House of Chains

by Steven Erikson

  Two of the enemy remained, one each for Delum and Bairoth, and so the duels could begin.

  Karsa, after watching the effect of Bairoth’s initial attack, had wheeled his mount round. Sword in his hands, blade flashing into Havok’s vision, and they were charging back down the walkway towards the pursuing band.

  The dog pack split to either side to avoid the thundering hoofs, then raced after rider and horse.

  Ahead, eight adults and four youths.

  A barked order sent the youths to either side of the walkway, then down. The adults wanted room, and, seeing their obvious confidence as they formed an inverted V spanning the walkway, weapons ready, Karsa laughed.

  They wanted him to ride down into the centre of that inverted V—a tactic that, while it maintained Havok’s fierce speed, also exposed horse and rider to flanking attacks. Speed counted for much in the engagement to come. The Rathyd’s expectations fit neatly into the attacker’s intent—had that attacker been someone other than Karsa Orlong. ‘Urugal!’ he bellowed, lifting himself high on Havok’s shoulders. ‘Witness!’ He held his sword, point forward, over his destrier’s head, and fixed his gaze on the Rathyd warrior on the V’s extreme left.

  Havok sensed the shift in attention and angled his charge just moments before contact, hoofs pounding along the very edge of the walkway.

  The Rathyd directly before them managed a single backward step, swinging a two-handed overhead chop at Havok’s snout as he went.

  Karsa took that blade on his own, even as he twisted and threw his right leg forward, his left back. Havok turned beneath him, surged in towards the centre of the walkway.

  The V had collapsed, and every Rathyd warrior was on Karsa’s left.

  Havok carried him diagonally across the walkway. Keening his delight, Karsa slashed and chopped repeatedly, his blade finding flesh and bone as often as weapon. Havok pitched around before reaching the opposite edge, and lashed out his hind legs. At least one connected, flinging a shattered body from the bridge.

  The pack then arrived. Snarling bodies hurling onto the Rathyd warriors—most of whom had turned when engaging Karsa, and so presented exposed backs to the frenzied dogs. Shrieks filled the air.

  Karsa spun Havok round. They plunged back into the savage press. Two Rathyd had managed to fight clear of the dogs, blood spraying from their blades as they backed up the walkway.

  Bellowing a challenge, Karsa drove towards them.

  And was shocked to see them both leap from the walkway.

  ‘Bloodless cowards! I witness! Your youths witness! These damned dogs witness!’

  He saw them reappear, weapons gone, scrambling and stumbling across the bog.

  Delum and Bairoth arrived, dismounting to add their swords to the maniacal frenzy of the surviving dogs as they tore unceasing at fallen Rathyd.

  Karsa drew Havok to one side, eyes still on the fleeing warriors, who had been joined now by the four youths. ‘I witness! Urugal witnesses!’

  Gnaw, black and grey hide barely visible beneath splashes of gore, panted up to stand beside Havok, his muscles twitching but no wounds showing. Karsa glanced back and saw that four more dogs remained, whilst a fifth had lost a foreleg and limped a red circle off to one side.

  ‘Delum, bind that one’s leg—we will sear it anon.’

  ‘What use a three-legged hunting dog, Warleader?’ Bairoth asked, breathing heavy.

  ‘Even a three-legged dog has ears and a nose, Bairoth Gild. One day, she will lie grey-nosed and fat before my hearth, this I swear. Now, is either of you wounded?’

  ‘Scratches.’ Bairoth shrugged, turning away.

  ‘I have lost a finger,’ Delum said as he drew out a leather strap and approached the wounded dog, ‘but not an important one.’

  Karsa looked once more at the retreating Rathyd. They had almost reached a stand of black spruce. The warleader sent them a final sneer, then laid a hand on Havok’s brow. ‘My father spoke true, Havok. I have never ridden such a horse as you.’

  An ear had cocked at his words. Karsa leaned forward and set his lips to the beast’s brow. ‘We become, you and I,’ he whispered, ‘legend. Legend, Havok.’ Straightening, he studied the sprawl of corpses on the walkway, and smiled. ‘It is time for trophies, my brothers. Bairoth, did your bear skull survive?’

  ‘I believe so, Warleader.’

  ‘Your deed was our victory, Bairoth Gild.’

  The heavy man turned, studied Karsa through slitted eyes. ‘You ever surprise me, Karsa Orlong.’

  ‘As your strength does me, Bairoth Gild.’

  The man hesitated, then nodded. ‘I am content to follow you, Warleader.’

  You ever were, Bairoth Gild, and that is the difference between us.

  Chapter Two

  There are hints, if one scans the ground with a clear and sharp eye, that this ancient Jaghut war, which for the Kron T’lan Imass was either their seventeenth or eighteenth, went terribly awry. The Adept who accompanied our expedition evinced no doubt whatsoever that a Jaghut remained alive within the Laederon glacier. Terribly wounded, yet possessing formidable sorcery still. Well beyond the ice river’s reach (a reach which has been diminishing over time), there are shattered remains of T’lan Imass, the bones strangely malformed, and on them the flavour of fierce and deadly Omtose Phellack lingering to this day.

  Of the ensorcelled stone weapons of the Kron, only those that were broken in the conflict remained, leading one to assume that either looters have been this way, or the T’lan Imass survivors (assuming there were any) took them with them . . .

  The Nathii Expedition of 1012

  Kenemass Trybanos, Chronicler

  ‘I BELIEVE,’ DELUM SAID AS THEY LED THEIR HORSES DOWN FROM THE walkway, ‘that the last group of the hunt has turned back.’

  ‘The plague of cowardice ever spreads,’ Karsa growled. ‘They surmised at the very first,’ Bairoth rumbled, ‘that we were crossing their lands. That our first attack was not simply a raid. So, they will await our return, and will likely call upon the warriors of other villages.’

  ‘That does not concern me, Bairoth Gild.’

  ‘I know that, Karsa Orlong, for what part of this journey have you not already anticipated? Even so, two more Rathyd valleys lie before us. I would know. There will be villages—do we ride around them or do we collect still more trophies?’

  ‘We shall be burdened with too many trophies when we reach the lands of the lowlanders at Silver Lake,’ Delum commented.

  Karsa laughed, then considered. ‘Bairoth Gild, we shall slip through these valleys like snakes in the night, until the very last village. I would still draw hunters after us, into the lands of the Sunyd.’ Delum had found a trail leading up the valley side. Karsa checked on the dog limping in their wake. Gnaw walked alongside it, and it occurred to Karsa that the three-legged beast might well keep its mate. He was pleased with his decision to not slay the wounded creature.

  There was a chill in the air that confirmed their gradual climb to higher elevations. The Sunyd territory was higher still, leading to the eastern edge of the escarpment. Pahlk had told Karsa that but a single nass cut through the escarpment, marked by a torrential waterfall that fed into Silver Lake. The climb down was treacherous. Pahlk had named it Bone Pass.

  The trail began to wind sinuously among winter-cracked boulders and treefalls. They could now see the summit, six hundred steep paces upward.

  The warriors dismounted. Karsa strode back and lifted the three-legged dog into his arms. He set it down across Havok’s broad back and strapped it in place. The animal voiced no protest. Gnaw moved up to flank the destrier.

  They resumed their journey.

  The sun was bathing the slope in brilliant gold light by the time they had closed to within a hundred paces of the summit, reaching a broad ledge that seemed—through a sparse forest of straggly, wind-twisted oaks—to run the length of the valley side. Scanning the terrace’s sweep to his right, Delum voiced a grunt, then said, ‘I see a
cave. There,’ he pointed, ‘behind those fallen trees, where the shelf bulges.’

  Bairoth nodded and said, ‘It looks big enough to hold our horses. Karsa Orlong, if we are to begin riding at night . . .’

  ‘Agreed,’ Karsa said.

  Delum led the way along the terrace. Gnaw scrambled past him, slowing upon nearing the cave mouth, then crouching down and edging forward.

  The Uryd warriors paused, waiting to see if the dog’s hackles rose, thus signalling the presence of a grey bear or some other denizen. After a long moment, with Gnaw motionless and lying almost flat before the cave entrance, the beast finally rose and glanced back at the party, then trotted into the cave.

  The fallen trees had provided a natural screen, hiding the cave from the valley below. There had been an overhang, but it had collapsed, perhaps beneath the weight of the trees, leaving a rough pile of rubble partially blocking the entrance.

  Bairoth began clearing a path to lead the horses through. Delum and Karsa took Gnaw’s route into the cave.

  Beyond the mound of tumbled stones and sand, the floor levelled out beneath a scatter of dried leaves. The setting sun’s light painted the back wall in patches of yellow, revealing an almost solid mass of carved glyphs. A small cairn of piled stones sat in the domed chamber’s centre. Gnaw was nowhere to be seen, but the dog’s tracks crossed the floor and vanished into an area of gloom near the back.

  Delum stepped forward, his eyes on a single, oversized glyph directly opposite the entrance. ‘That Bloodsign is neither Rathyd nor Sunyd,’ he said.

  ‘But the words beneath it are Teblor,’ Karsa asserted. ‘The style is very . . .’ Delum frowned, ‘ornate.’ Karsa began reading aloud, ‘ “I led the families that survived. Down from the high lands. Through the broken veins that bled beneath the sun . . .” Broken veins?’

  ‘Ice,’ Delum said.

  ‘Bleeding beneath the sun, aye. “We were so few. Our blood was cloudy and would grow cloudier still. I saw the need to shatter what remained. For the T’lan Imass were still close and much agitated and inclined to continue their indiscriminate slaughter.’ ” Karsa scowled. ‘T’lan Imass? I do not know those two words.’

  ‘Nor I,’ Delum replied. ‘A rival tribe, perhaps. Read on, Karsa Orlong. Your eye is quicker than mine.’

  ‘ “And so I sundered husband from wife. Child from parent. Brother from sister. I fashioned new families and then sent them away. Each to a different place. I proclaimed the Laws of Isolation, as given us by Icarium whom we had once sheltered and whose heart grew vast with grief upon seeing what had become of us. The Laws of Isolation would be our salvation, clearing the blood and strengthening our children. To all who follow and to all who shall read these words, this is my justification—” ’

  ‘These words trouble me, Karsa Orlong.’

  Karsa glanced back at Delum. ‘Why? They signify nothing of us. They are an elder’s ravings. Too many words—to have carved all these letters would have taken years, and only a madman would do such a thing. A madman, who was buried here, alone, driven out by his people—’

  Delum’s gaze sharpened on Karsa. ‘Driven out? Yes, I believe you are correct, Warleader. Read more—let us hear his justification, and so judge for ourselves.’

  Shrugging, Karsa returned his attention to the stone wall. ‘ “To survive, we must forget. So Icarium told us. Those things that we had come to, those things that softened us. We must abandon them. We must dismantle our . . .” I know not that word, “and shatter each and every stone, leaving no evidence of what we had been. We must burn our . . .” another word I do not know, “and leave naught but ash. We must forget our history and seek only our most ancient of legends. Legends that told of a time when we lived simply. In the forests. Hunting, culling fish from the rivers, raising horses. When our laws were those of the raider, the slayer, when all was measured by the sweep of a sword. Legends that spoke of feuds, of murders and rapes. We must return to those terrible times. To isolate our streams of blood, to weave new, smaller nets of kinship. New threads must be born of rape, for only with violence would they remain rare occurrences, and random. To cleanse our blood, we must forget all that we were, yet find what we had once been—” ’

  ‘Down here,’ Delum said, squatting. ‘Lower down. I recognize words. Read here, Karsa Orlong.’

  ‘It’s dark, Delum Thord, but I shall try. Ah, yes. These are . . . names. “I have given these new tribes names, the names given by my father for his sons.” And then a list. “Baryd, Sanyd, Phalyd, Urad, Gelad, Manyd, Rathyd and Lanyd. These, then, shall be the new tribes . . .” It grows too dark to read on, Delum Thord, nor,’ he added, fighting a sudden chill, ‘do I desire to. These thoughts are spider-bitten. Fever-twisted into lies.’

  ‘Phalyd and Lanyd are—’

  Karsa straightened. ‘No more, Delum Thord.’

  ‘The name of Icarium has lived on in our—’

  ‘Enough!’ Karsa growled. ‘There is nothing of meaning here in these words!’

  ‘As you say, Karsa Orlong.’

  Gnaw emerged from the gloom, where a darker fissure was now evident to the two Teblor warriors.

  Delum nodded towards it. ‘The carver’s body lies within.’

  ‘Where he no doubt crawled to die,’ Karsa sneered. ‘Let us return to Bairoth. The horses can be sheltered here. We shall sleep outside.’

  Both warriors turned and strode back to the cave mouth. Behind them, Gnaw stood beside the cairn a moment longer. The sun had left the wall, filling the cave with shadows. In the darkness, the dog’s eyes flickered.

  Two nights later, they sat on their horses and looked down into the valley of the Sunyd. The plan to draw Rathyd pursuers after them had failed, for the last two villages they had come across had been long abandoned. The surrounding trails had been overgrown and rains had taken the charcoal from the firepits, leaving only red-rimmed black stains in the earth.

  And now, across the entire breadth and length of the Sunyd valley, they could see no fires.

  ‘They have fled,’ Bairoth muttered.

  ‘But not from us,’ Delum replied, ‘if the Sunyd villages prove to be the same as those Rathyd ones. This is a flight long past.’ Bairoth grunted. ‘Where, then, have they gone?’ Shrugging, Karsa said, ‘There are Sunyd valleys north of this one. A dozen or more. And some to the south as well. Perhaps there has been a schism. It matters little to us, except that we shall gather no more trophies until we reach Silver Lake.’

  Bairoth rolled his shoulders. ‘Warleader, when we reach Silver Lake, will our raid be beneath the wheel or the sun? With the valley before us empty, we could camp at night. These trails are unfamiliar, forcing us to go slowly in the dark.’

  ‘You speak the truth, Bairoth Gild. Our raid will be in daylight. Let us make our way down to the valley floor, then, and find us a place to camp.’

  The wheel of stars had travelled a fourth of its journey by the time the Uryd warriors reached level ground and found a suitable campsite. Delum had, with the aid of the dogs, killed a half-dozen rock hares during the descent, which he now skinned and spit while Bairoth built a small fire.

  Karsa saw to the horses, then joined his two companions at the hearth. They sat, waiting in silence for the meat to cook, the sweet smell and sizzle strangely unfamiliar after so many meals of raw food. Karsa felt a lassitude settle into his muscles, and only now realized how weary he had become.

  The hares were ready. The three warriors ate in silence. ‘Delum has spoken,’ Bairoth said when they were done, ‘of the words written in the cave.’

  Karsa shot Delum a glare. ‘Delum Thord spoke when he should not have. Within the cave, a madman’s ravings, nothing more.’

  ‘I have considered them,’ Bairoth persisted, ‘and I believe there is truth hidden within those ravings, Karsa Orlong.’

  ‘Pointless belief, Bairoth Gild.’

  ‘I think not, Warleader. The names of the tribes—I agree with Delum when he says there are, among them
, the names of our tribes. “Urad” is far too close to Uryd to be accidental, especially when three of the other names are unchanged. Granted, one of those tribes has since vanished, but even our own legends whisper of a time when there were more tribes than there are now. And those two words that you did not know, Karsa Orlong. “Great villages” and “yellow bark”—’

  ‘Those were not the words!’

  ‘True enough, but that is the closest Delum could come to. Karsa Orlong, the hand that inscribed those words was from a place and time of sophistication, a place and a time where the Teblor language was, if anything, more complex than it is now.’

  Karsa spat into the fire. ‘Bairoth Gild, if these be truths as you and Delum say, I still must ask: what value do they hold for us now? Are we a fallen people? That is not a revelation. Our legends all speak of an age of glory, long past, when a hundred heroes strode among the Teblor, heroes that would make even my own grandfather, Pahlk, seem but a child among men—’

  Delum’s face in the firelight was deeply frowning as he cut in, ‘And this is what troubles me, Karsa Orlong. Those legends and their tales of glory—they describe an age little different from our own. Aye, more heroes, greater deeds, but essentially the same, in the manner of how we lived. Indeed, it often seems that the very point of those tales is one of instruction, a code of behaviour, the proper way of being a Teblor.’

  Bairoth nodded. ‘And there, in those carved words in the cave, we are offered the explanation.’

  ‘A description of how we would be,’ Delum added. ‘No, of how we are.’

  ‘None of it matters,’ Karsa growled.

  ‘We were a defeated people,’ Delum continued, as if he hadn’t heard. ‘Reduced to a broken handful.’ He looked up, met Karsa’s eyes across the fire. ‘How many of our brothers and sisters who are given to the Faces in the Rock—how many of them were born flawed in some way? Too many fingers and toes, mouths with no palates, faces with no eyes. We’ve seen the same among our dogs and horses, Warleader. Defects come of inbreeding. That is a truth. The elder in the cave, he knew what threatened our people, so he fashioned a means of separating us, of slowly clearing our cloudy blood—and he was cast out as a betrayer of the Teblor. We were witness, in that cave, to an ancient crime—’