‘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
‘Has a drowned Napan’s body ever surfaced?’
EMPRESS LASEEN TO HIGH MAGE TAYSCHRENN
(FOLLOWING THE DISAPPEARANCES)
LIFE OF EMPRESS LASEEN
ABELARD
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 th
ree. 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! Hu
rry!’
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.’
The Malazan Empire Page 292