The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen (347 page)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘This pleases me, Warleader.'

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘You speak nonsense, Bairoth Gild.'

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

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

‘I am almost finished, Warleader.'

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

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

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