The man’s bony shoulders lifted in a sheepish shrug. ‘It was worth a try.’
Karsa pried the chain apart.
Torvald pulled his arms free. ‘Beru’s blessing on you, lad.’
‘Keep your lowlander gods to yourself.’
‘Of course. Apologies. Anything you say.’
Torvald scrambled up the slope. On the walkway, he paused. ‘What of the trapdoor, Karsa Orlong?’
‘What of it?’ the warrior growled, climbing up and moving past the lowlander.
Torvald bowed as Karsa went past, a scrawny arm sweeping out in a graceful gesture. ‘Lead me, by all means.’
Karsa halted on the first step and glanced back at the child. ‘I am warleader,’ he rumbled. ‘You would have me lead you, lowlander?’
Ganal said from the other trench, ‘Careful how you answer, Daru. There are no empty words among the Teblor.’
‘Well, uh, it was naught but an invitation. To precede me up the steps-’
Karsa resumed his climb.
Directly beneath the trapdoor, he examined its edges. He recalled that there was an iron latch that was lowered when locked, making it flush with the surrounding boards. Karsa jammed the chain-fixing end of the iron bar into the join beneath the latch. He drove it in as far as he could, then began levering, settling his full weight in gradual increments.
A splintering snap, the trapdoor jumping up slightly. Karsa set his shoulders against it and lifted.
The hinges creaked.
The warrior froze, waited, then resumed, slower this time.
As his head cleared the hatchway, he could see faint lantern-glow from the far end of the warehouse, and saw, seated around a small round table, three lowlanders. They were not soldiers-Karsa had seen them earlier in the company of the slavemaster, Silgar. There was the muted clatter of bones on the tabletop.
That they had not heard the trapdoor’s hinges was, to Karsa’s mind, remarkable. Then his ears caught a new sound-a chorus of creaks and groans, and, outside, the howl of a wind. A storm had come in from the lake, and rain had begun spraying against the north wall of the warehouse.
‘Urugal,’ Karsa said under his breath, ‘I thank you. And now, witness…’
One hand holding the trapdoor over him, the warrior slowly slid onto the floor. He moved far enough to permit Torvald’s equally silent arrival, then he slowly lowered the hatch until it settled. A gesture told Torvald to remain where he was, understanding indicated by the man’s fervent nod. Karsa carefully shifted the bar from his left hand to his right, then made his way forward.
Only one of the three guards might have seen him, from the corner of his eye, but his attention was intent on the bones skidding over the tabletop before him. The other two had their backs to the room.
Karsa remained low on the floor until he was less than three paces away, then he silently rose into a crouch.
He launched himself forward, the bar whipping horizontally, connecting with first one unhelmed head, then on to the second. The third guard stared open-mouthed. Karsa’s swing finished with his left hand grasping the red-smeared end of the bar, which he then drove crossways into the lowlander’s throat. The man was thrown back over his chair, striking the warehouse doors and falling in a heap.
Karsa set the bar down on the tabletop, then crouched down beside one of the victims and began removing his sword-belt.
Torvald approached. ‘Hood’s own nightmare,’ he muttered, ‘that’s what you are, Uryd.’
‘Take yourself a weapon,’ Karsa directed, moving on to the next corpse.
‘I will. Now, which way shall we run, Karsa? They’ll be expecting northwest, back the way you came. They’ll ride hard for the foot of the pass. I have friends-’
‘I have no intention of running,’ the warleader growled, looping both sword-belts over a shoulder, the scabbarded longswords looking minuscule where they rested against his back. He collected the flanged bar once more. He turned to find Torvald staring at him. ‘Run to your friends, lowlander. I will, this night, deliver sufficient diversion to make good your escape. Tonight, Bairoth Gild and Delum Thord shall be avenged.’
‘Don’t expect me to avenge your death, Karsa. It’s madness-you’ve already done the impossible. I’d advise you to thank the Lady’s pull and get away while you can. In case you’ve forgotten, this town’s full of soldiers.’
‘Be on your way, child.’
Torvald hesitated, then he threw up his hands. ‘So be it. For my life, Karsa Orlong, I thank you. The family of Nom will speak your name in its prayers.’
‘I will wait fifty heartbeats.’
Without another word Torvald headed to the warehouse’s sliding doors. The main bar had not been lowered into its slots; a smaller latch loosely held the door to the frame. He flipped it back, pushed the door to one side, sufficient only to pop his head out for a quick look. Then he shoved it open slightly more, and slipped outside.
Karsa listened to his footfalls, the splash of bare feet in mud, hurrying away to the left. He decided he would not wait fifty heartbeats. Even with the storm holding fast the darkness, dawn was not far away.
The Teblor slid the door back further and stepped outside. A track narrower than the main street, the wooden buildings opposite indistinct behind a slanting curtain of hard rain. To the right and twenty paces distant, light showed from a single murky window on the upper floor of a house standing next to a side street.
He wanted his bloodsword, but had no idea where it might be. Failing that, any Teblor weapon would suffice. And he knew where he might find some.
Karsa slid the door shut behind him. He swung right and, skirting the edge of the street, made his way towards the lakefront.
The wind whipped rain against his face, loosening the crusted blood and dirt. The shredded leathers of his shirt flapped heavily as he jogged towards the clearing, where waited the camp of the bounty hunters.
There had been survivors. A careless oversight on Karsa’s part; one he would now correct. And, in the huts of those cold-eyed children, there would be Teblor trophies. Weapons. Armour.
The huts and shacks of the fallen had already been stripped, the doors hanging open, rubbish strewn about. Karsa’s gaze settled on a nearby reed-walled shack clearly still occupied. He padded towards it.
Ignoring the small door, the warrior threw his shoulder against a wall. The reed panel fell inward, Karsa plunging through. There was a grunt from a cot to his left, a vague shape bolting into a sitting position. Iron bar swung down. Blood and bits of bone sprayed the walls. The figure sank back down.
The small, lone room of the shack was cluttered with Sunyd objects, most of them useless: charms, belts and trinkets. He did find, however, a pair of Sunyd hunting knives, sheathed in beaded buckskin over wood. A low altar caught Karsa’s attention. Some lowlander god, signified by a small clay statue-a boar, standing on its hind legs.
The Teblor knocked it to the earthen floor, then shattered it with a single stomp of his heel.
Returning outside, he approached the next inhabited shack.
The wind howled off the lake, white-maned waves crashing up the pebbled beach. The sky overhead was still black with clouds, the rain unceasing.
There were seven shacks in all, and in the sixth one-after killing the two men entwined together in the cot beneath the skin of a grey bear-he found an old Sunyd bloodsword, and an almost complete set of armour that, although of a style Karsa had never seen before, was clearly Teblor in origin, given its size and the sigils burned into the wooden plates. It was only when he began strapping it on that he realized that the grey, weathered wood was bloodwood-bleached by centuries of neglect.
In the seventh hut he found a small jar of blood-oil, and took the time to remove the armour and rub the pungent salve into its starved wood. He used the last of it to ease the sword’s own thirst.