The besieging encampment was squalid, a few hundred soldiers sitting or standing near cookfires and looking on with vaguely jaded interest. Off to one side, just north of the narrow road, sprawled a rough cemetery of a hundred or so makeshift, shin-high wooden platforms, each holding a cloth-wrapped corpse.
Toblakai finally turned to the Falah'd. 'When last was a Malazan seen at the battlements?'
The young ruler started, then scowled. 'I am to be addressed,' he said in his piping voice, 'in a manner due my authority as Holy Falah'd of Ugarat—'
'When?' Toblakai demanded, his expression darkening.
'Well, uh, well — Captain Inashan, answer this barbarian!'
With a quick salute, the captain walked over to the soldiers in the encampment. Samar watched him speaking with a half-dozen besiegers, saw the various shrugs in answer to his question, saw Inashan's back straighten and heard his voice get louder. The soldiers started arguing amongst themselves.
Toblakai made a grunting sound. He pointed at his horse. 'Stay here, Havok. Kill nothing.' Then the warrior strode to the edge of the moat.
Samar Dev hesitated, then followed.
He glanced at her when she stopped at his side. 'I will assault this keep alone, witch.'
'You certainly will,' she replied. 'I'm just here for a closer look.'
'I doubt there will be much to see.'
'What are you planning, Toblakai?'
'I am Karsa Orlong, of the Teblor. You know my name and you will use it. To Sha'ik I was Toblakai. She is dead. To Leoman of the Flails, I was Toblakai, and he is as good as dead. To the rebels I was—'
'All right, I understand. Only dead or nearly dead people called you Toblakai, but you should know, it is only that name that has kept you from rotting out the rest of your life in the palace pits.'
'That pup on the white horse is a fool. I could break him under one arm—'
'Yes, that likely would break him. And his army?'
'More fools. I am done speaking, witch. Witness.'
And so she did.
Karsa clambered down into the moat. Rubble, broken weapons, siege-stones and withered bodies. Lizards scampered on the rocks, capemoths rising like pale leaves caught in an updraught. He made his way to a point directly beneath the two massive iron doors. Even with his height he could barely reach the narrow ledge at their base. He scanned the wreckage of the bridge around him, then began piling stones, choosing the larger fragments and fashioning rough steps.
Some time later he was satisfied. Drawing his sword, he climbed the steps, and found himself at the same level as the broad, riveted locking mechanism. Raising his stone sword in both hands, he set the point in the join, in front of where he judged the lock to be. He waited a moment, until the position of his arms and the angle of the blade was set in his mind, then he lifted the sword away, edged back as far as he could on the makeshift platform of rubble, drew the weapon back, and swung.
The blow was true, the unbreakable chalcedony edge driving into the join between the doors. Momentum ceased with a snapping sound as the blade jammed in an unseen, solid iron bar, the reverberations pounding through Karsa's arms and into his shoulders.
He grunted, waited until the pain ebbed, then tugged the weapon free in a screech of metal. And took aim once again.
He both felt and heard the crack of the bar.
Karsa pulled the sword loose then threw his shoulder against the doors.
Something fell with a loud clang, and the door on the right swung back.
On the other side of the moat, Samar Dev stared. She had just witnessed something... extraordinary.
Captain Inashan came up alongside her. 'The Seven Holies protect us,' he whispered. 'He just cut through an iron door.'
'Yes, he did.'
'We need...'
She glanced over. 'We need what, Captain?'
'We need to get him out of Ugarat. Away, as soon as possible.'
****
Darkness in the funnel within — angled walls, chutes and arrow-slits. Some mechanism had lowered the arched ceiling and narrowed the walls — he could see that they were suspended, perhaps a finger's width from contact with each other and with the paved floor. Twenty murderous paces to an inner gate, and that gate was ajar.
Karsa listened but heard nothing. The air smelled rank, bitter. He squinted at the arrow-slits. They were dark, the hidden chambers to either side unlit.
Readying the sword in his hands, Karsa Orlong entered the keep.
No hot sand from the chutes, no arrows darting out from the slits, no boiling oil. He reached the gate. A courtyard beyond, one third sharply bathed in white sunlight. He strode forward until he was past the gate and then looked up. The rock had been hollowed out indeed — above was a rectangle of blue sky, the fiery sun filling one corner. The walls on all four sides were tiered with fortified landings and balconies, countless windows. He could make out doorways on those balconies, some yawning black, others closed. Karsa counted twenty-two levels on the wall opposite him, eighteen on the one to his left, seventeen to the right, and behind him — the outer wall — twelve in the centre flanked by projections each holding six more. The keep was a veritable city.
And, it seemed, lifeless.
A gaping pit, hidden in the shadow in one corner of the courtyard, caught his attention. Pavestones lifted clear and piled to the sides, an excavated shaft of some sort, reaching down into the foundations. He walked over.
The excavators had cleared the heavy pavestones to reach what looked to be bedrock but had proved to be little more than a cap of stone, perhaps half an arm's length thick, covering a hollowed-out subterranean chamber. That stank.
A wooden ladder led down into the vault.
A makeshift cesspit, he suspected, since the besiegers had likely blocked the out-drains into the moat, in the hopes of fostering plague or some such thing. The stench certainly suggested that it had been used as a latrine. Then again, why the ladder? 'These Malazans have odd interests,' he muttered. In his hands he could feel a tension building in the stone sword — the bound spirits of Bairoth Gild and Delum Thord were suddenly restive. 'Or a chance discovery,' he added. 'Is this what you warn me of, kindred spirits?'
He eyed the ladder. 'Well, as you say, brothers, I have climbed into worse.' Karsa sheathed his sword and began his descent.
Excrement smeared the walls, but not, fortunately, the rungs of the ladder. He made his way past the broken shell of stone, and what little clean air drifted down from above was overwhelmed by a thick, pungent reek. There was more to it than human waste, however. Something else...
Reaching the floor of the chamber, Karsa waited, ankle-deep in shit and pools of piss, for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. Eventually, he could make out the walls, rounded, the stones bearing horizontal undulations but otherwise unadorned. A beehive tomb, then, but not in a style Karsa had seen before. Too large, for one thing, and there was no evidence of platforms or sarcophagi. No grave-goods, no inscriptions.
He could see no formal entranceway or door revealed on any of the walls. Sloshing through the sewage for a closer look at the stonework, Karsa almost stumbled as he stepped off an unseen ledge — he had been standing on a slightly raised dais, extending almost out to the base of the walls. Back-stepping, he edged carefully along its circumference. In the process he discovered six submerged iron spikes, driven deep into the stone in two sets of three. The spikes were massive, thicker across than Karsa's wrists.
He made his way back to the centre, stood near the base of the ladder. Were he to lie down with the middle spike of either set under his head, he could not have reached the outer ones with arms outstretched. Half again as tall and he might manage it. Thus, if something had been pinned here by these spikes, it had been huge.
And, unfortunately, it looked as if the spikes had failed—
A slight motion through the heavy, turgid air, a shadowing of the faint light leaking down. Karsa reached for his sword.
An eno
rmous hand closed on his back, a talon lancing into each shoulder, two beneath his ribs, one larger one stabbing down and around, just under his left clavicle. The fingers clenched and he was being hauled straight up, the ladder passing in a blur. The sword was pinned against his back. Karsa reached up with both hands and they closed about a scaled wrist thicker than his upper arm.
He cleared the hole in the capstone, and the tugs and tearing in his muscles told him the beast was clambering up the side of the pit, nimble as a bhok'aral. Something heavy and scaled slithered across his arms.
Then into bright sunlight.
The beast flung the Teblor across the courtyard. He landed hard, skidding until he crashed up against the keep's outer wall.
Spitting blood, every bone in his back feeling out of place, Karsa Orlong pushed himself to his feet, reeled until he could lean against the sun-heated stone.
Standing beside the pit was a reptilian monstrosity, two-legged, the hanging arms oversized and overlong, talons scraping the pavestones. It was tailed, but that tail was stunted and thick. The broad-snouted jaws were crowded with interlocking rows of dagger-long fangs, above them flaring cheekbones and brow-ridges protecting deep-set eyes that glistened like wet stones on a strand. A serrated crest bisected the flat, elongated skull, pale yellow above the dun green hide. The beast reared half again as tall as the Toblakai.
Motionless as a statue, it studied him, blood dripping from the talons of its left hand.
Karsa took a deep breath, then drew his sword and flung it aside.
The creature's head twitched, a strange sideways tilt, then it charged, leaning far over as the massive legs propelled it forward.
And Karsa launched himself straight at it.
Clearly, an unanticipated response, as he found himself inside those raking hands and beneath the snapping jaws. He flung his head straight up, cracking hard against the underside of the beast's jaw, then ducked back down, sliding his right arm between the legs, wrapping it about the creature's right one. Shoulder pounding into its belly, his hands closing tight on the other side of the captured leg. Then lifting, a bellow escaping him as he heaved the beast up until it tottered on one leg.
The taloned hands hammered down on his back, slicing through the bear fur, ravaging his flesh in a frenzy.
Karsa planted his right leg behind the beast's left one, then pushed hard in that direction.
It crashed down and he heard bones snap.
The short tail whipped round, struck him in his midsection. Air exploded from Karsa's four lungs, and once more he was spinning through the air, striking the pave-stones and leaving most of the skin of his right shoulder and hip on the hard stone as he skidded another four paces—
Over the edge of the pit. Down, cracking hard against one edge of the capstone, breaking it further, then landing face first in the pool of sewage in the tomb, rubble splashing on all sides.
He lifted himself, twisting into a half-seated position, spitting out foul fluids even as he tried to draw air into his lungs. Coughing, choking, he crawled towards one side of the tomb, away from the hole in the ceiling.
Moments later he managed to restore his breathing. Shaking the muck from his head, he peered at the shaft of sunlight reaching down around the ladder. The beast had not come after him... or had not seen him fall.
He rose and made his way to the ladder. Looked straight up, and saw nothing but sunlight.
Karsa climbed. As he drew level with the pit's edge, he slowed, then lifted himself until he could just see the courtyard. The creature was nowhere in sight. He clambered quickly onto the pavestones. Spitting again, he shook himself, then made his way towards the keep's inner entrance. Hearing no screams from beyond the moat, he assumed that the beast had not gone in that direction. Which left the keep itself.
The double doors were ajar. He entered a broad chamber, its floor tiled, the walls bearing the ghosts of long-faded murals.
Pieces of mangled armour and bits of blood-crusted clothing lay scattered about. Nearby stood a boot, twin bones jutting from it.
Directly opposite, twenty paces away, was another doorway, both doors battered down and smashed. Karsa padded towards it, then froze upon hearing the scrape of claws on tile in the gloom beyond. From his left, close by the entrance. He backed up ten paces, then sprinted forward. Through the doorway. Hands slashed down in his wake, and he heard a frustrated hiss — even as he collided with a low divan, propelling him forward, down onto a low table. The wooden legs exploded beneath his weight. He rolled onward, sending a high-backed chair cartwheeling, then sliding on a rug, the thump and click of the creature's clawed feet grew louder as it lunged in pursuit.
Karsa got his feet under him and he dove sideways, once more evading the descending claws. Up against another chair, this one massive. Grasping the legs, Karsa heaved it into the path of the creature — it had launched itself into the air. The chair caught both its outstretched legs, snapped them out to the side.
The beast crashed down, cracking its head, broken tiles flying.
Karsa kicked it in the throat.
The beast kicked him in the chest, and he was pitched backward once more, landing on a discarded helmet that rolled, momentarily, sending him back further, up against a wall.
Pain thundering in his chest, the Toblakai climbed to his feet.
The beast was doing the same, slowly, wagging its head from side to side, its breath coming in rough wheezes punctuated by sharp, barking coughs.
Karsa flung himself at it. His hands closed on its right wrist and he ducked under, twisting the arm as he went, then spun round yet again, turning the arm until it popped at the shoulder.
The creature squealed.
Karsa clambered onto its back, his fists hammering on the dome of its skull. Each blow shook the beast's bones. Teeth snapped, the head driven down at each blow, springing back up in time to meet the next one. Staggering beneath him, the right arm hanging limp, the left one attempting to reach up to scrape him off, the creature careened across the room.
Karsa continued swinging, his own hands numbed by the impacts.
Finally, he heard the skull crack.
A rattling gasp of breath — from him or the beast, he wasn't sure which — then the creature dropped and rolled.
Most of its immense weight settled for a brief moment between Karsa's thighs, and a roar burst from his throat as he clenched the muscles of his legs to keep that ridged spine away from his crotch. Then the reptile pitched sideways, pinning his left leg. He reached up to wrap an arm around its thrashing neck.
Rolling further, it freed its own left arm, scythed it up and around. Talons sank into Karsa's left shoulder. A surge of overpowering strength dragged the Toblakai off, sending him tumbling into the wreckage of the collapsed table.
Karsa's grasping hand found one of the table legs. He scrambled up and swung it hard against the beast's outstretched arm.
The leg shattered, and the arm was snatched back with a squeal.
The beast reared upright once more.
Karsa charged again.
Was met by a kick, high on his chest.
Sudden blackness.
His eyes opened. Gloom. Silence. The stink of faeces and blood and settling dust. Groaning, he sat up.
A distant crash. From somewhere above.
He studied his surroundings, until he spied the side doorway. He rose, limped towards it. A wide hallway beyond, leading to a staircase.
****
'Was that a scream, Captain?'
'I am not sure, Falah'd.'
Samar Dev squinted in the bright light at the soldier beside her. He had been muttering under his breath since Toblakai's breach of the iron doors. Stone swords, iron and locks seemed to have been the focus of his private monologue, periodically spiced with some choice curses. That, and the need to get the giant barbarian as far away from Ugarat as possible.
She wiped sweat from her brow, returned her attention to the keep's ent
rance. Still nothing.
'They're negotiating,' the Falah'd said, restless on the saddle as servants stood to either side, alternately sweeping the large papyrus fans to cool Ugarat's beloved ruler.
'It did sound like a scream, Holy One,' Captain Inashan said after a moment.
'Then it is a belligerent negotiation, Captain. What else can be taking so long? Were they all starved and dead, that barbarian would have returned. Unless, of course, there's loot. Hah, am I wrong in that? I think not! He's a savage, after all. Cut loose from Sha'ik's leash, yes? Why did he not die protecting her?'
'If the tales are true,' Inashan said uncomfortably, 'Sha'ik sought a personal duel with the Adjunct, Falah'd.'
'Too much convenience in that tale. Told by the survivors, the ones who abandoned her. I am unconvinced by this Toblakai. He is too rude.'
'Yes, Falah'd,' Inashan said, 'he is that.'
Samar Dev cleared her throat. 'Holy One, there is no loot to be found in Moraval Keep.'
'Oh, witch? And how can you be so certain?'
'It is an ancient structure, older even than Ugarat itself. True, alterations have been made every now and then — all the old mechanisms were beyond our understanding, Falah'd, even to this day, and all we have now from them is a handful of pieces. I have made long study of those few fragments, and have learned much—'
'You bore me, now, witch. You have still not explained why there is no loot.'
'I am sorry, Falah'd. To answer you, the keep has been explored countless times, and nothing of value has ever been found, barring those dismantled mechanisms—'
'Worthless junk. Very well, the barbarian is not looting. He is negotiating with the squalid, vile Malazans — whom we shall have to kneel before once again. I am betrayed into humiliation by the cowardly rebels of Raraku. Oh, one can count on no-one these days.'
'It would seem not, Falah'd,' Samar Dev murmured.
Inashan shot her a look.
Samar wiped another sheath of sweat from her brow.
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