The soldiers were quickly dragged back up, then the ropes were drawn taut, and Karsa was steadily lifted. He watched the shaft of splintered wood slowly withdrawing from his chest. It had entered high, just above his right shoulder blade, through muscles, reappearing just to the right of his clavicle on that side. As he was pulled free, pain overwhelmed him.
A hand was then slapping him awake. Karsa opened his eyes. He was lying on the warehouse floor, faces crowding him on all sides. Everyone seemed to be speaking to him at once in their thin, weedy tongue, and though he could not understand the words raw hatred rode the tone, and Karsa knew he was being cursed, in the name of scores of lowlander gods, spirits and mouldering ancestors. The thought pleased him, and he smiled.
The soldiers flinched back as one.
The tattooed lowlander, whose hand had awakened him, was crouched down at Karsa’s side. ‘Hood’s breath,’ he muttered. ‘Are all Uryd like you? Or are you the one the priests spoke of? The one who stalked their dreams like Hood’s own Knight? Ah well, it doesn’t matter, I suppose, for it seems their fears were unfounded. Look at you. Half dead, with a whole town eager to see you and your companion flayed alive-there’s not a family to be found not in mourning, thanks to you. Grasp the world by the throat? Not likely; you’ll need Oponn’s luck to live out the hour.’
The broken arrow shaft had been driven deeper into Karsa’s back with the fall, gouging into the bone of his shoulder blade. Blood was spreading out on the floorboards beneath him.
There was a commotion as a new lowlander arrived, this one tall for his kind, thin with a severe, weather-lined face. He was dressed in shimmering clothes, deep blue and trimmed with gold thread sewn into intricate patterns. The guard spoke to him at length, though the man himself said nothing, nor did his expression change. When the guard was finished, the newcomer nodded, then gestured with one hand and turned away.
The guard looked down at Karsa once more. ‘That was Master Silgar, the man I work for, most of the time. He believes you will survive your wounds, Karsa Orlong, and so has prepared for you a… a lesson, of sorts.’ The man straightened and said something to the soldiers. There followed a brief argument, which concluded with an indifferent shrug from one of the soldiers.
Karsa’s limbs were lifted once more, two lowlanders to each, the men straining to hold him as they carried him to the warehouse doors.
The blood dripping down from his wounds was slowing, pain retreating behind a dull lassitude in the Teblor’s mind. He stared up at blue sky as the soldiers carried him to the centre of the street, the sounds of a crowd on all sides. They set him down propped up against a cart wheel, and Karsa saw before him Bairoth Gild.
He had been tied to a much larger spoked wheel, which itself rested against support poles. The huge warrior was a mass of wounds. A spear had been driven into his mouth, exiting just below his left ear, leaving the lower jaw shattered, bone gleaming red amidst torn flesh. The stubs of deep-driven quarrels crowded his torso.
But his eyes were sharp as they met Karsa’s own.
Villagers filled the street, held back by a cordon of soldiers. Angry shouts and curses filled the air, punctuated every now and then by wails of grief.
The guard positioned himself between Karsa and Bairoth, his expression mockingly thoughtful. Then he turned to Karsa. ‘Your comrade here will tell us nothing of the Uryd. We would know the number of warriors, the number and location of villages. We would know more of the Phalyd as well, who are said to be your match in ferocity. But he says nothing.’
Karsa bared his teeth. ‘I, Karsa Orlong, invite you to send a thousand of your warriors to wage war among the Uryd. None shall return, but the trophies will remain with us. Send two thousand. It matters not.’
The guard smiled. ‘You will answer our questions, then, Karsa Orlong?’
‘I will, for such words will avail you naught-’
‘Excellent.’ The guard gestured with one hand. A lowlander stepped up to Bairoth Gild, drawing his sword.
Bairoth sneered at Karsa. He snarled, the sound a mangled roar that Karsa nevertheless understood, ‘Lead me, Warleader!’
The sword slashed. Through Bairoth Gild’s neck. Blood sprayed, the huge warrior’s head flopping back, then rolling from a shoulder to land with a heavy thump on the ground.
A savage, gleeful roar erupted from the villagers.
The guard approached Karsa. ‘Delighted to hear that you will cooperate. Doing so buys you your life. Master Silgar will add you to his herd of slaves once you’ve told us all you know. I don’t think you will be joining the Sunyd out on the lake, however. No hauling of nets for you, Karsa Orlong, I’m afraid.’ He turned as a heavily armoured soldier appeared. ‘Ah, here is the Malazan captain. Ill luck, Karsa Orlong, that you should have timed your attack to coincide with the arrival of a Malazan company on its way to Bettrys. Now then, assuming the captain has no objections, shall we begin the questioning?’
The twin trenches of the slave-pits lay beneath the floor of a large warehouse near the lake, accessed through a trapdoor and a mould-smeared staircase. One side held, for the moment, only a half-dozen lowlanders chained to the tree trunk running the length of the trench, but more shackles awaited the return of the Sunyd net-haulers. The other trench was home to the sick and dying. Emaciated lowlander shapes huddled in their own filth, some moaning, others silent and motionless.
After he had done describing the Uryd and their lands, Karsa was dragged to the warehouse and chained in the second trench. Its sides were sloped, packed with damp clay. The centre log ran along the narrow, flat bottom, half-submerged in blood-streaked sewage. Karsa was taken to the far end, out of the reach of any of the other slaves, and shackles were fixed to both wrists and both ankles-whereas, he saw, among everyone else a single shackle sufficed.
They left him alone then.
Flies swarmed him, alighting on his chilled skin. He lay on his side against one of the sloping sides. The wound within which the arrowhead remained was threatening to close, and this he could not allow. He shut his eyes and began to concentrate until he could feel each muscle, cut and torn and seeping, holding fast around the iron point. Then he began working them, the slightest of contractions to test the position of the arrow-head-fighting the pulses of pain that radiated out with each flex. After a few moments, he ceased, let his body relax, taking deep breaths until he was recovered from his efforts. The flanged iron blade lay almost flat against his shoulder blade. Its tip had scoured a groove along the bone. There were barbs as well, bent and twisted.
To leave such an object within his flesh would make his left arm useless. He needed to drive it out.
He began to concentrate once more. Ravaged muscles and tissue, a path inward of chopped and sliced flesh.
A layer of sweat sheathed him as he continued to focus his mind, preparing, his breaths slowing, steadying.
He contracted his muscles. A ragged scream forced its way out. Another welter of blood, amidst relentless pain. The muscles spasmed in a rippling wave. Something struck the clay slope and slid down into the sewage.
Gasping, trembling, Karsa lay motionless for a long while. The blood streaming down from his back slowed, then ceased.
‘Lead me, War leader!’
Bairoth Gild had made those words a curse, in a manner and from a place of thought that Karsa did not understand. And then, Bairoth Gild had died senselessly. Nothing the lowlanders could do threatened the Uryd, for the Uryd were not as the Sunyd. Bairoth had surrendered his chance for vengeance, a gesture so baffling to Karsa that he was left stunned.