The Teblor have long earned their reputation as slayers of children, butcherers of the helpless, as mortal demons delivered unto the Nathii in a curse altogether undeserved. The sooner the Teblor are obliterated from their mountain fastnesses the sooner the memory of them will finally begin to fade. Until Teblor is no more than a name used to frighten children, we see our cause as clear and singular.
The Crusade of 1147
THE WOLVES LOPED THROUGH THE ALMOST LUMINESCENT FOG, THEIR eyes flashing when they swung their massive heads in his direction. As if he was an elk, struggling through deep snow, the huge beasts kept pace on either side, ghostly, with the implacable patience of the predators they were.
Though it was unlikely these mountain beasts had ever before hunted a Teblor warrior. Karsa had not expected to find snow, particularly since his route took him alongside the north shoulder of the jagged range-it was fortunate that he would not have to climb through any passes. On his right, less than two leagues distant, he could still see the ochre sands of the desert basin, and well knew that down there, the sun blazed hot-the same sun that looked down upon him now, a blurred orb of cold fire.
The snow was shin-deep, slowing his steady jog. Somehow, the wolves managed to run across its wind-hardened, crusty surface, only occasionally plunging a paw through. The fog enshrouding hunters and prey was in fact snow crystals, glittering with bright, blinding light.
Somewhere to the west, Karsa had been told, the range of mountains would end. There would be sea on his right, a narrow rumpled passage of hills ahead and on his left. Across those hills, then southward, there would be a city. Lato Revae. The Teblor had no interest in visiting it, though he would have to skirt it. The sooner he left civilized lands behind, the better. But that was two river crossings distant, with weeks of travel between now and then.
Though he ran alone along the slope, he could feel the presence of his two companions. Ghost spirits at the most, but perhaps nothing more than fractured selves of his own mind. Sceptical Bairoth Gild. Stolid Delum Thord. Facets of his own soul, so that he might persist in this dialogue of self-doubt. Perhaps, then, nothing more than an indulgence. Or so it would seem, if not for the countless, blood-scoring edges of Bairoth Gild’s commentary. At times, Karsa felt as if he was a slave once more, hunched beneath endless flagellation. The notion that he was delivering this to himself was beyond contemplating.
‘Not entirely beyond, Warleader, if you’d spare yourself but a moment to regard your own thoughts.’
‘Not now, Bairoth Gild,’ Karsa replied. ‘I am running short on breath as it is.’
‘Altitude, Karsa Orlong,’ came Delum Thord’s voice. ‘Though you do not feel it, with each step westward you are descending. Soon you will leave the snow behind. Raraku may have once been an inland sea, but it was a sea couched in the lap of high mountains. Your entire journey thus far, Warleader, has been a descent.’
Karsa could spare that thought only a grunt. He had felt no particular descent, but horizons played deceptive games in this land. The desert and mountains ever lied, he had long since discovered.
‘When the snow is gone,’ Bairoth Gild murmured, ‘the wolves will attack.’
‘I know. Now be quiet-I see bare rock ahead.’ As did his hunters. They numbered at least a dozen, taller at the shoulder than those of Karsa’s homeland, and furred in tones of dun, grey and speckled white. The Teblor watched as four of the beasts sprinted ahead, two on each side, making for the exposed rock.
Growling, Karsa unslung his wooden sword. The bitter cold air had left his hands slightly numb. Had the western end of the Holy Desert held any sources of water, he would not have climbed to these heights, but there was little point in second-guessing that decision now.
The panting breaths of the wolves were audible on either side and behind him.
‘They want the sure footing, Warleader. Then again, so do you. Beware the three in your wake-they will strike first, likely a pace or two before you reach the rock.’
Karsa bared his teeth at Bairoth’s unnecessary advice. He well knew what these beasts would do, and when.
A sudden thumping of paws, flurries of snow springing into the air, and all the wolves raced past a surprised Karsa. Claws clattered on the bared rock, water spraying from the sun’s melt, and the beasts wheeled to form a half-circle before the Teblor.
He slowed his steps, readying his weapon. For once, even Bairoth Gild was silenced-no doubt as uncertain as he himself was.
A rasping, panting stranger’s voice hissed through Karsa’s mind: ‘We enjoyed that, Toblakai. You have run without pause for three nights and almost four days. That we are impressed would be a tragic understatement. We have never before seen the like. See our heaving flanks? You have exhausted us. And look at you-you breathe deep and there is red around your eyes, yet you stand ready, with not a waver in your legs, or from the strange sword in your hands. Will you now do us harm, warrior?’
Karsa shook his head. The language was Malazan. ‘You are like a Soletaken, then. But many, not one. This would be… D’ivers? I have killed Soletaken-this fur on my shoulders is proof enough of that, if you doubt me. Attack me if you will, and when I have killed all of you, I will have a cloak even the gods will envy.’
‘We are no longer interested in killing you, warrior. Indeed, we accost you now to deliver a warning.’
‘What kind of warning?’
‘You are on someone’s trail.’
Karsa shrugged. ‘Two men, both heavy, though one is taller. They walk side by side.’
‘Side by side, yes. And what does that tell you?’
‘Neither leads, neither follows.’
‘Danger rides your shoulders, Toblakai. About you is an air of threat-another reason why we will not cross you. Powers vie for your soul. Too many. Too deadly. But heed our warning: should you cross one of those travellers… the world will come to regret it. The world, warrior.’
Karsa shrugged a second time. ‘I am not interested in fighting anyone at the moment, D’ivers. Although, if I am in turn crossed, then I am not the one to answer for whatever regret the world then experiences. Now, I am done with words. Move from my path, or I will kill you all.’
The wolves hesitated. ‘Tell them that Ryllandaras sought to dissuade you. Before you make your last living act one that sees this world destroyed.’
He watched them wheel and make their way down the slope.
Bairoth Gild’s laugh was a faint thunder in his mind. Karsa nodded. ‘None would accept the blame for what has not yet occurred,’ he rumbled. ‘That, by itself, constitutes a curiously potent warning.’
‘You do indeed grow into yourself, Karsa Orlong. What will you do?’
Karsa bared his teeth as he reslung his sword over a fur-clad shoulder. ‘Do, Bairoth Gild? Why, I would meet these dire travellers, of course.’
This time, Bairoth Gild did not laugh.
Strains of meltwater flowed over the brittle rock beneath Karsa’s moccasins. Ahead, the descent continued into a crowded maze of sandstone mesas, their level tops capped with ice and snow. Despite the bright, mid-afternoon sun in the cloudless sky, the narrow, twisting channels between the mesas remained in deep shadow.
But the snow underfoot had vanished, and already he could feel a new warmth in the air. There seemed but one way down, and it was as much a stream as a trail. Given the lack of signs, the Teblor could only assume that the two strangers ahead of him had taken the same route.
He moved slower now, his legs heavy with fatigue. The truth of his exhaustion had not been something he would reveal to the D’ivers wolves, but that threat was behind him now. He was close to collapse-hardly ideal if he was about to cross blades with a world-destroying demon.
Still his legs carried him forward, as if of their own accord. As if fated.
‘And fate, Karsa Orlong, carries its own momentum.’
‘Returned at last to hound me once more, Bairoth Gild? At the very least, you should speak words of advice. This Ryllandaras, this D’ivers-portentous words, yes?’
‘Absurdly so, Warleader. There are no powers in this world-or any other-that pose such absolute threat. Spoken through the frenzied currents of fear. Likely personal in nature-whoever walks ahead has had dealings with the one named Ryllandaras, and it was the D’ivers who suffered with the meeting.’
‘You are probably right, Bairoth Gild. Delum Thord, you have been silent a long while. What are your thoughts?’
‘I am troubled, Warleader. The D’ivers was a powerful demon, after all. To take so many shapes, yet remain one. To speak in your mind as would a god-’
Karsa grimaced. ‘A god… or a pair of ghosts. Not a demon, Delum Thord. We Teblor are too careless with that word. Forkrul Assail. Soletaken. D’ivers. None are demons in truth, for none were summoned to this world, none belong to any other realm but this one. They are in truth no different from us Teblor, or the lowlanders. No different from rhizan and capemoths, from horses and dogs. They are all of this world, Delum Thord.’
‘As you say, Warleader. But we Teblor were never simplistic in our use of the word. Demon also refers to behaviour, and in this manner all things can be demonic. The one named Ryllandaras hunted us, and had you not driven it into exhaustion, it would have attacked, despite your words to the contrary.’
Karsa considered, then nodded. ‘True enough, Delum Thord. You advise caution. This was always your way, so I am not surprised. I will not ignore your words for that, however.’
‘Of course you will, Karsa Orlong.’
A last stretch of sunlight, then the Teblor was in shadow. The run-off swept around his ankles as the track narrowed, the footing growing treacherous. Once more he could see his breath.
A short climb to his left ran a broad ledge of some kind, out of the shadow and looking bone dry. Karsa swung from the trail and clambered up the gully’s eroded bank until he was able to pull himself onto it. He straightened. Not a natural ledge after all. A road, running parallel to the gorge as it girdled the first mesa on his left. The wall of the mesa itself seemed to have been smoothed once, long ago, to a height twice Karsa’s own. Faint pictographic images were visible on it, pitted and made colourless by passing centuries. A procession of figures, each scaled to that of a lowlander, bareheaded and wearing naught but a loincloth. They held their hands high overhead, fingers stretched out as if clutching at empty air.
The road itself was latticed in cracks, battered by incessant rocks tumbling down from the mesa. Despite this, it seemed as if the road was made of a single piece of stone, though of course that was impossible. Heaved and rumpled, it wound along the curve of the mesa wall then shifted away onto a ramp of sorts, hazy in the distance, that presumably led down to the plain. The horizon directly ahead and to Karsa’s right was cut short by towers of stone, though he knew that, beyond them, stretched the waters of the Longshan Sea.
Weariness forced the Teblor to slowly settle on the road, removing his pack and sitting against the mesa’s rock wall. The journey had been long, but he knew his path ahead was still longer. And, it seemed, he would ever walk it alone. For these ghosts remain just that. Perhaps, in truth, no more than my mind’s own conjuring. A displeasing thought.
He leaned his head back on the rough, sun-warmed stone.
His eyes blinked open-to darkness.
‘Awake once more, Warleader? We were wondering if your sleep would prove eternal. There are sounds ahead-can you hear them? Oh, they’ve travelled far, but that is the way with this land, isn’t it? Still… stones are being moved, I think. Tossed. Too slow, too regular to be a rockfall. The two strangers, one might conclude.’
Karsa slowly stood, stretching to ease his sore, chilled muscles. He could hear the steady clack of stones striking stone, but Bairoth Gild was right-they were distant. The warrior crouched down beside his pack and removed foodstuffs and a bladder of meltwater.
It was near dawn. Whoever it was working somewhere ahead had begun early.
Karsa took his time breaking his fast, and when he was finally done and ready to resume his journey, the sky was pink to the east. A final examination of the condition of his sword and the fittings on his armour, then he was on the move once again.
The steady clangour of the stones continued through half the morning. The road skirted the mesa for a distance that was longer than he had originally judged, revealing the ramp ahead to be massive, its sides sheer, the plain beneath a third of a league or more below. Just before the road departed the mesa, it opened out into a shelf-like expanse, and here, set into the mesa wall, was the face of a city. Rockslides had buried fully half of it, and the spreading ridges of secondary slides lay atop the main one.
Before one of these lesser slides sat a pair of tents.
Three hundred paces away from them, Karsa halted.
There was a figure at the secondary slide, clearing rocks with a steady, almost obsessive rhythm, tossing huge chunks of sandstone out behind him to bounce and roll on the flat concourse. Nearby, seated on a boulder, was another figure, and where the first one was tall-taller than a lowlander by far-this one was impressively wide at the shoulders, dark-skinned, heavy-maned. A large leather sack was beside him, and he was gnawing on a smoke-blackened hind leg-the rest of the small mountain goat was still spitted on a huge skewer over a stone-lined hearth near the tents.
Karsa studied the scene for a time, then, shrugging, made his way towards the two figures.
He was less than twenty paces away before the huge, barbaric man seated on the boulder swung his head around.
And gestured with the haunch in his hand. ‘Help yourself. The thing damn near brained me, falling from the cliffside, so I feel obliged to eat it. Funny, that. You always see them, scampering and clambering way up there, and so you naturally believe they never make a misstep. Well, another delusion shattered.’
He was speaking a desert dialect, a lowlander tongue, yet he was no lowlander. Large, thick canines, hair on shoulders like a boar’s bristles, a heavy-boned face wide and flat. Eyes the hue of the sandstone cliffs around them.
At his words, the stranger’s companion ceased throwing rocks and straightened, and was now regarding Karsa curiously.
The Teblor was equally frank as he returned the stare. Almost as tall as he was, though leaner. Greyish, green-tinged skin. Lower canines large enough to be tusks. A longbow leaned nearby, along with a quiver, and a leather-strap harness to which a scabbarded sword was attached. The first weapons Karsa had yet seen-for the other one appeared to be entirely unarmed, barring the thick hunting knife at his belt.
The mutual examination continued for a moment longer, then the tusked warrior resumed his excavation, disappearing from sight as he strode into the cavity he had cleared in the rockfall. Karsa glanced back at the other man. Who gestured again with the goat leg.
The Teblor approached. He set down his pack near the hearth and drew a knife, then cut away a slab of meat and returned to where the other sat. ‘You speak the language of the tribes,’ Karsa said, ‘yet I have never before seen your kind. Nor that of your companion.’
‘And you are an equally rare sight, Thelomen Toblakai. I am named Mappo, of the people known as Trell, who hail from west of the Jhag Odhan. My single-minded companion is Icarium, a Jhag-’
‘Icarium? Is that a common name, Mappo? There is a figure in my tribe’s own legends who is so named.’
The Trell’s ochre eyes narrowed momentarily. ‘Common? Not in the way you ask. The name certainly appears in the tales and legends of countless people.’
Karsa frowned at the odd pedantry, if that was what it was. Then he crouched down opposite Mappo and tore off a mouthful of the tender meat.
‘It occurs to me, of a sudden,’ Mappo said, a hint of a grin flickering across his bestial features, ‘that this chance encounter is unique… in ways too numerous to list. A Trell, a Jhag, and a Thelomen Toblakai… and we each are likely the only one of our respective kinds in all of Seven Cities. Even more extraordinary, I believe I know of you-by reputation only, of course. Sha’ik has a bodyguard… a Thelomen Toblakai, with an armoured vest made of petrified shells, and a wooden sword…’
Karsa nodded, swallowing down the last of the meat in his mouth before replying, ‘Aye, I am in the service of Sha’ik. Does this fact make you my enemy?’
‘Not unless you choose to be,’ Mappo answered, ‘and I would advise against that.’
‘So does everyone,’ Karsa muttered, returning to his meal.
‘Ah, so you are not as ignorant of us as you first said.’
‘A score of wolves spoke to me,’ Karsa explained. ‘Little was said, barring the warning itself. I do not know what makes you two so dangerous, nor do I much care. Impede me in my journey and I will kill you. It is as simple as that.’
Mappo slowly nodded. ‘And have we cause to impede you?’
‘Not unless you choose to have,’ Karsa responded.
The Trell smiled. ‘Thus, it is best we learn nothing of each other, then.’
‘Aye, that would be best.’
‘Alas,’ Mappo sighed, ‘Icarium already knows all he needs to of you, and as to what he intends, while already decided, he alone knows.’
‘If he believes he knows me,’ Karsa growled, ‘he deceives himself.’
‘Well, let us consider the matter. On your shoulders is the fur of a Soletaken. One we both happen to know-you killed a formidable beast, there. Luckily, he was no friend of ours, but the measure of your martial prowess has been taken. Next, you are haunted by ghosts-not just the two kinsmen who even now hover behind you. But the ghosts of those you have slain in your short, but clearly terrible life. They are appallingly numerous, and their hatred for you is a palpable hunger. But who carries their dead in such a manner? Only one who has been cursed, I think. And I speak from long experience; curses are horrible things. Tell me, has Sha’ik ever spoken to you of convergence?’
‘No.’
‘When curses collide, you might say. Flaws and virtues, the many faces of fateful obsession, of singular purpose. Powers and wills are drawn together, as if one must by nature seek the annihilation of the other. Thus, you and Icarium are now here, and we are moments from a dreadful convergence, and it is my fate to witness. Helpless unto desperate madness. Fortunately for my own sake, I have known this feeling before.’
Karsa had been eating throughout Mappo’s words. Now he examined the bone in his hands, then tossed it aside, wiped his palms on the white bear fur of his cloak, and straightened. ‘What else have you and Icarium discovered about me, Mappo?’
‘A few more things. Ryllandaras gauged you, and concluded that he had no wish to add his skins to your collection. He is ever wise, is Ryllandaras. A score of wolves, you said? His power has grown, then, a mystery both ominous and curious, given the chaos in his heart. What else? Well, the rest I choose not to reveal.’
Karsa grunted. He untied the bear cloak and let it fall to the ground, then unslung his sword and turned to face the rockslide.
A boulder sailed out from the cavity, of a size and weight that would strain even Bairoth Gild. The ground shook when it struck and bounced and rolled to a dusty halt.
‘Will he now make me wait?’ Karsa growled.
As if in answer Icarium emerged from the cave, slapping the dust from his long-fingered hands. ‘You are not Fenn,’ he said. ‘Indeed, I believe you are Teblor, a son of the fallen tribes in Laederon. You have travelled far, warrior, to meet your end.’
‘If you are so eager,’ Karsa growled, ‘cease your words.’
The Jhag’s expression grew troubled. ‘Eager? No. I am never eager. This is a moment of pathos, I believe. The first time I have felt such a thing, which is strange.’ He turned to his companion. ‘Have we known such moments as this one before, Mappo Runt?’
‘Aye, my friend. We have.’
‘Ah, well, then the burden of recollection is yours alone.’
‘As it ever was, Icarium.’
‘I grieve for you, friend.’
Mappo nodded. ‘I know you do. Now, best unsheathe your sword, Icarium. This Teblor evinces frustration and impatience.’
The Jhag went to his weapon. ‘What will come of this, Mappo?’
The Trell shook his head. ‘I do not know, but I am filled with dread.’
‘I shall endeavour to be efficient, then, so as to diminish the duration of your discomfort.’
‘Clearly impossible,’ Karsa muttered, ‘given your love of words.’ He readied his sword. ‘Be on with it, then, I have a horse to find.’
Icarium’s brows rose fractionally, then he drew out his sword. An unusual weapon, single-edged and looking ancient. He approached.
The Jhag’s attack was a flicker of motion, faster than anything Karsa had seen before, yet his sword flashed to meet it. Blades collided.
There was a peculiar snick and Karsa found himself holding nothing more than a handle.
Outrage exploded within him and he stepped forward, his huge fist hammering into Icarium’s face. The Jhag was thrown backward, leaving his feet, his sword cartwheeling away to clatter on the slope of the rockfall. Icarium landed with a heavy thump, and did not move.
‘Bastard broke my sword-’ Karsa began, turning towards Mappo.
White light detonated in his skull.
And he knew no more.
Mappo stared down at the motionless Thelomen Toblakai, noting the slow rise and fall of the giant’s chest. Hefting his mace, he glanced over to where Icarium lay, saw a hand slowly lift from the ground, twitch, then settle once more.
The Trell sighed. ‘Better than I could have hoped for, I think.’
He walked back and returned his weapon to the large leather sack, then set out to strike the camp.
Pounding pain behind his eyes, a sound of roaring, as of a river raging through a narrow channel. Karsa groaned.
Some time passed before he finally pushed himself onto his hands and knees.
It was dawn… again.
‘Say nothing, Bairoth Gild,’ he muttered. ‘Nor you, Delum Thord. I can well guess what happened. That bastard Trell struck me from behind. Aye, he didn’t kill me, but one day he will wish he had.’
A slow, cautious look around confirmed that he was alone. His broken sword had been positioned beside him, handle and blade side by side, with a small bound bundle of desert flowers lying atop them.
The blow to his head left him nauseous, and he found he was shaking once he’d managed to climb to his feet. He unstrapped his dented helm and tossed it aside. Dried blood matted his hair and covered the back of his neck.
‘At least you are now well rested, Karsa Orlong.’
‘You are less amused than you would have me think, Bairoth Gild. The one named Icarium. He is the one from our legends, isn’t he?’
‘And you alone among the living Teblor have crossed blades with him.’
‘He broke my sword.’
There was no reply to that. Karsa set about preparing to resume his journey, once more donning the bear cloak, then shouldering the pack. He left the wooden sword pieces and their bouquet, and made to set off down the descending road. Then he paused, turning his attention instead to the cavity that Icarium had excavated into the rockslide.
The Jhag’s efforts had partially uncovered a statue, broken here and there, with what remained fissured with cracks, but recognizable none the less. A grotesque construct, as tall as Karsa, made of a black, grainy stone.
A seven-headed hound.
It had been completely buried by the fall, and so would have revealed no sign that it existed beneath the rubble. Yet Icarium had found it, though his reasons for uncovering the monstrosity were still unfathomable. ‘He has lived too long, I think,’ Karsa murmured.
He strode back out from the cavity, then swung onto the road.
Six days later, the city of Lato Revae far behind him, the Teblor lay prone in the shadows of a guldindha tree at the edge of a grove, watching a pair of drovers switching their herd of goats towards a dusty corral. A small village lay beyond, its low buildings roofed in palm fronds, the air above it hazy with dung smoke and dust.
The sun would be down soon, and he could resume his journey. He had waited out the day, unseen. These lands between Lato Revae and the Mersin River were relatively crowded, compared to all that he had seen thus far, reminding him that his travels, since his landing at Ehrlitan, had been mostly through unbroken wilderness. The Pan’potsun Odhan-the Holy Desert itself-was a world virtually abandoned by civilization.
But here, irrigation ditches ribboned the plain. Wells and groves and villages abounded, and there were more roads than he had ever seen before, even in the lands of the Nathii. Most were dusty, winding tracks at ground level, usually situated between ditches. Thus far, the only exceptions were the imperial tracks, raised and straight and substantial enough to permit two wagons to pass each other with room to spare. These Malazan roads had suffered in the last year-despite their obvious value, foundation boulders had been dug out, league-markers uprooted. But the ditches alongside them were deep and wide, and Karsa had used those ditches to remain hidden from sight as he made his way southwestward.
The village ahead crouched on a crossroads of Malazan tracks, and a squat, square tower rose above the low roofs near the centre. Its limestone walls were stained black, streaks flaring up from arrow-slits and windows. When the sun finally settled beyond the horizon, no lights showed from the tower.
Though it was likely that there were rebel soldiers of the Apocalypse stationed in the village, given its strategic placement on the crossroads, Karsa had no interest in initiating contact. His was a private journey, if for no reason but that he chose to have it so. In any case, it seemed the rebellion was not quite as fierce here; either that or the unbridled blood-thirst had long since abated. There had been no widespread destruction of farms and fields, no slaughter in the village and town streets. Karsa wondered if there had been as many Malazan traders and landowners this far west, or if the garrisons had all been recalled into the major cities, such as Kayhum, Sarpachiya and Ugarat-their fellow non-combatants accompanying them. If so, then it had not helped them.
He disliked being weaponless, barring the Malazan short-sword he used as a knife, sheathed at his hip. But there was no suitable wood in this region. There were said to be ironwood trees in the Jhag Odhan and he would wait until then.
The swift descent into night was done. The Teblor warrior stirred collecting his pack, then set out along the edge of the guldindha grove. One of the imperial roads led off in the direction he sought, likely the main artery connecting Lato Revae with the Holy City Ugarat. If any bridges across the Mersin River had survived the uprising, it would be the Malazan-built one on that road.
He skirted the village on its north side, through knee-high grains, the soil soft from the previous night’s irrigating. Karsa assumed the water came from the river somewhere ahead, though he could not imagine how the flow was regulated. The notion of a life spent tilling fields was repellent to the Teblor warrior. The rewards seemed to be exclusive to the highborn landowners, whilst the labourers themselves had only a minimal existence, prematurely aged and worn down by the ceaseless toil. And the distinction between high and low status was born from farming itself-or so it appeared to Karsa. Wealth was measured in control over other people, and the grip of that control could never be permitted to loosen. Odd, then, that this rebellion had had nothing to do with such inequities, that in truth it had been little more than a struggle between those who would be in charge.
Yet the majority of the suffering had descended upon the lowborn, upon the common folk. What matter the colour of the collar around a man’s neck, if the chains linked to them were identical?
Better to struggle against helplessness, as far as he was concerned. This blood-soaked Apocalypse was pointless, a misdirected explosion of fury that, when it passed, left the world unchanged.
He bounded across a ditch, crossed through a narrow fringe of overgrown brush, and found himself at the edge of a shallow pit. Twenty paces across and at least thirty paces wide. The town’s refuse was piled here, not entirely successful at covering the mass of lowlander bones.
Here, then, were the Malazans. As tamed and broken as the earth itself. The wealth of flesh, flung back into the ground. Karsa had no doubt that it was their rivals in status who were loudest in exhorting their deaths.
‘And so, once again, Karsa Orlong, we are given the truths of the lowlanders.’ Bairoth Gild’s ghostly voice was palpably bitter. ‘For every virtue they espouse, a thousand self-serving evils belie their piety. Know them, Warleader, for one day they will be your enemy.’
‘I am no fool, Bairoth Gild. Nor am I blind.’
Delum Thord spoke. ‘A place of haunting lies ahead, Karsa Orlong. As ancient as our own blood. Those who live here avoid it, and have always avoided it.’
‘Not entirely,’ Bairoth interjected. ‘Fear has inspired them on occasion. The place is damaged. None the less, the Elder power lingers. The path beckons-will you walk it, Warleader?’
Karsa made his way around the pit. He could see something ahead, earthworks rising to break the flatness of the surrounding plain. Elongated barrows, the slabs of stone that formed them visible in places although they were mostly covered in thorny brush and tufts of yellow grasses. The mounds formed an irregular ring around a larger, circular hill that was flat-topped, though slightly canted as if one side had settled over time. Rising at angles from the summit were standing stones, a score or more.
Rocks from clearing the nearby fields had been discarded in this once-holy site, around the barrows, heaped against the slope of the central hill, along with other detritus: the withered wooden skeletons of ox ploughs, palm fronds from roofs, piles of potsherds and the bones of butchered livestock.
Karsa slipped between two barrows and made his way up the central slope. The nearest standing stone reached barely to his waist. Black symbols crowded it, the spit and charcoal paint relatively recent. The Teblor recognized various signs, such as had been employed as a secret, native language during the Malazan occupation. ‘Hardly a place of fear,’ he muttered. Fully half of the stones were either shattered or toppled, and from the latter Karsa noted that they were, in fact, taller than he was, so deeply had they been anchored in the artificial hill. The summit itself was pitted and uneven.
‘Oh, these are the signs of fear, Karsa Orlong, do not doubt that. This desecration. Were this a place without power, the answer would have been indifference.’
Karsa grunted, stepping carefully on the treacherous ground as he approached the nominal centre of the stone ring. Four smaller slabs had been tilted together there, the wiry grasses stopping a pace away on all sides, leaving only bare earth flecked with bits of charcoal.
And fragments, Karsa noted as he crouched, of bone. He picked one up and studied it in the starlight. From a skull, lowlander in scale though somewhat more robust, the outer edge of an eye socket. Thick… like that of my gods… ‘Bairoth Gild. Delum Thord. Do either of you sense the presence of a spirit or a god here?’
‘No,’ Delum Thord replied.
Bairoth spoke. ‘A shaman was buried here, Warleader. His head was severed and left fixed in the apex of the four cardinal stones. Whoever shattered it did so long afterwards. Centuries. Perhaps millennia. So that it would no longer see. No longer watch.’
‘Then why is this place of value to me?’
‘For the way through it offers, Warleader.’
‘The way through what, Bairoth Gild?’
‘Passage westward, into the Jhag Odhan. A trail in the dreamworld. A journey of months will become one of mere days, should you choose to walk it. It lives still, for it was used not long ago. By an army.’
‘And how can I walk this trail?’
Delum Thord replied, ‘We can lead you, Karsa Orlong. For, like the one once buried here, we are neither dead nor alive. The lord Hood cannot find our spirits, for they are here with you. Our presence adds to the god of death’s hatred of you, Warleader.’
‘Hatred?’
‘For what you have taken and would not give to him. Will not. Would you become your own Keeper of Souls? So he must now fear. When last did Hood know a rival?’
Karsa scowled and spat onto the ground. ‘I have no interest in being his rival. I would break these chains. I would free even you and Bairoth Gild.’
‘We would rather you did not, Warleader.’
‘You and Bairoth Gild are perhaps alone in that sentiment, Delum Thord.’
‘What of it?’ Bairoth snapped.
Karsa said nothing, for he had begun to understand the choice that lay ahead, sometime in the future. To cast off my enemies… I must also cast off my friends. And so Hood follows, and waits. For the day that must come.
‘You hide your thoughts now, Karsa Orlong. This new talent does not please us.’
‘I am warleader,’ Karsa growled. ‘It is not my task to please you. Do you now regret that you follow?’
‘No, Karsa Orlong. Not yet.’
‘Take me into this trail in the dreamworld, Delum Thord.’
The air grew suddenly colder, the smell reminding Karsa of the sloped clearings on high mountain sides when spring arrived, the smell of enlivened, softened lichen and moss. And before him, where there had been night-softened farmland a moment ago, there was now tundra, beneath a heavily overcast sky.
A broad path lay before him, stretching across the rolling land, where the lichen had been crushed, the mosses kicked aside and trampled. As Bairoth Gild had said, an army had passed this way, although by the signs it seemed their journey had been but a moment ago-he half expected to see the tail end of that solemn column on the distant horizon, but there was nothing. Simply an empty, treeless expanse, stretching out on all sides. He moved forward, in the army’s wake.
This world seemed timeless, the sky unchanging. On occasion, herds appeared, too distant to make out the kind of beasts, rolling across hillsides then slipping from view as they streamed down into valleys. Birds flew in arrowhead formation, a strange long-necked breed high overhead, all of them consistently flying back the way Karsa had come. Apart from the whine of the insects swarming about the Teblor, a strange, unreal silence emanated from the landscape.
A dream world, then, such as the elders of his tribe were wont to visit, seeking portents and omens. The scene not unlike what Karsa had glimpsed when, in delirium, he had found himself before his god, Urugal.
He continued on.
Eventually, the air grew colder, and frost glittered amidst the lichen and moss to either side of the wide trail. The smell of rotting ice filled Karsa’s nose. Another thousand paces brought him to the first dirt-studded sweep of snow, filling a shallow valley on his right. Then shattered chunks of ice, half buried in the ground as if they had fallen from the sky, many of them larger than a lowlander wagon. The land itself was more broken here, the gentle roll giving way to sharp-walled drainage gullies and channels, to upthrust hillsides revealing banded sandstone beneath the frozen, thick skin of peat. Fissures in the stone gleamed with greenish ice.
Bairoth Gild spoke. ‘We are now at the border of a new warren, Warleader. A warren inimical to the army that arrived here. And so, a war was waged.’
‘How far have I travelled, Bairoth Gild? In my world, am I approaching Ugarat? Sarpachiya?’
The ghost’s laughter was like a boulder rolled over gravel. ‘They are behind you now, Karsa Orlong. You approach the land known as the Jhag Odhan.’
It had seemed no more than a half-day’s worth of travel in this dream world.
Signs of the army’s passage grew less distinct, the ground underfoot frozen rock hard and now consisting mostly of rounded stones. Ahead, a plain studded with huge flat slabs of black rock.
Moments later, Karsa was moving among them.
There were bodies beneath the stones. Pinned down.
‘Will you free these, Karsa Orlong?’
‘No, Delum Thord, I shall not. I shall pass through this place, disturbing nothing.’
‘Yet these are not Forkrul Assail. Many are dead, for they had not the power their kind once possessed. While others remain alive, and will not die for a long time. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. Karsa Orlong, do you no longer believe in mercy?’
‘My beliefs are my own, Delum Thord. I shall not undo what I do not understand, and that is all.’
He travelled on, and soon left the terrible plain behind.
Before him now stretched a field of ice, crack-riven, with pools of water reflecting the silver sky. Bones were scattered on it, from hundreds, perhaps thousands of figures. Bones of a type he had seen before. Some still sheathed in withered skin and muscle. Shards of stone weapons lay among them, along with fragments of fur, antlered helms and torn, rotting hides.
The fallen warriors formed a vast semicircle around a low, square-walled tower. Its battered stones were limned in runnelled ice, its doorway gaping, the interior dark.
Karsa picked his way across the field, his moccasins crunching through the ice and snow.
The tower’s doorway was tall enough to permit the Teblor to stride through without ducking. A single room lay within. Broken furniture and the pieces of more fallen warriors cluttered the stone floor. A spiral staircase that seemed made entirely of iron rose from the centre.
From what he could determine from the wreckage, the furniture was of a scale to suit a Teblor, rather than a lowlander.
Karsa made his way up the ice-sheathed staircase.
There was a single level above, a high-ceilinged chamber that had once held wooden shelves on all four walls. Torn scrolls, bound books ripped apart, vials and clay jars containing various pungent mixes crushed underfoot, a large table split in half and pushed up against one wall, and on a cleared space on the floor…
Karsa stepped off the landing and looked down.
‘Thelomen Toblakai, welcome to my humble abode.’
Karsa scowled. ‘I crossed blades with one much like you. He was named Icarium. Like you, yet less so.’
‘Because he is a half-blood, of course. Whilst I am not. Jaghut, not Jhag.’
She lay spread-eagled within a ring of fist-sized stones. A larger stone rested on her chest, from which heat rose in waves. The air in the chamber was a swirling mix of steam and suspended frost.
‘You are trapped within sorcery. The army was seeking you, yet they did not kill you.’
‘Could not would be more accurate. Not immediately, in any case. But eventually, this Tellann Ritual will destroy this core of Omtose Phellack, which will in turn lead to the death of the Jhag Odhan-even now, the north forest creeps onto the plains, whilst from the south the desert claims ever more of the odhan that was my home.’
‘Your refuge.’
She bared her tusks in something like a smile. ‘Among the Jaghut, they are now one and the same, Thelomen Toblakai.’
Karsa looked around, studying the wreckage. He saw no weapons; nor was the woman wearing armour. ‘When this core of Omtose Phellack dies, so will you, yes? Yet you spoke only of the Jhag Odhan. As if your own death was of less importance than that of this land.’
‘It is less important. On the Jhag Odhan, the past lives still. Not just in my fallen kin, the Jhag-the few that managed to escape the Logros T’lan Imass. There are ancient beasts that walk the treeless lands beside the sheets of ice. Beasts that have died out everywhere else, mostly on the spears of the T’lan Imass. But there were no Imass in the Jhag Odhan. As you said, a refuge.’
‘Beasts. Including Jhag horses?’
He watched her strange eyes narrow. The pupils were vertical, surrounded in pearlescent grey. ‘The horses we once bred to ride. Yes, they have gone feral in the odhan. Though few remain, for the Trell come from the west to hunt them. Every year. They drive them off cliffs. As they do to many of the other beasts.’
‘Why did you not seek to stop them?’
‘Because, dear warrior, I was hiding.’
‘A tactic that failed.’
‘A scouting party of T’lan Imass discovered me. I destroyed most of them, but one escaped. From that moment, I knew their army would come, eventually. Granted, they took their time about it, but time is what they have aplenty.’
‘A scouting party? How many did you destroy?’
‘Seven.’
‘And are their remains among those surrounding this tower?’
She smiled again. ‘I would think not, Thelomen Toblakai. To the T’lan Imass, destruction is failure. Failure must be punished. Their methods are… elaborate.’
‘Yet what of the warriors lying below, and those around the tower?’
‘Fallen, but not in failure. Here I lie, after all.’
‘Enemies should be killed,’ the Teblor growled, ‘not imprisoned.’
‘I would not argue that sentiment,’ the Jaghut replied.
‘I sense nothing evil from you.’
‘It has been a long time since I heard that word. In the wars with the T’lan Imass, even, that word had no place.’
‘I must answer injustice,’ he rumbled.
‘As you will.’
‘The need overwhelms all caution. Delum Thord would smile.’
‘Who is Delum Thord?’
Not answering, Karsa unslung his pack then threw off his bear cloak and stepped towards the ring of stones.
‘Stay back, warrior!’ the Jaghut hissed. ‘This is High Tellann-’
‘And I am Karsa Orlong, of the Teblor,’ the warrior growled. He kicked at the nearest stones.
Searing flame swept up to engulf Karsa. He snarled and pushed his way through it, reaching down both hands to take the slab of stone, grunting as he lifted it from the woman’s chest. The flames swarmed him, seeking to rend his flesh from his bones, but his growl simply deepened. Pivoting, flinging the huge slab to one side. Where it struck a wall, and shattered.
The flames died.
Karsa shook himself, then looked down once more.
The ring was now broken. The Jaghut’s eyes were wide as she stared up at him, movement stirring her limbs.
‘Never before,’ she sighed, then shook her head as if in disbelief. ‘Ignorance, honed into a weapon. Extraordinary, Thelomen Toblakai.’
Karsa crouched down beside his pack. ‘Are you hungry? Thirsty?’
She was slow in sitting up. The T’lan Imass had stripped her, leaving her naked, but she seemed unaffected by the bitter cold air now filling the chamber. Though she appeared young, he suspected she was anything but. He felt her eyes watching him as he prepared the meal.
‘You crossed swords with Icarium. There had ever been but a single conclusion to such an ill-fated thing, but that you are here is proof that you somehow managed to avoid it.’
Karsa shrugged. ‘No doubt we will resume our disagreement the next time we meet.’
‘How did you come to be here, Karsa Orlong?’
‘I am seeking a horse, Jaghut. The journey was long, and I was led to understand that this dream world would make it shorter.’
‘Ah, the ghost-warriors hovering behind you. Even so, you take a grave risk travelling the Tellann Warren. I owe you my life, Karsa Orlong.’ She cautiously climbed to her feet. ‘How can I repay you?’
He straightened to face her, and was surprised-and pleased-to see that she almost matched him in height. Her hair was long, murky brown, tied at the back. He studied her for a moment, then said, ‘Find for me a horse.’
Her thin eyebrows rose fractionally. ‘That is all, Karsa Orlong?’
‘Perhaps one more thing-what is your name?’
‘That is what you would ask?’
‘No.’
‘Aramala.’
He nodded and turned once more to readying the meal. ‘I would know all you can tell me, Aramala, of the seven who first found you.’
‘Very well. If I may ask something in turn. You passed through a place on your way here, where Jhag had been… imprisoned. I shall of course free those who have survived.’
‘Of course.’
‘They are half-bloods.’
‘Aye, so I am told.’
‘Do you not wonder at what the other half is?’
He glanced up, then slowly frowned.
She smiled. ‘There is much, I think, that I must tell you.’
Some time later, Karsa Orlong strode from the tower. He moved on, resuming the trail of the army where it began once again beyond the frozen ground of Omtose Phellack.
When he finally emerged from the warren, into the heat of late afternoon on the world of his birth, he found himself on the edge of a ridge of battered hills. Pausing, he glanced behind him, and could make out, at the very rim of the horizon, a city-probably Sarpachiya-and the glimmer of a vast river.
The hills ahead formed a spine, a feature on the land that he suspected showed up only on local maps. There were no farms on the lowlands before it, no herds on its broken slopes.
The T’lan Imass had reappeared in this place before him, though their passage onwards, into those hills, left no sign, for decades had passed in this world since that time. He was on the edge of the Jhag Odhan.
Dusk had arrived by the time he reached the foothills and began making his way up the weathered slope. The exposed rock here had a diseased look, as if afflicted by some kind of unnatural decay. Pieces of it collapsed under his feet as he climbed.
The summit was little more than a ridge, less than three paces across, crusted with rotten stone and dead grasses. Beyond, the land fell away sharply, forming a broad valley marked by sunken, banded sandstone mesas rising from its base. The valley’s opposite side five thousand or more paces distant, was a sheer cliff of rust-coloured rock.
Karsa could not imagine the natural forces that could have created such a landscape. The mesas below were born of erosion, as if floods had run the length of the valley, or perhaps fierce winds roared down the channels-less dramatic and demanding much greater lengths of time. Or the entire valley could have once stood level with the surrounding hills, only to suffer some subterranean slump. The decayed outcroppings suggested some kind of leaching process afflicting the region.
He made his way down the steep slope.
And quickly discovered that it was honeycombed with caves and pits. Mines, if the scree of calcreted rubble fanning out from them was any indication. But not tin or copper. Flint. Vast veins of the glassy brown material lay exposed like raw wounds in the hillside.
Karsa’s eyes narrowed on the mesas ahead. The bands in the sandstone were all sharply tilted, and not all at the same angle. Their caps displayed nothing of the flat plateau formation that one would expect; instead, they were jagged and broken. The valley floor itself-for as far as he could see amidst the squat mesas-seemed to be sharp-edged gravel. Shatter flakes from the mining.
In this single valley, an entire army could have fashioned its weapons of stone…
And the flint in this place was far from exhausted.
Bairoth Gild’s voice filled his head. ‘Karsa Orlong, you circle the truths as a lone wolf circles a bull elk.’
Karsa grunted, his only reply. He could see, on the cliff on the other side, more caves, these ones carved into the sheer wall. Reaching the shadowed valley floor, he set out for them. The gravel underfoot was thick, shifting treacherously, the sharp edges slicing into the hide soles of his moccasins. The air smelled of limestone dust.
He approached a large cave mouth situated a third of the way up the cliff. A broad slope of scree led up to within reach of it, though it shifted ominously under the Teblor as he scrambled upward. He finally managed to clamber onto the uneven floor.
With the cliff wall facing northeast, and the sun already riding the horizon, there was no ambient light in the cave. The Teblor set down his pack and drew out a small lantern.
The walls were calcined limestone, blackened by generation upon generation of woodsmoke, the ceiling high and roughly domed. Ten paces further in, the passage swiftly diminished as ceiling, walls and floor converged. Crouching, Karsa slipped through the choke point.
Beyond was a vast cavern. Dimly seen on the wall opposite was a monolithic projection of solid, pure flint, reaching almost up to the ceiling. Deeply recessed niches had been bored into the flanking walls. A fissure above the centre of the hewn chamber bled grey light from the dusk outside. Directly beneath it was a heap of sand, and growing from that mound was a knotted, twisted tree-a guldindha, no higher than the Teblor’s knee, its leaves a deeper hue of green than was usual. That daylight could reach down two-thirds of this cliff was itself a miracle… but this tree…
Karsa walked over to one of the niches and extended the lantern into it. Another cavern lay beyond. And it was filled with flint weapons. Some were broken but most were whole. Swords, double-bladed axes with bone shafts, hundreds upon hundreds covering the floor. The next niche contained the same, as did the one after that. Twenty-two side-chambers in all. The weapons of the dead. The weapons of the failed. In every cave on this cliff, he knew, he would find the same.
But none of the others were important to him. He set the lantern down near the pillar of flint, then straightened. ‘Urugal the Woven, Beroke Soft Voice, Kahlb the Silent Hunter, Thenik the Shattered, Siballe the Unfound, Halad the Giant, Imroth the Cruel. Faces in the Rock, gods of the Teblor. I, Karsa Orlong of the Uryd Tribe of the Teblor, have delivered you to this place. You were broken. Severed. Weaponless. I have done as you commanded me to do. I have brought you to this place.’
Urugal’s broken rasp replied, ‘You have found that which was taken from us, Karsa Orlong. You have freed your gods.’
The Teblor watched the ghost of Urugal slowly take shape before him. A squat, heavy-boned warrior, shorter than a lowlander but much broader. The bones of his limbs were split-where Karsa could see between the taut straps of leather and hide that bound them, that held him together. More straps crossed his chest.
‘Karsa Orlong, you have found our weapons.’
The warrior shrugged. ‘If indeed they are among the thousands in the chambers beyond.’
‘They are. They did not fail us.’
‘But the Ritual did.’
Urugal cocked his head. His six kin were taking shape around him. ‘You understand, then.’
‘I do.’
‘Our physical forms approach, Karsa Orlong. They have journeyed far, bereft of spirit, held only by our wills-’
‘And the one you now serve,’ the Teblor growled.
‘Yes. The one we now serve. We have guided you in turn, Warleader. And now shall come your reward, for what you have given us.’
Siballe the Unfound now spoke. ‘We have gathered an army, Karsa Orlong. All the children sacrificed before the Faces in the Rock. They are alive, Warleader. They have been prepared. For you. An army. Your people are assailed. The lowlanders must be driven back, their armies annihilated. You shall sweep down with your legions, down into their lands, and reap destruction upon the lowlanders.’
‘I shall.’
‘The Seven Gods of the Teblor,’ Urugal said, ‘must now become Eight.’
The one named Halad-the largest of the seven by far, hulking, bestial-stepped forward. ‘You must now fashion a sword, Karsa Orlong. Of stone. The mines outside await you-we shall guide you in the knowledge-’
‘There is no need,’ Karsa said. ‘I have learned the many hearts of stone. The knowledge is mine, and so too shall the sword be mine. Those you fashion are well enough for your own kind. But I am Teblor. I am Thelomen Toblakai.’ With that he swung about and walked towards the monolithic pillar of flint.
‘That spar will defeat you,’ Halad said behind him. ‘To draw a long enough blade for a sword, you must strike from above. Examine this vein carefully, and you will see that, pure as it is, the flow of the stone is unforgiving. None of our kind has ever managed to draw forth a flake longer than our own height. The spar before you can no longer be worked; thus its abandonment. Strike and it shall shatter. And that failure shall stain your next efforts, and so weaken the sorcery of the making.’
Karsa stood before the brown, almost black, flint pillar.
‘You must fashion a fire at its base,’ Halad said. ‘Left to burn without cessation for a number of days and nights. There is little wood in the valley below, but in the Jhag Odhan beyond, the bhederin herds have travelled in their multitudes. Fire, Karsa Orlong, then cold water-’
‘No. All control is lost with that method, T’lan Imass. Your kind are not unique in knowing the truths of stone. This task is mine and mine alone. Now, enough words.’
‘The name you have given us,’ Urugal rasped, ‘how did you come by such knowledge?’
Karsa turned, face twisting into a sneer. ‘Foolish Teblor. Or so you believed. So you would have us. Fallen Thelomen Toblakai, but he who has fallen can rise once again, Urugal. Thus, you were once T’lan Imass. But now, you are the Unbound.’ The sneer became a snarl. ‘From wandering to hold. From hold to house.’
The warrior climbed the spar of flint. Perched on its top, he drew out his Malazan short-sword. A moment’s examination of the stone’s surface, then he leaned over to study the almost vertical sweep of flawless flint reaching down to the cave’s floor. Reversing the sword, Karsa began scraping the top of the pillar, a hand’s width in from the sharp edge. He could see the tracks of old blows-the T’lan Imass had tried, despite Halad’s words, but had failed.
Karsa continued roughing the surface where he would strike. In his mind, he spoke. Bairoth Gild. Delum Thord. Hear me, when none other can. One day, I shall break my chains, I shall free the souls that now hound me. You would not be among them, or so you said. Nor would I wish Hood’s embrace upon you. I have considered your desires in this. And have fashioned an alternative…
‘Warleader, Delum Thord and I understand your intent. Your genius never fails to astonish me, Karsa Orlong. Only with our consent will you succeed. And so you give us words and lo, we find our path forced. Hood’s embrace… or what you seek.’
Karsa shook his head. Not just me, Bairoth Gild. But you yourself. Do you deny it?
‘No, Warleader. We do not. Thus, we accept what you offer.’ Karsa knew that he alone could see the ghosts of his friends at this moment, as they seemed to dissolve, reduced to pure will, that then flowed down into the flint. Flowed, to find a shape, a form of cohesion…
Awaiting… He swept dust and grit from the roughened surface, then closed both hands about the short-sword’s stubby grip. He lifted the weapon high, fixing his gaze upon the battered striking platform, then drove the pommel down. A strange snapping sound-
Then Karsa was leaping forward, short-sword flung aside, down through the air, spinning as he dropped. His knees flexed to absorb the impact, even as he raised his hands to intersect the toppling spear of flint.
A spear almost as tall as the Teblor himself.
It fell away from the pillar, a flattened shard, and settled into his hands. A warm lick on his palms, and suddenly blood was running down his forearms. Karsa quickly backed up, lowering the blade to the floor. When he drew his hands away he saw that they had been cut down to the bone. Clever Bairoth, to drink my blood to seal the bargain.
‘You… surpass us,’ Halad whispered.
Karsa went to his pack and drew out a bundle of field dressings and a sewing kit. There would be no infection, of course, and he would heal swiftly. Still, he would need to close the cuts before he could hope to begin work on the huge blade’s edges, and hack out a grip of sorts.
‘We shall invest the weapon,’ Urugal announced behind him. ‘So that it cannot be broken.’
Karsa nodded.
‘We shall make you the Eighth God of the Teblor.’
‘No,’ he replied as he began working on his left hand. ‘I am not as you, Urugal. I am not Unbound. You yourself closed the chains about me. By your own hands, you saw to it that the souls of those I have slain will pursue me eternally. You have shaped my haunting, Urugal. Beneath such a curse, I can never be unbound.’
‘There is place for you none the less,’ Urugal said, ‘in the House of Chains.’
‘Aye. Knight of Chains, champion of the Crippled God.’
‘You have learned much, Karsa Orlong.’
He stared down at his bloodied hands. ‘I have, T’lan Imass. As you shall witness.’