The Malazan Empire, page 470
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 enormous 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 pavestones 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 entrance. 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.
‘Oh!’ the Falah’d cried suddenly. ‘I am melting!’
‘Wait!’ Inashan said. ‘Was that a bellow of some sort?’
‘He’s probably raping someone!’
He found the creature hobbling down a corridor, its head wagging from side to side, pitching into one wall then the other. Karsa ran after it.
It must have heard him, for it wheeled round, jaws opening in a hiss, moments before he closed. Battering a raking hand aside, the Toblakai kneed the beast in the belly. The reptile doubled over, chest-ridge cracking down onto Karsa’s right shoulder. He drove his thumb up under its left arm, where it found doeskin-soft tissue. Puncturing it, the thumb plunging into meat, curling round ligaments. Closing his hand, Karsa yanked on those ligaments.
Dagger-sharp teeth raked the side of his head, slicing a flap of skin away. Blood gushed into Karsa’s right eye. He pulled harder, throwing himself back.
The beast plunged with him. Twisting to one side, Karsa narrowly escaped the crashing weight, and was close enough to see the unnatural splaying of its ribs at the impact.
It struggled to rise, but Karsa was faster. Straddling it once more. Fists hammering down on its skull. With each blow the lower jaws cracked against the floor, and he could feel a sagging give in the plates of the skull’s bones beneath his fists. He kept pounding.
A dozen wild heartbeats later and he slowed, realizing the beast was no longer moving beneath him, the head flat on the floor, getting wider and flatter with each impact of his battered fists. Fluids were leaking out. Karsa stopped swinging. He drew in a ragged, agony-filled breath, held it against the sudden waves of darkness thundering through his brain, then released it steady and long. Another mouthful of bloody phlegm to spit out, onto the dead beast’s shattered skull.
Lifting his head, Karsa glared about. A doorway on his right. In the room beyond, a long table and chairs. Groaning, he slowly rose, stumbled into the chamber.
A jug of wine sat on the table. Cups were lined up in even rows down both sides, each one opposite a chair. Karsa swept them from the table, collected the jug, then lay down on the stained wood surface. He stared up at the ceiling, where someone had painted a pantheon of unknown gods, all looking down.
Mocking expressions one and all.
Karsa pushed the flap of loose skin back against his temple, then sneered at the faces on the ceiling, before lifting the jug to his lips.
Blessed cool wind, now that the sun was so close to the horizon. Silence for a while now, too, since that last bellow. A number of soldiers, standing for bell after bell all afternoon, had passed out and were being tended to by the lone slave the Falah’d had relinquished from his entourage.
Captain Inashan had been assembling a squad to lead into the keep for some time now.
The Falah’d was having his feet massaged and bathed in mint-leaves chewed in mouthfuls of oil by the slaves. ‘You are taking too long, Captain!’ he said. ‘Look at that demonic horse, the way it eyes us! It will be dark by the time you storm the keep!’
‘Torches are being brought along, Falah’d,’ Inashan said. ‘We’re almost ready.’
His reluctance was almost comical, and Samar Dev dared not meet his eye again, not after the expression her wink earlier had elicited.
A shout from the besiegers’ encampment.
Toblakai had appeared, climbing down from the ledge, back onto the makeshift steps. Samar Dev and Inashan made their way to the moat, arriving in time to see him emerge. The bear fur was in ribbons, dark with blood. He had tied a strip of cloth about his head, holding the skin in place over one temple. Most of his upper clothing had been torn away, revealing countless gouges and puncture wounds.
And he was covered in shit.
From the Falah’d twenty paces behind them came a querulous enquiry: ‘Toblakai! The negotiations went well?’
In a low voice, Inashan said, ‘No Malazans left, I take it?’
Karsa Orlong scowled. ‘Didn’t see any.’ He strode past them.
Turning, Samar Dev flinched at the horror of the warrior’s ravaged back. ‘What happened in there?’ she demanded.
A shrug that jostled the slung stone sword. ‘Nothing important, witch.’
Not slowing, not turning, he continued on.
A smudge of light far to the south, like a cluster of dying stars on the horizon, marked the city of Kayhum. The dust of the storm a week past had settled and the night sky was bright with the twin sweeps of the Roads of the Abyss. There were scholars, Corabb Bhilan Thenu’alas had heard, who asserted that those broad roads were nothing more than stars, crowded in multitudes beyond counting, but Corabb knew that was folly. They could be naught but celestial roads, the paths walked by the dragons of the deep, and Elder Gods and the blacksmiths with suns for eyes who hammered stars into life; and the worlds spinning round those stars were simply dross, cast-offs from the forges, pale and smudged, on which crawled creatures preening with conceit.
Preening with conceit. An old seer had told him that once, and for some reason the phrase lodged in Corabb’s mind, allowing him to pull it free every now and then to play with, his inner eye bright with shining wonder. People did that, yes. He had seen them, again and again. Like birds. Obsessed with self-importance, thinking themselves tall, as tall as the night sky. That seer had been a genius, to have seen so clearly, and to manage so much in three simple words. Not that conceit was a simple thing, and Corabb recalled having to ask an old woman what the word meant, and she had cackled and reached under his tunic to tug on his penis, which had been unexpected and, instinctive response notwithstanding, unwelcome. A faint wave of embarrassment accompanied the recollection, and he spat into the fire flickering before him.
