocky path descended on their side of the cliff, a steep path of shale and scree, gleaming wet.

‘This is our way down?’ Bairoth stepped past Karsa, then swung an incredulous look upon the warleader. ‘We cannot! It will vanish beneath our feet! Beneath the hoofs of the horses! We shall descend indeed, like stones down a cliff side!’

Karsa crouched and pried a rock loose from the ground. He tossed it down the trail. Where it first struck, the shale shifted, trembled, then slid in a growing wave that quickly followed the bouncing rock, vanishing into the mists.

Revealing rough, broad steps.

Made entirely of bones.

‘It is as Pahlk said, ‘Karsa murmured, before turning to Bairoth. ‘Come, our path awaits.’

Bairoth’s eyes were hooded. ‘It does indeed, Karsa Orlong. Beneath our feet there shall be a truth.’

Karsa scowled. ‘This is our trail down from the mountains. Nothing more, Bairoth Gild.’

The warrior shrugged. ‘As you say, Warleader.’

Karsa in the lead, they began the descent.

The bones were lowlander in scale, yet heavier and thicker, hardened into stone. Here and there, antlers and tusks were visible, as well as artfully carved bone helms from larger beasts. An army had been slain, their bones then laid out, intricately fashioned into these grim steps. The mists had quickly laid down a layer of water, but each step was solid, broad and slightly angled back, the pitch reducing the risk of slipping. The Teblor’s pace was slowed only by the cautious descent of the destriers.

It seemed that the rockslide Karsa had triggered had cleared the way as far down as the massive shelf of stone where the river gathered before plunging over to the valley below. With the roaring tumble of water growing ever closer on their left and jagged, raw rock on their right, the warriors descended more than a thousand paces, and with each step the gloom deepened around them.

Pale, ghostly light broken by shreds of darker, opaque mists commanded the ledge that spread out on this side of the waterfall. The bones formed a level floor of sorts, abutting the rock wall to the right and appearing to continue on beneath the river that now roared, massive and monstrous, less than twenty paces away on their left.

The horses needed to rest. Karsa watched Bairoth make his way towards the river, then glanced over at Delum, who huddled now among Gnaw’s pack, wet and shivering. The faint glow emanating from the bones seemed to carry a breath unnaturally cold. On all sides, the scene was colourless, strangely dead. Even the river’s immense power felt lifeless.

Bairoth approached. ‘Warleader, these bones beneath us, they continue under the river to the other side. They are deep, almost my height where I could see. Tens of thousands have died to make this. Tens of tens. This entire shelf-’

‘Bairoth Gild, we have rested long enough. There are stones coming down from above-either the guard descends, or there will be another slide to bury what we have revealed. There must be many such slides, for the lowlanders used this on the way up, and that could not have been more than a few days ago. Yet we arrived to find it buried once more.’

Sudden unease flickered through Bairoth’s expression, and he glanced over to where small stones of shale pattered down from the trail above. There were more now than there had been a moment ago.

They gathered the horses once more and approached the shelf’s edge. The descent before them was too steep to hold a slide, the steps switch-backing for as far down as the Teblor could see. The horses balked before it.

‘Karsa Orlong, we shall be very vulnerable on that path.’

‘We have been so all along, Bairoth Gild. That lowlander behind us has already missed his greatest opportunity. That is why I believe we have outdistanced him, and that the stones we see falling from above portend another slide and nothing more.’ With that Karsa coaxed Havok forward onto the first step.

Thirty paces down they heard a faint roar from above, a sound deeper in timbre than the river. A hail of stones swept over them, but at some distance out from the cliff wall. Muddy rain followed for a short time thereafter.

They continued on, until weariness settled into their limbs. The mists might have lightened for a time, but perhaps it was nothing more than their eyes growing accustomed to the gloom. The wheels of sun and stars passed unseen and unseeing over them. The only means of measuring time was through hunger and exhaustion. There would be no stopping until the descent was complete. Karsa had lost count of the switchbacks; what he had imagined to be a thousand paces was proving to be far more. Beside them, the river continued its fall, nothing but mists now, a hissing deluge bitter cold, spreading out to blind them to the valley below and the skies above. Their world had narrowed to the endless bones under their moccasins and the sheer wall of the cliff.

They reached another shelf and the bones were gone, buried beneath squelching, sodden mud and snarled bundles of vivid green grasses. Fallen tree branches cloaked in mosses littered the area. Mists hid all else.

The horses tossed their heads as they were led, finally, onto level ground. Delum and the dogs settled down into a clump of wet fur and skin. Bairoth stumbled close to Karsa. ‘Warleader, I am distraught.’

Karsa frowned. His legs were trembling beneath him, and he could not keep the shivering from his muscles. ‘Why, Bairoth Gild? We are done. We have descended Bone Pass.’

‘Aye.’ Bairoth coughed, then said, ‘And before long we will come to this place again-to climb.’

Karsa slowly nodded. ‘I have thought on this, Bairoth Gild. The lowlands sweep around our plateau. There are other passes, directly south of our own Uryd lands-there must be, else lowlanders would never have appeared among us. Our return journey will take us along the edge, westward, and we shall find those hidden passes.’

‘Through lowlander territories the entire way! We are but two, Karsa Orlong! A raid upon the farm at Silver Lake is one thing, but to wage war against an entire tribe is madness! We will be hunted and pursued the entire way-it cannot be done!’

‘Hunted and pursued?’ Karsa laughed. ‘What is new in that? Come, Bairoth Gild, we must find somewhere dry, away from this river. I see treetops, there, to the left. We shall make ourselves a fire, we shall rediscover what it is like to be warm, our bellies full.’

The ledge’s slope led gently down a scree mostly buried beneath mosses, lichens and rich, dark soil, beyond which waited a forest of ancient redwoods and cedars. The sky overhead revealed a patch of blue, and shafts of sunlight were visible here and there. Once within the wood, the mists thinned to a musty dampness, smelling of rotting treefalls. The warriors continued on another fifty paces, until they found a sunlit stretch where a diseased cedar had collapsed some time past. Butterflies danced in the golden air and the soft crunch of pine-borers was a steady cadence on all sides. The huge, upright root-mat of the cedar had left a bare patch of bedrock where the tree had once stood. The rock was dry and in full sunlight.

Karsa began unstrapping supplies while Bairoth set off to collect deadwood from the fallen cedar. Delum found a mossy patch warmed by the sun and curled up to sleep. Karsa considered removing the man’s sodden clothes, then, seeing the rest of the pack gather around Delum, he simply shrugged and resumed unburdening the horses.

A short while later, their clothes hanging from roots close to the fire, the two warriors sat naked on the bedrock, the chill slowly yielding from muscle and bone.

‘At the far end of this valley,’ Karsa said, ‘the river widens, forming a flat before reaching the lake. The side we are now on becomes the south side of the river. There will be a spar of rock near the mouth, blocking our view to the right. Immediately beyond it, on the lake’s southwest shore, stands the lowlander farm. We are very nearly there, Bairoth Gild.’

The warrior on the other side of the hearth rolled his shoulders. ‘Tell me we shall attack in daylight, Warleader. I have found a deep hatred for darkness. Bone Pass has shrivelled my heart.’

‘Daylight it shall be, Bairoth Gild,’ Karsa replied, choosing to ignore Bairoth’s last confession, for its words had trembled something within him, leaving a sour taste in his mouth. ‘The children will be working in the fields, unable to reach the stronghold of the farmhouse in time. They will see us charging down upon them, and know terror and despair.’

‘This pleases me, Warleader.’

The redwood and cedar forest cloaked the entire valley, showing no evidence of clearing or logging. There was little game to be found beneath the thick canopy, and days passed in a diffuse gloom relieved only by the occasional treefall. The Teblor’s supply of food quickly dwindled, the horses growing leaner on a diet of blueleaf, cullan moss and bitter vine, the dogs taking to eating rotten wood, berries and beetles.

Midway through the fourth day, the valley narrowed, forcing them ever closer to the river. Travelling through the deep forest, away from the lone trail running alongside the river, the Teblor had ensured that they would remain undiscovered, but now, finally, they were nearing Silver Lake.

They arrived at the river mouth at dusk, the wheel of stars awakening in the sky above them. The trail flanking the river’s boulder-strewn bank had seen recent passage, leading northwestward, but no sign of anyone’s returning. The air was crisp above the river’s rushing water. A broad fan of sand and gravel formed a driftwood-cluttered island where the river opened out into the lake. Mists hung over the water, making the lake’s far north and east shores hazy. The mountains reached down on those distant shores, kneeling in the breeze-rippled waves.

Karsa and Bairoth dismounted and began preparing their camp, though on this night there would be no cookfire.

‘Those tracks,’ Bairoth said after a time, ‘they belong to the lowlanders you killed. I wonder what they’d intended on doing in the place where the demon was imprisoned.’

Karsa’s shrug was dismissive. ‘Perhaps they’d planned on freeing her.’

‘I think not, Karsa Orlong. The sorcery they used to assail you was god-aspected. I believe they came to worship, or perhaps the demon’s soul could be drawn out from the flesh, in the manner of the Faces in the Rock. Perhaps, for the lowlanders, it was the site of an oracle, or even the home of their god.’

Karsa studied his companion for a long moment, then said, ‘Bairoth Gild, there is poison in your words. That demon was not a god. It was a prisoner of the stone. The Faces in the Rock are true gods. There is no comparison to be made.’

Bairoth’s heavy brows rose. ‘Karsa Orlong, I make no comparison. The lowlanders are foolish creatures, whilst the Teblor are not. The lowlanders are children and are susceptible to self-deception. Why would they not worship that demon? Tell me, did you sense a living presence in that sorcery when it struck you?’

Karsa considered. ‘There was… something. Scratching and hissing and spitting. I flung it away and it then fled. So, it was not the demon’s own power.’

‘No, it wasn’t, for she was gone. Perhaps they worshipped the stone that had pinned her down-there was magic in that as well.’

‘But not living, Bairoth Gild. I do not understand the track of your thoughts, and I grow tired of these pointless words.’

‘I believe,’ Bairoth persisted, ‘that the bones of Bone Pass belong to the people who imprisoned the demon. And this is what troubles me, Karsa Orlong, for those bones are much like the lowlanders’-thicker, yes, but still childlike. Indeed, it may be that the lowlanders are kin to that ancient people.’

‘What of it?’ Karsa rose. ‘I will hear no more of this. Our only task now is to rest, then rise with the dawn and prepare our weapons. Tomorrow, we slay children.’ He strode to where the horses stood beneath the trees. Delum sat nearby amidst the dogs, Gnaw’s three-legged mate cradled in his arms. One hand stroked the beast’s head in mindless repetition. Karsa stared at Delum for a moment longer, then turned away to prepare his bedding.

The river’s passage was the only sound as the wheel of stars slowly crossed the sky. At some point in the night the breeze shifted, carrying with it the smell of woodsmoke and livestock and, once, the faint bark of a dog. Lying awake on his bed of moss, Karsa prayed to Urugal that the wind would not turn with the sun’s rise. There were always dogs on lowlander farms, kept for the same reason as Teblor kept dogs. Sharp ears and sensitive noses, quick to announce strangers. But these would be lowlander breeds-smaller than those of the Teblor. Gnaw and his pack would make short work of them. And there would be no warning… so long as the wind did not shift.

He heard Bairoth rise and make his way over to where the pack slept.

Karsa glanced over to see Bairoth crouched down beside Delum. Dogs had lifted their heads questioningly and were now watching as Bairoth stroked Delum’s upturned face.

It was a moment before Karsa realized what he was witnessing. Bairoth was painting Delum’s face in the battle-mask, black, grey and white, the shades of the Uryd. The battle-mask was reserved for warriors who knowingly rode to their deaths; it was an announcement that the sword would never again be sheathed. But it was a ritual that belonged, traditionally, to ageing warriors who had elected to set forth on a final raid, and thus avoid dying with straw on their backs. Karsa rose.

If Bairoth heard his approach, he gave no sign. There were tears running down the huge warrior’s broad, blunt face, whilst Delum, lying perfectly still, stared up at him with wide, unblinking eyes.

‘He does not comprehend,’ Karsa growled, ‘but I do. Bairoth Gild, you dishonour every Uryd warrior who has worn the battle-mask.’

‘Do I, Karsa Orlong? Those warriors grown old, setting out for a final fight-there is nothing of glory in their deed, nothing of glory in their battle-mask. You are blind if you think otherwise. The paint hides nothing-the desperation remains undisguised in their eyes. They come to the ends of their lives, and have found that those lives were without meaning. It is that knowledge that drives them from the village, drives them out to seek a quick death.’ Bairoth finished with the black paint and now moved on to the white, spreading it with three fingers across Delum’s wide brow. ‘Look into our friend’s eyes, Karsa Orlong. Look closely.’

‘I see nothing,’ Karsa muttered, shaken by Bairoth’s words.

‘Delum sees the same, Warleader. He stares at… nothing. Unlike you, however, he does not turn away from it. Instead, he sees with complete comprehension. Sees, and is terrified.’

‘You speak nonsense, Bairoth Gild.’

‘I do not. You and I, we are Teblor. We are warriors. We can offer Delum no comfort, and so he holds on to that dog, the beast with misery in its eyes. For comfort is what he seeks, now. It is, indeed, all he seeks. Why do I gift him the battle-mask? He will die this day, Karsa Orlong, and perhaps that will be comfort enough for Delum Thord. I pray to Urugal that it be so.’

Karsa glanced skyward. ‘The wheel is nearly done. We must ready ourselves.’

‘I am almost finished, Warleader.’

The horses stirred as Karsa rubbed blood-oil into his sword’s wooden blade. The dogs were on their feet now, pacing restlessly. Bairoth completed his painting of Delum’s face and headed off to attend to his own weapons. The three-legged dog struggled in Delum’s arms, but he simply held the beast all the tighter, until a soft growl from Gnaw made the whimpering warrior release it.

Karsa strapped the boiled leather armour onto Havok’s chest, neck and legs. When he was done, he turned to see Bairoth already astride his own horse. Delum’s destrier had also been armoured, but it stood without a rein. The animals were trembling.

‘Warleader, your grandfather’s descriptions have been unerring thus far. Tell me of the farmstead’s layout.’

‘A log house the size of two Uryd houses, with an upper floor beneath a steep roof. Heavy shutters with arrow-slits, a thick, quickly barred door at the front and at the back. There are three outbuildings; the one nearest the house and sharing one wall holds the livestock. Another is a forge, whilst the last one is of sod and likely was the first home before the log house was built. There is a landing on the lakeshore as well, and mooring poles. There will be a corral for the small lowlander horses.’

Bairoth was frowning. ‘Warleader, how many lowlander generations have passed since Pahlk’s raid?’

Karsa swung himself onto Havok’s back. He shrugged in answer to Bairoth’s question. ‘Enough. Are you ready, Bairoth Gild?’

‘Lead me, Warleader.’

Karsa guided Havok onto the trail beside the river. The mouth was on his left. To the right rose a high, raw mass of rock, treed on top, leaning out towards the lakeshore. A wide strand of round-stoned beach wound between the pinnacle and the lake.

The wind had not changed. The air smelled of smoke and manure. The farm’s dogs were silent.

Karsa drew his sword, angled the glistening blade near Havok’s nostrils. The destrier’s head lifted. Trot to canter, onto the pebbled beach, lake on the left, rock wall sliding past to the right. Behind him, he heard Bairoth’s horse, hoofs crashing down into the stones, and, further back, the dogs, Delum and his horse, the latter lagging to stay alongside its once-master.

Once clear of the pinnacle, they would shift hard right, and in moments be upon the unsuspecting children of the farm.

Canter to gallop.

Rock wall vanishing, flat, planted fields.

Gallop into charge.

The farm-smoke-blackened ruins barely visible through tall corn plants-and, just beyond it, sprawled all along the lake’s shore and back, all the way to the foot of a mountain, a town.

Tall, stone buildings, stone piers and wood-planked docks and boats crowding the lake’s edge. A wall of stones enclosing most of the structures inland, perhaps the height of a full-grown lowlander. A main road, a gate flanked by squat, flat-topped towers. Woodsmoke drifting in a layer above the slate rooftops. Figures on those towers.

More lowlanders-more than could be counted-all scurrying about now, as a bell started clanging. Running towards the gate from the cornfields, farming implements tossed aside.

Bairoth was bellowing something behind Karsa. Not a warcry. A voice pitched with alarm. Karsa ignored it, already closing in on the first of the farmers. He would take a few in passing, but not slacken his pace. Leave these children to the pack. He wanted the ones in the town, cowering behind the now-closing gate, behind the puny walls.

Sword flashed, taking off the back of a farmer’s head. Havok ran down another, trampling the shrieking woman under his hoofs. The gate boomed as it shut.

Karsa angled Havok to the left of it, eyes on the wall as he leaned forward. A crossbow quarrel flitted past, striking the furrowed ground ten paces to his right. Another whistled over his head.

No lowlander horse could clear this wall, but Havok stood at twenty-six hands-almost twice the height and mass of the lowlander breeds-and, muscles bunching, legs gathering, the huge destrier leapt, sailing over the wall effortlessly.

To crash, front hoofs first, onto the sloped roof of a shack. Slate tiles exploded, wood beams snapped. The small structure collapsed beneath them, chickens scattering, as Havok stumbled, legs clawing for purchase, then surged forward onto the muddy cart ruts of the street beyond.

Another building, this one stone-walled, reared up before them. Havok slewed to the right. A figure suddenly appeared at the building’s entrance, a round face, eyes wide. Karsa’s crossover chop split the lowlander’s skull where he stood just beyond the threshold, spinning him in place before his legs folded beneath him.

Hoofs pounding, Havok swept Karsa down the street towards’ the gate. He could hear slaughter in the fields and the road beyond-most of the workers had been trapped outside the town, it seemed. A dozen guards had succeeded in dropping a bar and had begun fanning out to take defensive positions when the warleader burst upon them.

Iron helm crunched, was torn from the dying child’s head as if biting at the blade as it was dragged free. A back-handed slash separated another child’s arm and shoulder from his body. Trampling a third guard, Havok pivoted, flinging his hindquarters around to strike a fourth child, sending him flying to crash up against the gate, sword spinning away.

A longsword-its blade as puny as a long knife’s to Karsa’s eyes-struck his leather-armoured thigh, cutting through two, perhaps three of the hardened layers, before bouncing away. Karsa drove his sword’s pommel into the lowlander’s face, felt bone crack. A kick sent the child reeling. Figures were scattering in panic from his path. Laughing, Karsa drove Havok forward.

He cut down another guard, whilst the others raced down the street.

Something punched the Teblor’s back, then a brief, stinging blossom of pain. Reaching over, Karsa dragged the quarrel free and flung it away. He dropped down from the horse, eyes on the barred gate. Metal latches had been locked over the bar, holding the thick plank in place.

Taking three strides back, Karsa lowered one shoulder, then charged it.

The iron pins holding the hinges between blocks of mortared stone burst free with the impact, sending the entire gate toppling outward. The tower on Karsa’s right groaned and sagged suddenly. Voices cried out inside it. The stone wall began to fold.

Cursing, the Teblor scrambled back towards the street as the entire tower collapsed in an explosion of dust.

Through the swirling white cloud, Bairoth rode, threads of blood and gore whipping from his bloodsword, his mount leaping to clear the rubble. The dogs followed, and with them Delum and his horse. Blood smeared Delum Thord’s mouth, and Karsa realized, with a faint ripple of shock, that the warrior had torn out a farmer’s throat with his own teeth, as would a dog.

Hoofs spraying mud, Bairoth reined in.

Karsa swung himself back onto Havok, twisted the destrier round to face down the street.

A square of pikemen approached at a trot, their long-poled weapons wavering, iron blades glinting in the morning light. They were still thirty paces distant.

A quarrel glanced off the rump of Bairoth’s horse, coming from a nearby upper floor window.

From somewhere outside the wall came the sound of galloping horses.

Bairoth grunted. ‘Our withdrawal shall be contested, Warleader.’

‘Withdrawal?’ Karsa laughed. He jutted his chin towards the advancing pikemen. ‘There can be no more than thirty, and children with long spears are still children, Bairoth Gild. Come, let us scatter them!’

With a curse, Bairoth unlimbered his bear skull bolas. ‘Precede me, then, Karsa Orlong, to hide my preparation.’

Baring his teeth in fierce pleasure, Karsa urged Havok forward. The dogs fanned out to either side, Delum positioning himself on the war-leader’s far right.

Ahead, the pikes slowly lowered, hovering at chest height as the square halted to plant their weapons.

Upper floor windows on the street opened then, and faces appeared, looking down to witness what would come.

‘Urugal!’ Karsa bellowed as he drove Havok into a charge. ‘Witness!’ Behind him he heard Bairoth riding just as hard, and within that clash of sounds rose the whirring flow of the grey bear skull, round and round, and round again.

Ten paces from the readied pikes, and Bairoth roared. Karsa ducked low, pitching Havok to the left even as he slowed the beast’s savage charge.

Something massive and hissing whipped past him, and Karsa twisted to see the huge bolas strike the square of soldiers.

Deadly chaos. Three of the five rows on the ground. Piercing screams.

Then the dogs were among them, followed by Delum’s horse.

Wheeling his destrier once again, Karsa closed on the shattered square, arriving in time to be alongside Bairoth as the two Teblor rode into the press. Batting aside the occasional, floundering pike, they slaughtered the children the dogs had not already taken down, in the passage of twenty heartbeats.

‘Warleader!’

Dragging his bloodsword from the last victim, Karsa turned at Bairoth’s bellow.

Another square of soldiers, this time flanked by crossbowmen. Fifty, perhaps sixty in all, at the street’s far end.

Scowling, Karsa glanced back towards the gate. Twenty mounted children, heavily armoured in plate and chain, were slowly emerging through the dust; more on foot, some armed with short bows, others with double-bladed axes, swords or javelins.

‘Lead me, Warleader!’

Karsa glared at Bairoth. ‘And so I shall, Bairoth Gild!’ He swung Havok about. ‘This side passage, down to the shoreline-we shall ride around our pursuers. Tell me, Bairoth Gild, have we slain enough children for you?’

‘Aye, Karsa Orlong.’

‘Then follow!’

The side passage was a street almost as wide as the main one, and it led straight down to the lake. Dwellings, trader stores and warehouses lined it. Shadowy figures were visible in windows, in doorways and at alley mouths as the Teblor raiders thundered past. The street ended twenty paces before the shoreline. The intervening space, through which a wide, wood-planked loadway ran down to the docks and piers, was filled with heaps of detritus, dominant among them a huge pile of bleached bones, from which poles rose, skulls affixed to their tops.

Teblor skulls.

Amidst this stretch of rubbish, squalid huts and tents filled every clear patch, and scores of children had emerged from them, bristling with weapons, their rough clothing bedecked with Teblor charms and scalps, their hard eyes watching the warriors approach as they began readying long-handled axes, two-handed swords, thick-shafted halberds, whilst yet others strung robust, recurved bows and nocked over-long, barbed arrows-which they began to draw, taking swift aim.

Bairoth’s roar was half horror, half rage as he sent his destrier charging towards these silent, deadly children.

Arrows flashed.

Bairoth’s horse screamed, stumbled, then crashed to the ground. Bairoth tumbled, his sword spinning away through the air as he struck, then broke through, a sapling-walled hut.

More arrows flew.

Karsa shifted Havok sharply, watched an arrow hiss past his thigh, then he was among the first of the lowlanders. Bloodsword clashed against an axe’s bronze-sheathed shaft, the impact tearing the weapon from the man’s hands. Karsa’s left hand shot out to intercept another axe as it swung towards Havok’s head. He plucked it from the man, sent it flying, then lunged forward the same hand to take the lowlander by the neck, lifting him clear as they continued on. A single, bone-crunching squeeze left the head lolling, the body twitching and spilling piss. Karsa flung the corpse away.

Havok’s onward plunge was brought to a sudden halt. The destrier shrieked, slewed to one side, blood gushing from its mouth and nostrils, dragging with it a heavy pike, its iron head buried deep in the horse’s chest.

The beast stumbled, then, with a drunken weave, it began toppling.

Karsa, screaming his fury, launched himself from the dying destrier’s back. A sword point rose to meet him, but Karsa batted it aside. He landed atop at least three tumbling bodies, hearing bones snap beneath him as he rolled his way clear.

Then he was on his feet, bloodsword slashing across the face of a lowlander, ripping black-bearded jaw from skull. An edged weapon scored deep across his back. Spinning, Karsa swung his blade under the attacker’s outstretched arms, chopped deep between ribs, jamming at the breastbone.

He tugged fiercely, tearing his sword free, the dying lowlander’s body cartwheeling past him.

Heavy weapons, many of them bearing knotted Teblor fetishes, surrounded him, each striving to drink Uryd blood. They fouled each other as often as not, yet Karsa was hard-pressed blocking the others as he fought his way clear. He killed two of his attackers in the process.

Now he heard another fight, nearby, from where Bairoth had crashed into the hut, and, here and there, the snap and snarl of the dogs.

His attackers had been silent until a moment ago. Now, all were screaming in their gibbering tongue, their faces filled with alarm, as Karsa wheeled once more and, seeing more than a dozen before him, attacked. They scattered, revealing a half-crescent line of lowlanders with bows and crossbows.

Strings thrummed.

Searing pain along Karsa’s neck, twin punches to his chest, another against his right thigh. Ignoring them all, the warleader charged the half-crescent.

More shouts, sudden pursuit from the ones who had scattered, but it was too late for that. Karsa’s sword was a blur as he cut into the archers. Figures turning to run. Dying, spinning away in floods of blood. Skulls shattering. Karsa carved his way down the line, and left a trail of eight figures, some writhing and others still, behind him, by the time the first set of attackers reached him. He pivoted to meet them, laughing at the alarm in their tiny, wizened, dirt-smeared faces, then he lunged into their midst once more.

They broke. Flinging weapons away, stumbling and scrambling in their panic. Karsa killed one after another, until there were no more within reach of his bloodsword. He straightened, then.

Where Bairoth had been fighting, seven lowlander bodies lay in a rough circle, but of the Teblor warrior there was no sign. The screams of a dog continued from further up the street, and Karsa ran towards the sound.

He passed the quarrel-studded corpses of the rest of the pack, though he did not see Gnaw among them. They had killed a number of lowlanders before they had finally fallen. Looking up, he saw, thirty paces down the street, Delum Thord, near him his fallen horse, and, another fifteen paces beyond, a knot of villagers.

Delum was shrieking. He had taken a dozen or more quarrels and arrows, and a javelin had been thrust right through his torso, just above the left hip. He had left a winding trail of blood behind him, yet still he crawled forward-to where the villagers surrounded the three-legged dog, beating it to death with walking sticks, hoes and shovels.

Wailing, Delum dragged himself on, the javelin scraping alongside him, blood streaming down the shaft.

Even as Karsa began to run forward, a figure raced out from an alley mouth, coming up slightly behind Delum, a long-handled shovel in its hands. Lifting high.

Karsa screamed a warning.

Delum did not so much as turn, his eyes fixed on the now-dead three-legged dog, as the shovel struck the back of his head.

There was a loud crunch. The shovel pulled away, revealing a flat patch of shattered bone and twisted hair.

Delum toppled forward, and did not move.

His slayer spun at Karsa’s charge. An old man, his toothless mouth opening wide in sudden terror.

Karsa’s downward chop cut the man in half down to the hips.

Tearing his bloodsword free, the warleader plunged on, towards the dozen or so villagers still gathered around the pulped corpse of the three-legged dog. They saw him and scattered.

Ten paces beyond lay Gnaw, leaving his own blood-trail as, back legs dragging, he continued towards the body of his mate. He raised his head upon seeing Karsa. Pleading eyes fixed on the warleader’s.

Bellowing, Karsa ran down two of the villagers and left their twitching corpses sprawled in the muddy street. He saw another, armed with a rust-pitted mattock, dart between two houses. The Teblor hesitated, then with a curse he swung about and moments later was crouched beside Gnaw.

A shattered hip.

Karsa glanced up the street to see the pike-wielding soldiers closing at a jog. Three mounted men rode in their wake, shouting out commands. A quick look towards the lakeside revealed more horsemen gathering, heads turned in his direction.

The warleader lifted Gnaw from the ground, tucking the beast under his left arm.

Then he set off in pursuit of the mattock-wielding villager.

Rotting vegetables crowded the narrow aisle between the two houses which, at the far end, opened out into a pair of corralled runs. As he emerged into the track between the two fence lines, he saw the man, still running, twenty paces ahead. Beyond the corrals was a shallow ditch, carrying sewage down to the lake. The child had crossed it and was plunging into a tangle of young alders-there were more buildings beyond it, either barns or warehouses.

Karsa raced after him, leaping across the ditch, the hunting dog still under his arm. The jostling was giving it great pain, the Teblor knew. He contemplated slitting its throat.

The child entered a barn, still carrying his mattock.

Following, Karsa ducked low as he plunged through the side doorway. Sudden gloom. There were no beasts in the stalls; the straw, still piled high, looked old and damp. A large fishing boat commanded the wide centre aisle, flipped over and resting on wooden horses. Double sliding doors to the left, one of them slightly pushed back, the ropes from the handle gently swinging back and forth.

Karsa found the last, darkest stall, where he set Gnaw down on the straw. ‘I shall return to you, my friend,’ he whispered. ‘Failing that, find a way to heal, then journey home. Home, among the Uryd.’ The Teblor cut a thong of leather from his armour strappings. He tore from his belt-bag a handful of bronze sigils bearing the tribal signs, then strung the thong through them. None hung loose, and so would make no sound. He tied the makeshift collar round Gnaw’s thick, muscled neck. Then he laid one hand lightly upon the dog’s shattered hip and closed his eyes. ‘I gift this beast the soul of the Teblor, the heart of the Uryd. Urugal, hear me. Heal this great fighter. Then send him home. For now, bold Urugal, hide him.’

He withdrew his hand and opened his eyes. The beast looked up at him calmly. ‘Make fierce your long life, Gnaw. We will meet again, this I vow upon the blood of all the children I have slain this day.’

Shifting grip on his bloodsword, Karsa turned away and departed the stall without another backward glance.

He padded towards the sliding door, looked out.

A warehouse stood opposite, high-ceilinged with a loading loft beneath its slate-tiled roof. From within the building came the sounds of bolts and bars dropping into place. Smiling, Karsa darted across to where the loading chains dangled from pulleys, his eyes on the doorless loft platform high overhead.

As he prepared to sling his sword back over a shoulder, he saw, with a start, that he was festooned with arrows and quarrels, and realized, for the first time, that much of the blood sheathing his body was his own. Scowling, he pulled the darts out. There was more blood, particularly from his right thigh and the two wounds in his chest. A long arrow in his back had buried its barbed head deep into muscle. He attempted to drag the arrow free, but the pain that resulted came close to making him faint. He settled for snapping the shaft just behind the iron head, and this effort alone left him chilled and sweating.

Distant shouts alerted him to a slowly closing cordon of soldiers and townsfolk, all hunting him. Karsa closed his hands around the chains, then began climbing. Every time he lifted his left arm, his back flashed with agony. But it had been the flat of a mattock’s blade that had felled Gnaw, a two-handed blow from behind-the attack of a coward. And nothing else mattered.

He swung himself onto the platform’s dusty floorboards, padded silently away from the opening as he drew his sword once more.

He could hear breathing, harsh and ragged, below. Low whimpering between gasps, a voice praying to whatever gods the child worshipped.

Karsa made his way towards the gaping hole in the centre of the platform, careful to keep his moccasins from dragging, lest sawdust drift down from between the floorboards. He came to the edge and looked down.

The fool was directly beneath him, crouched down, trembling, the mattock held ready as he faced the barred doors. He had soiled himself in his terror.

Karsa carefully reversed grip on his sword, held it out point downward, then dropped from the ledge.

The sword’s tip entered atop the man’s pate, the blade driving down through bone and brain. As Karsa’s full weight impacted the warehouse floor, there was a massive, splintering sound, and Teblor and victim both plunged through, down into a cellar. Shattered floorboards crashed down around them. The cellar was deep, almost Karsa’s height, stinking of salted fish yet empty.

Stunned by the fall, Karsa feebly groped for his sword, but he could not find it. He managed to raise his head slightly, and saw that something was sticking out of his chest, a red shard of splintered wood. He was, he bemusedly realized, impaled. His hand continued searching for his sword, though he could not otherwise move, but found only wood and fish-scales, the latter greasy with salt and sticking to his fingertips.

He heard the sound of boots from above. Blinking, Karsa stared up as a ring of helmed faces slowly swam into view. Then another child’s face appeared, unhelmed, his brow marked in a tribal tattoo, the expression beneath it strangely sympathetic. There was a lot of conversation, hot with anger, then the tattooed child gestured and everyone fell silent. In the Sunyd dialect of the Teblor, the man said, ‘Should you die down there, warrior, at least you’ll keep for a time.’

Karsa sought to rise once more, but the shaft of wood held him fast. He bared his teeth in a grimace.

‘What is your name, Teblor?’ the child asked.

‘I am Karsa Orlong, grandson of Pahlk-’

‘Pahlk? The Uryd who visited centuries ago?’

‘To slay scores of children-’

The man’s nod was serious as he interjected, ‘Children, yes, it makes sense for your kind to call us that. But Pahlk killed no-one, not at first. He came down from the pass, half starved and fevered. The first farmers who’d settled here took him in, nourished him back to health. It was only then that he murdered them all and fled. Well, not all. A girl escaped, made her way back along the lake’s south shore to Orbs, and told the detachment there-well, told them everything they needed to know about the Teblor. Since that time, of course, the Sunyd slaves have told us even more. You are Uryd. We’ve not reached your tribe-you’ve had no bounty hunters as yet, but you will. Within a century, I’d hazard, there will be no more Teblor in the fastnesses of Laederon Plateau. The only Teblor will be the ones branded and in chains. Plying the nets on the fishing boats, as the Sunyd now do. Tell me, Karsa, do you recognize me?’

‘You are the one who escaped us above the pass. Who came too late to warn his fellow children. Who, I know now, is full of lies. Your tiny voice insults the Teblor tongue. It hurts my ears.’

The man smiled. ‘Too bad. You should reconsider, in any case, warrior. For I am all that stands between your living or dying. Assuming you don’t die of your wounds first. Of course, you Teblor are uncommonly tough, as my companions have just been reminded, to their dismay. I see no blood frothing your lips, which is a good sign, and rather astonishing, since you’ve four lungs, while we have two.’

Another figure had appeared and now spoke to the tattooed man in stentorian tones, to which he simply shrugged. ‘Karsa Orlong of the Uryd,’ he called down, ‘soldiers are about to descend, to tie ropes to your limbs so you can be lifted out. It seems you’re lying on what’s left of the town’s factor, which has somewhat abated the anger up here, since he was not a well-liked man. I would suggest, if you wish to live, that you not resist the, uh, warleader’s nervous volunteers.’

Karsa watched as four soldiers were slowly lowered down on ropes. He made no effort to resist as they roughly bound his wrists, ankles and upper arms, for the truth was, he was incapable of doing so.

The soldiers were quickly dragged back up, then the ropes were drawn taut, and Karsa was steadily lifted. He watched the shaft of splintered wood slowly withdrawing from his chest. It had entered high, just above his right shoulder blade, through muscles, reappearing just to the right of his clavicle on that side. As he was pulled free, pain overwhelmed him.

A hand was then slapping him awake. Karsa opened his eyes. He was lying on the warehouse floor, faces crowding him on all sides. Everyone seemed to be speaking to him at once in their thin, weedy tongue, and though he could not understand the words raw hatred rode the tone, and Karsa knew he was being cursed, in the name of scores of lowlander gods, spirits and mouldering ancestors. The thought pleased him, and he smiled.

The soldiers flinched back as one.

The tattooed lowlander, whose hand had awakened him, was crouched down at Karsa’s side. ‘Hood’s breath,’ he muttered. ‘Are all Uryd like you? Or are you the one the priests spoke of? The one who stalked their dreams like Hood’s own Knight? Ah well, it doesn’t matter, I suppose, for it seems their fears were unfounded. Look at you. Half dead, with a whole town eager to see you and your companion flayed alive-there’s not a family to be found not in mourning, thanks to you. Grasp the world by the throat? Not likely; you’ll need Oponn’s luck to live out the hour.’

The broken arrow shaft had been driven deeper into Karsa’s back with the fall, gouging into the bone of his shoulder blade. Blood was spreading out on the floorboards beneath him.

There was a commotion as a new lowlander arrived, this one tall for his kind, thin with a severe, weather-lined face. He was dressed in shimmering clothes, deep blue and trimmed with gold thread sewn into intricate patterns. The guard spoke to him at length, though the man himself said nothing, nor did his expression change. When the guard was finished, the newcomer nodded, then gestured with one hand and turned away.

The guard looked down at Karsa once more. ‘That was Master Silgar, the man I work for, most of the time. He believes you will survive your wounds, Karsa Orlong, and so has prepared for you a… a lesson, of sorts.’ The man straightened and said something to the soldiers. There followed a brief argument, which concluded with an indifferent shrug from one of the soldiers.

Karsa’s limbs were lifted once more, two lowlanders to each, the men straining to hold him as they carried him to the warehouse doors.

The blood dripping down from his wounds was slowing, pain retreating behind a dull lassitude in the Teblor’s mind. He stared up at blue sky as the soldiers carried him to the centre of the street, the sounds of a crowd on all sides. They set him down propped up against a cart wheel, and Karsa saw before him Bairoth Gild.

He had been tied to a much larger spoked wheel, which itself rested against support poles. The huge warrior was a mass of wounds. A spear had been driven into his mouth, exiting just below his left ear, leaving the lower jaw shattered, bone gleaming red amidst torn flesh. The stubs of deep-driven quarrels crowded his torso.

But his eyes were sharp as they met Karsa’s own.

Villagers filled the street, held back by a cordon of soldiers. Angry shouts and curses filled the air, punctuated every now and then by wails of grief.

The guard positioned himself between Karsa and Bairoth, his expression mockingly thoughtful. Then he turned to Karsa. ‘Your comrade here will tell us nothing of the Uryd. We would know the number of warriors, the number and location of villages. We would know more of the Phalyd as well, who are said to be your match in ferocity. But he says nothing.’

Karsa bared his teeth. ‘I, Karsa Orlong, invite you to send a thousand of your warriors to wage war among the Uryd. None shall return, but the trophies will remain with us. Send two thousand. It matters not.’

The guard smiled. ‘You will answer our questions, then, Karsa Orlong?’

‘I will, for such words will avail you naught-’

‘Excellent.’ The guard gestured with one hand. A lowlander stepped up to Bairoth Gild, drawing his sword.

Bairoth sneered at Karsa. He snarled, the sound a mangled roar that Karsa nevertheless understood, ‘Lead me, Warleader!’

The sword slashed. Through Bairoth Gild’s neck. Blood sprayed, the huge warrior’s head flopping back, then rolling from a shoulder to land with a heavy thump on the ground.

A savage, gleeful roar erupted from the villagers.

The guard approached Karsa. ‘Delighted to hear that you will cooperate. Doing so buys you your life. Master Silgar will add you to his herd of slaves once you’ve told us all you know. I don’t think you will be joining the Sunyd out on the lake, however. No hauling of nets for you, Karsa Orlong, I’m afraid.’ He turned as a heavily armoured soldier appeared. ‘Ah, here is the Malazan captain. Ill luck, Karsa Orlong, that you should have timed your attack to coincide with the arrival of a Malazan company on its way to Bettrys. Now then, assuming the captain has no objections, shall we begin the questioning?’

The twin trenches of the slave-pits lay beneath the floor of a large warehouse near the lake, accessed through a trapdoor and a mould-smeared staircase. One side held, for the moment, only a half-dozen lowlanders chained to the tree trunk running the length of the trench, but more shackles awaited the return of the Sunyd net-haulers. The other trench was home to the sick and dying. Emaciated lowlander shapes huddled in their own filth, some moaning, others silent and motionless.

After he had done describing the Uryd and their lands, Karsa was dragged to the warehouse and chained in the second trench. Its sides were sloped, packed with damp clay. The centre log ran along the narrow, flat bottom, half-submerged in blood-streaked sewage. Karsa was taken to the far end, out of the reach of any of the other slaves, and shackles were fixed to both wrists and both ankles-whereas, he saw, among everyone else a single shackle sufficed.

They left him alone then.

Flies swarmed him, alighting on his chilled skin. He lay on his side against one of the sloping sides. The wound within which the arrowhead remained was threatening to close, and this he could not allow. He shut his eyes and began to concentrate until he could feel each muscle, cut and torn and seeping, holding fast around the iron point. Then he began working them, the slightest of contractions to test the position of the arrow-head-fighting the pulses of pain that radiated out with each flex. After a few moments, he ceased, let his body relax, taking deep breaths until he was recovered from his efforts. The flanged iron blade lay almost flat against his shoulder blade. Its tip had scoured a groove along the bone. There were barbs as well, bent and twisted.

To leave such an object within his flesh would make his left arm useless. He needed to drive it out.

He began to concentrate once more. Ravaged muscles and tissue, a path inward of chopped and sliced flesh.

A layer of sweat sheathed him as he continued to focus his mind, preparing, his breaths slowing, steadying.

He contracted his muscles. A ragged scream forced its way out. Another welter of blood, amidst relentless pain. The muscles spasmed in a rippling wave. Something struck the clay slope and slid down into the sewage.

Gasping, trembling, Karsa lay motionless for a long while. The blood streaming down from his back slowed, then ceased.

‘Lead me, War leader!’

Bairoth Gild had made those words a curse, in a manner and from a place of thought that Karsa did not understand. And then, Bairoth Gild had died senselessly. Nothing the lowlanders could do threatened the Uryd, for the Uryd were not as the Sunyd. Bairoth had surrendered his chance for vengeance, a gesture so baffling to Karsa that he was left stunned.

A brutal, knowing glare in Bairoth’s eyes, fixed solely on Karsa, even as the sword flashed towards his neck. He would tell the lowlanders nothing, yet it was a defiance without meaning-but no, there was meaning… for Bairoth chose to abandon me.

A sudden shiver took him. Urugal, have my brothers betrayed me? Delum Thord’s flight, Bairoth Gild’s death-am I to know abandonment again and again? What of the Uryd awaiting my return? Will they not follow when I proclaim war against the lowlanders?

Perhaps not at first. No, he realized, there would be arguments, and opinions, and, seated around the camp hearths, the elders would poke smouldering sticks into the fire and shake their heads.

Until word came that the lowlander armies were coming.

And then they will have no choice. Would we flee into the laps of the Phalyd? No. There will be no choice but to fight, and I, Karsa Orlong, will be looked upon then, to lead the Uryd.

The thought calmed him.

He slowly rolled over, blinking in the gloom, flies scattering all around his face.

It took a few moments of groping in the sludge to find the arrowhead and its stubby, splintered fragment of shaft. He then crouched down beside the centre log to examine the fittings holding the chains.

There were two sets of chains, one for his arms and one for his legs, each fixed to a long iron rod that had been driven through the trunk, the opposite end flattened out. The links were large and solid, forged with Teblor strength in mind. But the wood on the underside had begun to rot.

Using the arrow-head, he began gouging and digging into the sewage-softened wood around the flange.

Bairoth had betrayed him, betrayed the Uryd. There had been nothing of courage in his last act of defiance. Indeed, the very opposite. They had discovered enemies to the Teblor. Hunters, who collected Teblor trophies. These were truths that the warriors of all the tribes needed to hear, and delivering those truths was now Karsa’s sole task. He was not Sunyd, as the lowlanders were about to discover. The rot had been drawn up the hole. Karsa dug out the soaked, pulpy mass as far as the arrow-head could reach. He then moved on to the second fitting. The iron bar holding his leg chains would be tested first. There was no way to tell if it was day or night outside. Heavy boots occasionally crossed the plank floor above him, too random to indicate a set passage of time. Karsa worked unceasingly, listening to the coughs and moans of the lowlanders chained further down the trunk. He could not imagine what those sad children had done, to warrant such punishment from their kin. Banishment was the harshest sentence the Teblor inflicted on those among the tribe whose actions had, with deliberate intent, endangered the survival of the village, actions that ranged from carelessness to kin-murder. Banishment led, usually, to death, but that came of starvation of the spirit within the one punished. Torture was not a Teblor way, nor was prolonged imprisonment.

Of course, he reconsidered, it may be that these lowlanders were sick because their spirits were dying. Among the legends, there were fragments whispering that the Teblor had once owned slaves-the word, the concept, was known to him. Possession of another’s life, to do with as one wished. A slave’s spirit could do naught but starve.

Karsa had no intention of starving. Urugal’s shadow protected his spirit.

He tucked the arrow-head into his belt. Setting his back against the slope, he planted his feet against the log, one to either side of the fitting, then slowly extended his legs. The chain tautened. On the underside of the trunk, the flange was pulled into the wood with a steady splintering, grinding sound.

The shackles dug into his hide-wrapped ankles.

He began to push harder. There was a solid crunch, then the flange would go no further. Karsa slowly relaxed. A kick sent the bar thumping free on the other end. He rested for a few moments, then resumed the process once more.

After a dozen tries he had managed to pull the bar up the span of three fingers from where it had been at the beginning. The flange’s edges were bent now, battered by their assault on the wood. His leggings had been cut through and blood gleamed on the shackles.

He leaned his head back on the damp clay of the slope, his legs trembling.

More boots thumped overhead, then the trapdoor was lifted. The glow of lantern light descended the steps, and within it Karsa saw the nameless guard.

‘Uryd,’ he called out. ‘Do you still breathe?’

‘Come closer,’ Karsa challenged in a low voice, ‘and I will show you the extent of my recovery.’

The lowlander laughed. ‘Master Silgar saw true, it seems. It will take some effort to break your spirit, I suspect.’ The guard remained standing halfway down the steps. ‘Your Sunyd kin will be returning in a day or two.’

‘I have no kin who accept the life of slavery.’

‘That’s odd, since you clearly have, else you would have contrived to kill yourself by now.’

‘You think I am a slave because I am in chains? Come closer, then, child.’

‘ “Child,” yes. Your strange affectation persists, even while we children have you at our mercy. Well, never mind. The chains are but the beginning, Karsa Orlong. You will indeed be broken, and had you been captured by the bounty hunters high on the plateau, by the time they’d delivered you to this town you’d have had nothing left of Teblor pride, much less defiance. The Sunyd will worship you, Karsa Orlong, for killing an entire camp of bounty hunters.’

‘What is your name?’ Karsa asked.

‘Why?’

The Uryd warrior smiled in the gloom. ‘For all your words, you still fear me.’

‘Hardly.’ But Karsa heard the strain in the guard’s tone and his smile broadened. ‘Then tell me your name.’

‘Damisk. My name is Damisk. I was once a tracker in the Greydog army during the Malazan conquest.’

‘Conquest. You lost, then. Which of our spirits has broken, Damisk Greydog? When I attacked your party on the ridge, you fled. Left the ones who had hired you to their fates. You fled, as would a coward, a broken man. And this is why you are here, now. For I am chained and you are beyond my reach. You come, not to tell me things, but because you cannot help yourself. You seek the pleasure of gloating, yet you devour yourself inside, and so feel no true satisfaction. Yet we both know, you will come again. And again.’

‘I shall advise,’ Damisk said, his voice ragged, ‘my master to give you to the surviving bounty hunters, to do with you as they will. And I will watch-’

‘Of course you will, Damisk Greydog.’

The man backed up the stairs, the lantern’s light swinging wildly.

Karsa laughed.

A mornent later the trapdoor slammed down once more, and there was darkness.

The Teblor warrior fell silent, then planted his feet on the log yet again.

A weak voice from the far end of the trench stopped him. ‘Giant.’

The tongue was Sunyd, the voice a child’s. ‘I have no words for you, lowlander,’ Karsa growled.

‘I do not ask for words. I can feel you working on this Hood-damned tree. Will you succeed at whatever it is you are doing?’

‘I am doing nothing.’

‘All right, then. Must be my imagination. We’re dying here, the rest of us. In a most terrible, undignified manner.’

‘You must have done great wrong-’

The answering laugh was a rasping cough. ‘Oh indeed, giant. Indeed. We’re the ones who would not accept Malazan rule, so we held on to our weapons and hid in the hills and forests. Raiding, ambushing, making nuisances of ourselves. It was great fun. Until the bastards caught us.’

‘Careless.’

‘Three of you and a handful of your damned dogs, raiding an entire town! And you call me careless? Well, I suppose we both were, since we’re here.’

Karsa grimaced at the truth of that. ‘What is it you want, lowlander?’

‘Your strength, giant. There are four of us over here who are still alive, though I alone am still conscious… and very nearly sane. Sane enough, that is, to comprehend the fullest ignobility of my fate.’

‘You talk too much.’

‘For not much longer, I assure you. Can you lift this log, giant? Or spin it over a few times?’

Karsa was silent for a long moment. ‘What would that achieve?’

‘It would shorten the chains.’

‘I have no wish to shorten the chains.’

‘Temporarily.’

‘Why?’

‘Spin the damned thing, giant. So our chains wrap around it again and again. So, with one last turn, you drag us poor fools at this end under. So we drown.’

‘You would have me kill you?’

‘I applaud your swift comprehension, giant. More souls to crowd your shadow, Teblor-that’s how your kind see it, yes? Kill me, and I will walk with honour in your shadow.’

‘I am not interested in mercy, lowlander.’

‘How about trophies?’

‘I cannot reach you to take trophies.’

‘How well can you see in this gloom? I’ve heard that Teblor-’

‘I can see. Well enough to know that your right hand is closed in a fist. What lies within it?’

‘A tooth. Just fallen out. The third one since I’ve been chained down here.’

‘Throw it to me.’

‘I will try. I am afraid I’m somewhat… worse for wear. Are you ready?’

‘Throw.’

The man’s arm wavered as he lifted it.

The tooth flew high and wide, but Karsa’s arm shot out, chain snapping behind it, and he snatched the tooth from the air. He brought it down for a closer look, then grunted. ‘It’s rotted.’

‘Probably why it fell out. Well? Consider this, too. You will succeed in getting water right through the shaft, which should soften things up even more. Not that you’ve been up to anything down there.’

Karsa slowly nodded. ‘I like you, lowlander.’

‘Good. Now drown me.’

‘I will.’

Karsa slipped down to stand knee-deep in the foul muck, the fresh wounds around his ankles stinging at the contact.

‘I saw them bring you down, giant,’ the man said. ‘None of the Sunyd are as big as you.’

‘The Sunyd are the smallest among the Teblor.’

‘Must be some lowlander blood from way back, I’d imagine.’

‘They have fallen far indeed.’ Karsa lowered both arms, chains dragging, until his hands rested beneath the log.

‘My thanks to you, Teblor.’

Karsa lifted, twisted the log, then set it down once more, gasping. ‘This will not be quick, lowlander, and for that I am sorry.’

‘I understand. Take your time. Biltar slid right under in any case, and Alrute looks about to the next time. You’re doing well.’

He lifted the log once more, rolled it another half-twist. Splashes and gurgling sounds came from the other end.

Then a gasp. ‘Almost there, Teblor. I’m the last. One more-I’ll roll myself under it, so it pins me down.’

‘Then you are crushed, not drowned.’

‘In this muck? No worries there, Teblor. I’ll feel the weight, true, but it won’t cause me much pain.’

‘You lie.’

‘So what? It’s not the means, it’s the end that matters.’

‘All, things matter,’ Karsa said, preparing once more. ‘I shall twist it all the way round this time, lowlander. It will be easier now that my own chains are shorter. Are you ready?’

‘A moment, please,’ the man sputtered.

Karsa lifted the log, grunting with the immense weight pulling down on his arms.

‘I’ve had a change of heart-’

‘I haven’t.’ Karsa spun the log. Then dropped it.

Wild thrashing from the other end, chains sawing the air, then frantic coughing.

Surprised, Karsa looked up. A brown-smeared figure flailed about, sputtering, kicking.

Karsa slowly sat back, waiting for the man to recover. For a while, there was naught but heavy gasping from the other end of the log. ‘You managed to roll back over, then under and out. I am impressed, lowlander. It seems you are not a coward after all. I did not believe there were such as you among the children.’

‘Sheer courage,’ the man rasped. ‘That’s me.’

‘Whose tooth was it?’

‘Alrute’s. Now, no more spinning, if you please.’

‘I am sorry, lowlander, but I must now spin it the opposite way, until the log is as it was before I started.’

‘I curse your grim logic, Teblor.’

‘What is your name?’

‘Torvald Nom, though to my Malazan enemies, I’m known as Knuckles.’

‘And how came you to learn the Sunyd tongue?’

‘It’s the old trader language, actually. Before there were bounty hunters, there were Nathii traders. A mutually profitable trade between them and the Sunyd. The truth is, your language is close kin to Nathii.’

‘The soldiers spoke gibberish.’

‘Naturally; they’re soldiers.’ He paused. ‘All right, that sort of humour’s lost on you. So be it. Likely, those soldiers were Malazan.’

‘I have decided that the Malazans are my enemy.’

‘Something we share, then, Teblor.’

‘We share naught but this tree trunk, lowlander.’

‘If you prefer. Though I feel obliged to correct you on one thing. Hateworthy as the Malazans are, the Nathii these days are no better. You’ve no allies among the lowlanders, Teblor, be sure of that.’

‘Are you a Nathii?’

‘No. I’m Daru. From a city far to the south. The House of Nom is vast and certain families among it are almost wealthy. We’ve a Nom in the Council, in fact, in Darujhistan. Never met him. Alas, my own family’s holdings are more, uh, modest. Hence my extended travels and nefarious professions-’

‘You talk too much, Torvald Nom. I am ready to turn this log once more.’

‘Damn, I was hoping you’d forgotten about that.’

The iron bar’s end was more than halfway through the trunk, the flange a blunt, shapeless piece of metal. Karsa could not keep the aching and trembling from his legs, even as the rest periods between efforts grew ever longer. The larger wounds in his chest and back, created by the splinter of wood, had reopened, leaking steadily to mix with the sweat soaking his clothes. The skin and flesh of his ankles were shredded. Torvald had succumbed to his own exhaustion, shortly after the log had been returned to its original position, groaning in his sleep whilst Karsa laboured on.

For the moment, as the Uryd warrior rested against the clay slope, the only sounds were his own ragged gasps, underscored by softer, shallow breaths from the far end of the trunk.

Then the sound of boots crossed overhead, first in one direction, then back again, and gone.

Karsa pushed himself upright once more, his head spinning.

‘Rest longer, Teblor.’

‘There is no time for that, Torvald Nom-’

‘Oh, but there is. That slavemaster who now owns you will be waiting here for a while, so that he and his train can travel in the company of the Malazan soldiers. For as far as Malybridge, at least. There’s been plenty of bandit activity from Fool’s Forest and Yellow Mark, for which I acknowledge some proprietary pride, since it was me who united that motley collection of highwaymen and throat-slitters in the first place. They’d have already come to rescue me, too, if not for the Malazans.’

‘I will kill that slavemaster,’ Karsa said.

‘Careful with that one, giant. Silgar’s not a pleasant man, and he’s used to dealing with warriors like you-’

‘I am Uryd, not Sunyd.’

‘So you keep saying, and I’ve no doubt you’re meaner-you’re certainly bigger. All I was saying is, be wary of Silgar.’

Karsa positioned himself over the log.

‘You have time to spare, Teblor. There’s no point in freeing yourself if you’re then unable to walk. This isn’t the first time I’ve been in chains, and I speak from experience: bide your time, an opportunity will arise; if you don’t wither and die first.’

‘Or drown.’

‘Point taken, and yes, I understood your meaning when you spoke of courage. I admit to a moment of despair.’

‘Do you know how long you have been chained here?’

‘Well, there was snow on the ground and the lake’s ice had just broken.’

Karsa slowly glanced over at the barely visible, scrawny figure at the far end. ‘Torvald Nom, even a lowlander should not be made to suffer such a fate.’

The man’s laugh was a rattle. ‘And you call us children. You Teblor cut people down as if you were executioners, but among my kind, execution is an act of mercy. For your average condemned bastard, prolonged torture is far more likely. The Nathii have made the infliction of suffering an art-must be the cold winters or something. In any case, if not for Silgar claiming you-and the Malazan soldiers in town-the locals would be peeling the skin from your flesh right now, a sliver at a time. Then they’d lock you inside a box to let you heal. They know that your kind are immune to infections, which means they can make you suffer for a long, long time. There’s a lot of frustrated townsfolk out there right now, I’d imagine.’

Karsa began pulling on the bar once more.

He was interrupted by voices overhead, then heavy thumping, as of a dozen or more barefooted arrivals, the sound joined now by chains slithering across the warehouse floor.

Karsa settled back against the opposite trench slope.

The trapdoor opened. A child in the lead, lantern in hand, and then Sunyd-naked but for rough-woven short skirts-making a slow descent, their left ankles shackled with a chain linking them all together. The lowlander with the lantern walked down the walkway between the two trenches. The Sunyd, eleven in all, six men and five women, followed.

Their heads were lowered; none would meet Karsa’s steady, cold regard.

At a gesture from the child, who had halted four long paces from Karsa’s position, the Sunyd turned and slid down the slope of their trench. Three more lowlanders had appeared, and followed them down to apply the fixed shackles to the Teblor’s other ankles. There was no resistance from the Sunyd.

Moments later, the lowlanders were back on the walkway, then heading up the steps. The trapdoor squealed on its hinges, closing with a reverberating thump that sent dust drifting down through the gloom.

‘It is true, then. An Uryd.’ The voice was a whisper.

Karsa sneered. ‘Was that the voice of a Teblor? No, it could not have been. Teblor do not become slaves. Teblor would rather die than kneel before a lowlander.’

‘An Uryd… in chains. Like the rest of us-’

‘Like the Sunyd? Who let these foul children come close and fix shackles to their legs? No. I am a prisoner, but no bindings shall hold me for long. The Sunyd must be reminded what it is to be a Teblor.’

A new voice spoke from among the Sunyd, a woman’s. ‘We saw the dead, lined up on the ground before the hunters’ camp. We saw wagons, filled with dead Malazans. Townsfolk were wailing. Yet, it is said there were but three of you-’

‘Two, not three. Our companion, Delum Thord, was wounded in the head, his mind had fallen away. He ran with the dogs. Had his mind been whole, his bloodsword in his hands-’

There was sudden murmuring from the Sunyd, the word bloodsword spoken in tones of awe.

Karsa scowled. ‘What is this madness? Have the Sunyd lost all the old ways of the Teblor?’

The woman sighed. ‘Lost? Yes, long ago. Our own children slipping away in the night to wander south into the lowlands, eager for the cursed lowlander coins-the bits of metal around which life itself seems to revolve. Sorely used, were our children-some even returned to our valleys, as scouts for the hunters. The secret groves of bloodwood were burned down, our horses slain. To be betrayed by our own children, Uryd, this is what broke the Sunyd.’

‘Your children should have been hunted down,’ Karsa said. ‘The hearts of your warriors were too soft. Blood-kin is cut when betrayal is done. Those children ceased being Sunyd. I will kill them for you.’

‘You would have trouble finding them, Uryd. They are scattered, many fallen, many now sold into servitude to repay their debts. And some have travelled great distances, to the great cities of Nathilog and Genabaris. Our tribe is no more.’

The first Sunyd who had spoken added, ‘Besides, Uryd, you are in chains. Now the property of Master Silgar, from whom no slave has ever escaped. You will be killing no-one, ever again. And like us, you will be made to kneel. Your words are empty.’

Karsa straddled the log once more. He grasped hold of the chains this time, wrapping them about his wrists as many times as he could.

Then he threw himself back. Muscles bunching, legs pushing down on the log, back straightening. Grinding, splintering, a sudden loud crack.

Karsa was thrown backward onto the clay slope, chains snapping around him. Blinking the sweat from his eyes, he stared down at the log.

The trunk had split, down its entire length.

There was a low hiss from the other end, the rustle of freed chains. ‘Hood take me, Karsa Orlong,’ Torvald whispered, ‘you don’t take insults well, do you?’

Though no longer attached to the log, Karsa’s wrists and ankles were still chained to the iron bars. The warrior unravelled the chains from his battered, bleeding forearms, then collected one of the bars. Laying the ankle chain against the log, he drove the bar’s unflanged end into a single link, then began twisting it with both hands.

‘What has happened?’ a Sunyd asked. ‘What was that sound?’

‘The Uryd’s spine has snapped,’ the first speaker replied in a drawl.

Torvald’s laugh was a cold chuckle. ‘The Lord’s push for you, Ganal, I’m afraid.’

‘What do you mean, Nom?’

The link popped, sending a piece whipping across the trench to thud against the earthen wall.

Karsa dragged the chain from his ankle shackles. Then he set to splitting the one holding his wrists.

Another popping sound. He freed his arms.

‘What is happening?’

A third crack, as he snapped the chain from the iron bar he had been using-which was the undamaged one, its flange intact, sharp-edged and jagged. Karsa clambered from the trench.

‘Where is this Ganal?’ he growled.

All but one of the Sunyd lying in the opposite trench shrank back at his words.

‘I am Ganal,’ said the lone warrior who had not moved. ‘Not a broken spine after all. Well then, warrior, kill me for my sceptical words.’

‘I shall.’ Karsa strode down the walkway, lifting the iron bar.

‘If you do that,’ Torvald said hastily, ‘the others will likely raise a cry.’

Karsa hesitated.

Ganal smiled up at him. ‘If you spare me, there will be no alarm sounded, Uryd. It is night, still a bell or more before dawn. You will make good your escape-’

‘And by your silence, you will all be punished,’ Karsa said.

‘No. We were all sleeping.’

The woman spoke. ‘Bring the Uryd, in all your numbers. When you have slain everyone in this town, then you can settle judgement upon us Sunyd, as will be your right.’

Karsa hesitated, then he nodded. ‘Ganal, I give you more of your miserable life. But I shall come once more, and I shall remember you.’

‘I have no doubt, Uryd,’ Ganal replied. ‘Not any more.’

‘Karsa,’ Torvald said. ‘I may be a lowlander and all-’

‘I shall free you, child,’ the Uryd replied, turning from the Sunyd trench. ‘You have shown courage.’ He slid down to the man’s side. ‘You are too thin to walk,’ he observed. ‘Unable to run. Do you still wish for me to release you?’

‘Thin? I haven’t lost more than half a stone, Karsa Orlong. I can run.’

‘You sounded poorly earlier on-’

‘Sympathy.’

‘You sought sympathy from an Uryd?’

The man’s bony shoulders lifted in a sheepish shrug. ‘It was worth a try.’

Karsa pried the chain apart.

Torvald pulled his arms free. ‘Beru’s blessing on you, lad.’

‘Keep your lowlander gods to yourself.’

‘Of course. Apologies. Anything you say.’

Torvald scrambled up the slope. On the walkway, he paused. ‘What of the trapdoor, Karsa Orlong?’

‘What of it?’ the warrior growled, climbing up and moving past the lowlander.

Torvald bowed as Karsa went past, a scrawny arm sweeping out in a graceful gesture. ‘Lead me, by all means.’

Karsa halted on the first step and glanced back at the child. ‘I am warleader,’ he rumbled. ‘You would have me lead you, lowlander?’

Ganal said from the other trench, ‘Careful how you answer, Daru. There are no empty words among the Teblor.’

‘Well, uh, it was naught but an invitation. To precede me up the steps-’

Karsa resumed his climb.

Directly beneath the trapdoor, he examined its edges. He recalled that there was an iron latch that was lowered when locked, making it flush with the surrounding boards. Karsa jammed the chain-fixing end of the iron bar into the join beneath the latch. He drove it in as far as he could, then began levering, settling his full weight in gradual increments.

A splintering snap, the trapdoor jumping up slightly. Karsa set his shoulders against it and lifted.

The hinges creaked.

The warrior froze, waited, then resumed, slower this time.

As his head cleared the hatchway, he could see faint lantern-glow from the far end of the warehouse, and saw, seated around a small round table, three lowlanders. They were not soldiers-Karsa had seen them earlier in the company of the slavemaster, Silgar. There was the muted clatter of bones on the tabletop.

That they had not heard the trapdoor’s hinges was, to Karsa’s mind, remarkable. Then his ears caught a new sound-a chorus of creaks and groans, and, outside, the howl of a wind. A storm had come in from the lake, and rain had begun spraying against the north wall of the warehouse.

‘Urugal,’ Karsa said under his breath, ‘I thank you. And now, witness…’

One hand holding the trapdoor over him, the warrior slowly slid onto the floor. He moved far enough to permit Torvald’s equally silent arrival, then he slowly lowered the hatch until it settled. A gesture told Torvald to remain where he was, understanding indicated by the man’s fervent nod. Karsa carefully shifted the bar from his left hand to his right, then made his way forward.

Only one of the three guards might have seen him, from the corner of his eye, but his attention was intent on the bones skidding over the tabletop before him. The other two had their backs to the room.

Karsa remained low on the floor until he was less than three paces away, then he silently rose into a crouch.

He launched himself forward, the bar whipping horizontally, connecting with first one unhelmed head, then on to the second. The third guard stared open-mouthed. Karsa’s swing finished with his left hand grasping the red-smeared end of the bar, which he then drove crossways into the lowlander’s throat. The man was thrown back over his chair, striking the warehouse doors and falling in a heap.

Karsa set the bar down on the tabletop, then crouched down beside one of the victims and began removing his sword-belt.

Torvald approached. ‘Hood’s own nightmare,’ he muttered, ‘that’s what you are, Uryd.’

‘Take yourself a weapon,’ Karsa directed, moving on to the next corpse.

‘I will. Now, which way shall we run, Karsa? They’ll be expecting northwest, back the way you came. They’ll ride hard for the foot of the pass. I have friends-’

‘I have no intention of running,’ the warleader growled, looping both sword-belts over a shoulder, the scabbarded longswords looking minuscule where they rested against his back. He collected the flanged bar once more. He turned to find Torvald staring at him. ‘Run to your friends, lowlander. I will, this night, deliver sufficient diversion to make good your escape. Tonight, Bairoth Gild and Delum Thord shall be avenged.’

‘Don’t expect me to avenge your death, Karsa. It’s madness-you’ve already done the impossible. I’d advise you to thank the Lady’s pull and get away while you can. In case you’ve forgotten, this town’s full of soldiers.’

‘Be on your way, child.’

Torvald hesitated, then he threw up his hands. ‘So be it. For my life, Karsa Orlong, I thank you. The family of Nom will speak your name in its prayers.’

‘I will wait fifty heartbeats.’

Without another word Torvald headed to the warehouse’s sliding doors. The main bar had not been lowered into its slots; a smaller latch loosely held the door to the frame. He flipped it back, pushed the door to one side, sufficient only to pop his head out for a quick look. Then he shoved it open slightly more, and slipped outside.

Karsa listened to his footfalls, the splash of bare feet in mud, hurrying away to the left. He decided he would not wait fifty heartbeats. Even with the storm holding fast the darkness, dawn was not far away.

The Teblor slid the door back further and stepped outside. A track narrower than the main street, the wooden buildings opposite indistinct behind a slanting curtain of hard rain. To the right and twenty paces distant, light showed from a single murky window on the upper floor of a house standing next to a side street.

He wanted his bloodsword, but had no idea where it might be. Failing that, any Teblor weapon would suffice. And he knew where he might find some.

Karsa slid the door shut behind him. He swung right and, skirting the edge of the street, made his way towards the lakefront.

The wind whipped rain against his face, loosening the crusted blood and dirt. The shredded leathers of his shirt flapped heavily as he jogged towards the clearing, where waited the camp of the bounty hunters.

There had been survivors. A careless oversight on Karsa’s part; one he would now correct. And, in the huts of those cold-eyed children, there would be Teblor trophies. Weapons. Armour.

The huts and shacks of the fallen had already been stripped, the doors hanging open, rubbish strewn about. Karsa’s gaze settled on a nearby reed-walled shack clearly still occupied. He padded towards it.

Ignoring the small door, the warrior threw his shoulder against a wall. The reed panel fell inward, Karsa plunging through. There was a grunt from a cot to his left, a vague shape bolting into a sitting position. Iron bar swung down. Blood and bits of bone sprayed the walls. The figure sank back down.

The small, lone room of the shack was cluttered with Sunyd objects, most of them useless: charms, belts and trinkets. He did find, however, a pair of Sunyd hunting knives, sheathed in beaded buckskin over wood. A low altar caught Karsa’s attention. Some lowlander god, signified by a small clay statue-a boar, standing on its hind legs.

The Teblor knocked it to the earthen floor, then shattered it with a single stomp of his heel.

Returning outside, he approached the next inhabited shack.

The wind howled off the lake, white-maned waves crashing up the pebbled beach. The sky overhead was still black with clouds, the rain unceasing.

There were seven shacks in all, and in the sixth one-after killing the two men entwined together in the cot beneath the skin of a grey bear-he found an old Sunyd bloodsword, and an almost complete set of armour that, although of a style Karsa had never seen before, was clearly Teblor in origin, given its size and the sigils burned into the wooden plates. It was only when he began strapping it on that he realized that the grey, weathered wood was bloodwood-bleached by centuries of neglect.

In the seventh hut he found a small jar of blood-oil, and took the time to remove the armour and rub the pungent salve into its starved wood. He used the last of it to ease the sword’s own thirst.

He then kissed the gleaming blade, tasting the bitter oil.

The effect was instantaneous. His heart began pounding, fire ripping through his muscles, lust and rage filling his mind.

He found himself back outside, staring at the town before him through a red haze. The air was foul with the stench of lowlanders. He moved forward, though he could no longer feel his legs, his gaze fixing on the bronze-banded door of a large, timbered house.

Then it was flying inward, and Karsa was entering the low-ceilinged hallway beyond the threshold. Someone was shouting upstairs.

He found himself on the landing, face to face with a broad-shouldered, bald child. Behind him cowered a woman with grey-streaked hair, and behind her-now fleeing-a half-dozen servants.

The bald child had just taken down from the wall a longsword still in its jewel-studded scabbard. His eyes glittered with terror, his expression of disbelief remaining frozen on his features even as his head leapt from his shoulders.

And then Karsa found himself in the last room upstairs, ducking to keep his head beneath the ceiling as he stepped over the last of the servants, the house silent behind him. Before him, hiding behind a poster bed, a young female lowlander.

The Teblor dropped his sword. A moment later he held her before him, her feet kicking at his knees. He cupped the back of her head in his right hand, pushed her face against his armour’s oil-smeared breastplate.

She struggled, then her head snapped back, eyes suddenly wild.

Karsa laughed, throwing her down on the bed.

Animal sounds came from her mouth, her long-fingered hands snatching up at him as he moved over her.

The female clawed at him, her back arching in desperate need.

She was unconscious before he was done, and when he drew away there was blood between them. She would live, he knew. Blood-oil was impatient with broken flesh.

He was outside in the rain once more, sword in his hands. The clouds were lightening to the east.

Karsa moved on to the next house.

Awareness drifted away then, for a time, and when it returned he found himself in an attic with a window at the far end through which streamed bright sunlight. He was on his hands and knees, sheathed in blood, and to one side lay a child’s body, fat and in slashed robes, eyes staring sightlessly.

Waves of shivering racked him, his breath harsh gasps that echoed dully in the close, dusty attic. He heard shouts from somewhere outside and crawled over to the round, thick-glassed window at the far end.

Below was the main street, and he realized that he was near the west gate. Glass-distorted figures on restless horses were gathering-Malazan soldiers. As he watched, and to his astonishment, they suddenly set forth for the gate. The thundering of horse hoofs quickly diminished as the party rode westward.

The warrior slowly sat back. There was no sound from directly beneath him, and he knew that no-one remained alive in the house. He knew, also, that he had passed through at least a dozen such houses, sometimes through the front door, but more often through recessed side and rear doors. And that those places were now as silent as the one in which he now found himself.

The escape has been discovered. But what of the bounty hunters? What of the townsfolk who have yet to emerge onto the street, though the day is already half done? How many did I truly kill?

Soft footfalls below, five, six sets, spreading out through the room under him. Karsa, his senses still heightened beyond normal by the blood-oil, sniffed the air, but their scent had yet to reach him. Yet he knew-these were hunters, not soldiers. He drew a deep breath and held it for a moment, then nodded to himself. Yes, the slavemaster’s warriors. Deeming themselves cleverer than the Malazans, still wanting me for their master.

Karsa made no move-any shift of weight would be heard, he well knew. Twisting his head slowly, he glanced back at the attic’s hatch. It was closed-he’d no recollection of doing so, so probably it was the trapdoor’s own weight that had dropped it back into place. But how long ago? His gaze flicked to the child’s corpse. The blood dripping from his gaping wounds was thick and slow. Some time had passed, then.

He heard someone speak, and it was a moment before he realized that he could understand the language. ‘A bell, sir, maybe more.’

‘So where,’ another asked, ‘is Merchant Balantis? Here’s his wife, their two children… four servants-did he own more?’

There was more movement.

‘Check the lofts-’

‘Where the servants slept? I doubt fat old Balantis could have climbed that ladder.’

‘Here!’ another voice cried from further in. ‘The attic stairs are down!’

‘All right, so the merchant’s terror gave him wings. Go up and confirm the grim details, Astabb, and be quick. We need to check the next house.’

‘Hood’s breath, Borrug, I nearly lost my breakfast in the last place. It’s all quiet up there, can’t we just leave it at that? Who knows, the bastard might be chopping up the next family right now.’

There was silence, then: ‘All right, let’s go. This time, I think Silgar’s plain wrong. That Uryd’s path of slaughter is straight for the west gate, and I’d lay a year’s column he’s heading for T’lan Pass right now.’

‘Then the Malazans will run him down.’

‘Aye, they will. Come on.’

Karsa listened as the hunters converged on the front door then headed back outside. The Teblor remained motionless for another dozen heartbeats. Silgar’s men would find no further scenes of slaughter westward along the street. This fact alone would bring them back. He padded across to the trapdoor, lifted it clear, and made his way down the blood-spattered wooden steps. There were corpses strewn along the length of the hallway, the air foul with the reek of death.

He quickly moved to the back door. The yard outside was churned mud and puddles, a heap of pavestones off to one side awaiting the arrival of labourers. Beyond it was a newly built low stone wall, an arched gate in its centre. The sky overhead was broken with clouds carried on a swift wind. Shadows and patches of sunlight crawled steadily over the scene. There was no-one in sight.

Karsa crossed the yard at a sprint. He crouched down at the arched gate. Opposite him ran a rutted, narrow track, parallel to the main street, and beyond it a row of irregular heaps of cut brush amidst tall yellow grasses. The back walls of houses reared behind the heaps.

He was on the western side of the town, and here there were hunters. It followed, then, that he would be safer on the eastern side. At the same time, the Malazan soldiers appeared to be quartered there, though he’d watched at least thirty of them ride out through the west gate. Leaving how many?

Karsa had proclaimed the Malazans his enemy.

The warrior slipped out onto the track and headed east. Hunched low, he ran hard, his eyes scanning the way ahead, seeking cover, expecting at any moment the shout that would announce his discovery.

He moved into the shadows of a large house that leaned slightly over the alley. In another five strides he would come to the wide street that led down to the lakeshore. Crossing it undetected was likely to prove a challenge. Silgar’s hunters remained in the town, as did an unknown number of Malazans. Enough to cause him trouble? There was no telling.

Five cautious strides, and he was at the edge of the street. There was a small crowd at the far end, lakeside. Wrapped bodies were being carried out of a house, whilst two men struggled with a young, naked, blood-splashed woman. She was hissing and trying to claw at their eyes. It was a moment before Karsa recollected her. The blood-oil still burned within her, and the crowd had drawn back in obvious alarm, their attention one and all fixed on her writhing form.

A glance to the right. No-one.

Karsa bolted across the street. He was but a single stride from the alley opposite when he heard a hoarse shout, then a chorus of cries. Skidding through sluicing mud, the warrior raised his sword and snapped his gaze towards the distant crowd.

To see only their backs, as they fled like panicked deer, leaving the wrapped corpses strewn in their wake. The young woman, suddenly released, fell to the mud shrieking, one hand snapping out to clamp on the ankle of one of her captors. She was dragged through the mud for a body length before she managed to foul the man’s stride and send him sprawling. She clambered atop him with a snarl.

Karsa padded into the alley.

A bell started a wild clanging.

He continued on, eastward, parallel to the main street. The far end, thirty or more paces distant, seemed to face onto a long, stone-walled, single level building, the windows visible bearing heavy shutters. As he raced towards it, he saw three Malazan soldiers dart across his field of vision-all were helmed, visors lowered, and none turned their heads.

Karsa slowed his pace as he neared the alley’s end. He could see more of the building ahead now. It looked somehow different from all the others in the town, its style more severe, pragmatic-a style the Teblor could admire.

He halted at the alley mouth. A glance to his right revealed that the building before him fronted onto the main street, beyond which was a clearing to match that of the west gate, the edge of the town wall visible just beyond. To his left, and closer to hand, the building came to an end, with a wooden corral flanked by stables and outbuildings. Karsa returned his attention to his right and leaned out slightly further.

The three Malazan soldiers were nowhere to be seen.

The bell was still pealing somewhere behind him, yet the town seemed strangely deserted.

Karsa jogged towards the corral. He arrived with no alarms raised, stepped over the railing, and made his way along the building’s wall towards the doorway.

It had been left open. The antechamber within held hooks, racks and shelves for weapons, but all such weapons had been removed. The close dusty air held the memory of fear. Karsa slowly entered. Another door stood opposite, this one shut.

A single kick sent it crashing inward.

Beyond, a large room with a row of cots on either side. Empty.

The echoes of the shattered door fading, Karsa ducked through the doorway and straightened, looking around, sniffing the air. The chamber reeked of tension. He felt something like a presence, still there, yet somehow managing to remain unseen. The warrior cautiously stepped forward. He listened for breathing, heard nothing, took another step.

The noose dropped down from above, over his head and down onto his shoulders. Then a wild shout, and it snapped tight around his neck.

As Karsa raised his sword to slice through the hemp rope, four figures descended behind him, and the rope gave a savage yank, lifting the Teblor off his feet.

There was a sudden splintering from above, followed by a desultory curse, then the crossbeam snapped, the rope slackening though the noose remained taut around Karsa’s throat. Unable to draw breath, he spun, sword cleaving in a horizontal slash-that passed through empty air. The Malazan soldiers, he saw, had already dropped to the floor and rolled away.

Karsa dragged the rope free of his neck, then advanced on the nearest scrambling soldier.

Sorcery hammered him from behind, a frenzied wave that engulfed the Teblor. He staggered, then, with a roar, shook it off.

He swung his sword. The Malazan before him leapt backward, but the blade’s tip connected with his right knee, shattering the bone. The man shrieked as he toppled.

A net of fire descended on Karsa, an impossibly heavy web of pain that drove him to his knees. He sought to slash at it, but his weapon was fouled by the flickering strands. It began constricting as if it possessed a life of its own.

The warrior struggled within the ever-tightening net, and in moments was rendered helpless.

The wounded soldier’s screams continued, until a hard voice rumbled a command and eerie light flashed in the room. The shrieks abruptly stopped.

Figures closed in around Karsa, one crouching down near his head. A dark-skinned, scarred face beneath a bald, tattoo-stitched pate. The man’s smile was a row of gleaming gold. ‘You understand Nathii, I take it. That’s nice. You’ve just made Limp’s bad leg a whole lot worse, and he won’t be happy about that. Even so, you stumbling into our laps will more than make up for the house arrest we’re presently under-’

‘Let’s kill him, Sergeant-’

‘Enough of that, Shard. Bell, go find the slavemaster. Tell him we got his prize. We’ll hand him over, but not for nothing. Oh, and do it quietly-I don’t want the whole town outside with torches and pitchforks.’ The sergeant looked up as another soldier arrived. ‘Nice work, Ebron.’

‘I damned near wet my pants, Cord,’ the man named Ebron replied, ‘when he just threw off the nastiest I had.’

‘Just shows, don’t it?’ Shard muttered.

‘Shows what?’ Ebron demanded.

‘Well, only that clever beats nasty every time, that’s all.’

Sergeant Cord grunted, then said, ‘Ebron, see what you can do for Limp, before he comes round and starts screaming again.’

‘I’ll do that. For a runt, he’s got some lungs, don’t he just.’

Cord reached down and carefully slid his hand between the burning strands to tap a finger against the bloodsword. ‘So here’s one of the famed wooden swords. So hard it breaks Aren steel.’

‘Look at the edge,’ Shard said. ‘It’s that resin they use that makes that edge-’

‘And hardens the wood itself, aye. Ebron, this web of yours, is it causing him pain?’

The sorcerer’s reply came from beyond Karsa’s line of sight. ‘If it was you in that, Cord, you’d be howling to shame the Hounds. For a moment or two, then you’d be dead and sizzling like fat on a hearthstone.’

Cord frowned down at Karsa, then slowly shook his head. ‘He ain’t even trembling. Hood knows what we could do with five thousand of these bastards in our ranks.’

‘Might even manage to clean out Mott Wood, eh, Sergeant?’

‘Might at that.’ Cord rose and stepped away. ‘So what’s keeping Bell?’

‘Probably can’t find no-one,’ Shard replied. ‘Never seen a whole town take to the boats like that before.’

Boots sounded in the antechamber, and Karsa listened to the arrival of at least a half-dozen newcomers.

A soft voice said, ‘Thank you, Sergeant, for recovering my property-’

‘Ain’t your property any more,’ Cord replied. ‘He’s a prisoner of the Malazan Empire, now. He killed Malazan soldiers, not to mention damaging imperial property by kicking in that door there.’

‘You cannot be serious-’

‘I’m always serious, Silgar,’ Cord quietly drawled. ‘I can guess what you got in mind for this giant. Castration, a cut-out tongue, hobbling. You’ll put him on a leash and travel the towns south of here, drumming up replacements for your bounty hunters. But the Fist’s position on your slaving activities is well enough known. This is occupied territory-this is part of the Malazan Empire now, like it or not, and we ain’t at war with these so-called Teblor. Oh, I’ll grant you, we don’t appreciate renegades coming down and raiding, killing imperial subjects and all that. Which is why this bastard is now under arrest, and he’ll likely be sentenced to the usual punishment: the otataral mines of my dear old homeland.’ Cord moved to settle down beside Karsa once more. ‘Meaning we’ll be seeing a lot of each other, since our detachment’s heading home. Rumours of rebellion and such, though I doubt it’ll come to much.’

Behind him, the slavemaster spoke. ‘Sergeant, the Malazan hold upon its conquests on this continent is more than precarious at the moment, now that your principal army is bogged down outside the walls of Pale. Do you truly wish for an incident here? To so flout our local customs-’

‘Customs?’ Still gazing down at Karsa, Cord bared his teeth. ‘The Nathii custom has been to run and hide when the Teblor raid. Your studious, deliberate corruption of the Sunyd is unique, Silgar. Your destruction of that tribe was a business venture on your part. Damned successful it was, too. The only flouting going on here is yours, with Malazan law.’ He looked up, his smile broadening. ‘What in Hood’s name do you think our company’s doing here, you perfumed piece of scum?’

All at once tension filled the air as hands settled on sword-grips.

‘Rest easy, I’d advise,’ Ebron said from one side. ‘I know you’re a Mael priest, Silgar, and you’re right on the edge of your warren right now, but I’ll turn you into a lumpy puddle if you make so much as a twitch for it.’

‘Order your thugs back,’ Cord said, ‘or this Teblor will have company on his way to the mines.’

‘You would not dare-’

‘Wouldn’t I?’

‘Your captain would-’

‘No, he wouldn’t.’

‘I see. Very well. Damisk, take the men outside for a moment.’

Karsa heard receding footsteps.

‘Now then, Sergeant,’ Silgar continued after a moment, ‘how much?’

‘Well, I admit I was considering some kind of exchange. But then the town’s bells stopped. Which tells me we’re out of time. Alas. Captain’s back-there, the sound of the horses, coming fast. All of this means we’re all official, now, Silgar. Of course, maybe I was stringing you along all the time, until you finally went and offered me a bribe. Which, as you know, is a crime.’

The Malazan troop had arrived at the corral, Karsa could hear. A few shouts, the stamping of hoofs, a brief exchange of words with Damisk and the other guards standing outside, then heavy boots on the floorboards.

Cord turned. ‘Captain-’

A rumbling voice cut him off. ‘I thought I’d left you under house guard. Ebron, I don’t recall granting you permission to rearm these drunken louts…’ Then the captain’s words trailed away.

Karsa sensed the smile on Cord’s face as he said, ‘The Teblor attempted an assault on our position, sir-’

‘Which no doubt sobered you up quick.’

‘That it did, sir. Accordingly, our clever sorcerer here decided to give us back our weapons, so that we could effect the capture of this overgrown savage. Alas, Captain, matters have since become somewhat more complicated.’

Silgar spoke. ‘Captain Kindly, I came here to request the return of my slave and was met with overt hostility and threats from this squad here. I trust their poor example is not indicative of the depths to which the entire Malazan army has fallen-’

‘That they’re definitely not, Slavemaster,’ Captain Kindly replied.

‘Excellent. Now, if we could-’

‘He tried to bribe me, sir,’ Cord said in a troubled, distressed tone.

There was silence, then the captain said, ‘Ebron? Is this true?’

‘Afraid it is, Captain.’

There was cool satisfaction in Kindly’s voice as he said, ‘How unfortunate. Bribery is a crime, after all…’

‘I was just saying the same thing, sir,’ Cord noted.

‘I was invited to make an offer!’ Silgar hissed.

‘No you wasn’t,’ Ebron replied.

Captain Kindly spoke. ‘Lieutenant Pores, place the slavemaster and his hunters under arrest. Detach two squads to oversee their incarceration in the town gaol. Put them in a separate cell from that bandit leader we captured on the way back-the infamous Knuckles is likely to have few friends locally. Barring those we strung up beside the road east of here, that is. Oh, and send in a healer for Limp-Ebron seems to have made something of a mess in his efforts on the unfortunate man.’

‘Well,’ Ebron snapped, ‘I ain’t Denul, you know.’

‘Watch your tone, Mage,’ the captain calmly warned.

‘Sorry, sir.’

‘I admit to some curiosity, Ebron,’ Kindly continued. ‘What is the nature of this spell you have inflicted on this warrior?’

‘Uh, a shaping of Ruse-’

‘Yes, I know your warren, Ebron.’

‘Yes, sir. Well, it’s used to snare and stun dhenrabi in the seas-’

‘Dhenrabi? Those giant sea-worms?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Well, why in Hood’s name isn’t this Teblor dead?’

‘Good question, Captain. He’s a tough one, he is, ain’t he just.’

‘Beru fend us all.’

‘Aye, sir.’

‘Sergeant Cord.’

‘Sir?’

‘I have decided to drop the charges of drunkenness against you and your squad. Grief for lost ones. An understandable reaction, all things considered. This time. The next abandoned tavern you stumble into, however, is not to be construed as an invitation to licentiousness. Am I understood?’

‘Perfectly, sir.’

‘Good. Ebron, inform the squads that we are departing this picturesque town. As soon as possible. Sergeant Cord, your squad will see to the loading of supplies. That will be all, soldiers.’

‘What of this warrior?’ Ebron asked.

‘How long will this sorcerous net last?’

‘As long as you like, sir. But the pain-’

‘He seems to be bearing up. Leave him as he is, and in the meantime think of a way to load him onto the bed of a wagon.’

‘Yes, sir. We’ll need long poles-’

‘Whatever,’ Captain Kindly muttered, striding away.

Karsa sensed the sorcerer staring down on him. The pain had long since faded, no matter what Ebron’s claims, and indeed, the steady, slow tensing and easing of the Teblor’s muscles had begun to weaken it.

Not long, now…

CHAPTER THREE

‘I MISSED YOU, KARSA ORLONG.’

Torvald Nom’s face was mottled blue and black, his right eye swollen shut. He had been chained to the wagon’s forward wall and was slouched down amidst rotting straw, watching as the Malazan soldiers levered the Teblor onto the bed using stripped-down saplings that had been inserted beneath the limbs of the huge, net-wrapped warrior. The wagon shifted and groaned as Karsa’s weight settled on it.

‘Pity the damned oxen,’ Shard said, dragging one of the saplings free, his breath harsh and his face red with exertion.

A second wagon stood nearby, just within the field of Karsa’s vision as he lay motionless on the weathered boards. In its back sat Silgar, Damisk, and three other Nathii lowlanders. The slavemaster’s face was white and patchy, the blue and gold trim of his expensive clothes stained and wrinkled. Seeing him, Karsa laughed.

Silgar’s head snapped around, dark eyes fixing like knives on the Uryd warrior.

‘Taker of slaves!’ Karsa sneered.

The Malazan soldier, Shard, climbed onto the wagon’s wall and leaned over to study Karsa for a moment, then he shook his head. ‘Ebron!’ he called out. ‘Come look. That web ain’t what it was.’

The sorcerer clambered up beside him. His eyes narrowed. ‘Hood take him,’ he muttered. ‘Get us some chains, Shard. Heavy ones, and lots of them. Tell the captain, too, and hurry.’

The soldier dropped out of sight.

Ebron scowled down at Karsa. ‘You got otataral in your veins? Nerruse knows, that spell should have killed you long ago. What’s it been, three days now. Failing that, the pain should have driven you mad. But you’re no madder than you were a week ago, are you?’ His scowl deepened. ‘There’s something about you… something…’

Soldiers were suddenly clambering up on all sides, some dragging chains whilst others held back slightly with crossbows cocked. ‘Can we touch this?’ one asked, hesitating over Karsa. ‘You can now,’ Ebron replied, then spat.

Karsa tested the magical constraints in a single, concerted surge that forced a bellow from his throat. Strands snapped. Answering shouts. Wild panic.

As the Uryd began dragging himself free, his sword still in his right hand, something hard cracked into the side of his head. Blackness swept over him.

He awoke lying on his back, spread-eagled on the bed of the wagon as it rocked and jolted beneath him. His limbs were wrapped in heavy chains that had been spiked to the boards. Others crisscrossed his chest and stomach. Dried blood crusted the left side of his face, sealing the lid of that eye. He could smell dust, wafting up from between the boards, as well as his own bile.

Torvald spoke from somewhere beyond Karsa’s head. ‘So you’re alive after all. Despite what the soldiers were saying, you looked pretty much dead to me. You certainly smell that way. Well, almost: In case you’re wondering, friend, it’s been six days. That gold-toothed sergeant hit you hard. Broke the shovel’s shaft.’

A sharp, throbbing pain bloomed in Karsa’s head as soon as he tried to lift it clear of the foul-smelling boards. He grimaced, settling once more. ‘Too many words, lowlander. Be quiet.’

‘Quiet’s not in my nature, alas. Of course, you don’t have to listen. Now, you might think otherwise, but we should be celebrating our good fortune. Prisoners of the Malazans is an improvement over being Silgar’s slaves. Granted, I might end up getting executed as a common criminal-which is, of course, precisely what I am-but more likely we’re both off to work in the imperial mines in Seven Cities. Never been there, but even so, it’s a long trip, land and sea. There might be pirates. Storms. Who knows? Might even be the mines aren’t so bad as people say. What’s a little digging? I can’t wait for the day they put a pickaxe in your hands-oh my, won’t you have some fun? Lots to look forward to, don’t you think?’

‘Including cutting out your tongue.’

‘Humour? Hood take me, I didn’t think you had it in you, Karsa Orlong. Anything else you want to say? Feel free.’

‘I’m hungry.’

‘We’ll reach Culvern Crossing by tonight-the pace has been torturously slow, thanks to you, since it appears you weigh more than you should, more even than Silgar and his four thugs. Ebron says you don’t have normal flesh-same for the Sunyd, of course-but with you it’s even more so. Purer blood, I suppose. Meaner blood, that’s for sure. I remember, once, in Darujhistan, I was just a lad, a troop arrived with a grey bear, all chained up. Had it in a huge tent just outside Worrytown, charged a sliver to see it. First day, I was there. The crowd was huge. Everyone’d thought grey bears had died out centuries ago-’

‘Then you are all fools,’ Karsa growled.

‘So we were, because there it was. Collared, chained down, with red in its eyes. The crowd rushed in, me in it, and that damned thing went wild. Broke loose like those chains were braids of grass. You wouldn’t believe the panic. I got trampled on, but managed to crawl out from under the tent with my scrawny but lovely body mostly intact. That bear-bodies were flying from its path. It charged straight for the Gadrobi Hills and was never seen again. Sure, there’s rumours to this day that the bastard’s still there, eating the occasional herder… and herd. Anyway, you remind me of that grey bear, Uryd. The same look in your eyes. A look that says: Chains will not hold me. And that’s what has me so eager to see what will happen next.’

‘I shall not hide in the hills, Torvald Nom.’

‘Didn’t think you would. Do you know how you will be loaded onto the prison ship? Shard told me. They’ll take the wheels off this wagon. That’s it. You’ll be riding this damned bed all the way to Seven Cities.’

The wagon’s wheels slid down into deep, stony ruts, the jarring motion sending waves of pain through Karsa’s head.

‘You still here?’ Torvald asked after a moment.

Karsa remained silent.

‘Oh well,’ the Daru sighed.

Lead me, Warleader.

Lead me.

This was not the world he had expected. The lowlanders were both weak and strong, in ways he found difficult to comprehend. He had seen huts built one atop another; he had seen watercraft the size of entire Teblor houses.

Expecting a farmstead, they had found a town. Anticipating the slaughter of fleeing cowards, they had instead been met with fierce opponents who stood their ground.

And Sunyd slaves. The most horrifying discovery of all. Teblor, their spirits broken. He had not thought such a thing was possible.

I shall snap those chains on the Sunyd. This, I vow before the Seven. I shall give the Sunyd lowlander slaves in turn-no. To do such would be as wrong as what the lowlanders have done to the Sunyd, have done, indeed, to their own kin. No, his sword’s gathering of souls was a far cleaner, a far purer deliverance.

He wondered about these Malazans. They were, it was clear, a tribe that was fundamentally different from the Nathii. Conquerors, it seemed, from a distant land. Holders to strict laws. Their captives not slaves, but prisoners, though it had begun to appear that the distinction lay in name only. He would be set to work.

Yet he had no desire to work. Thus, it was punishment, intended to bow his warrior spirit, to-in time-break it. In this, a fate to match that of the Sunyd.

But that shall not happen, for I am Uryd, not Sunyd. They shall have to kill me, once they realize that they cannot control me. And so, the truth is before me. Should I hasten that realization, I shall never see release from this wagon.

Torvald Nom spoke of patience-the prisoner’s code. Urugal, forgive me, for I must now avow to that code. I must seem to relent.

Even as he thought it, he knew it would not work. These Malazans were too clever. They would be fools to trust a sudden, inexplicable passivity. No, he needed to fashion a different kind of illusion.

Delum Thord. You shall now be my guide. Your loss is now my gift. You walked the path before me, showing me the steps. I shall awaken yet again, but it shall not be with a broken spirit, but with a broken mind.

Indeed, the Malazan sergeant had struck him hard. The muscles of his neck had seized, clenched tight around his spine. Even breathing triggered lancing stabs of pain. He sought to slow it, shifting his thoughts away from the low roar of his nerves.

The Teblor had lived in blindness for centuries, oblivious of the growing numbers-and growing threat-of the lowlanders. Borders, once defended with vicious determination, had for some reason been abandoned, left open to the poisoning influences from the south. It was important, Karsa realized, to discover the cause of this moral failing. The Sunyd had never been among the strongest of the tribes, yet they were Teblor none the less, and what befell them could, in time, befall all the others. This was a difficult truth, but to close one’s eyes to it would be to walk the same path yet again.

There were failings that must be faced. Pahlk, his own grandfather, had been something far less than the warrior of glorious deeds that he pretended to be. Had Pahlk returned to the tribe with truthful tales, then the warnings within them would have been heard. A slow but inexorable invasion was under way, one step at a time. A war on the Teblor that assailed their spirit as much as it did their lands. Perhaps such warnings would have proved sufficient to unite the tribes.

He considered this, and darkness settled upon his thoughts. No. Pahlk’s failing had been a deeper one; it was not his lies that were the greatest crime, it was his lack of courage, for he had shown himself unable to wrest free of the strictures binding the Teblor. His people’s rules of conduct, the narrowly crafted confines of expectations-its innate conservatism that crushed dissent with the threat of deadly isolation-these were what had defeated his grandfather’s courage.

Yet not, perhaps, my father’s.

The wagon jolted once more beneath him.

I saw your mistrust as weakness. Your unwillingness to participate in our tribe’s endless, deadly games of pride and retribution-I saw this as cowardice. Even so, what have you done to challenge our ways? Nothing. Your only answer was to hide yourself away-and to belittle all that I did, to mock my zeal…

Preparing me for this moment.

Very well, Father, I can see the gleam of satisfaction in your eyes, now. But I tell you this, you delivered naught but wounds upon your son. And I have had enough of wounds.

Urugal was with him. All the Seven were with him. Their power would make him impervious to all that besieged his Teblor spirit. He would, one day, return to his people, and he would shatter their rules. He would unite the Teblor, and they would march behind him… down into the lowlands.

Until that moment, all that came before-all that afflicted him now-was but preparation. He would be the weapon of retribution, and it was the enemy itself that now honed him.

Blindness curses both sides, it seems. Thus, the truth of my words shall be shown.

Such were his last thoughts before consciousness once more faded away.

Excited voices awoke him. It was dusk and the air was filled with the smell of horses, dust and spiced foods. The wagon was motionless under him, and he could now hear, mingled with the voices, the sounds of many people and a multitude of activities, underscored by the rush of a river.

‘Ah, awake once more,’ Torvald Nom said.

Karsa opened his eyes but did not otherwise move.

‘This is Culvern Crossing,’ the Daru went on, ‘and it’s a storm swirling with the latest news from the south. All right, a small storm, given the size of this latrine pit of a town. The scum of the Nathii, which is saying a lot. The Malazan company’s pretty excited, though. Pale’s just fallen, you see. A big battle, lots of sorcery, and Moon’s Spawn retreated-likely headed to Darujhistan, in fact. Beru take me, I wish I was there right now, watching it crossing the lake, what a sight that’d be. The company, of course, are wishing they’d been there for the battle. Idiots, but that’s soldiers for you-’

‘And why not?’ Shard’s voice snapped as the wagon rocked slightly and the man appeared. ‘The Ashok Regiment deserves better than to be stuck up here hunting bandits and slavers.’

‘The Ashok Regiment is you, I presume,’ Torvald said.

‘Aye. Damned veterans, too, one and all.’

‘So why aren’t you down south, Corporal?’

Shard made a face, then turned away with narrowed eyes. ‘She don’t trust us, that’s why,’ he murmured. ‘We’re Seven Cities, and the bitch don’t trust us.’

‘Excuse me,’ Torvald said, ‘but if she-and by that I take you to mean your Empress-doesn’t trust you, then why is she sending you home? Isn’t Seven Cities supposedly on the edge of rebellion? If there’s a chance of you turning renegade, wouldn’t she rather have you here on Genabackis?’

Shard stared down at Torvald Nom. ‘Why am I talking to you, thief? You might damn well be one of her spies. A Claw, for all I know.’

‘If I am, Corporal, you haven’t been treating me very well. A detail I’d be sure to put in my report-this secret one, the one I’m secretly writing, that is. Shard, wasn’t it? As in a piece of broken glass, yes? And you called the Empress “bitch”-’

‘Shut up,’ the Malazan snarled.

‘Just making a rather obvious point, Corporal.’

‘That’s what you think,’ Shard sneered as he dropped back down from the side of the wagon and was lost from sight.

Torvald Nom said nothing for a long moment, then, ‘Karsa Orlong, do you have any idea what that man meant by that last statement?’

Karsa spoke in a low voice, ‘Torvald Nom, listen well. A warrior who followed me, Delum Thord, was struck on the head. His skull cracked and leaked thought-blood. His mind could not walk back up the path. He was left helpless, harmless. I, too, have been struck on the head. My skull is cracked and I have leaked thought-blood-’

‘Actually, it was drool-’

‘Be quiet. Listen. And answer, when you will, in a whisper. I have awakened now, twice, and you have observed-’

Torvald interjected in a soft murmur. ‘That your mind’s lost on the trail or something. Is that what I have observed? You babble meaningless words, sing childhood songs and the like. All right, fine. I’ll play along, on one condition.’

‘What condition?’

‘That whenever you manage to escape, you free me as well. A small thing, you might think, but I assure you-’

‘Very well. I, Karsa Orlong of the Uryd, give my word.’

‘Good. I like the formality of that vow. Sounds like it’s real.’

‘It is. Do not mock me, else I kill you once I have freed you.’

‘Ah, now I see the hidden caveat. I must twist another vow from you, alas-’

The Teblor growled with impatience, then relented and said, ‘I, Karsa Orlong, shall not kill you once I have freed you, unless given cause.’

‘Explain the nature of those causes-’

‘Are all Daru like you?’

‘It needn’t be an exhaustive list. “Cause” being, say, attempted murder, betrayal, and mockery of course. Can you think of any others?’

‘Talking too much.’

‘Well, with that one we’re getting into very grey, very murky shades, don’t you think? It’s a matter of cultural distinctions-’

‘I believe Darujhistan shall be the first city I conquer-’

‘I’ve a feeling the Malazans will get there first, I’m afraid. Mind you, my beloved city has never been conquered, despite its being too cheap to hire a standing army. The gods not only look down on Darujhistan with a protective eye, they probably drink in its taverns. In any case-oh, shhh, someone’s coming.’

Bootsteps neared, then, as Karsa watched through slitted eyes, Sergeant Cord clambered up into view and glared for a long moment at Torvald Nom. ‘You sure don’t look like a Claw…’ he finally said. ‘But maybe that’s the whole point.’

‘Perhaps it is.’

Cord’s head began turning towards Karsa and the Teblor closed his eyes completely. ‘He come around yet?’

‘Twice. Doing nothing but drooling and making animal sounds. I think you went and damaged his brain, assuming he has one.’

Cord grunted. ‘Might prove a good thing, so long as he doesn’t die on us. Now, where was I?’

‘Torvald Nom, the Claw.’

‘Right. OK. Even so, we’re still treating you as a bandit-until you prove to us you’re something otherwise-and so you’re off to the otataral mines with everyone else. Meaning, if you are a Claw, you’d better announce it before we leave Genabaris.’

‘Assuming, of course,’ Torvald smiled, ‘my assignment does not require me to assume the disguise of a prisoner in the otataral mines.’

Cord frowned, then, hissing a curse, he dropped down from the side of the wagon.

They heard him shout, ‘Get this damned wagon on that ferry! Now!’

The wheels creaked into sudden motion, the oxen lowing.

Torvald Nom sighed, leaning his head against the wall and closing his eyes.

‘You play a deadly game,’ Karsa muttered.

The Daru propped one eye open. ‘A game, Teblor? Indeed, but maybe not the game you think.’

Karsa grunted his disgust.

‘Be not so quick to dismiss-’

‘I am,’ the warrior replied, as the oxen dragged the wagon onto a ramp of wooden boards. ‘My causes shall be “attempted murder, betrayal, mockery, and being one of these Claws”.’

‘And talking too much?’

‘It seems I shall have to suffer that curse.’

Torvald slowly cocked his head, then he grinned. ‘Agreed.’

In a strange way, the discipline of maintaining the illusion of mindlessness proved Karsa’s greatest ally in remaining sane. Days, then weeks lying supine, spread-eagled and chained down to the bed of a wagon was a torture unlike anything the Teblor could have imagined possible. Vermin crawled all over his body, covering him in bites that itched incessantly. He knew of large animals of the deep forest being driven mad by blackflies and midges, and now he understood how such an event could occur.

He was washed down with buckets of icy water at the end of each day, and was fed by the drover guiding the wagon, an ancient foul-smelling Nathii who would crouch down beside his head with a smoke-blackened iron pot filled with some kind of thick, seed-filled stew. He used a large wooden spoon to pour the scalding, malty cereal and stringy meat into Karsa’s mouth-the Teblor’s lips, tongue and the insides of his cheeks were terribly blistered, the feedings coming too often to allow for healing.

Meals became an ordeal, which was alleviated only when Torvald Nom talked the drover into permitting the Daru to take over the task, ensuring that the stew had cooled sufficiently before it was poured into Karsa’s mouth. The blisters were gone within a few days.

The Teblor endeavoured to keep his muscles fit through sessions, late at night, of flexing and unflexing, but all his joints ached from immobility, and for this he could do nothing.

At times, his discipline wavered, his thoughts travelling back to the demon he and his comrades had freed. That woman, the Forkassal, had spent an unimaginable length of time pinned beneath that massive stone. She had managed to achieve some movement, had no doubt clung to some protracted sense of progress as she clawed and scratched against the stone. Even so, Karsa could not comprehend her ability to withstand madness and the eventual death that was its conclusion.

Thoughts of her left him humbled, his spirit weakened by his own growing frailty in these chains, in the wagon bed’s rough-hewn planks that had rubbed his skin raw, in the shame of his soiled clothes, and the simple, unbearable torment of the lice and fleas.

Torvald took to talking to him as he would a child, or a pet. Calming words, soothing tones, and the curse of talking too much was transformed into something Karsa could hold on to, his desperate grip ever tightening.

The words fed him, kept his spirit from starving. They measured the cycle of days and nights that passed, they taught him the language of the Malazans, they gave him an account of the places they travelled through. After Culvern Crossing, there had been a larger town, Ninsano Moat, where crowds of children had clambered onto the wagon, poking and prodding him until Shard arrived to drive them away. Another river had been crossed there. Onward to Malybridge, a town of similar proportions to Ninsano Moat, then, seventeen days later, Karsa stared up at the arched stone gateway of a city-Tanys-passing over him, and on either side, as the wagon made its rocking way down a cobbled street, huge buildings of three, even four levels. And all around, the sounds of people, more lowlanders than Karsa had thought possible.

Tanys was a port, resting on tiered ridges rising from the east shore of the Malyn Sea, where the water was brackish with salt-such as was found in a number of springs near the Rathyd borderlands. Yet the Malyn Sea was no turgid, tiny pool; it was vast, for the journey across it to the city called Malyntaeas consumed four days and three nights.

It was the transferring onto the ship that resulted in Karsa’s being lifted upright-unwheeled wagon bed included-for the first time, creating a new kind of torture as the chains took his full weight. His joints screamed within him and gave voice as Karsa’s shrieks filled the air, continuing without surcease until someone poured a fiery, burning liquid down his throat, enough to fill his stomach, after which his mind sank away.

When he awoke he found that the platform that held him remained upright, strapped to what Torvald called the main mast. The Daru had been chained nearby, having assumed the responsibility for Karsa’s care.

The ship’s healer had rubbed salves into Karsa’s swollen joints, deadening the pain. But a new agony had arrived, raging behind his eyes.

‘Hurting?’ Torvald Nom murmured. ‘That’s called a hangover, friend. A whole bladder of rum was poured into you, lucky bastard that you are. You heaved half of it back up, of course, but it had sufficiently worsened in the interval to enable me to refrain from licking the deck, leaving my dignity intact. Now, we both need some shade or we’ll end up fevered and raving-and believe me, you’ve done enough raving for both of us already. Fortunately in your Teblor tongue, which few if any aboard understand. Aye, we’ve parted ways with Captain Kindly and his soldiers, for the moment. They’re crossing on another ship. By the way, who is Dayliss? No, don’t tell me. You’ve made quite a list of rather horrible things you’ve got planned for this Dayliss, whoever he or she is. Anyway, you should have your sea-legs by the time we dock in Malyntaeas, which should prepare you somewhat for the horrors of Meningalle Ocean. I hope.

‘Hungry?’

The crew, mostly Malazans, gave Karsa’s position wide berth. The other prisoners had been locked below, but the wagon bed had proved too large for the cargo hatch, and Captain Kindly had been firm on his instructions not to release Karsa, in any circumstances, despite his apparent feeble-mindedness. Not a sign of scepticism, Torvald had explained in a whisper, just the captain’s legendary sense of caution, which was reputedly extreme even for a soldier. The illusion seemed to have, in fact, succeeded-Karsa had been bludgeoned into a harmless ox, devoid of any glimmer of intelligence in his dull eyes, his endless, ghastly smile evincing permanent incomprehension. A giant, once warrior, now less than a child, comforted only by the shackled bandit, Torvald Nom, and his incessant chatter.

‘Eventually, they’ll have to unchain you from that wagon bed,’ the Daru once muttered in the darkness as the ship rolled on towards Malyntaeas. ‘But maybe not until we arrive at the mines. You’ll just have to hold on, Karsa Orlong-assuming you’re still pretending you’ve lost your mind, and these days I admit you’ve got even me convinced. You are still sane, aren’t you?’

Karsa voiced a soft grunt, though at times he himself was unsure. Some days had been lost entirely, simply blank patches in his memory-more frightening than anything else he’d yet to experience. Hold on? He did not know if he could.

The city of Malyntaeas had the appearance of having been three separate cities at one time. It was midday when the ship drew into the harbour, and from his position against the main mast Karsa’s view was mostly unobstructed. Three enormous stone fortifications commanded three distinct rises in the land, the centre one set back further from the shoreline than the other two. Each possessed its own peculiar style of architecture. The keep to the left was squat, robust and unimaginative, built of a golden, almost orange limestone that looked marred and stained in the sunlight. The centre fortification, hazy through the woodsmoke rising from the maze of streets and houses filling the lower tiers between the hills, appeared older, more decrepit, and had been painted-walls, domes and towers-in a faded red wash. The fortification on the right was built on the very edge of the coastal cliff, the sea below roiling amidst tumbled rocks and boulders, the cliff itself rotted, pock-marked and battle-scarred. Ship-launched projectiles had battered the keep’s sloped walls at some time in the past; deep cracks radiated from the wounds, and one of the square towers had slumped and shifted and now leaned precariously outward. Yet a row of pennants fluttered beyond the wall.

Around each keep, down the slopes and in the flat, lowest stretches, buildings crowded every available space, mimicking its particular style. Borders were marked by wide streets, winding inland, where one style faced the other down their crooked lengths.

Three tribes had settled here, Karsa concluded as the ship eased its way through the crowds of fisherboats and traders in the bay.

Torvald Nom rose to his feet in a rustle of chains, scratching vigorously at his snarled beard. His eyes glittered as he gazed at the city. ‘Malyntaeas,’ he sighed. ‘Nathii, Genabarii and Korhivi, side by side by side. And what keeps them from each other’s throats? Naught but the Malazan overlord and three companies from the Ashok Regiment. See that half-ruined keep over there, Karsa? That’s from the war between the Nathii and the Korhivi. The whole Nathii fleet filled this bay, flinging stones at the walls, and they were so busy with trying to kill each other that they didn’t even notice when the Malazan forces arrived. Dujek Onearm, three legions from the 2nd, the Bridgeburners, and two High Mages. That’s all Dujek had, and by day’s end the Nathii fleet was on the bay’s muddy bottom, the Genabarii royal line holed up in their blood-red castle were all dead, and the Korhivi keep had capitulated.’

The ship was approaching a berth alongside a broad, stone pier, sailors scampering about on all sides.

Torvald was smiling. ‘All well and good, you might be thinking. The forceful imposition of peace and all that. Only, the city’s Fist is about to lose two of his three companies. Granted, replacements are supposedly on the way. But when? From where? How many? See what happens, my dear Teblor, when your tribe gets too big? Suddenly, the simplest things become ungainly, unmanageable. Confusion seeps in like fog, and everyone gropes blind and dumb.’

A voice cackled from slightly behind and to Karsa’s left. A bandy legged, bald officer stepped into view, his eyes on the berth closing ahead, a sour grin twisting his mouth. In Nathii, he said, ‘The bandit chief pontificates on politics, speaking from experience no doubt, what with having to manage a dozen unruly highwaymen. And why are you telling this brainless fool, anyway? Ah, of course, a captive and uncomplaining audience.’

‘Well, there is that,’ Torvald conceded. ‘You are the First Mate? I was wondering, sir, about how long we’d be staying here in Malyntaeas-’

‘You were wondering, were you? Fine, allow me to explain the course of events for the next day or two. One. No prisoners leave this ship. Two. We pick up six squads of the 2nd Company. Three, we sail on to Genabaris. You’re then shipped off and I’m done with you.’

‘I sense a certain unease in you, sir,’ Torvald said. ‘Have you security concerns regarding fair Malyntaeas?’

The man’s head slowly turned. He regarded the Daru for a moment, then grunted. ‘You’re the one might be a Claw. Well, if you are, add this to your damned report. There’s Crimson Guard in Malyntaeas, stirring up the Korhivi. The shadows ain’t safe, and it’s getting so bad that the patrols don’t go anywhere unless there’s two squads at the minimum. And now two-thirds of them are being sent home. The situation in Malyntaeas is about to get very unsettled.’

‘The Empress would certainly be remiss to discount the opinions of her officers,’ Torvald replied.

The First Mate’s eyes narrowed. ‘She would at that.’

He then strode ahead, bellowing at a small group of sailors who’d run out of things to do.

Torvald tugged at his beard, glanced over at Karsa and winked. ‘Crimson Guard. That’s troubling indeed. For the Malazans, that is.’

Days vanished. Karsa became aware once again as the wagon bed pitched wildly under him. His joints were afire, as his weight was shifted, chains snapping taut to jolt his limbs. He was being wheeled through the air, suspended from a pulley beneath a creaking framework of beams. Ropes whipped about, voices shouting from below. Overhead, seagulls glided above masts and rigging. Figures clung to that rigging, staring down at the Teblor.

The pulley squealed, and Karsa watched the sailors get smaller. Hands gripped the bed’s edges on all sides, steadying it. The end nearest his feet dropped further, drawing him slowly upright.

He saw before him the mid- and foredecks of a huge ship, over which swarmed haulers and stevedores, sailors and soldiers. Supplies were piled everywhere, the bundles being shifted below decks through gaping hatches.

The bed’s bottom end scraped the deck. Shouts, a flurry of activity, and the Teblor felt the bed lifted slightly, swinging free once more, then it was lowered again, and this time Karsa could both hear and feel the top edge thump against the main mast. Ropes were drawn through chains to bind the platform in place. Workers stepped away, then, staring up at Karsa.

Who smiled.

Torvald’s voice came from one side, ‘Aye, it’s a ghastly smile, but he’s harmless, I assure you all. No need for concern, unless of course you happen to be a superstitious lot-’

There was a solid crack and Torvald Nom’s body sprawled down in front of Karsa. Blood poured from his shattered nose. The Daru blinked stupidly, but made no move to rise. A large figure strode to stand over Torvald. Not tall, but wide, and his skin was dusky blue. He glared down at the bandit chief, then studied the ring of silent sailors facing him.

‘It’s called sticking the knife in and twisting,’ he growled in Malazan. ‘And he got every damned one of you.’ He turned and studied Torvald Nom once more. ‘Another stab like that one, prisoner, and I’ll see your tongue cut out and nailed to the mast. And if there’s any other kind of trouble from you or this giant here, I’ll chain you up there beside him then toss the whole damned thing overboard. Nod if you understand me.’

Wiping the blood from his face, Torvald Nom jerked his head in assent.

The blue-skinned man swung his hard gaze up to Karsa. ‘Wipe that smile off your face or a knife will kiss it,’ he said. ‘You don’t need lips to eat and the other miners won’t care either way.’

Karsa’s empty smile remained fixed.

The man’s face darkened. ‘You heard me…’

Torvald raised a hesitant hand, ‘Captain, sir, if you will. He does not understand you-his brain is addled.’

‘Bosun!’

‘Sir!’

‘Gag the bastard.’

‘Aye, Captain.’

A salt-crusted rag was quickly wrapped about Karsa’s lower face, making it difficult to breathe.

‘Don’t suffocate him, you idiots.’

‘Aye, sir.’

The knots were loosened, the cloth pulled down to beneath his nose.

The captain wheeled. ‘Now, what in Mael’s name are you all standing around for?’

As the workers all scattered, the captain thumping away, Torvald slowly climbed to his feet. ‘Sorry, Karsa,’ he mumbled through split lips. ‘I’ll get that off you, I promise. It may take a little time, alas. And when I do, friend, please, don’t be smiling…’

Why have you come to me, Karsa Orlong, son of Synyg, grandson of Pahlk?

One presence, and six. Faces that might have been carved from rock, barely visible through a swirling haze. One, and six.

‘I am before you, Urugal,’ Karsa said, a truth that left him confused.

You are not. Only your mind, Karsa Orlong. It has fled your mortal prison.

‘Then, I have failed you, Urugal.’

Failed. Yes. You have abandoned us and so in turn we must abandon you. We must seek another, one of greater strength. One who does not accept surrender. One who does not flee. In you, Karsa Orlong, our faith was misplaced.

The haze thickened, dull colours flashing through it. He found himself standing atop a hill that shifted and crunched beneath him. Chains stretched out from his wrists, down the slopes on all sides. Hundreds of chains, reaching out into the rainbow mists, and at the unseen ends of each one, there was movement. Looking down, Karsa saw bones beneath his feet. Teblor. Lowlander. The entire hill was naught but bones.

The chains slackened suddenly.

Movement in the mists, drawing closer from every direction.

Terror surged through Karsa.

Corpses, many of them headless, staggered into view. The chains that held the horrifying creatures to Karsa penetrated their chests through gaping holes. Withered, long-nailed hands reached towards him. Stumbling on the slopes, the apparitions began climbing.

Karsa struggled, seeking to flee, but he was surrounded. The very bones at his feet held him fast, clattering and shifting tighter about his ankles.

A hiss, a susurration of voices through rotting throats. ‘Lead us, Warleader.’

He shrieked.

‘Lead us, Warleader.’

Climbing closer, arms reaching up, nails clawing the air-

A hand closed about his ankle.

Karsa’s head snapped back, struck wood with a resounding crunch. He gulped air that slid like sand down his throat, choking him. Eyes opening, he saw before him the gently pitching decks of the ship, figures standing motionless, staring at him.

He coughed behind his gag, each convulsion a rage of fire in his lungs. His throat felt torn, and he realized that he had been screaming. Enough to spasm his muscles so they now clenched tight, cutting off the flow of his air passages.

He was dying.

The whisper of a voice deep in his mind: Perhaps we will not abandon you, yet. Breathe, Karsa Orlong. Unless, of course, you wish to once more meet your dead.

Breathe.

Someone snatched the gag from his mouth. Cold air flooded his lungs.

Through watering eyes, Karsa stared down at Torvald Nom. The Daru was barely recognizable, so dark was his skin, so thick and matted his beard. He had used the very chains holding Karsa to climb up within reach of the gag, and was now shouting unintelligible words the Teblor barely heard-words flung back at the frozen, fear-stricken Malazans.

Karsa’s eyes finally made note of the sky beyond the ship’s prow. There were colours there, amidst churning clouds, flashing and blossoming, swirls bleeding out from what seemed huge, open wounds. The storm-if that was what it was-commanded the entire sky ahead. And then he saw the chains, snapping down through the clouds to crack thunderously on the horizon. Hundreds of chains, impossibly huge, black, whipping in the air with explosions of red dust, crisscrossing the sky. Horror filled his soul.

There was no wind. The sails hung limp. The ship lolled on lazy, turgid seas. And the storm was coming.

A sailor approached with a tin cup filled with water, lifted it up to Torvald, who took it and brought it to Karsa’s scabbed, crusted lips. The brackish liquid entered his mouth, burning like acid. He drew his head away from the cup.

Torvald was speaking in low tones, words that slowly grew comprehensible to Karsa. ‘… long lost to us. Only your beating heart and the rise and fall of your chest told us you still lived. It has been weeks and weeks, my friend. You’d keep hardly anything down. There’s almost nothing left of you-you’re showing bones where no bones should be.

‘And then this damned becalming. Day after day. Not a cloud in the sky… until three bells past. Three bells, when you stirred, Karsa Orlong. When you tilted your head back and began screaming behind your gag. Here, more water-you must drink.

‘Karsa, they’re saying you’ve called this storm. Do you understand? They want you to send it away-they’ll do anything, they’ll unchain you, set you free. Anything, friend, anything at all-just send this unholy storm away. Do you understand?’

Ahead, he could see now, the seas were exploding with each lash of the black, monstrous chains, twisting spouts of water skyward as each chain retreated upward once more. The billowing, heaving clouds seemed to lean forward over the ocean, closing on their position from all sides now.

Karsa saw the Malazan captain descend from the foredeck, the blue-tinged skin on his face a sickly greyish hue. ‘This is no Mael-blessed squall, Daru, meaning it don’t belong.’ He jerked a trembling finger at Karsa. ‘Tell him he’s running out of time. Tell him to send it away. Once he does that, we can negotiate. Tell him, damn you!’

‘I have been, Captain!’ Torvald retorted. ‘But how in Hood’s name do you expect him to send anything away when I’m not even sure he knows where he is? Worse, we don’t even know for sure if he’s responsible!’

‘Let’s see, shall we?’ The captain spun round, gestured. A score of crewmen rushed forward, axes in hand.

Torvald was dragged down and thrown to the deck.

The axes chopped through the heavy ropes binding the platform to the mast. More crew came forward then. A ramp was laid out, angled up to the starboard gunnel. Log rollers were positioned beneath the platform as it was roughly lowered.

‘Wait!’ Torvald cried out. ‘You can’t-’

‘We can,’ the captain growled.

‘At least unchain him!’

‘Not a chance, Torvald.’ The captain grabbed a passing sailor by the arm. ‘Find everything this giant owned-all that stuff confiscated from the slavemaster. It’s all going with him. Hurry, damn you!’

Chains ripped the seas on all sides close enough to lift spray over the ship, each detonation causing hull, masts and rigging to tremble.

Karsa stared up at the tumbling stormclouds as the platform was dragged along the rollers, up the ramp.

‘Those chains will sink it!’ Torvald said.

‘Maybe, maybe not.’

‘What if it lands wrong way up?’

‘Then he drowns, and Mael can have him.’

‘Karsa! Damn you! Cease playing your game of mindlessness! Say something!’

The warrior croaked out two words, but the noise that came from his lips was unintelligible even to him.

‘What did he say?’ the captain demanded.

‘I don’t know!’ Torvald screamed. ‘Karsa, damn you, try again!’

He did, yielding the same guttural noise. He began repeating the same two words, over and over again, as the sailors pushed and pulled the platform up onto the gunnel until it was balanced precariously, half over the deck, half over the sea.

Directly above them, as he uttered his two words once more, Karsa watched the last patch of clear sky vanish, like the closing of a tunnel mouth. A sudden plunge into darkness, and Karsa knew it was too late, even as, in the sudden terror-stricken silence, his words came out clear and audible.

‘Go away.’

From overhead, chains snapped down, massive, plunging, reaching directly for-it seemed-Karsa’s own chest.

A blinding flash, a detonation, the splintering crackle of masts toppling, spars and rigging crashing down. The entire ship was falling away beneath Karsa, beneath the platform itself, which slid wildly down the length of the gunnel before crunching against the foredeck railing, pivoting, then plunging for the waves below.

He stared down at the water’s sickly green, heaving surface.

The entire platform shuddered in its fall as the cargo ship’s hull rolled up and struck its edge.

Karsa caught an upside-down glimpse of the ship-its deck torn open by the impact of the huge chains, its three masts gone, the twisted forms of sailors visible in the wreckage-then he was staring up at the sky, at a virulent, massive wound directly overhead.

A fierce impact, then darkness.

His eyes opened to a faint gloom, the desultory lap of waves, the sodden boards beneath him creaking as the platform rocked to someone else’s movement. Thumps; low, gasping mutters.

The Teblor groaned. The joints of every limb felt torn inside.

‘Karsa?’ Torvald Nom crawled into view.

‘What-what has happened?’

The shackles remained on the Daru’s wrists, the chains connected on the other end to arm-length, roughly broken fragments of the deck. ‘Easy for you, sleeping through all the hard work,’ he grumbled as he moved into a sitting position, pulling his arms around his knees. ‘This sea’s a lot colder than you’d think, and these chains didn’t help. I’ve nearly drowned a dozen times, but you’ll be glad to know we now have three water casks and a bundle of something that might be food-I’ve yet to untie its bindings. Oh, and your sword and armour, both of which float, of course.’

The sky overhead looked unnatural, luminous grey shot through with streaks of darker pewter, and the water smelled of clay and silts. ‘Where are we?’

‘I was hoping you’d know. It’s pretty damned clear to me that you called that storm down on us. That’s the only explanation for what happened-’

‘I called nothing.’

‘Those chains of lightning, Karsa-not one missed its target. Not a single Malazan was left standing. The ship was falling apart-your platform had landed right-side up and was drifting away. I was still working free when Silgar and three of his men climbed out of the hold, dragging their chains with them-the hull was riven through, coming apart all around the bastards. Only one had drowned.’

‘I am surprised they didn’t kill us.’

‘You were out of reach, at least to start with. Me, they threw overboard. A short while later, after I’d made it to this platform, I saw them in the lone surviving dory. They were rounding the sinking wreck, and I knew they were coming for us. Then, somewhere on the other side of the ship, beyond my sight, something must have happened, because they never reappeared. They vanished, dory and all. The ship then went down, though a lot of stuff has been coming back up. So, I’ve been resupplying. Collecting rope and wood, too-everything I could drag over here. Karsa, your platform is slowly sinking. None of the water casks are full, so that’s added some buoyancy, and I’ll be slipping more planks and boards under it, which should help. Even so…’

‘Break my chains, Torvald Nom.’

The Daru nodded, then ran a hand through his dripping, tangled hair. ‘I’ve checked on that, friend. It will take some work.’

‘Is there land about?’

Torvald glanced over at the Teblor. ‘Karsa, this isn’t the Meningalle Ocean. We’re somewhere else. Is there land nearby? None in sight. I overheard Silgar talking about a warren, which is one of those paths a sorcerer uses. He said he thought we’d all entered one. There may be no land here. None at all. Hood knows there’s no wind and we don’t seem to be moving in any direction-the wreckage of the ship is still all around us. In fact, it almost pulled us under with it. Also, this sea is fresh water-no, I wouldn’t want to drink it. It’s full of silt. No fish. No birds. No signs of life anywhere.’

‘I need water. Food.’

Torvald crawled over to the wrapped bundle he had retrieved. ‘Water, we have. Food? No guarantees. Karsa, did you call upon your gods or something?’

‘No.’

‘What started you screaming like that, then?’

‘A dream.’

‘A dream?’

‘Yes. Is there food?’

‘Uh, I’m not sure, it’s mostly padding… around a small wooden box.’

Karsa listened to ripping sounds as Torvald pulled away the padding. ‘There’s a mark branded on it. Looks… Moranth, I think.’ The lid was pried free. ‘More padding, and a dozen clay balls… with wax plugs on them-oh, Beru fend-’ The Daru backed away from the package. ‘Hood’s dripping tongue. I think I know what these are. Never seen one, but I’ve heard about them-who hasn’t? Well…’ He laughed suddenly. ‘If Silgar reappears and comes after us, he’s in for a surprise. So’s anyone else who might mean trouble.’ He edged forward again and carefully replaced the padding, then the lid.

‘What have you found?’

‘Alchemical munitions. Weapons of war. You throw them, preferably as far as you can. The clay breaks and the chemicals within explode. What you don’t want to happen is have one break in your hand, or at your feet. Because then you’re dead. The Malazans have been using these in the Genabackan campaign.’

‘Water, please.’

‘Right. There’s a ladle here… somewhere… found it.’

A moment later Torvald hovered over Karsa, and the Teblor drank, slowly, all the water the ladle contained.

‘Better?’

‘Yes.’

‘More?’

‘Not yet. Free me.’

‘I need to get back into the water first, Karsa. I need to push some planks under this raft.’

‘Very well.’

There seemed to be no day and no night in this strange place; the sky shifted hue occasionally, as if jostled by high, remote winds, the streaks of pewter twisting and stretching, but there was no change otherwise. The air surrounding the raft remained motionless, damp and cool and strangely thick.

The flanges anchoring Karsa’s chains were on the underside, holding him in place in a fashion identical to that in the slave trench at Silver Lake. The shackles themselves had been welded shut. Torvald’s only recourse was to attempt to widen the holes in the planks where the chains went through, using an iron buckle to dig at the wood.

Months of imprisonment had left him weakened, forcing frequent rests, and the buckle made a bloody mess of his hands, but once begun the Daru would not relent. Karsa measured the passing of time by the rhythmic crunching and scraping sounds, noting how each pause to rest stretched longer, until Torvald’s breathing told him the Daru had fallen into an exhausted sleep. Then, the Teblor’s only company was the sullen lap of water as it slipped back and forth across the platform.

For all the wood positioned beneath it, the raft was still sinking, and Karsa knew that Torvald would not be able to free him in time.

He had never before feared death. But now, he knew that Urugal and the other Faces in the Rock would abandon his soul, would leave it to the hungry vengeance of those thousands of ghastly corpses. He knew his dream had revealed to him a fate that was real, and inevitable. And inexplicable. Who had set such horrid creatures upon him? Undead Teblor, undead lowlander, warrior and child, an army of corpses, all chained to him. Why?

Lead us, Warleader.

Where?

And now, he would drown. Here, in this unknown place, far from his village. His claims to glory, his vows, all now mocking him, whispering a chorus of muted creaks, soft groans…

‘Torvald.’

‘Uh… what? What is it?’

‘I hear new sounds-’

The Daru sat up, blinking crusted silt from his eyes. He looked around. ‘Beru fend!’

‘What do you see?’

The Daru’s gaze was fixed on something beyond Karsa’s head. ‘Well, it seems there’s currents here after all, though which of us has done the moving? Ships, Karsa. A score or more of them, all dead in the water, like us. Floating wrecks. No movement on them… that I can see as yet. Looks like there was a battle. With plenty of sorcery being flung back and forth…’

Some indiscernible shift drew the ghostly flotilla into Karsa’s view, an image on its side to his right. There were two distinct styles of craft. Twenty or so were low and sleek, the wood stained mostly black, though where impacts and collisions and other damage had occurred the cedar’s natural red showed like gaping wounds. Many of these ships sat low in the water, a few with their decks awash. They were single-masted, square-sailed, the torn and shredded sails also black, shimmering in the pellucid light. The remaining six ships were larger, high-decked and three-masted. They had been fashioned from a wood that was true black-not stained-as was evinced from the gashes and splintered planks marring the broad, bellied hulls. Not one of these latter ships sat level in the water; all leaned one way or the other, two of them at very steep angles.

‘We should board a few,’ Torvald said. ‘There will be tools, maybe even weapons. I could swim over-there, that raider. It’s not yet awash, and I see lots of wreckage.’

Karsa sensed the Daru’s hesitation. ‘What is wrong? Swim.’

‘Uh, I am a little concerned, friend. I seem to have not much strength left, and these chains on me…’

The Teblor said nothing for a moment, then he grunted. ‘So be it. No more can be asked of you, Torvald Nom.’

The Daru slowly turned to regard Karsa. ‘Compassion, Karsa Orlong? Is it helplessness that has brought you to this?’

‘Too many empty words from you, lowlander,’ the Teblor sighed. ‘There are no gifts that come from being-’

A soft splash sounded, then sputtering and thrashing-the sputtering turning into laughter. Torvald, now alongside the raft, moved into Karsa’s line of sight. ‘Now we know why those ships are canted so!’ And the Teblor saw that Torvald was standing, the water lapping around his upper chest. ‘I can drag us over, now. This also tells us we’re the ones who’ve been drifting. And there’s something else.’

‘What?’

The Daru had begun pulling the raft along, using Karsa’s chains. ‘These ships all grounded during the battle-I think a lot of the hand to hand fighting was actually between ships, chest-deep in water.’

‘How do you know this?’

‘Because there’s bodies all around me, Karsa Orlong. Against my shins, rolling about on the sands-it’s an unpleasant feeling, let me tell you.’

‘Pull one up. Let us see these combatants.’

‘All in good time, Teblor. We’re almost there. Also, these bodies, they’re, uh, rather soft. We might find something more recognizable if there’s any on the ship itself. Here’-there was a bump-‘we’re alongside. A moment, while I climb aboard.’

Karsa listened to the Daru’s grunts and gasps, the slipping scrabble of his bare feet, the rustle of chains, finally followed by a muted thud.

Then silence.

‘Torvald Nom?’

Nothing.

The raft’s end beyond Karsa’s head bumped alongside the raider’s hull, then began drifting along it. Cool water flowed across the surface, and Karsa recoiled at the contact, but could do nothing as it seeped beneath him. ‘Torvald Nom!’ His voice strangely echoed. No reply.

Laughter rumbled from Karsa, a sound oddly disconnected from the Teblor’s own will. In water that, had he been able to stand, would likely rise no higher than his hips, he would drown. Assuming there would be time for that. Perhaps Torvald Nom had been slain-it would be a bizarre battle if there had been no survivors-and even now, beyond his sight, the Teblor was being looked down upon, his fate hanging in the balance.

The raft edged near the ship’s prow. A scuffling sound, then, ‘Where? Oh.’

‘Torvald Nom?’

Footsteps, half-stumbling, moved alongside from the ship’s deck. ‘Sorry, friend. I think I must have passed out. Were you laughing a moment ago?’

‘I was. What have you found?’

‘Not much. Yet. Bloodstains-dried. Trails through it. This ship has been thoroughly stripped. Hood below-you’re sinking!’

‘And I do not think you will be able to do anything about it, lowlander. Leave me to my fate. Take the water, and my weapons-’

But Torvald had reappeared, rope in his hand, sliding down over the gunnel near the high prow and back into the water. Breathing hard, he fumbled with the rope for a moment before managing to slip it underneath the chains. He then drew it along and repeated the effort on the other side of the raft. A third time, down near Karsa’s left foot, then a fourth loop opposite.

The Teblor could feel the wet, heavy rope being dragged through the chains. ‘What are you doing?’

Torvald made no reply. Still trailing the rope, he climbed back onto the ship. There was another long stretch of silence, then Karsa heard movement once more, and the rope slowly tautened.

Torvald’s head and shoulders moved into view. The lowlander was deathly pale. ‘Best I could do, friend. There may be some more settling, but hopefully not much. I will check again on you in a little while. Don’t worry, I won’t let you drown. I’m going to do some exploring right now-the bastards couldn’t have taken everything.’ He vanished from Karsa’s line of sight.

The Teblor waited, racked with shivering as the sea slowly embraced him. The level had reached his ears, muting all sounds other than the turgid swirl of water. He watched the four lengths of rope slowly growing tighter above him.

It was difficult to recall a time when his limbs had been free to move without restraint, when his raw, suppurating wrists had not known the implacable iron grip of shackles, when he had not felt-deep in his withered body-a vast weakness, a frailty, his blood flowing as thin as water. He closed his eyes and felt his mind falling away.

Away…

Urugal, I stand before you once more. Before these faces in the rock, before my gods. Urugal-

‘I see no Teblor standing before me. I see no warrior wading through his enemies, harvesting souls. I do not see the dead piled high on the ground, as numerous as a herd of bhederin driven over a cliff. Where are my gifts? Who is this who claims to serve me?’

Urugal. You are a bloodthirsty god-

‘A truth a Teblor warrior revels in!’

As I once did. But now, Urugal, I am no longer so sure-

‘Who stands before us? Not a Teblor warrior! Not a servant of mine!’

Urugal. What are these ‘bhederin’ you spoke of? What are these herds? Where among the lands of the Teblor-

‘Karsa!’

He flinched. Opened his eyes.

Torvald Nom, a burlap sack over one shoulder, was climbing back down. His feet made contact with the raft, pushing it a fraction deeper. Water stung the outside corners of Karsa’s eyes.

The sack made numerous clunking sounds as the Daru set it down and reached inside. ‘Tools, Karsa! A shipwright’s tools!’ He drew forth a chisel and an iron-capped mallet.

The Teblor felt his heart begin pounding hard in his chest.

Torvald set the chisel against a chain link, then began hammering.

A dozen swings, the concussions pealing loudly in the still, murky air, then the chain snapped. Its own weight swiftly dragged it through the iron ring of Karsa’s right wrist shackle. Then, with a soft rustle, it was gone beneath the sea’s surface. Agony lanced through his arm as he attempted to move it. The Teblor grunted, even as consciousness slipped away.

He awoke to the sounds of hammering, down beside his right foot, and thundering waves of pain, through which he heard, dimly, Torvald’s voice.

‘… heavy, Karsa. You’ll need to do the impossible. You’ll need to climb. That means rolling over, getting onto your hands and knees. Standing. Walking-oh, Hood, you’re right, I’ll need to think of something else. No food anywhere on this damned ship.’ There was a loud crack, then the hiss of a chain falling away. ‘That’s it, you’re free. Don’t worry, I’ve retied the ropes to the platform itself-you won’t sink. Free. How’s it feel? Never mind-I’ll ask that a few days from now. Even so, you’re free, Karsa. I promised, didn’t I? Let it not be said that Torvald Nom doesn’t hold to his-well, uh, let it not be said that Torvald Nom isn’t afraid of new beginnings.’

‘Too many words,’ Karsa muttered.

‘Aye, far too many. Try moving, at least.’

‘I am.’

‘Bend your right arm.’

‘I am trying.’

‘Shall I do it for you?’

‘Slowly. Should I lose consciousness, do not cease. And do the same for the remaining limbs.’

He felt the lowlander’s hands grip his right arm, at the wrist and above the elbow, then, once again, mercifully, blackness swallowed him.

When he came to once more, bundles of sodden cloth had been propped beneath his head, and he was lying on his side, limbs curled. There was dull pain in every muscle, every joint, yet it seemed strangely remote. He slowly lifted his head.

He was still on the platform. The ropes that held it to the ship’s prow had prevented it from sinking further. Torvald Nom was nowhere in sight.

‘I call upon the blood of the Teblor,’ Karsa whispered. ‘All that is within me must be used now to heal, to gift me strength. I am freed. I did not surrender. The warrior remains. He remains…’ He tried to move his arms. Throbs of pain, sharp, but bearable. He shifted his legs, gasped at the agony flaring in his hips. A moment of light-headedness, threatening oblivion once again… that then passed.

He tried to push himself to his hands and knees. Every minuscule shift was torture, but he refused to surrender to it. Sweat streamed down his limbs. Waves of trembling washed through him. Eyes squeezed shut, he struggled on.

He had no idea how much time had passed, but then he was sitting, the realization arriving with a shock. He was sitting, his full weight on his haunches, and the pain was fading. He lifted his arms, surprised and a little frightened by their looseness, horrified by their thinness.

As he rested, he looked about. The shattered ships remained, detritus clumped in makeshift rafts between them. Tattered sails hung in shrouds from the few remaining masts. The prow looming beside him held panels crowded with carvings: figures, locked in battle. The figures were long-limbed, standing on versions of ships closely resembling the raiders on all sides. Yet the enemy in these reliefs were not, it seemed, the ones the ship’s owners had faced here, for the craft they rode in were, if anything, smaller and lower than the raiders. The warriors looked much like Teblor, thick-limbed, heavily muscled, though in stature shorter than their foes.

Movement in the water, a gleaming black hump, spike-finned, rising into view then vanishing again. All at once, more appeared, and the surface of the water between the ships was suddenly aswirl. There was life in this sea after all, and it had come to feed.

The platform lurched beneath Karsa, throwing him off balance. His left arm shot out to take his weight as he began toppling. A jarring impact, excruciating pain-but the arm held.

He saw a bloated corpse roll up into view alongside the raft, then a black shape, a broad, toothless mouth, gaping wide, sweeping up and around the corpse, swallowing it whole. A small grey eye behind a spiny whisker flashed into sight as the huge fish swept past. The eye swivelled to track him, then the creature was gone.

Karsa had not seen enough of the corpse to judge whether it was a match to him in size, or to the Daru, Torvald Nom. But the fish could have taken Karsa as easily as it had the corpse.

He needed to stand. Then, to climb.

And-as he watched another massive black shape break the surface alongside another ship, a shape almost as long as the ship itself-he would have to do it quickly.

He heard footsteps from above, then Torvald Nom was at the gunnel beside the prow. ‘We’ve got to-oh, Beru bless you, Karsa! Can you stand up? You’ve no choice-these catfish are bigger than sharks and likely just as nasty. There’s one-just rolled up behind you-it’s circling, it knows you’re there! Stand up, use the ropes!’

Nodding, Karsa reached up for the nearest stretch of rope.

An explosion of water behind him. The platform shuddered, wood splintering-Torvald screamed a warning-and Karsa knew without looking back over his shoulder that one of the creatures had just risen up, had just thrown itself bodily onto the raft, splitting it in two.

The rope was in his hand. He gripped hard as the sloshing surface beneath him seemed to vanish. A flood of water around his legs, rising to his hips. Karsa closed his other hand on the same rope.

‘Urugal! Witness!’

He drew his legs from the foaming water, then, hand over hand, climbed upward. The rope swung free of the platform’s fragments, threw him against the ship’s hull. He grunted at the impact, yet would not let go.

‘Karsa! Your legs!’

The Teblor looked down, saw nothing but a massive mouth, opened impossibly wide, rising up beneath him.

Hands closed on his wrists. Screaming at the pain in his shoulders and hips, Karsa pulled himself upward in a single desperate surge.

The mouth snapped shut in a spray of milky water.

Knees cracking against the gunnel, Karsa scrambled wildly for a moment, then managed to shift his weight over the rail, drawing his legs behind him, to sprawl with a heavy thump on the deck.

Torvald’s shrieks continued unabated, forcing the Teblor to roll over-to see the Daru fighting to hold on to what appeared to be some kind of harpoon. Torvald’s shouts, barely comprehensible, seemed to be referring to a line. Karsa glanced about, until he saw that the harpoon’s butt-end held a thin rope, which trailed down to a coiled pile almost within the Teblor’s reach. Groaning, he scrabbled towards it. He found the end, began dragging it towards the prow.

He pulled himself up beside it, looped the line over and around, once, twice-then there was a loud curse from Torvald, and the coil began playing out. Karsa threw the line around one more time, then managed something like a half-hitch.

He did not expect the thin rope to hold. He ducked down beneath it as the last of the coil was snatched from his hands, thrumming taut.

The galley creaked, the prow visibly bending, then the ship lurched into motion, shuddering as it was dragged along the sandy bottom.

Torvald scrambled up beside Karsa. ‘Gods below, I didn’t think-let’s hope it holds!’ he gasped. ‘If it does, we won’t go hungry for a long while, no, not a long while!’ He slapped Karsa on the back, then pulled himself up to the prow. His wild grin vanished. ‘Oh.’

Karsa rose.

The harpoon’s end was visible directly ahead, cutting a V through the choppy waves-heading directly for one of the larger, three-masted ships. The grinding sound suddenly ceased beneath the raider, and the craft surged forward.

‘To the stern, Karsa! To the stern!’

Torvald made a brief effort to drag Karsa, then gave up with a curse, running full tilt for the galley’s stern.

Weaving, fighting waves of blackness, the Teblor staggered after the Daru. ‘Could you not have speared a smaller one?’

The impact sent them both sprawling. A terrible splitting sound reverberated down the galley’s spine, and all at once there was water everywhere, foaming up from the hatches, sweeping in from the sides. Planks from the hull on both sides parted like groping fingers.

Karsa found himself thrashing about in waist-deep water. Something like a deck remained beneath him, and he managed to struggle upright. And, bobbing wildly directly in front of him, was his original blood-sword. He snatched at it, felt his hand close about the familiar grip. Exultation soared through him, and he loosed an Uryd warcry.

Torvald sloshed into view beside him. ‘If that didn’t freeze that fish’s tiny heart, nothing will. Come on, we need to get onto that other damned ship. There’s more of those bastards closing in all around us.’

They struggled forward.

The ship they had broadsided had been leaning in the other direction. The galley had plunged into its hull, creating a massive hole before itself shattering, the prow with its harpoon line snapping off and vanishing within the ship’s lower decks. It was clear that the huge ship was solidly grounded, nor had the collision dislodged it.

As they neared the gaping hole, they could hear wild thrashing from somewhere within, deep in the hold.

‘Hood take me!’ Torvald muttered in disbelief. ‘That thing went through the hull first. Well, at least we’re not fighting a creature gifted with genius. It’s trapped down there, is my guess. We should go hunting-’

‘Leave that to me,’ Karsa growled.

‘You? You can barely stand-’

‘Even so, I will kill it.’

‘Well, can’t I watch?’

‘If you insist.’

There were three decks within the ship’s hull, in so far as they could see, the bottom one comprising the hold itself, the other two scaled to suit tall lowlanders. The hold had been half-filled with cargo, which was now tumbling out in the backwash-bundles, bales and casks.

Karsa plunged into waist-deep water, making for the thrashing sounds deeper within. He found the huge fish writhing on the second level, in sloshing, foaming water that barely covered the Teblor’s ankles. Spears of splintered wood jutted from the fish’s enormous head, blood streaming out to stain the foam pink. It had rolled onto its side, revealing a smooth, silvery underbelly.

Clambering across to the creature, Karsa drove his sword into its abdomen. The huge tail twisted round, struck him with the strength of a destrier’s kick. He was suddenly in the air, then the curved wall of the hull struck his back.

Stunned by the impact, the Teblor slumped in the swirling water. He blinked the drops from his eyes, then, unmoving in the gloom, watched the fish’s death-throes.

Torvald climbed into view. ‘You’re still damned fast, Karsa-left me behind. But I see you’ve done the deed. There’s food among these supplies…’

But Karsa heard no more, as unconsciousness took him once again.

He awoke to the stench of putrefying flesh that hung heavy in the still air. In the half-light, he could just make out the body of the dead fish opposite him, its belly slit open, a pallid corpse partially tumbled out. There was the distant sound of movement somewhere above him.

Well beyond the fish and to the right, steep steps were visible, leading upward.

Fighting to keep from gagging, Karsa collected his sword and began crawling towards the stairs.

He eventually emerged onto the midship’s deck. Its sorcery-scarred surface was sharply canted, sufficient to make traverse difficult. Supplies had been collected and were piled against the downside railing, where ropes trailed over the side. Pausing near the hatch to regain his breath, Karsa looked around for Torvald Nom, but the Daru was nowhere in sight.

Magic had ripped deep gouges across the deck. There were no bodies visible anywhere, no indications of the nature of the ship’s owners. The black wood-which seemed to emanate darkness-was of a species the Teblor did not recognize, and it was devoid of any ornamentation, evoking pragmatic simplicity. He found himself strangely comforted.

Torvald Nom clambered into view from the downside rail. He had managed to remove the chains attached to his shackles, leaving only the black iron bands on wrists and ankles. He was breathing hard.

Karsa pushed himself upright, leaning on the sword’s point for support.

‘Ah, my giant friend, with us once more!’

‘You must find my weakness frustrating,’ Karsa grumbled.

‘To be expected, all things considered,’ Torvald said, moving among the supplies now. ‘I’ve found food. Come and eat, Karsa, while I tell you of my discoveries.’

The Teblor slowly made his way down the sloping deck.

Torvald drew out a brick-shaped loaf of dark bread. ‘I’ve found a dory, and oars to go along with a sail, so we won’t remain victims to this endless calm. We’ve water for a week and a half, if we’re sparing, and we won’t go hungry no matter how fast your appetite comes back…’

Karsa took the bread from the Daru’s hand and began tearing off small chunks. His teeth felt slightly loose, and he was not confident of attempting anything beyond gentle chewing. The bread was rich and moist, filled with morsels of sweet fruit and tasting of honey. His first swallow left him struggling to keep it down. Torvald handed him a skin filled with water, then resumed his monologue.

‘The dory’s got benches enough for twenty or so-spacious for lowlanders but we’ll need to knock one loose to give your legs some room. If you lean over the gunnel you can see it for yourself. I’ve been busy loading what we’ll need. We could explore some of the other ships if you like, though we’ve more than enough-’

‘No need,’ Karsa said. ‘Let us leave this place as quickly as possible.’

Torvald’s eyes narrowed on the Teblor for a moment, then the Daru nodded. ‘Agreed. Karsa, you say you did not call upon that storm. Very well. I shall have to believe you-that you’ve no recollection of having done so, in any case. But I was wondering, this cult of yours, these Seven Faces in the Rock or however they’re called. Do they claim a warren for themselves? A realm other than the one you and I live in, where they exist?’

Karsa swallowed another mouthful of bread. ‘I had heard nothing of these warrens you speak of, Torvald Nom. The Seven dwell in the rock, and in the dreamworld of the Teblor.’

‘Dreamworld…’ Torvald waved a hand. ‘Does any of this look like that dreamworld, Karsa?’

‘No.’

‘What if it had been… flooded?’

Karsa scowled. ‘You remind me of Bairoth Gild. Your words make no sense. The Teblor dreamworld is a place of no hills, where mosses and lichens cling to half-buried boulders, where snow makes low dunes sculpted by cold winds. Where strange brown-haired beasts run in packs in the distance…’

‘Have you visited it yourself, then?’

Karsa shrugged. ‘These are descriptions given by the shamans.’ He hesitated, then said, ‘The place I visited…’ He trailed off, then shook his head. ‘Different. A place of… of coloured mists.’

‘Coloured mists. And were your gods there?’

‘You are not Teblor. I have no need to tell you more. I have spoken too much already.’

‘Very well. I was just trying to determine where we were.’

‘We are on a sea, and there is no land.’

‘Well, yes. But which sea? Where’s the sun? Why is there no night? No wind? Which direction shall we choose?’

‘It does not matter which direction. Any direction.’ Karsa rose from where he had been sitting on a bale. ‘I have eaten enough for now. Come, let us finish loading, and then leave.’

‘As you say, Karsa.’

He felt stronger with each passing day, lengthening his turns at the oars each time he took over from Torvald Nom. The sea was shallow, and more than once the dory ground up onto shoals, though fortunately these were of sand and so did little to damage the hull. They had seen nothing of the huge catfish, nor any other life in the water or in the sky, though the occasional piece of driftwood drifted past, devoid of bark or leaf.

As Karsa’s strength returned, their supply of food quickly dwindled, and though neither spoke of it, despair had become an invisible passenger, a third presence that silenced the Teblor and the Daru, that shackled them as had their captors of old, and the ghostly chains grew heavier.

In the beginning they had marked out days based on the balance of sleep and wakefulness, but the pattern soon collapsed as Karsa took to rowing through Torvald’s periods of sleep in addition to relieving the weary Daru at other times. It became quickly evident that the Teblor required less rest, whilst Torvald seemed to need ever more.

They were down to the last cask of water, which held only a third of its capacity. Karsa was at the oars, pulling the undersized sticks in broad, effortless sweeps through the murky swells. Torvald lay huddled beneath the sail, restless in his sleep.

The ache was almost gone from Karsa’s shoulders, though pain lingered in his hips and legs. He had fallen into a pattern of repetition empty of thought, unaware of the passage of time, his only concern that of maintaining a straight course-as best as he could determine, given the lack of reference points. He had naught but the dory’s own wake to direct him.

Torvald’s eyes opened, bloodshot and red-rimmed. He had long ago lost his loquaciousness. Karsa suspected the man was sick-they’d not had a conversation in some time. The Daru slowly sat up.

Then stiffened. ‘We’ve company,’ he said, his voice cracking.

Karsa shipped the oars and twisted round in his seat. A large, three-masted, black ship was bearing down on them, twin banks of oars flashing dark over the milky water. Beyond it, on the horizon’s very edge, ran a dark, straight line. The Teblor collected his sword then slowly stood.

‘That’s the strangest coast I’ve ever seen,’ Torvald muttered. ‘Would that we’d reached it without the company.’

‘It is a wall,’ Karsa said. ‘A straight wall, before which lies some kind of beach.’ He returned his gaze to the closing ship. ‘It is like those that had been beset by the raiders.’

‘So it is, only somewhat bigger. Flagship, is my guess, though I see no flag.’

They could see figures now, crowding the high forecastle. Tall, though not as tall as Karsa, and much leaner.

‘Not human,’ Torvald muttered. ‘Karsa, I do not think they will be friendly. Just a feeling, mind you. Still…’

‘I have seen one of them before,’ the Teblor replied. ‘Half spilled out from the belly of the catfish.’

‘That beach is rolling with the waves, Karsa. It’s flotsam. Must be two, three thousand paces of it. The wreckage of an entire world. As I suspected, this sea doesn’t belong here.’

‘Yet there are ships.’

‘Aye, meaning they don’t belong here, either.’

Karsa shrugged his indifference to that observation. ‘Have you a weapon, Torvald Nom?’

‘A harpoon… and a mallet. You will not try to talk first?’

Karsa said nothing. The twin banks of oars had lifted from the water and now hovered motionless over the waves as the huge ship slid towards them. The oars dipped suddenly, straight down, the water churning as the ship slowed, then came to a stop.

The dory thumped as it made contact with the hull on the port side, just beyond the prow.

A rope ladder snaked down, but Karsa, his sword slung over a shoulder, was already climbing up the hull, there being no shortage of handholds. He reached the forecastle rail and swung himself up and over it. His feet found the deck and he straightened.

A ring of grey-skinned warriors faced him. Taller than lowlanders, but still a head shorter than the Teblor. Curved sabres were scabbarded to their hips, and much of their clothing was made of some kind of hide, short-haired, dark and glistening. Their long brown hair was intricately braided, hanging down to frame angular, multihued eyes. Behind them, down amidships, there was a pile of severed heads, a few lowlander but most similar in features to the grey-skinned warriors, though with skins of black.

Ice rippled up Karsa’s spine as he saw countless eyes among those severed heads shift towards him.

One of the grey-skinned warriors snapped something, his expression as contemptuous as his tone.

Behind Karsa, Torvald reached the railing.

The speaker seemed to be waiting for some sort of response. As the silence stretched, the faces on either side twisted into sneers. The spokesman barked out a command, pointed to the deck.

‘Uh, he wants us to kneel, Karsa,’ Torvald said. ‘I think maybe we should-’

‘I would not kneel when chained,’ Karsa growled. ‘Why would I do so now?’

‘Because I count sixteen of them-and who knows how many more are below. And they’re getting angrier-’

‘Sixteen or sixty,’ Karsa cut in. ‘They know nothing of fighting Teblor.’

‘How can you-’

Karsa saw two warriors shift gauntleted hands towards sword-grips. The bloodsword flashed out, cut a sweeping horizontal slash across the entire half-circle of grey-skinned warriors. Blood sprayed. Bodies reeled, sprawled backward, tumbling over the low railing and down to the mid-deck.

The forecastle was clear apart from Karsa and, a pace behind him, Torvald Nom.

The seven warriors who had been on the mid-deck drew back as one, then, unsheathing their weapons, they edged forward.

‘They were within my reach,’ Karsa answered the Daru’s question. ‘That is how I know they know nothing of fighting a Teblor. Now, witness while I take this ship.’ With a bellow he leapt down into the midst of the enemy.

The grey-skinned warriors were not lacking in skill, yet it availed them naught. Karsa had known the loss of freedom; he would not accept such again. The demand to kneel before these scrawny, sickly creatures had triggered in him seething fury.

Six of the seven warriors were down; the last one, shouting, had turned about and was running towards the doorway at the other end of the mid-deck. He paused long enough to drag a massive harpoon from a nearby rack, spinning and flinging it at Karsa.

The Teblor caught it in his left hand.

He closed on the fleeing man, cutting him down at the doorway’s threshold. Ducking and reversing the weapons in his hands-the harpoon now in his right and the bloodsword in his left-he plunged into the gloom of the passage beyond the doorway.

Two steps down, into a wide galley with a wooden table in its centre. A second doorway at the opposite end, a narrow passage beyond, lined by berths, then an ornate door that squealed as Karsa shoved it aside.

Four attackers, a fury of blows exchanged, Karsa blocking with the harpoon and counter-attacking with the bloodsword. In moments, four broken bodies dying on the cabin’s gleaming wooden floor. A fifth figure, seated in a chair on the other side of the room, hands raised, sorcery swirling into the air.

With a snarl, Karsa surged forward. The magic flashed, sputtered, then the harpoon’s point punched into the figure’s chest, tore through and drove into the chair’s wood backing. A look of disbelief frozen on the grey face, eyes locking with Karsa’s own one last time, before all life left them.

‘Urugal! Witness a Teblor’s rage!’

Silence following his ringing words, then the slow pat of blood dripping from the sorcerer’s chair onto the rug. Something cold rippled through Karsa, the breath of someone unknown, nameless, but filled with rage. Growling, he shrugged it off, then looked around. High-ceilinged for lowlanders, the ship’s cabin was all of the same black wood. Oil lanterns glimmered from sconces on the walls. On the table were maps and charts, the drawings on them illegible as far as the Teblor was concerned.

A sound from the doorway.

Karsa turned.

Torvald Nom stepped within, scanning the sprawled corpses, then fixing his gaze on the seated figure with the spear still impaling it. ‘You needn’t worry about the oarsmen,’ he said.

‘Are they slaves? Then we shall free them.’

‘Slaves?’ Torvald shrugged. ‘I don’t think so. They wear no chains, Karsa. Mind you, they have no heads, either. As I said, I don’t think we have to concern ourselves with them.’ He strode forward to examine the maps on the table. ‘Something tells me these hapless bastards you just killed were as lost as us-’

‘They were the victors in the battle of the ships.’

‘Little good it did them.’

Karsa shook the blood from his sword, drew a deep breath. ‘I kneel to no-one.’

‘I could’ve knelt twice and that might have satisfied them. Now, we’re as ignorant as we were before seeing this ship. Nor can the two of us manage a craft of this size.’

‘They would have done to us as was done to the oarsmen,’ Karsa asserted.

‘Possibly.’ He swung his attention on one of the corpses at his feet, slowly crouched. ‘Barbaric-looking, these ones-uh, by Daru standards, that is. Sealskin-true seafarers, then-and strung claws and teeth and shells. The one in the captain’s chair was a mage?’

‘Yes. I do not understand such warriors. Why not use swords or spears? Their magic is pitiful, yet they seem so sure of it. And look at his expression-’

‘Surprised, yes,’ Torvald murmured. He glanced back at Karsa. ‘They’re confident because sorcery usually works. Most attackers don’t survive getting hit by magic. It rips them apart.’

Karsa made his way back to the doorway. After a moment Torvald followed.

They returned to the mizzen deck. Karsa began stripping the corpses lying about, severing ears and tongues before tossing the naked bodies overboard.

The Daru watched for a time, then he moved to the decapitated heads. ‘They’ve been following everything you do,’ he said to Karsa, ‘with their eyes. It’s too much to bear.’ He removed the hide wrapping of a nearby bundle and folded it around the nearest severed head, then tied it tight. ‘Darkness would better suit them, all things considered…’

Karsa frowned. ‘Why do you say that, Torvald Nom? Which would you prefer, the ability to see things around you, or darkness?’

‘These are Tiste Andu, apart from a few-and those few look far too much like me.’

‘Who are these Tiste Andu?’

‘Just a people. There are some fighting in Caladan Brood’s liberation army on Genabackis. An ancient people, it’s said. In any case, they worship Darkness.’

Karsa, suddenly weary, sat down on the steps leading to the forecastle. ‘Darkness,’ he muttered. ‘A place where one is left blind-a strange thing to worship.’

‘Perhaps the most realistic worship of all,’ the Daru replied, wrapping another severed head. ‘How many of us bow before a god in the desperate hope that we can somehow shape our fate? Praying to that familiar face pushes away our terror of the unknown-the unknown being the future. Who knows, maybe these Tiste Andu are the only ones among us all who see the truth, the truth being oblivion.’ Keeping his eyes averted, he carefully gathered another black-skinned, long-haired head. ‘It’s a good thing these poor souls have no throats left to utter sounds, else we find ourselves in a ghastly debate.’

‘You doubt your own words, then.’

‘Always, Karsa. On a more mundane level, words are like gods-a means of keeping the terror at bay. I will likely have nightmares about this until my aged heart finally gives out. An endless succession of heads, with all-too-cognizant eyes, to wrap up in sealskin. And with each one I tie up, pop! Another appears.’

‘Your words are naught but foolishness.’

‘Oh, and how many souls have you delivered unto darkness, Karsa Orlong?’

The Teblor’s eyes narrowed. ‘I do not think it was darkness that they found,’ he replied quietly. After a moment, he looked away, struck silent by a sudden realization. A year ago he would have killed someone for saying what Torvald had just said, had he understood its intent to wound-which in itself was unlikely. A year ago, words had been blunt, awkward things, confined within a simple, if slightly mysterious world. But that flaw had been Karsa’s alone-not a characteristic of the Teblor in general-for Bairoth Gild had flung many-edged words at Karsa, a constant source of amusement for the clever warrior though probably dulled by Karsa’s own unawareness of their intent.

Torvald Nom’s endless words-but no, more than just that-all that Karsa had experienced since leaving his village-had served as instruction on the complexity of the world. Subtlety had been a venomed serpent slithering unseen through his life. Its fangs had sunk deep many times, yet not once had he become aware of their origin; not once had he even understood the source of the pain. The poison itself had coursed deep within him, and the only answer he gave-when he gave one at all-was of violence, often misdirected, a lashing out on all sides.

Darkness, and living blind. Karsa returned his gaze to the Daru kneeling and wrapping severed heads, there on the mizzen deck. And who has dragged the cloth from my eyes? Who has awakened Karsa Orlong, son of Synyg? Urugal? No, not Urugal. He knew that for certain, for the otherworldly rage he had felt in the cabin, that icy breath that had swept through him-that had belonged to his god. A fierce displeasure-to which Karsa had found himself oddly… indifferent.

The Seven Faces in the Rock never spoke of freedom. The Teblor were their servants. Their slaves.

‘You look unwell, Karsa,’ Torvald said, approaching. ‘I am sorry for my last words-’

‘There is no need, Torvald Nom,’ Karsa said, rising. ‘We should return to our-’

He stopped as the first splashes of rain struck him, then the deck on all sides. Milky, slimy rain.

‘Uh!’ Torvald grunted. ‘If this is a god’s spit, he’s decidedly unwell.’

The water smelled foul, rotten. It quickly coated the ship decks, the rigging and tattered sails overhead, in a thick, pale grease.

Swearing, the Daru began gathering foodstuffs and watercasks to load into their dory below. Karsa completed one last circuit of the decks, examining the weapons and armour he had pulled from the grey-skinned bodies. He found the rack of harpoons and gathered the six that remained.

The downpour thickened, creating murky, impenetrable walls on all sides of the ship. Slipping in the deepening muck, Karsa and Torvald quickly resupplied the dory, then pushed out from the ship’s hull, the Teblor at the oars. Within moments the ship was lost from sight, and around them the rain slackened. Five sweeps of the oars and they were out from beneath it entirely, once again on gently heaving seas under a pallid sky. The strange coastline was visible ahead, slowly drawing closer.

On the forecastle of the massive ship, moments after the dory with its two passengers slipped behind the screen of muddy rain, seven almost insubstantial figures rose from the slime. Shattered bones, gaping wounds bleeding nothing, the figures weaved uncertainly in the gloom, as if barely able to maintain their grip on the scene they had entered.

One of them hissed with anger. ‘Each time we seek to draw the knot tight-’

‘He cuts it,’ another finished in a wry, bitter tone.

A third one stepped down to the mizzen deck, kicked desultorily at a discarded sword. ‘The failure belonged to the Tiste Edur,’ this one pronounced in a rasping voice. ‘If punishment must be enacted, it should be in answer to their arrogance.’

‘Not for us to demand,’ the first speaker snapped. ‘We are not the masters in this scheme-’

‘Nor are the Tiste Edur!’

‘Even so, and we are each given particular tasks. Karsa Orlong survives still, and he must be our only concern-’

‘He begins to know doubts.’

‘None the less, his journey continues. It falls to us, now, with what little power we are able to extend, to direct his path onward.’

‘We’ve had scant success thus far!’

‘Untrue. The Shattered Warren stirs awake once more. The broken heart of the First Empire begins to bleed-less than a trickle at the moment, but soon it will become a flood. We need only set our chosen warrior upon the proper current…’

‘And is that within our power, limited as it still remains?’

‘Let us find out. Begin the preparations. Ber’ok, scatter that handful of otataral dust in the cabin-the Tiste Edur sorcerer’s warren remains open and, in this place, it will quickly become a wound… a growing wound. The time has not yet come for such unveilings.’

The speaker then lifted its mangled head and seemed to sniff the air. ‘We must work quickly,’ it announced after a moment. ‘I believe we are being hunted.’

The remaining six turned to face the speaker, who nodded in answer to their silent question. ‘Yes. There are kin upon our trail.’

The wreckage of an entire land had drawn up alongside the massive stone wall. Uprooted trees, rough-hewn logs, planks, shingles and pieces of wagons and carts were visible amidst the detritus. The verges were thick with matted grasses and rotted leaves, forming a broad plain that twisted, rose and fell on the waves. The wall was barely visible in places, so high was the flotsam, and the level of the water beneath it.

Torvald Nom was positioned at the bow whilst Karsa rowed. ‘I don’t know how we’ll get to that wall,’ the Daru said. ‘You’d better back the oars now, friend, lest we ground ourselves on that mess-there’s catfish about.’

Karsa slowed the dory. They drifted, the hull nudging the carpet of flotsam. After a few moments it became apparent that there was a current, pulling their craft along the edge.

‘Well,’ Torvald muttered, ‘that’s a first for this sea. Do you think this is some sort of tide?’

‘No,’ Karsa replied, his gaze tracking the strange shoreline in the direction of the current. ‘It is a breach in the wall.’

‘Oh. Can you see where?’

‘Yes, I think so.’

The current was tugging them along faster, now.

Karsa continued, ‘There is an indentation in the shoreline, and many trees and logs jammed where the wall should be-can you not hear the roar?’

‘Aye, now I can.’ Tension rode the Daru’s words. He straightened at the bow. ‘I see it. Karsa, we’d better-’

‘Yes, it is best we avoid this.’ The Teblor repositioned himself at the oars. He drew the dory away from the verge. The hull tugged sluggishly beneath them, began twisting. Karsa leaned his weight into each sweep, struggling to regain control. The water swirled around them.

‘Karsa!’ Torvald shouted. ‘There’s people-near the breach! I see a wrecked boat!’

The breach was on the Teblor’s left as he pulled the dory across the current. He looked to where Torvald was pointing, and, after a moment, he bared his teeth. ‘The slavemaster and his men.’

‘They’re waving us over.’

Karsa ceased sweeping with his left oar. ‘We cannot defeat this current,’ he announced, swinging the craft around. ‘The further out we proceed, the stronger it becomes.’

‘I think that’s what happened to Silgar’s boat-they managed to ground it just this side of the mouth, stoving it in, in the process. We should try to avoid a similar fate, Karsa, if we can, that is.’

‘Then keep an eye out for submerged logs,’ the Teblor said as he angled the dory closer to shore. ‘Also, are the lowlanders armed?’

‘Not that I can see,’ Torvald replied after a moment. ‘They look to be in, uh, in pretty bad condition. They’re perched on a small island of logs. Silgar, and Damisk, and one other… Borrug, I think. Gods, Karsa, they’re starved.’

‘Take a harpoon,’ the Teblor growled. ‘That hunger could well drive them to desperation.’

‘A touch shoreward, Karsa, we’re almost there.’

There was a soft crunch from the hull, then a grinding, stuttering motion as the current sought to drag them along the verge. Torvald clambered out, ropes in one hand and harpoon in the other. Beyond him, Karsa saw as he turned about, huddled the three Nathii lowlanders, making no move to help and, if anything, drawing back as far as they could manage on the tangled island. The breach’s roar was a still-distant thundering, though closer at hand were ominous cracks, tearing and shifting noises-the logjam was coming loose.

Torvald made fast the dory with a skein of lines tied to various branches and roots. Karsa stepped ashore, drawing his bloodsword, his eyes levelling on Silgar.

The slavemaster attempted to retreat further.

Near the three emaciated lowlanders lay the remains of a fourth, his bones picked clean.

‘Teblor!’ Silgar implored. ‘You must listen to me!’

Karsa slowly advanced.

‘I can save us!’

Torvald tugged at Karsa’s arm. ‘Wait, friend, let’s hear the bastard.’

‘He will say anything,’ Karsa growled.

‘Even so-’

Damisk Greydog spoke. ‘Karsa Orlong, listen! This island is being torn apart-we all need your boat. Silgar’s a mage-he can open a portal. But not if he’s drowning. Understand? He can take us from this realm!’

‘Karsa,’ Torvald said, weaving as the logs shifted under him, his grip on the Teblor’s arm tightening.

Karsa looked down at the Daru beside him. ‘You trust Silgar?’

‘Of course not. But we’ve no choice-we’d be unlikely to survive plunging through that breach in the dory. We don’t even know this wall’s height-the drop on the other side could be endless. Karsa, we’re armed and they’re not-besides, they’re too weak to cause us trouble, you can see that, can’t you?’

Silgar screamed as a large section of the logjam sank away immediately behind him.

Scowling, Karsa sheathed his sword. ‘Begin untying the boat, Torvald.’ He waved at the lowlanders. ‘Come, then. But know this, Slavemaster, any sign of treachery from you and your friends will be picking your bones next.’

Damisk, Silgar and Borrug scrambled forward.

The entire section of flotsam was pulling away, breaking up along its edges as the current swept it onward. Clearly, the breach was expanding, widening to the pressure of an entire sea.

Silgar climbed in and crouched down beside the dory’s prow. ‘I shall open a portal,’ he announced, his voice a rasp. ‘I can only do so but once-’

‘Then why didn’t you leave a long time ago?’ Torvald demanded, as he slipped the last line loose and clambered back aboard.

‘There was no path before-out on the sea. But now, here-someone has opened a gate. Close. The fabric is… weakened. I’ve not the skill to do such a thing myself. But I can follow.’

The dory scraped free of the crumbling island, swung wildly into the sweeping current. Karsa pushed and pulled with the oars to angle their bow into the torrential flow.

‘Follow?’ Torvald repeated. ‘Where?’

To that Silgar simply shook his head.

Karsa abandoned the oars and made his way to the stern, taking the tiller in both hands.

They rode the tumbling, churning sea of wreckage towards the breach. Where the wall had given way there was an ochre cloud of mist as vast and high as a thunderhead. Beyond it, there seemed to be nothing at all.

Silgar was making gestures with both hands, snapping them out as would a blind man seeking a door latch. Then he jabbed a finger to the right. ‘There!’ he shrieked, swinging a wild look on Karsa. ‘There! Angle us there!’

The place Silgar pointed towards looked no different from anywhere else. Immediately beyond it, the water simply vanished-a wavering line that was the breach itself. Shrugging, Karsa pushed on the tiller. Where they went over mattered little to him. If Silgar failed they would plunge over, falling whatever distance, to crash amidst a foaming maelstrom that would kill them all.

He watched as everyone but Silgar hunkered down, mute with terror.

The Teblor smiled. ‘Urugal!’ he bellowed, half rising as the dory raced for the edge.

Darkness swallowed them.

And then they were falling.

A loud, explosive crack. The tiller’s handle split under Karsa’s hands, then the stern hammered into him from behind, throwing the Teblor forward. He struck water a moment later, the impact making him gasp-taking in a mouthful of salty sea-before plunging into the chill blackness.

He struggled upward until his head broke the surface, but there was no lessening of the darkness, as if they’d fallen down a well, or had appeared within a cave. Nearby, someone was coughing helplessly, whilst a little farther off another survivor was thrashing about.

Wreckage brushed up against Karsa. The dory had shattered, though the Teblor was fairly certain that the fall had not been overly long-they had arrived at a height of perhaps two adult warriors combined. Unless the boat had struck something, it should have survived.

‘Karsa!’

Still coughing, Torvald Nom arrived alongside the Teblor. The Daru had found the shaft of one of the oars, over which he had draped his arms. ‘What in Hood’s name do you think happened?’

‘We passed through that sorcerous gate,’ Karsa explained. ‘That should be obvious, for we are now somewhere else.’

‘Not as simple as that,’ Torvald replied. ‘The blade of this oar-here, look at the end.’

Finding himself comfortably buoyant in this salty water, it took only a moment for Karsa to swim to the end of the shaft. It had been cut through, as if by a single blow from an iron sword such as the lowlanders used. He grunted.

The distant thrashing sounds had drawn closer. From much farther away, Damisk’s voice called out.

‘Here!’ Torvald shouted back.

A shape loomed up beside them. It was Silgar, clinging to one of the water casks.

‘Where are we?’ Karsa asked the slavemaster.

‘How should I know?’ the Nathii snapped. ‘I did not fashion the gate, I simply made use of it-and it had mostly closed, which is why the floor of the boat did not come with us. It was sheared clean off. None the less, I believe we are in a sea, beneath an overcast sky. Were there no ambient light, we’d not be able to see each other right now. Alas, I can hear no coast, though it’s so calm there might be no waves to brush the shoreline.’

‘Meaning we could be within a dozen strokes and not know it.’

‘Yes. Fortunately for us, it is a rather warm sea. We must simply await dawn-’

‘Assuming there is one,’ Torvald said.

‘There is,’ Silgar asserted. ‘Feel the layers in this water. It’s colder down where our feet are. So a sun has looked down upon this sea, I am certain of it.’

Damisk swam into view, struggling with Borrug, who seemed to be unconscious. As he reached out to take hold of the water cask Silgar pushed him back, then kicked himself further away.

‘Slavemaster!’ Damisk gasped.

‘This cask barely holds my weight as it is,’ Silgar hissed. ‘It’s near filled with fresh water-which we’re likely to need. What is the matter with Borrug?’

Torvald moved along to give Damisk a place at the oar shaft. The tattooed guard attempted to drape Borrug’s arms over it as well and Torvald drew closer once more to help.

‘I don’t know what’s wrong with him,’ Damisk said. ‘He may have struck his head, though I can find no wound. He was babbling at first, floundering about, then he simply fell unconscious and nearly slipped under. I was lucky to reach him.’

Borrug’s head kept lolling beneath the surface.

Karsa reached out and collected the man’s wrists. ‘I will take him,’ he snarled, turning about and dragging the man’s arms around his neck.

‘A light!’ Torvald suddenly shouted. ‘I saw a light-there!’

The others swung round.

‘I see nothing,’ Silgar growled.

‘I did,’ Torvald insisted. ‘It was dim. Gone now. But I saw it-’

‘Likely an overwrought imagination,’ Silgar said. ‘Had I the strength, I’d open my warren-’

‘I know what I saw,’ the Daru said.

‘Lead us, then, Torvald Nom,’ Karsa said.

‘It could be in the wrong direction!’ Silgar hissed. ‘We are safer to wait-’

‘Then wait,’ Karsa replied.

‘I have the fresh water, not you-’

‘A good point. I shall have to kill you, then, since you have decided to stay here. We might need that water, after all. You won’t, because you will be dead.’

‘Teblor logic,’ Torvald chuckled, ‘is truly wonderful.’

‘Very well, I will follow,’ Silgar said.

The Daru set off at a slow but steady pace, kicking beneath the surface as he pulled the oar shaft along. Damisk kept one hand on the length of wood, managing a strange motion with his legs that resembled that of a frog.

Gripping Borrug’s wrists in one hand, Karsa moved into their wake. The unconscious lowlander’s head rested on his right shoulder, his knees bumping against the Teblor’s thighs.

Off to one side, feet thrashing, Silgar propelled the water cask along. Karsa could see that the cask was far less filled than the slavemaster had claimed-it could have easily borne them all.

The Teblor himself felt no need. He was not particularly tired, and it seemed that he possessed a natural buoyancy superior to that of the lowlanders. With each indrawn breath, his shoulders, upper arms and the upper half of his chest rose above the water. And apart from Borrug’s knees constantly fouling Karsa’s kicking, the lowlander’s presence was negligible…

There was, he realized, something odd about those knees. He paused, reached down.

Both legs were severed clean just beneath the kneecaps, the water warm in their immediate wakes.

Torvald had glanced back. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

‘Do you think there are catfish in these waters?’

‘I doubt it,’ the Daru replied. ‘That was fresh water, after all.’

‘Good,’ Karsa grunted, resuming his swim.

There was no recurrence of the light Torvald had seen. They continued on in the unrelieved darkness, through perfectly calm water.

‘This is foolish,’ Silgar pronounced after a time. ‘We exhaust ourselves for no purpose-’

Torvald called, ‘Karsa, why did you ask about the catfish?’

Something huge and rough-skinned rose up to land on Karsa’s back, its massive weight driving him under. Borrug’s wrists were torn from his grip, the arms whipping back and vanishing. Pushed more than a warrior’s height beneath the surface, Karsa twisted round. One of his kicking feet collided with a solid, unyielding body. He used the contact to propel himself away and back towards the surface.

Even as he reached it-bloodsword in his hands-he saw, less than a body length distant, an enormous grey fish, its jagged-toothed mouth closing about the little that remained visible of Borrug. Lacerated head, shoulders and flopping arms. The fish’s wide head thrashed wildly back and forth, its strange saucer-like eyes flashing as if lit from within.

There was screaming behind Karsa and he turned. Both Damisk and Silgar were kicking wildly in an effort to escape. Torvald was on his back, the oar held tight in his hands, his legs kicking beneath the surface-he alone was making no noise, though his face was twisted with fear.

Karsa faced the fish once more. It seemed to be having trouble swallowing Borrug-one of the man’s arms was lodged crossways. The fish itself was positioned close to vertical in the water, ripping its head back and forth.

Growling, Karsa swam towards it.

Borrug’s arm came free even as the Teblor arrived, the corpse disappearing within the maw. Taking a deep breath and kicking hard, Karsa half rose out of the water, his bloodsword a curving spray as it chopped down into the fish’s snout.

Warm blood spattered Karsa’s forearms.

The fish seemed to fling its entire body backward.

Karsa lunged closer, closing his legs around the creature’s body just beneath the flanking flippers. The fish twisted away at the contact, but could not drag itself free of Karsa’s tightening grip.

The Teblor reversed his sword and plunged it deep into the beast’s belly, ripped it downward.

The water was suddenly hot with blood and bile. The fish’s body became a dead weight, dragging Karsa downward. He sheathed his sword; then, as he and the fish sank beneath the surface, he reached down into the gaping wound. One hand closed on the thigh of Borrug-a shredded mass of flesh-and the fingers dug in to close around bone.

Karsa pulled the lowlander through a cloud of milky, eye-stinging fluid, then, drawing the body with him, returned to the surface.

Torvald was shouting now. Turning, Karsa saw the Daru, standing in waist-deep water, both arms waving. Near him, Silgar and Damisk were wading their way onto some kind of shore.

Dragging Borrug with him, Karsa made his way forward. A half-dozen strokes and his feet thumped and scraped on a sandy bottom. He stood, still holding one of Borrug’s legs. Moments later, he was on the beach.

The others sat or knelt on the pale strip of sand, regaining their breaths.

Dropping the body onto the beach, Karsa remained standing, his head tilted back as he sniffed the warm, sultry air. There was heavy, lush foliage beyond the strand’s shell-cluttered high-tide line. The buzz and whine of insects, a faint rustle as something small moved across dry seaweed.

Torvald crawled close. ‘Karsa, the man’s dead. He was dead when the shark took him-’

‘So that was a shark. The sailors on the Malazan ship spoke of sharks.’

‘Karsa, when a shark swallows someone you don’t go after the poor bastard. He’s finished-’

‘He was in my care,’ Karsa rumbled. ‘The shark had no right to him, whether he was dead or alive.’

Silgar was on his feet a few paces away. At Karsa’s words he laughed, the sound high-pitched, then said, ‘From a shark’s belly to seagulls and crabs! Borrug’s pathetic spirit no doubt thanks you, Teblor!’

‘I have delivered the lowlander,’ Karsa replied, ‘and now return him to your care, Slavemaster. If you wish to leave him for seagulls and crabs, that is for you to decide.’ He faced the dark sea once more, but could see no sign of the dead shark.

‘No-one would believe me,’ Torvald muttered.

‘Believe what, Torvald Nom?’

‘Oh, I was imagining myself as an old man, years from now, sitting in Quip’s Bar in Darujhistan, telling this tale. I saw it with my own eyes, and even I am having trouble believing it. You were halfway out of the water when you swung that sword down-helps having four lungs, I suppose. Even so…’ he shook his head.

Karsa shrugged. ‘The catfish were worse,’ he said. ‘I did not like the catfish.’

‘I suggest,’ Silgar called out, ‘we get some sleep. Come the dawn, we will discover what there is to discover of this place. For now, thank Mael that we are still alive.’

‘Forgive me,’ Torvald said, ‘but I’d rather give thanks to a stubborn Teblor warrior than to any sea god.’

‘Then your faith is sorely misplaced,’ the slavemaster sneered, turning away.

Torvald slowly climbed upright. ‘Karsa,’ he murmured, ‘you should know that Mael’s chosen beast of the sea is the shark. I’ve no doubt at all that Silgar was indeed praying hard while we were out there.’

‘It does not matter,’ Karsa replied. He drew a deep breath of jungle-scented air, slowly released it. ‘I am on land, and I am free, and now I shall walk along this beach, and so taste something of this new land.’

‘I will join you, then, friend, for I believe the light I saw was to our right, slightly above this beach, and I would investigate.’

‘As you like, Torvald Nom.’

They began walking along the strand.

‘Karsa, neither Silgar nor Damisk possesses a shred of decency. I, however, do. A small shred, granted, but one none the less. Thus: thank you.’

‘We have saved each other’s lives, Torvald Nom, and so I am pleased to call you friend, and to think of you as a warrior. Not a Teblor warrior, of course, but a warrior even so.’

The Daru said nothing for a long time. They had moved well out of sight of Silgar and Damisk. The shelf of land to their right was rising in layers of pale stone, the wave-sculpted wall webbed with creepers from the thick growth clinging to the overhang. A break in the clouds overhead cast faint starlight down, reflecting on the virtually motionless water on their left. The sand underfoot was giving way to smooth, undulating stone.

Torvald touched Karsa’s arm and stopped, pointing upslope. ‘There,’ he whispered.

The Teblor softly grunted. A squat, misshapen tower rose above the tangle of brush. Vaguely square and sharply tapering to end at a flat roof, the tower hunched over the beach, a gnarled black mass. Three-quarters of the way up its seaward-facing side was a deeply inset triangular window. Dull yellow light outlined the shutter’s warped slats.

A narrow footpath was visible winding down to the shore, and nearby-five paces beyond the high tide line-lay the collapsed remnants of a fisherboat, the sprung ribs of the hull jutting out to the sides wrapped in seaweed and limned in guano.

‘Shall we pay a visit?’ Torvald asked.

‘Yes,’ Karsa replied, walking towards the footpath.

The Daru quickly moved up beside him. ‘No trophies, though, right?’

Shrugging, the Teblor said, ‘That depends on how we are received.’

‘Strangers on a desolate beach, one of them a giant with a sword almost as tall as me. In the dead of night. Pounding on the door. If we’re met with open arms, Karsa, it will be a miracle. Worse yet, there’s not much likelihood of us sharing a common language-’

‘Too many words,’ Karsa cut in.

They had reached the base of the tower. There was no entrance on the seaward side. The trail curved round to the other side, a well-trod path of limestone dust. Huge slabs of the yellow rock lay in heaps-many of them appearing to have been dragged in from other places and bearing chisel and cut marks. The tower itself was constructed of identical material, though its gnarled aspect remained a mystery until Karsa and Torvald drew closer.

The Daru reached out and ran his fingers along one of the cornerstones. ‘This tower is nothing but fossils,’ he murmured.

‘What are fossils?’ Karsa asked, studying the strange shapes embedded in the stone.

‘Ancient life, turned to stone. I imagine scholars have an explanation for how such transformation occurred. Alas, my education was sporadic and, uh, poorly received. Look, this one-it’s a massive shell of some sort. And there, those look like vertebrae, from some snake-like beast…’

‘They are naught but carvings,’ Karsa asserted. A deep rumbling laugh made them swing round. The man standing at the bend in the path ten paces ahead was huge by lowlander standards, his skin so dark as to seem black. He wore no shirt, only a sleeveless vest of heavy mail stiffened by rust. His muscles were vast, devoid of fat, making his arms, shoulders and torso look like they had been fashioned of taut ropes. He wore a belted loincloth of some colourless material. A hat that seemed made of the torn remnant of a hood covered his head, but Karsa could see thick, grey-shot beard covering the lower half of the man’s face.

No weapons were visible, not even a knife. His teeth flashed in a smile. ‘Screams from the sea, and now a pair of skulkers jabbering in Daru in my tower’s front yard.’ His head tilted upward slightly to regard Karsa for a moment. ‘At first I’d thought you a Fenn, but you’re no Fenn, are you?’

‘I am Teblor-’

‘Teblor! Well, lad, you’re a long way from home, aren’t you?’

Torvald stepped forward. ‘Sir, your command of Daru is impressive, though I am certain I detect a Malazan accent. More, by your colour, I’d hazard you are Napan. Are we then on Quon Tali?’

‘You don’t know?’

‘Alas, sir, I am afraid not.’

The man grunted, then turned back up the trail. ‘Carvings, ha!’ Torvald glanced back at Karsa, then, with a shrug, set off after the man.

Karsa followed.

The door was situated on the inland side. The path forked in front of it, one trail leading to the tower and the other to a raised road that ran parallel to the coastline, beyond which was a dark band of forest. The man pushed open the door and ducked inside. Both Torvald and Karsa had involuntarily paused at the fork, staring up at the enormous stone skull that formed the lintel above the low doorway. It was as long as the Teblor was tall, running the entire width of the wall. The rows of dagger-like teeth dwarfed even that of a grey bear.

The man reappeared. ‘Aye, impressive, isn’t it? I’ve collected most of the bastard’s body, too-I should’ve guessed it would be bigger than I’d-’

‘Too many words,’ Karsa cut in. ‘This man wastes his life with stupid tasks. When I decide I am hungry, I will take food.’

Though the Teblor was anticipating a violent reaction from Keeper, and though Karsa’s hand was close to the grip of his bloodsword, he was unable to avoid the blurred fist that lashed out, connecting with his lower ribs on his right side. Bones cracked. The air in his lungs exploded outward. Sagging, Karsa staggered back, incapable of drawing breath, a flood of pain darkening his vision.

He had never been hit so hard in his life. Not even Bairoth Gild had managed to deliver such a blow. Even as consciousness slipped from him, he swung a look of astonished, unfeigned admiration on Keeper. Then he collapsed.

When he awoke, sunlight was streaming through the open doorway. He found himself lying in the stone chips. The air was filled with mortar dust, descending from above. Groaning with the pain of cracked ribs, Karsa slowly sat up. He could hear voices from up near the tower’s ceiling.

The bloodsword still hung from its straps on his back. The Teblor leaned against the stone leg bones of the skeleton as he climbed to his feet. Glancing up, he saw Torvald and Keeper, balanced in the wood framework directly beneath the ceiling, which had already been partly dismantled. The Daru looked down.

‘Karsa! I would invite you up but I suspect this scaffold wouldn’t manage your weight. We’ve made good progress in any case-’

Keeper interrupted with, ‘It’ll take his weight. I winched up the entire spine and that weighs a lot more than a lone Teblor. Get up here, lad, we’re ready to start on the walls.’

Karsa probed the vaguely fist-shaped bruise covering his lower ribs on his right side. It was painful to draw breath; he was unsure whether he would be able to climb, much less work. At the same time, he was reluctant to show weakness, particularly to that muscle-knotted Napan. Grimacing, he reached up to the nearest crossbeam.

The climb was agonizing, torturously slow. High above, the two lowlanders watched in silence. By the time Karsa reached the walkway beneath the ceiling, dragging himself alongside Keeper and Torvald, he was sheathed in sweat.

Keeper was staring at him. ‘Hood take me,’ he muttered, ‘I was surprised that you managed to stand at all, Teblor. I know that I broke ribs-damn’-he lifted a splinted, bandage-swathed hand-‘I broke bones of my own. It’s my temper, you see. It’s always been a problem. I don’t take insults too well. Best just sit there-we’ll manage.’

Karsa sneered. ‘I am of the Uryd tribe. Think you that a lowlander’s tap concerns me?’ He straightened. The ceiling had been a single slab of limestone, slightly projecting beyond the walls. Its removal had involved chiselling away the mortar at the joins, then simply sliding it to one side until it toppled, crashing into pieces down at the foot of the tower. The mortar around the wall’s large, rough blocks had been cut away down to the edge of the scaffold. Karsa set his shoulder against one side and pushed.

Both men snatched at the bloodsword’s straps as the Teblor toppled forward, a huge section of wall vanishing in front of him. A thunderous concussion from below shook the tower. There was a moment when it seemed that Karsa’s weight would drag all three of them over, then Keeper hooked a leg around a pole, grunting as the straps drew taut at the end of one arm. All hung in balance for a heartbeat, then the Napan slowly curled his arm, drawing Karsa back onto the platform.

The Teblor could do nothing to help-he had come close to fainting when he had pushed the stones over, and pain roared through his skull. He slowly sank to his knees.

Gasping, Torvald pulled his hands free of the straps, sat down on the warped boards with a thump.

Keeper laughed. ‘Well, that was easy. Good enough, you’ve both earned breakfast.’

Torvald coughed, then said to Karsa, ‘In case you were wondering, I went back down to the beach at dawn, to retrieve Silgar and Damisk. But they weren’t where we’d left them. I don’t think the slavemaster planned on travelling with us-he likely feared for his life in your company, Karsa, which you have to admit is not entirely unreasonable. I followed their tracks up onto the coast road. They had headed west, suggesting that Silgar knew more of where we are than he’d let on. Fifteen days to Ehrlitan, which is a major port. If they’d gone east, it would have been a month or more to the nearest city.’

‘You talk too much,’ Karsa said.

‘Aye,’ Keeper agreed, ‘he does. You two have had quite a journey-I now know more of it than I’d care to. No cause for worry, though, Teblor. I only believed half of it. Killing a shark, well, the ones that frequent this coast are the big ones, big enough to prove too much for the dhenrabi. All the small ones get eaten, you see. I’ve yet to see one offshore here that’s less than twice your height in length, Teblor. Splitting one’s head open with a single blow? With a wooden sword? In deep water? And what’s that other one? Catfish big enough to swallow a man whole? Hah, a good one.’

Torvald stared at the Napan. ‘Both true. As true as a flooded world and a ship with headless Tiste Andu at the oars!’

‘Well, I believe all that, Torvald. But the shark and the catfish? Do you take me for a fool? Now, let’s climb down and cook up a meal. Let me get a harness on you, Teblor, in case you decide to go to sleep halfway down. We’ll follow.’

The flatfish that Keeper cut up and threw into a broth of starchy tubers had been smoked and salted. By the time Karsa finished his two helpings he was desperately thirsty. Keeper directed them to a natural spring close to the tower, where both he and Torvald went to drink deep of the sweet water.

The Daru then splashed his face and settled down with his back to a fallen palm tree. ‘I have been thinking, friend,’ he said.

‘You should do more of that, instead of talking, Torvald Nom.’

‘It’s a family curse. My father was even worse. Oddly enough, some lines of the Nom House are precisely opposite-you couldn’t get a word out of them even under torture. I have a cousin, an assassin-’

‘I thought you had been thinking.’

‘Oh, right. So I was. Ehrlitan. We should head there.’

‘Why? I saw nothing of value in any of the cities we travelled through on Genabackis. They stink, they’re too loud, and the lowlanders scurry about like cliff-mice.’

‘It’s a port, Karsa. A Malazan port. That means there are ships setting out from it, heading for Genabackis. Isn’t it time to go home, friend? We could work for our passage. Me, I’m ready to enter the embrace of my dear family, the long-lost child returned, wiser, almost reformed. As for you, I’d think your tribe would be, uh, delighted to have you back. You’ve knowledge now, and they are in dire need of that, unless you want what happened to the Sunyd to happen to the Uryd.’

Karsa frowned at the Daru for a moment, then he looked away. ‘I shall indeed return to my people. One day. But Urugal guides my steps still-I can feel him. Secrets have power so long as they remain secret. Bairoth Gild’s words, to which I gave little thought at the time. But now, that has changed. I am changed, Torvald Nom. Mistrust has taken root in my soul, and when I find Urugal’s stone face in my mind, when I feel his will warring with my own, I feel my own weakness. Urugal’s power over me lies in what I do not know, in secrets-secrets my own god would keep from me. I have ceased fighting this war within my soul. Urugal guides me and I follow, for our journey is to truth.’

Torvald studied the Teblor with lidded eyes. ‘You may not like what you find, Karsa.’

‘I suspect you are right, Torvald Nom.’

The Daru stared for a moment longer, then he climbed to his feet and brushed sand from his ragged tunic. ‘Keeper has the opinion that it isn’t safe around you. He says it’s as if you’re dragging a thousand invisible chains behind you, and whatever’s on the ends of each one of them is filled with venom.’

Karsa felt his blood grow cold within him.

Torvald must have noted a change in the Teblor’s expression, for he raised both hands. ‘Wait! He only spoke in passing, it was nothing really, friend. He was simply telling me to be careful in your company-as if I didn’t already know that. You are Hood’s own lodestone-to your enemies, that is. In any case, Karsa, I’d advise you not to cross that man. Pound for pound he’s the strongest man I’ve ever met-and that includes you. Besides, while you’ve regained some of your old strength, you’ve a half-dozen broken ribs-’

‘Enough words, Torvald Nom. I do not intend to attack Keeper. His vision troubles me, that is all. For I have shared it, in my dreams. Now you understand why I must seek out the truth.’

‘Very well.’ Torvald lowered his hands, then sighed. ‘Still, I’d advise Ehrlitan. We need clothes and-’

‘Keeper spoke the truth when he said I am dangerous to be around, Torvald Nom. And that danger is likely to increase. I will join you on the journey to Ehrlitan. Then, I will see to it that you find a ship, so that you may return to your family. When this is done, we shall part ways. I shall, however, keep the truth of your friendship with me.’

The Daru grinned. ‘It’s settled, then. Ehrlitan. Come, let us return to the tower, so we may give our thanks to Keeper for his hospitality.’

They began making their way along the trail. ‘Rest assured,’ Torvald continued, ‘that I shall hold the truth of your friendship in me as well, though it’s a truth no-one else is likely to believe.’

‘Why is that?’ Karsa asked.

‘I was never very good at acquiring friends. Acquaintances, minions and the like-that was easy. But my big mouth-’

‘Sends potential friends fleeing. Yes, I understand. Clearly.’

‘Ah, now I see. You want to throw me on the first ship just to get away from me.’

‘There is that,’ Karsa replied.

‘In keeping with the pathetic state of my life, it makes sense all right.’

After a moment, as they rounded a bend and came within sight of the tower, Karsa scowled and said, ‘Making light of words is still difficult-’

‘All that talk of friendship made for a momentary discomfort. You did well to slide away from it.’

‘No, for what I would say is this. On the ship, when I hung in chains from the mast, you were my only hold on this world. Without you and your endless words, Torvald Nom, the madness I had feigned would have become a madness in truth. I was a Teblor warleader. I was needed, but I myself did not need. I had followers, but not allies, and only now do I understand the difference. And it is vast. And from this, I have come to understand what it is to possess regrets. Bairoth Gild. Delum Thord. Even the Rathyd, whom I have greatly weakened. When I return on my old path, back into the lands of the Teblor, there are wounds that I shall need to mend. And so, when you say it is time to return to your family, Torvald Nom, I understand and my heart is gladdened.’

Keeper was sitting on a three-legged stool outside the tower’s doorway. A large sack with shoulder-straps rested at his feet, along with two stoppered gourds glittering with condensation. He had in his unbandaged hand a small bag, which he tossed towards Torvald as the two men arrived.

The bag jingled as the Daru caught it. Brows lifting, Torvald asked, ‘What-’

‘Silver jakatas, mostly,’ Keeper said. ‘Some local coin, too, but those are of very high denomination, so be careful of showing them. Ehrlitan’s cutpurses are legendary.’

‘Keeper-’

The Napan waved a hand. ‘Listen, lad. When a man arranges his own death, he needs to plan ahead. A life of anonymity doesn’t come as cheap as you’d imagine. I emptied half of Aren’s treasury a day before my tragic drowning. Now, you might manage to kill me and try to find it, but it’d be hopeless. So thank me for my generosity and get on your way.’

‘One day,’ Karsa said, ‘I shall return here and repay you.’

‘For the coin or the broken ribs?’

The Teblor simply smiled.

Keeper laughed, then rose and ducked through the doorway. A moment later, they could hear him climbing the frame.

Torvald collected the pack, drawing the straps over his shoulders, then handed one of the gourds to Karsa.

They set off down the road.

CHAPTER FOUR

THERE WERE VILLAGES ON THE COASTAL ROAD, USUALLY SET ON THE inland side, as if the inhabitants sought nothing from the sea. A scattering of adobe dwellings, flimsy corrals, goats, dogs and dark-skinned figures hidden within swaths of full-length, sun-bleached cloth. Shadowed faces tracked the Teblor and the Daru from doorways but otherwise made no move.

On the fourth day, in the fifth of such villages, they found a merchant’s wagon drawn up in the virtually empty market square, and Torvald managed to purchase, for a handful of silver, an antique sword, top-heavy and sharply curved. The merchant had bolts of cloth for sale as well, but nothing already made into clothing. The sword’s handle fell apart shortly afterwards.

‘I need to find a wood-carver,’ Torvald said after a lengthy and rather elaborate string of curses. They were once more walking down the road, the sun overhead fiercely hot in a cloudless sky. The forest had thinned to either side, low, straggly and dusty, allowing them a view of the turquoise water of the Otataral Sea to their right, and the dun tones of the undulating horizon inland. ‘And I’d swear that merchant understood Malazan-even as bad as I speak it. He just wouldn’t admit to that fact.’

Karsa shrugged. ‘The Malazan soldiers in Genabaris said the Seven Cities was going to rebel against their occupiers. This is why the Teblor do not make conquests. Better that the enemy keeps its land, so that we may raid again and again.’

‘Not the imperial way,’ the Daru responded, shaking his head. ‘Possession and control, the two are like insatiable hungers for some people. Oh, no doubt the Malazans have thought up countless justifications for their wars of expansion. It’s well known that Seven Cities was a rat’s warren of feuds and civil wars, leaving most of the population suffering and miserable and starving under the heels of fat warlords and corrupt priest-kings. And that, with the Malazan conquest, the thugs ended up spiked to the city walls or on the run. And the wilder tribes no longer sweep down out of the hills to deliver mayhem on their more civilized kin. And the tyranny of the priesthoods was shattered, putting an end to human sacrifice and extortion. And of course the merchants have never been richer, or safer on these roads. So, all in all, this land is rife for rebellion.’

Karsa stared at Torvald for a long moment, then said, ‘Yes, I can see how that would be true.’

The Daru grinned. ‘You’re learning, friend.’

‘The lessons of civilization.’

‘Just so. There’s little value in seeking to find reasons for why people do what they do, or feel the way they feel. Hatred is a most pernicious weed, finding root in any kind of soil. It feeds on itself.’

‘With words.’

‘Indeed, with words. Form an opinion, say it often enough and pretty soon everyone’s saying it right back at you, and then it becomes a conviction, fed by unreasoning anger and defended with weapons of fear. At which point, words become useless and you’re left with a fight to the death.’

Karsa grunted. ‘A fight beyond death, I would say.’

‘True enough. Generation after generation.’

‘Are all the people of Darujhistan like you, Torvald Nom?’

‘More or less. Contentious bastards. We thrive on argument, meaning we never go past the stage of using words. We love words, Karsa, as much as you love cutting off heads and collecting ears and tongues. Walk down any street, in any district, and everyone you speak to will have a different opinion, no matter what the subject. Even the possibility of being conquered by the Malazans. I was thinking a moment ago-that shark, choking on Borrug’s body. I suspect, should Darujhistan ever become part of the Malazan Empire, the empire will be like that shark, and Darujhistan like Borrug. We’ll choke the beast that swallows us.’

‘The shark did not choke for very long.’

‘That’s because Borrug was too dead to say anything about it.’

‘An interesting distinction, Torvald Nom.’

‘Well of course. Us Daru are a subtle folk.’

They were approaching another village, this one distinct from the others they had walked through for having a low stone wall encircling it. Three large limestone buildings rose from its centre. Nearby was a pen crowded with goats, loudly complaining in the heat.

‘You’d think they’d be out wandering,’ Torvald commented as they came closer.

‘Unless they are about to be slaughtered.’

‘All of them?’

Karsa sniffed the air. ‘I smell horses.’

‘I don’t see any.’

The road narrowed at the wall, spanning a trench before passing through a crumbling, leaning arch. Karsa and Torvald crossed the bridge and passed under the arch, emerging onto the village’s main street.

There was no-one in sight. Not entirely unusual, as the locals usually retreated into their homes at the Teblor’s arrival, although in this case the doors of those dwellings were firmly shut, the windows shuttered.

Karsa drew his bloodsword. ‘We have walked into an ambush,’ he said.

Torvald sighed. ‘I think you are right.’ He had wrapped his sword’s tang in spare leather strapping taken from the pack-a temporary and not entirely successful effort to make the weapon useful. The Daru now slid the scimitar from its cracked wooden scabbard.

At the far end of the street, beyond the large buildings, horsemen now appeared. A dozen, then two, then three. They were covered from head to toe in loose, dark blue clothing, their faces hidden behind scarves. Short, recurved bows, arrows nocked, were trained on Karsa and Torvald.

Horse hoofs from behind made them turn, to see a score more riders coming through the archway, some with bows, others with lances.

Karsa scowled. ‘How effective are those tiny bows?’ he asked the Daru beside him.

‘Sufficient to punch arrows through chain,’ Torvald replied, lowering his sword. ‘And we’re wearing no armour in any case.’

A year ago and Karsa would have attacked none the less. Now, he simply reslung his bloodsword.

The riders behind them closed, then dismounted. A number approached with chains and shackles.

‘Beru fend,’ Torvald muttered, ‘not again.’

Karsa shrugged.

Neither resisted as the shackles were fitted onto their wrists and ankles. There was some difficulty in dealing with the Teblor in this matter-when the shackles clicked into place, they were so tight as to cut off the blood flow to Karsa’s hands and feet.

Torvald, watching, said in Malazan, ‘Those will need to be changed, lest he lose his appendages-’

‘Hardly a consideration,’ said a familiar voice from the entrance to one of the larger buildings. Silgar, trailed by Damisk, emerged onto the dusty street. ‘You will indeed lose your hands and feet, Karsa Orlong, which should effectively put an end to the threat you pose. Of course, that will do much to diminish your value as a slave, but I am prepared to accept the loss.’

‘Is this how you repay saving your miserable lives?’ Torvald demanded.

‘Why, yes, it is. Repayment. For the loss of most of my men. For the arrest by the Malazans. For countless other outrages which I won’t bother listing, since these dear Arak tribesmen are rather far from home, and, given that they’re somewhat less than welcome in this territory, they are impatient to depart.’

Karsa could no longer feel his hands and feet. As one of the Arak tribesmen pushed him forward he stumbled, then fell to his knees. A thick knout cracked into the side of his head. Sudden rage gripped the Teblor. He lashed out his right arm, ripping the chain from an Arak’s hands, and swung it full into the face of his attacker. The man screamed.

The others closed in then, wielding their knouts-clubs made from black, braided hair-until Karsa fell senseless to the ground.

When he finally regained consciousness, it was dusk. He had been tied to some sort of travois, which was in the process of being unhitched from a train of long-legged, lean horses. Karsa’s face was a mass of bruises, his eyes almost swollen shut, his tongue and the inside of his mouth cut and nicked by his own teeth. He looked down at his hands. They were blue, the fingertips darkening to black. They were dead weights at the ends of his limbs, as were his feet.

The tribesmen were making camp a short distance from the coastal road. To the west, at the horizon’s very edge, was the dull yellow glow of a city.

A half-dozen small, virtually smokeless fires had been lit by the Arak, using some sort of dung for fuel. Karsa saw, twenty paces distant, the slavemaster and Damisk seated among a group of the tribesmen. The hearth closest to the Teblor was being used to cook suspended skewers of tubers and meat.

Torvald sat nearby, working on something in the gloom. None of the Arak seemed to be paying the two slaves any attention.

Karsa hissed.

The Daru glanced over. ‘Don’t know about you,’ he whispered, ‘but I’m damned hot. Got to get out of these clothes. I’m sure you are as well. I’ll come over and help you in a moment.’ There was the faint sound of ripping seams. ‘At last,’ Torvald murmured, dragging his tunic free. Naked, he began edging closer to Karsa. ‘Don’t bother trying to say anything, friend. I’m surprised you can even breathe, with the way they beat you. In any case, I need your clothes.’

He came up alongside the Teblor, spared a glance towards the tribesmen-none of whom had noticed him-then reached up and began tugging at Karsa’s tunic. There was but a single seam, and it had already been stretched and sundered in places. As he worked, Torvald continued whispering. ‘Small fires. Smokeless. Camping in a basin, despite the insects. Talking in mumbles, very quiet. And Silgar’s words earlier, that stupid gloat-had the Arak understood him they would probably have skinned the idiot on the spot. Well, from his stupidity was born my brilliance, as you’ll soon see. It’ll likely cost me my life, but I swear I’ll be here even as a ghost, just to see what comes. Ah, done. Stop shivering, you’re not helping things at all.’

He pulled the tattered tunic from Karsa, then took it with him back to his original position. He then tore handfuls of grasses from the ground, until he had two large piles. Bundling both pieces of tunic, he then stuffed them with the grass. Flashing Karsa a grin, he crawled over to the nearest hearth, bundles in tow.

He pushed them up against the glowing fragments of dung, then retreated.

Karsa watched as first one caught fire, then the other. Flames flared into the night, a roar of sparks and snake-like blades of grass lifting high. Shouts from the Arak, figures rushing over, scrambling for handfuls of earth, but there was little of that in the basin, only pebbles and hard, sun-dried clay. Horse-blankets were found, thrown over the roaring flames.

The panic that then swept through the tribesmen left the two slaves virtually ignored, as the Arak rushed to break camp, repack supplies, saddle their horses. Through it all, Karsa heard a single word repeated numerous times, a word filled with fear. Gral.

Silgar appeared as the Arak gathered their horses. His face was filled with fury. ‘For that, Torvald Nom, you have just forfeited your life-’

‘You won’t make it to Ehrlitan,’ the Daru predicted with a hard grin.

Three tribesmen were approaching, hook-bladed knives in their hands.

‘I will enjoy watching your throat cut,’ Silgar said.

‘The Gral have been after these bastards all this time, Slavemaster. Hadn’t you realized that? Now, I’ve never heard of the Gral, but your Arak friends have one and all pissed onto their hearths, and even a Daru like me knows what that means-they don’t expect to live through the night, and not one of them wants to spill his bladder when he dies. Seven Cities taboo, I gather-’

The first Arak reached Torvald, one hand snapping out to take the Daru by the hair, pushing Torvald’s head back and lifting the knife.

The ridgeline behind the Arak was suddenly swarming with dark figures, silently sweeping down into the camp.

The night was broken by screams.

The Arak crouched before Torvald snarled and tore the knife across the Daru’s throat. Blood spattered the hard clay. Straightening, the tribesman wheeled to run for his horse. He managed not a single step, for a half-dozen shapes came out of the darkness, silent as wraiths. There was a strange whipping sound, and Karsa saw the Arak’s head roll from his shoulders. His two companions were both down.

Silgar was already fleeing. As a figure rose before him, he lashed out. A wave of sorcery struck the attacker, dropped the man to the ground, where he writhed in the grip of crackling magic for a moment, before his flesh exploded.

Ululating cries pealed through the air. The same whipping sound sang in the darkness from all sides. Horses screamed.

Karsa dragged his gaze from the scene of slaughter and looked over at Torvald’s slumped body. To his amazement, the Daru was still moving, feet kicking furrows in the pebbles, both hands up at his throat.

Silgar returned to Karsa’s position, his lean face gleaming with sweat. Damisk appeared behind him and the slavemaster gestured the tattooed guard forward.

Damisk held a knife. He quickly cut at the bindings holding Karsa to the travois. ‘No easy out for you,’ he hissed. ‘We’re leaving. By warren, and we’re taking you with us. Silgar’s decided to make you his plaything. A lifetime of torture-’

‘Enough babbling!’ Silgar snapped. ‘They’re almost all dead! Hurry!’

Damisk cut the last rope.

Karsa laughed, then managed to form words. ‘What would you have me do now? Run?’

Snarling, Silgar moved closer. There was a flare of blue light, then the three of them were plunging into fetid, warm water.

Unable to swim, the weight of his chains dragging him down, Karsa sank into the midnight depths. He felt a tug on his chains, then saw a second flash of lurid light.

His head, then his back, struck hard cobbles. Dazed, he rolled onto his side. Silgar and Damisk, both coughing, knelt nearby. They were on a street, flanked on one side by enormous warehouses, and on the other by stone jetties and moored ships. At the moment, there was no-one else in sight.

Silgar spat, then said, ‘Damisk, get those shackles off him-he bears no criminal brand, so the Malazans won’t see him as a slave. I won’t be arrested again-not after all this. The bastard is ours, but we’ve got to get him off the street. We’ve got to hide.’

Karsa watched Damisk crawl to his side, fumbling with keys. Watched as the Nathii unlocked the shackles on his wrists, then his ankles. A moment later, the pain struck as blood flowed back into near-dead flesh. The Teblor screamed.

Silgar unleashed magic once more, a wave that descended on the Teblor like a blanket-that he tore off with unthinking ease, his shrieks slicing into the night air, echoing back from nearby buildings, ringing out across the crowded harbour.

‘You there!’ Malazan words, a bellow, then the swiftly approaching clash and clatter of armoured soldiers.

‘An escaped slave, sirs!’ Silgar said hastily. ‘We have-as you can see-just recaptured him-’

‘Escaped slave? Let’s see his brand-’

The last words Karsa registered, as the pain in his hands and feet sent him plummeting into oblivion.

He awoke to Malazan words being spoken directly above him. ‘… extraordinary. I’ve never seen natural healing such as this. His hands and feet-those shackles were on for some time, Sergeant. On a normal man I’d be cutting them off right now.’

Another voice spoke, ‘Are all Fenn such as this one?’

‘Not that I’ve ever heard. Assuming he’s Fenn.’

‘Well, what else would he be? He’s as tall as two Dal Honese put together.’

‘I wouldn’t know, Sergeant. Before I was posted here, the only place I knew well was six twisting streets in Li Heng. Even the Fenn was just a name and some vague description about them being giants. Giants no-one’s seen for decades at that. The point is, this slave was in bad shape when you first brought him in. Beaten pretty fierce, and someone punched him in the ribs hard enough to crack bones-wouldn’t want to cross whoever that was. For all that, the swelling’s already down on his face-despite what I’ve just done to it-and the bruises are damned near fading in front of our eyes.’

Continuing to feign unconsciousness, Karsa listened to the speaker stepping back, then the sergeant asking, ‘So the bastard’s not in danger of dying, then.’

‘Not that I can see.’

‘Good enough, Healer. You can return to the barracks.’

‘Aye, sir.’

Various movement, boots on flagstones, the clang of an iron-barred door; then, as these echoes dwindled, the Teblor heard, closer by, the sound of breathing.

In the distance there was some shouting, faint and muted by intervening walls of stone, yet Karsa thought he recognized the voice as belonging to the slavemaster, Silgar. The Teblor opened his eyes. A low, smoke-stained ceiling-not high enough to permit him to stand upright. He was lying on a straw-littered, greasy floor. There was virtually no light, apart from a dim glow reaching in from the walkway beyond the barred door.

His face hurt, a strange stinging sensation prickling on his cheeks, forehead and along his jaw.

Karsa sat up.

There was someone else in the small, windowless cell, hunched in a dark corner. The figure grunted and said something in one of the languages of the Seven Cities.

A dull ache remained in Karsa’s hands and feet. The inside of his mouth was dry and felt burnt, as if he’d just swallowed hot sand. He rubbed at his tingling face.

A moment later the man tried Malazan, ‘You’d likely understand me if you were Fenn.’

‘I understand you, but I am not one of these Fenn.’

‘I said it sounds like your master isn’t enjoying his stay in the stocks.’

‘He has been arrested?’

‘Of course. The Malazans like arresting people. You’d no brand. At the time. Keeping you as a slave is therefore illegal under imperial law.’

‘Then they should release me.’

‘Little chance of that. Your master confessed that you were being sent to the otataral mines. You were on a ship out of Genabaris that you’d cursed, said curse then leading to the ship’s destruction and the deaths of the crew and the marines. The local garrison is only half-convinced by that tale, but that’s sufficient-you’re on your way to the island. As am I.’

Karsa rose. The low ceiling forced him to stand hunched over. He made his way, hobbling, to the barred door.

‘Aye, you could probably batter it down,’ the stranger said. ‘But then you’ll be cut down before you manage three steps from this gaol. We’re in the middle of the Malazan compound. Besides, we’re about to be taken outside in any case, to join the prisoners’ line chained to a wall. In the morning, they’ll march us down to the imperial jetty and load us onto a transport.’

‘How long have I been unconscious?’

‘The night you were carried in, the day after, the next night. It’s now midday.’

‘And the slavemaster has been in the stocks all this time?’

‘Most of it.’

‘Good,’ Karsa growled. ‘What of his companion? The same?’

‘The same.’

‘And what crime have you committed?’ Karsa asked.

‘I consort with dissidents. Of course,’ he added, ‘I am innocent.’

‘Can you not prove that?’

‘Prove what?’

‘Your innocence.’

‘I could if I was.’

The Teblor glanced back at the figure crouched in the corner. ‘Are you, by any chance, from Darujhistan?’

‘Darujhistan? No, why do you ask?’

Karsa shrugged. He thought back to Torvald Nom’s death. There was a coldness surrounding the memory, but he could sense all that it held at bay. The time for surrender, however, was not now.

The barred door was set in an iron frame, the frame fixed to the stone blocks with large iron bolts. The Teblor gave it a shake. Dust sifted out from around the bolts, pattered onto the floor.

‘I see you’re a man who ignores advice,’ the stranger observed.

‘These Malazans are careless.’

‘Overconfident, I’d suggest. Then again, perhaps not. They’ve had dealings with Fenn, with Trell, Barghast-a whole host of oversized barbarians. They’re tough, and sharper than they let on. They put an otataral anklet on that slavemaster-no magic from him any more-’

Karsa turned. ‘What is this “otataral” everyone speaks of?’

‘A bane to magic.’

‘And it must be mined.’

‘Yes. It’s usually a powder, found in layers, like sandstone. Resembles rust.’

‘We scrape a red powder from cliffsides to make our blood-oil,’ the Teblor murmured.

‘What is blood-oil?’

‘We rub it into our swords, and into our armour. To bring on battle madness, we taste it.’

The stranger was silent for a moment, though Karsa could feel the man’s eyes on him. ‘And how well does magic work against you?’

‘Those who attack me with sorcery usually reveal surprise on their faces… just before I kill them.’

‘Well now, that is interesting. It is believed that otataral is only found on the single large island east of here. The empire controls its production. Tightly. Their mages learned the hard way during the conquest, in the battles before the T’lan Imass got involved. If not for the T’lan Imass, the invasion would have failed. I have some more advice for you. Reveal nothing of this to the Malazans. If they discover there is another source of otataral, a source they do not control, well, they will send into your homeland-wherever that is-every regiment they possess. They will crush your people. Utterly.’

Karsa shrugged. ‘The Teblor have many enemies.’

The stranger slowly sat straighten ‘Teblor? That is what you call yourselves? Teblor?’ After a moment, he leaned back again, and softly laughed.

‘What do you find so amusing?’

An outer door clanged open, and Karsa stepped back from the barred door as a squad of soldiers appeared. The three at the front had unsheathed their swords, while the four behind them held large, cocked crossbows. One of the swordsmen stepped up to the door. He paused upon seeing Karsa. ‘Careful,’ he called to his companions, ‘the savage has awakened.’ He studied the Teblor and said, ‘Do nothing stupid, Fenn. It matters nothing to us whether you live or die-the mines are crowded enough for them not to miss you. Understand me?’

Karsa bared his teeth, said nothing.

‘You there, in the corner, on your feet. It’s time for some sunshine.’

The stranger slowly straightened. He was wearing little more than rags. Lean and dark-skinned, his eyes were a startling light blue. ‘I demand a proper trial, as is my right under imperial law.’

The guardsman laughed. ‘Give it up. You’ve been identified. We know precisely who you are. Aye, your secret organization is not as seamless as you might think. Betrayed by one of your own-how does that feel? Let’s go, you come out first. Jibb, you and Gullstream keep your crossbows on that Fenn-I don’t like his smile. Especially now,’ he added.

‘Oh look,’ another soldier said, ‘you’ve confused the poor ox. Bet he doesn’t even know his entire face is one big tattoo. Scrawl did good work, though. Best I’ve seen in a long while.’

‘Right,’ another drawled, ‘and how many escaped prisoner tattoos have you seen, Jibb?’

‘Just one, and it’s a work of art.’

The source of the stinging sensation on Karsa’s face was revealed now. He reached up, seeking to feel something of the pattern, and slowly began tracing lines of slightly raised, damp strips of raw skin. They were not contiguous. He could make no sense of what the tattoo portrayed.

‘Shattered,’ the other prisoner said as he walked over to the door, which the first guard unlocked and swung open. ‘The brand makes your face look like it’s been shattered.’

Two guards escorted the man outside, whilst the others, nervously eyeing Karsa, waited for their return. One of the crossbowmen, whose high forehead revealed white blotches-leading the Teblor to speculate that he was the one named Gullstream-leaned back against the opposite wall and said, ‘I don’t know, I’m thinking Scrawl made it too big-he was ugly enough to start with, now he looks damned terrifying.’

‘So what?’ another guard drawled. ‘There’s plenty of hill-grubbing savages that carve up their own faces to frighten weak-kneed recruits like you, Gullstream. Barghast and Semk and Khundryl, but they all break against a Malazan legion just the same.’

‘Well, ain’t none of them being routed these days, though, are they?’

‘That’s only because the Fist’s cowering in his keep and wants us all to put ’im to bed every night. Nobleborn officers-what do you expect?’

‘Might change when the reinforcements arrive,’ Gullstream suggested. ‘The Ashok Regiment knows these parts-’

‘And that’s the problem,’ the other retorted. ‘If this rebellion actually happens this time, who’s to say they won’t turn renegade? We could get smilin’ throats in our own barracks. It’s bad enough with the Red Blades stirrin’ things up in the streets…’

The guards returned.

‘You, Fenn, now it’s your turn. Make it easy for us and it’ll be easy for you. Walk. Slow. Not too close. And trust me, the mines ain’t so bad, considering the alternatives. All right, come forward now.’

Karsa saw no reason to give them trouble.

They emerged onto a sunlit compound. Thick, high walls surrounded the broad parade ground. A number of squat, solid-looking buildings projected out from three of the four walls; along the fourth wall there was a line of prisoners shackled to a heavy chain that ran its entire length, bolted to the foundation stones at regular intervals. Near the heavily fortified gate was a row of stocks, of which only two were occupied-Silgar and Damisk. On the slavemaster’s right ankle there glinted a copper-coloured ring.

Neither man had lifted his head at Karsa’s appearance, and the Teblor considered shouting to attract their attention; instead, he simply bared his teeth at seeing their plight. As the guards escorted him to the line of chained prisoners, Karsa turned to the one named Jibb and spoke in Malazan. ‘What will be the slavemaster’s fate?’

The man’s helmed head jerked up in surprise. Then he shrugged. ‘Ain’t been decided yet. He claims to be rich back in Genabackis.’

Karsa sneered. ‘He can buy his way out from his crimes, then.’

‘Not under imperial law-if they’re serious crimes, that is. Might be he’ll just be fined. He may be a merchant who deals in flesh, but he’s still a merchant. Always best to bleed ’em where it hurts most.’

‘Enough jawing, Jibb,’ another guard growled.

They approached one end of the line, where oversized shackles had been attached. Once more, Karsa found himself in irons, though these were not tight enough to cause him pain. The Teblor noted that he was beside the blue-eyed native.

The squad checked the fittings one more time, then marched away.

There was no shade, though buckets of well-water had been positioned at intervals down the line. Karsa remained standing for a time, then finally settled down to sit with his back against the wall, matching the position of most of the other prisoners. There was little in the way of conversation as the day slowly dragged on. Towards late afternoon shade finally reached them, though the relief was momentary, as biting flies soon descended.

As the sky darkened overhead, the blue-eyed native stirred, then said in a low voice, ‘Giant, I have a proposal for you.’

Karsa grunted. ‘What?’

‘It’s said that the mining camps are corrupt, meaning one can carve out favours-make life easier. The kind of place where it pays to have someone guarding your back. I suggest a partnership.’

Karsa thought about it, then he nodded. ‘Agreed. But if you attempt to betray me, I will kill you.’

‘I could see no other answer to betrayal,’ the man said.

‘I am done talking,’ Karsa said.

‘Good, so am I.’

He thought to ask the man’s name, but there would be time enough for that later. For now, he was content to stretch the silence, to give space for his thoughts. It seemed Urugal was willing him to these otataral mines after all. Karsa would have preferred a more direct-a simpler-journey, such as the one the Malazans had originally intended. Too many blood-soaked digressions, Urugal. Enough.

Night arrived. A pair of soldiers appeared with lanterns and sauntered down the line of prisoners, checking the fetters one more time, before heading off to the barracks. From where he slumped, Karsa could see a handful of soldiers stationed at the gate, whilst at least one patrolled the walkway along each wall. Two more stood outside the steps of the headquarters.

The Teblor settled his head against the stone wall and closed his eyes.

Some time later he opened them again. He had slept. The sky was overcast, the compound a mottled pattern of light and darkness. Something had awoken him. He made to stand but a hand stayed him. He looked over to see the native huddled motionless beside him-head lowered as if still asleep. The hand on the Teblor’s arm tightened a moment, then withdrew.

Frowning, Karsa settled back. And then he saw.

The guards at the gate were gone, as were those outside the headquarters. Along the wall walkways… no-one.

Then, alongside a nearby building-movement, a figure sliding through shadows in silence, followed by another, padding along with far less stealth, one gloved hand reaching up to steady itself every now and then.

The two were making directly for Karsa.

Swathed in black cloth, the lead figure halted a few paces from the wall. The other moved up alongside it, then edged past. Hands lifted, slipped back a black hood-

Torvald Nom.

Bloodstained bandages encircling his neck, the face above it deathly pale and gleaming with sweat, but the Daru was grinning.

He drew up to Karsa’s side. ‘Time to go, friend,’ he whispered, raising something that looked very much like a shackle key.

‘Who is with you?’ Karsa whispered back.

‘Oh, a motley collection indeed. Gral tribesmen here doing the sneaky work, and agents from their main trading partner here in Ehrlitan…’ His eyes glittered. ‘The House of Nom, no less. Oh, aye, the thread of blood between us is thin as a virgin’s hair, but it is being honoured none the less. Indeed, with delighted vigour. Now, enough words-as you are wont to say-we don’t want to wake anyone else-’

‘Too late,’ murmured the man chained beside Karsa.

The Gral behind Torvald moved forward, but halted at a strange, elaborate series of gestures from the prisoner.

Torvald grunted. ‘That damned silent language.’

‘It is agreed,’ the prisoner said. ‘I will be going with you.’

‘And if you wasn’t, you’d be sounding the alarm.’

The man said nothing.

After a moment, Torvald shrugged. ‘So be it. All this talk and I’m surprised everyone else in this line isn’t awake-’

‘They would be, only they’re all dead.’ The prisoner beside Karsa slowly straightened. ‘No-one likes criminals. Gral have a particular hatred for them, it seems.’

A second tribesman, who had been moving along the line, reached them. A large, curved knife was in one hand, slick with blood. More hand gestures, then the newcomer sheathed his weapon.

Muttering under his breath, Torvald crouched to unlock Karsa’s shackles.

‘You are as hard to kill as a Teblor,’ Karsa murmured.

‘Thank Hood that Arak was distracted at the time. Even so, if not for the Gral, I’d have bled to death.’

‘Why did they save you?’

‘The Gral like to ransom people. Of course, if they turn out worthless, they kill them. The trading partnership with the House of Nom took precedence over all that, of course.’

Torvald moved on to the other prisoner.

Karsa stood, rubbing his wrists. ‘What kind of trade?’

The Daru flashed a grin. ‘Brokering the ransoms.’

Moments later they were moving through the darkness towards the front gate, skirting the patches of light. Near the gatehouse a half-dozen bodies had been dragged up against the wall. The ground was soaked black with blood.

Three more Gral joined them. One by one, the group slipped through the gateway and into the street beyond. They crossed to an alley and made their way down to the far end, where they halted.

Torvald laid a hand on Karsa’s arm. ‘Friend, where would you go now? My own return to Genabackis will be delayed awhile. My kin here have embraced me with open arms-a unique experience for me, and I plan on savouring it. Alas, the Gral won’t take you-you’re too recognizable.’

‘He will come with me,’ the blue-eyed native said. ‘To a place of safety.’

Torvald looked up at Karsa, brows rising.

The Teblor shrugged. ‘It is clear that I cannot be hidden in this city; nor will I further endanger you or your kin, Torvald Nom. If this man proves unworthy I need only kill him.’

‘How long until the compound guards are changed?’ the blue-eyed man asked.

‘A bell at least, so you will have plenty-’

Sudden alarms shattered the night, from the direction of the Malazan garrison.

The Gral seemed to vanish before Karsa’s eyes, so quickly did they scatter. ‘Torvald Nom, for all you have done for me, I thank you-’

The Daru scurried over to a pile of rubbish in the alley. He swept it aside, then lifted into view Karsa’s bloodsword. ‘Here, friend.’ He tossed the sword into the Teblor’s hands. ‘Come to Darujhistan in a few years’ time.’

A final wave, then the Daru was gone.

The blue-eyed man-who had collected a sword from one of the dead guards-now gestured. ‘Stay close. There are ways out of Ehrlitan the Malazans know nothing of. Follow, and quietly.’ He set off. Karsa slipped into his wake.

Their route twisted through the lower city, down countless alleys, some so narrow that the Teblor was forced to sidle sideways along their crooked lengths. Karsa had thought that his guide would lead them towards the docks, or perhaps the outer walls facing onto the wasteland to the south. Instead, they climbed towards the single massive hill at Ehrlitan’s heart, and before long were moving through the rubble of countless collapsed buildings.

They arrived at the battered base of a tower, the native not hesitating as he ducked in through the gaping, dark doorway. Following, Karsa found himself in a cramped chamber, its floor uneven with heaved flagstones. A second portal was barely visible opposite the entrance, and at its threshold the man paused. ‘Mebra!’ he hissed.

There was movement, then: ‘Is it you? Dryjhna bless us, I had heard that you had been captured-ah, the alarms down below… well done-’

‘Enough of that. Do the provisions remain in the tunnels?’

‘Of course! Always. Including your own cache-’

‘Good, now move aside. I’ve someone with me.’

Beyond the portal was a rough series of stone steps, descending into even deeper darkness. Karsa sensed the man Mebra’s presence as he edged past, heard his sharp intake of breath.

The blue-eyed man below the Teblor halted suddenly. ‘Oh, and Mebra, tell no-one you have seen us-not even your fellow servants to the cause. Understand?’

‘Of course.’

The two fugitives continued on, leaving Mebra behind. The stairs continued down, until Karsa had begun to think that they were approaching the bowels of the earth. When it finally levelled out, the air was heavy with damp, smelling of salt, and the stones underfoot were wet and streaked in slime. At the tunnel’s mouth a number of niches had been carved into the limestone walls, each one holding leather packs and travel gear.

Karsa watched as his companion strode quickly to one niche in particular. After a moment’s examination, he dropped the Malazan sword he had been carrying and drew forth a pair of objects that moved with the sound of rustling chain.

‘Take that food-pack,’ the man instructed, nodding towards a nearby niche. ‘And you will find a telaba or two-clothes-and weapon-belts and harnesses-leave the lanterns, the tunnel ahead is long but has no branches.’

‘Where does it lead?’

‘Out,’ the man replied.

Karsa fell silent. He disliked the extent to which his life was in this native’s hands, but it seemed that, for the time being, there was nothing he could do about it. Seven Cities was a stranger place than even the Genabackan cities of Malyntaeas and Genabaris. The lowlanders filled this world like vermin-more tribes than the Teblor had thought possible, and it was clear that none liked each other. While that was a sentiment Karsa well understood-for tribes should dislike each other-it was also obvious that, among the lowlanders, there was no sense of any other sort of loyalty. Karsa was Uryd, but he was also Teblor. The lowlanders seemed so obsessed with their differences that they had no comprehension of what unified them.

A flaw that could be exploited.

The pace set by Karsa’s guide was fierce, and though most of the damage done to the Teblor was well along in healing, his reserves of strength and stamina were not what they had once been. After a time, the distance between the two began to lengthen, and eventually Karsa found himself travelling alone through the impenetrable darkness, one hand on the rough-hewn wall to his right, hearing only the sounds of his own passage. The air was no longer damp, and he could taste dust in his mouth.

The wall suddenly vanished under his hand. Karsa stumbled, drew to a halt.

‘You did well,’ the native said from somewhere on the Teblor’s left. ‘Running hunched over as you had to be… not an easy task. Look up.’

He did, and slowly straightened. There were stars overhead.

‘We’re in a gully,’ the man continued. ‘It will be dawn before we climb out of it. Then it’s five, maybe six days across the Pan’potsun Odhan. The Malazans will be after us, of course, so we will have to be careful. Rest awhile. Drink some water-the sun is a demon and will steal your life if it can. Our route will take us from one place of water to the next, so we need not suffer.’

‘You know this land,’ Karsa said. ‘I do not.’ He raised his sword. ‘But know this, I will not be taken prisoner again.’

‘That’s the spirit,’ the lowlander replied.

‘That is not what I meant.’

The man laughed. ‘I know. If you so wish it, once we are clear of this gully you may go in any direction you like. What I have offered you is the best chance of surviving. There is more than recapture by the Malazans to worry about in this land. Travel with me, and you shall learn how to survive. But as I said, the choice is yours. Now, shall we proceed?’

Dawn arrived to the world above before the two fugitives reached the end of the gully. While they could see bright blue sky overhead, they continued walking through chill shadows. The means of exit was marked by a tumbled scree of boulders where a past flood had undercut one wall sufficiently to trigger a collapse.

Clambering up the slope, they emerged onto a heat-blasted land of weathered crags, sand-filled riverbeds, cacti and thorny bushes, the sun blindingly bright, making the air shimmer in all directions. There was no-one in sight, nor was there any sign that the area was inhabited by anything other than wild creatures.

The lowlander led Karsa southwestward, their route circuitous, making use of every form of cover available and avoiding ridges or hilltops that would set them against the sky. Neither spoke, saving their breath in the enervating heat as the day stretched on.

Late in the afternoon, the lowlander halted suddenly and turned. He hissed a curse in his native language, then said, ‘Horsemen.’

Karsa swung round, but could see no-one in the desolate landscape behind them.

‘Feel them underfoot,’ the man muttered. ‘So, Mebra has turned. Well, one day I will answer that betrayal.’

And now Karsa could sense, through the callused soles of his bared feet, the tremble of distant horse hoofs. ‘If you’d suspected this Mebra why did you not kill him?’

‘If I killed everyone I was suspicious about I’d have scant company. I needed proof, and now I have it.’

‘Unless he told someone else.’

‘Then he’s either a traitor or stupid-both lead to the same fatal consequence. Come, we need to make this a challenge for the Malazans.’

They set off. The lowlander was unerring in choosing paths that left no footprints or other signs of passage. Despite this, the sound of the riders drew ever nearer. ‘There’s a mage among them,’ the lowlander muttered as they raced across yet another stretch of bedrock.

‘If we can avoid them until nightfall,’ Karsa said, ‘then I shall become the hunter and they the hunted.’

‘There’s at least twenty of them. We’re better off using the darkness to stretch the distance between us. See those mountains to the southwest? That is our destination. If we can reach the hidden passes, we will be safe.’

‘We cannot outrun horses,’ Karsa growled. ‘Come dark, I will be done running.’

‘Then you attack alone, for it will mean your death.’

‘Alone. That is well. I need no lowlander getting underfoot.’

The plunge into night was sudden. Just before the last light failed, the two fugitives, slipping onto a plain crowded with enormous boulders, finally caught sight of their pursuers. Seventeen riders, three spare horses. All but two of the Malazans were in full armour, helmed and armed with either lances or crossbows. The other two riders were easily recognizable to Karsa. Silgar and Damisk.

Karsa suddenly recalled that, the night of their escape from the compound, the stocks had been empty. He’d thought little of it at the time, assuming that the two prisoners had been taken inside for the night.

The pursuers had not seen the two fugitives, who quickly moved behind the cover of the boulders.

‘I have led them to an old campground,’ the lowlander at Karsa’s side whispered. ‘Listen. They’re making camp. The two who weren’t soldiers-’

‘Yes. The slavemaster and his guard.’

‘They must have taken that otataral anklet off him. He wants you badly, it seems.’

Karsa shrugged. ‘And he will find me. Tonight. I am done with those two. Neither will see the dawn, this I swear before Urugal.’

‘You cannot attack two squads on your own.’

‘Then consider it a diversion and make good your escape, lowlander.’ With that the Teblor swung about and made his way towards the Malazan camp.

He was not interested in waiting for them to settle. The crossbowmen had ridden all day with their weapons cocked. They would probably be replacing the wrapped cords at this very moment, assuming they followed the practice that Karsa had seen among the squads of the Ashok Regiment. Others would be removing saddles and tending to the horses, whilst most of the remaining soldiers would be preparing to cook meals and raise tents. At most, there would be two or three guards establishing a picket around the camp.

Karsa paused behind a huge boulder just beyond the Malazans. He could hear them setting up their position for the night. The Teblor collected a handful of sand and dried the sweat from his palms, then he hefted his bloodsword in his right hand and edged forward.

Three fires had been lit using dung, the hearths ringed with large rocks to cut the light cast out by the flickering flames. The horses stood within a rope corral, three soldiers moving among them. A half-dozen crossbowmen sat nearby, their weapons dismantled on their laps. Two guards stood facing the plain of boulders, one positioned slightly behind the other. The soldier closest to Karsa held a drawn short-sword and a round shield, his companion six paces behind him a short bow, arrow nocked.

There were, in fact, more guards at the pickets than Karsa would have liked, one visible on each other flank of the encampment. The bowman was so positioned as to permit him a field of fire for every one of them.

Crouched before a firepit near the centre of the camp were Silgar, Damisk and a Malazan officer, the latter with his back to Karsa.

The Teblor silently worked his way around the boulder. The guard closest to him was looking to the left at the moment. Five paces to close in a charge. The bowman had turned in his restless scanning towards the guard at the far end of the camp.

Now.

The helmed head was swinging back, the weathered face pale beneath its rim.

And then Karsa was alongside him, his left hand snapping out to close around the man’s throat. Cartilage collapsed with a dry popping sound.

Enough to make the bowman whirl.

Had his attacker the short legs of a lowlander, he would have had a chance to loose his arrow. As it was, he barely had time to draw before the Teblor reached him.

The man’s mouth opened to shout as he tensed to throw himself backward. Karsa’s sword flashed outward, sending the helmed head tumbling from shoulders. Armour clattered behind him as the corpse fell to the ground.

Faces swung round. Shouts rang through the night. Three soldiers rose from a hearth directly in front of the Teblor. Short-swords hissed from scabbards. One Malazan threw himself into Karsa’s path in an effort to give his companions time to find their shields. A brave and fatal gesture, for his weapon’s reach was no match for the bloodsword. The man shrieked as he lost both forearms to a vicious lateral slash.

One of the next two Malazans had managed to ready his round shield, raising it into the path of Karsa’s downward swing. The bronze-banded wood exploded at the impact, the arm holding it shattering beneath it. As the soldier crumpled, the Teblor leapt over him, quickly cutting down the third man.

A blaze of pain along the top of his right thigh as a lance ripped a path to thrum into the dusty ground behind him. Wheeling, he whipped his blade around in time to bat aside another lance which had been about to strike his chest.

Footsteps rushing him from behind and to the left-one of the picket guards-while directly before him, three paces distant, stood Silgar, Damisk and the Malazan officer. The slavemaster’s face was twisted with terror, even as sorcery rose into a writhing wave in front of him, then roared towards Karsa.

The magic struck him at the precise moment that the picket guard arrived. Sorcery engulfed them both. The Malazan’s scream ripped through the air. Grunting at the writhing, ghostly tendrils seeking to snare him in place, Karsa surged through it-and came face to face with the slavemaster.

Damisk had already fled. The officer had thrown himself to one side, deftly ducking beneath Karsa’s side-swing.

Silgar threw his hands up.

Karsa cut them off.

The slavemaster reeled back.

The Teblor chopped down, severing Silgar’s right leg just above the ankle. The man toppled onto his upper shoulders, legs in the air. A fourth swing sent the left foot spinning.

Two soldiers rushed Karsa from his right, a third one trailing.

A bellowed command rang through the night, and the Teblor-weapon readied-was surprised to see the three men peel away. By his count there were five others, as well as the officer and Damisk. He spun, glaring, but there was no-one-just the sounds of boots retreating into the darkness. He looked to where the horses had been corralled-the animals were gone.

A lance darted towards him. Snarling, Karsa splintered it as the back of his bloodsword deflected it to one side. He paused, then padded over to Silgar. The slavemaster had curled into a tight ball. Blood flowed from the four stumps. Karsa picked him up by his silk belt and carried him back to the plain of boulders.

As he moved around the first of the massive rocks a voice spoke low and clear from the shadows. ‘This way.’

The Teblor grunted. ‘You were supposed to have fled.’

‘They will regroup, but without the mage we should be able to elude them.’

Karsa followed his companion deeper into the studded plain, then, after fifty or so paces, the man stopped and turned to the Teblor.

‘Of course, with your prize leaving a trail of blood, there will be little trouble in following us. Do something with him now.’

Karsa dropped Silgar to the ground, kicked him onto his back. The slavemaster was unconscious.

‘He will bleed to death,’ the lowlander said. ‘You have your revenge. Leave him here to die.’

Instead, the Teblor began cutting strips from Silgar’s telaba, tying them tight about the stumps at the ends of his arms and legs.

‘There will still be some leakage-’

‘Which we shall have to live with,’ Karsa growled. ‘I am not yet done with this man.’

‘What value senseless torture?’

Karsa hesitated, then he sighed. ‘This man enslaved an entire tribe of Teblor. The Sunyd’s spirit is broken. The slavemaster is not as a soldier-he has not earned swift death. He is as a mad dog, to be driven into a hut and killed-’

‘So kill him.’

‘I shall… once I have driven him mad.’

Karsa lifted Silgar once more, throwing him over a shoulder. ‘Lead us on, lowlander.’

Hissing under his breath, the man nodded.

Eight days later, they reached the hidden pass through the Pan’potsun Mountains. The Malazans had resumed their pursuit, but had not been seen since two days past, indicating that the efforts to evade them had succeeded.

They ascended the steep, rocky trail through the course of the day.

Silgar was still alive, fevered and only periodically aware. He had been gagged to prevent him making any sounds. Karsa carried him on his shoulder.

Shortly before dusk they reached the summit, and came to the southwest edge. The path wound down into a shadowed plain. At the crest they sat down to rest.

‘What lies beyond?’ Karsa asked as he dropped Silgar to the ground. ‘I see naught but a wasteland of sand below.’

‘And so it is,’ his companion replied in a reverent tone. ‘And in its heart, the one I serve.’ He glanced over at Karsa. ‘She will, I think, be interested in you…’ he smiled, ‘Teblor.’

Karsa scowled. ‘Why does the name of my people amuse you so?’

‘Amuse? More like appals. The Fenn had fallen far from their past glories, yet they remembered enough to know their old name. You cannot even make that claim. Your kind walked this earth when the T’lan Imass were still flesh. From your blood came the Barghast and the Trell. You are Thelomen Toblakai.’

‘These are names I do not know,’ Karsa growled, ‘even as I do not know yours, lowlander.’

The man returned his gaze to the dark lands below. ‘I am named Leoman. And the one I serve, the Chosen One to whom I will deliver you, she is Sha’ik.’

‘I am no-one’s servant,’ Karsa said. ‘This Chosen One, she dwells in the desert before us?’

‘In its very heart, Toblakai. In Raraku’s very heart.’